The seventh day is a reminder of God’s plan from before sin ever entered this world: rest.
Notably, God did not rest because He felt fatigued; rather He rested after accomplishing His tasks and wasn’t needing to refresh Himself as His power and scope are inexhaustible.
The Seventh-Day Sabbath
God has designated every seventh day as His Sabbath and set it aside as a day of rest and worship, blessing it as such in Genesis 2:3, after He finished creating all its beauty. Adam and Eve received this commandment in Eden as part of their covenant with their Creator. Thus the Sabbath represents man’s eternal relationship to him as Creator.
Many people mistakenly believe that God rested because He was tired from working to create the universe, while failing to realize that the Hebrew word for “resting”, shabat, can also mean to cease from creating or cease altogether – in other words He “ceased” on the seventh day because all His work of creating had been completed and declared good enough; not because He needed a rest day after such laborious creation was finished!
The Bible teaches us one important truth: God never gets tired. He is all-powerful and all-knowing; his creative power knows no boundaries in time or space; it can create anything. God could have easily constructed everything in six days but chose instead to add one day of rest between each six-day cycle. Why did He do this?
Not because God was exhausted by all His work. Rather, he completed His perfect and sinless creation – something which would have existed eternally had it not been disturbed by mankind’s fall from grace.
God rested to remind His creation of its purpose for being, which was worshipping and having an intimate relationship with Him. For this reason He ordered that they should observe His Sabbath.
As the writer of Hebrews makes clear, when he refers to entering God’s rest he means salvation and not rest from activity or work. Salvation offers believers freedom from sinful desires while freeing them to obey His commands obediently. Spiritual rest can be achieved for anyone who believes in Jesus Christ and obeys Scripture obediently.
The Creation of Man
God was clearly powerful during the first six days, creating light, mountains, seas, the sun, moon and stars, plants and animals. On the seventh day, however, something different happened: instead of creating new things He stopped working altogether; according to 12th century Jewish Rabbi Nachmanides this word for rest means more than simply laziness – it means abstaining from any work at all – so He declared it holy; we now observe this holy day by keeping a weekly Sabbath day as part of His plan.
God rested not because His work was done, but rather when His labors had reached completion. When His creation had reached perfection, it was important for Him to stop and acknowledge it as completed work. We can do the same when our labor is completed – taking a break allows us to relax and renew ourselves.
The biblical account of creation provides us with an example to follow when worshiping our Creator; just as it did for Israel at Mount Sinai. By adhering to this pattern, we show our belief that He deserves our devotion.
As Christians, we should recognize and seek to enter God’s restful seventh-day Sabbath. According to Hebrews’s author, by placing our trust in Jesus Christ we receive His righteousness as a gift and thus “enter into His rest”. By doing this we cease working hard towards earning salvation ourselves and allow God do it all for us!
By honoring and entering God’s rest on Sundays, we show our appreciation for everything He has done for us. Sunday serves as a reminder that everything exists thanks to Him; so let’s keep this in mind during busy weeks so we take time out to remember and thank Him for his amazing work – it’s the only way we’ll truly enjoy His blessings; after all, He knows exactly what each individual needs from life’s journey!
The Fall of Man
The seventh day marked God’s completion of creation; yet it wasn’t necessarily a physical day of rest as such. Instead, He rested creatively after creating light, water, land, celestial bodies, vegetation animals and people, proclaiming all “good”. After this eventful week had concluded He rested physically.
As humans, when we think of God resting on the seventh day, it can lead us to mistakenly conclude He must be weary from all His efforts. However, Scripture shows otherwise. In Isaiah 40:28 the prophet proclaims: “He does not grow weary or faint.” It’s because God never tires from keeping the universe together!
On this high holy Sabbath, however, chief priests and Pharisees were busy making arrangements for guarding Jesus’ tomb; their mission of healing had only just begun! Though the Sabbath was over, its healing ministry continued on throughout Jesus’ ministry life.
Satan is a fierce opponent of God and battles the truth that has been revealed to humanity. His main weapon in this conflict is lying about their equality – so Satan uses us, humans who were created in God’s image, to discredit what He says and push us off his path of relationship with Him.
As a result, the world has fallen and become more corrupted than before, making the path toward redemption less clear than it should be. But God is more loving than any obstacle; He sent His Son Jesus Christ to redeem humanity and pay for our sins so that one day we could all enjoy eternal bliss with Him.
As we can rely on God unabated, this truth should drive our commitment to Christ and His gospel of grace. By reading his word daily and celebrating his Sabbath every week, Christians can rest easy knowing their relationship with the Almighty will remain intact – after all, only through God’s help can we understand and follow His will for our lives!
The Redemption
The seventh day of every week was known as Sabbath because God rested on that day. Observance of weekly Sabbath did not rely on any historical record or astronomical calendar as do other days, months, or years, but rather was ordered by God through Moses.
Rabbi Nachmanides points out that in Genesis 2:3, God rested when He finished His creation on the sixth day, shaking His head and looking over what He had made before proclaiming it good and stopping work (shavat) for that day thereby blessing and making holy the creation He had just completed.
Creation reached its pinnacle during its six days of existence; on this seventh and final day nothing new was accomplished and therefore rested upon as the day concluded.
Why did God cease His work on the seventh day? He wanted us to follow His example and set an example by dedicating one day every week towards spirituality, mind and family matters – forgetting about daily struggles while basking in God’s love and grace.
God desired this day as an occasion of communion between Himself and his people. He wanted people to realize they desired fellowship with him and wanted a relationship with him; He showed people this as the most essential aspect of their existence; worshipping the Lord of all creation was of paramount importance to His plan for existence.
God was given rest from creating us until man fell from grace. Man broke His rest and stripped Him of eternal glory that would have come with perfect, sinless creation; but He set up laws to remind us to respect it. And He wants each of us to find that rest through faith in Jesus Christ and find salvation.
The seven-day Sabbath serves as a constant reminder of God’s act of creation and His eternal covenant with his people, through keeping this day holy. By continuing to observe it we will experience what was lost in Eden: communion with our Creator God!
