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1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. ~ Genesis 2:1-3
Genesis 1 showed us the wide-angle lens view of God's creation, while Genesis 2 shows us the zoom lens view of God's creation. Genesis 1 showed us the scope of all of the days of creation, and all of the things God made from the luminaries in the sky, to the heavens, to the earth, and to every living being made by God. In Genesis 2 the lens zooms in on God's crowning creation: mankind.
In v.1-2 of today's passage we read, "1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done."
Once His work was finished, the LORD rested. In doing so, He set a pattern for man to observe a day of rest, as well. The principle of resting on one day after we have worked all week is wise, otherwise we will burn out physically. But, the seventh day Sabbath wasn’t only based on creation, it was also based on redemption. Throughout Israel's history the focus of the Sabbath was to be upon the One who would redeem Israel from their sin.
In Exodus 20:8-11 we read, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."
This command is repeated in Deuteronomy 5 where the purpose of the Sabbath is actually different than in Exodus. The reason God gave this command in Exodus was based on the creation account. He said "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day." The second reason God gave the command in Deuteronomy was based on the consummation of redemption and the promise of entering into His rest. Moses said, "And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm."
Everything in the Old Testament is a picture of something greater to come to be revealed in the New Testament. In this case that something greater is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the true Redeemer and He has provided the complete rest which could only come about with His fulfilling the Law given to the Israelites. The Law was given to Israel alone. Until the coming of Christ, the Sabbath was a sign, like circumcision, of the covenant law received at Mount Sinai and agreed upon by the people of Israel. Nine of the Ten Commandments found in the Old Testament are repeated in the New Testament. The only commandment not repeated in the New Testament of the ten is the fourth: to remember the Sabbath.
In Exodus 31:13 we read, "Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you."
Israel worked six days and rested on the seventh. This can be equated with the anticipation of rest which yet laid ahead for them. Christians following the pattern set in the New Testament, worship on the first day of the week and then work after that. Israel worked in order to rest, New Testament believers rest in order to work. The Sabbath was a sign between God and the Israelites as a part of the covenant law. According to Hebrews 7:18 and Hebrews 10:9, the law of Moses has been "set aside" by the work of Christ and the establishment of the New Covenant. What sinful man could not do in living out the law, the Lord Jesus did on our behalf.
When the Lord Jesus said on the cross, "It is finished," that meant He paid the penalty you and I owed for our sin and He fulfilled the law that you and I could never uphold. After the Lord Jesus paid the penalty of our sin, He sat down at the right hand of God. In the tabernacle there were all kinds of furniture, there was an altar to burn sacrifices, there was a laver for washing, there was a table with bread that needed to be changed out at regular intervals, there was a lamp which needed to be filled with oil, and there was an incense altar that needed fresh incense. There were all kinds of things that needed to be done morning and evening, day in and day out, all year long. Underscored was the fact that the priest’s work was never finished. This explains why there was no chair in the tabernacle.
In Hebrews 12:2 we read, "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
The Sabbath was a part of the Old Covenant, not the New. It was based on God’s work of creation and Christ's work of redemption. The Lord Jesus is our Redeemer; in and through Him we have been made a new creation. Both actions were directed to the cross. It is by faith and faith alone in what the God of the Bible has promised that brings believers into a state of rest, not the law. This is why the writer of Hebrews wrote, "For we who have believed have entered into His rest."
In v.3 of today's passage we read, "Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made."
The fourth of the Ten Commandments is the only command that starts with the word "remember." The word Sabbath comes from a Hebrew word meaning "day of rest." On the Sabbath day no one was to do any work. God sanctified or set the seventh day apart because of all it represents. Essentially it points us to placing our faith in the Lord Jesus and being justified solely through our faith in His finished work on the cross. Christ’s first coming did not abolish the principle of rest; rather, it ushered in a deeper kind of rest than the Sabbath could ever offer.
The day between the struggle of the cross and the solution through the resurrection, on that final Saturday on earth for the Lord Jesus, God was silent. It was a subtle reminder that we learn the value of sitting still, of being silent before Him and of trusting Him with our very lives. The Lord Jesus knew God would not leave him alone in the grave. We must know, God will not leave us alone with our struggles. His silence is not His absence.
