Recall where we’ve been the past 4 weeks.
In the prologue to the Ten Commandments God sets the tone. Before commanding us to do anything, God tells us He’s our Redeemer and that we’re His redeemed. Our identity is shown to be secure in Him based only His work of redemption. After giving us a sure identity, then we see Him command a specific activity. What kind of activity? The first commandment instructs us to worship the correct God. The second commandment instructs to worship the correct God correctly. And the third commandment instructs us to worship the correct God reverently.
After these three commandments, how is everyone doing? Anyone feeling that you’ve already struck out? Three commandments given, three commandments broken. If you’re feeling that way, great! You’re experiencing one of the exact reasons God gave us His law. God did not intend the Ten Commandments to be a ladder we climb to work our way up to God. Rather God intends the Ten commandments to be a mirror to show us our need for a Savior.
Today the trend will continue as we come to the fourth commandment.
Hear it for yourself. Exodus 20:8-11 says this, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
In order to understand this commandment, let’s take a comprehensive look at it. By that I mean four things:
-First, let’s go back Genesis 1-2 to see how God rests at the end of the creation week, setting down the pattern to be followed.
-Second, let’s linger on this fourth commandment itself in Exodus 20, observing how Israel was to obey it, amid the world around them.
-Third, let’s move ahead to Christ, to witness the fulfillment of the commandment in Him, to see how the Church is to rest.
-Fourth, let’s go all the way to the end, to speak our coming everlasting rest in the New Heavens and the New Earth.
God Rests
Genesis 2:1-3 says, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation.”
Here in Genesis 2:1-3 we see Day 7 of the creation week in all of its glory. Specifically, in v1 we find the concluding statement that the heavens and the earth are finished. In v2 we find the result of God finishing this work in God resting. And in v3 we find God blessing the seventh day by making it holy. That’s Day 7.
In this it’s almost immediately recognizable that Day 7 is different from the rest of the creation days.[1] There are no opening words “Then God said” as we see on the other days. There are no concluding words about Day 7 having an “evening and morning.” This is the only day to be blessed and made holy. The word “seventh” is repeated three times here while the other days usually only mention the number of the day once. And Day 7 has no corresponding day to it like the others do. Meaning, days 1, 2, and 3 go together because on those days God created all the kingdoms of the world (the sky, the sea, the land), and day 4, 5, and 6 go together because on those days God filled all those kingdoms with their respective kings (the birds, the fish, the animals – and man). Yet here is day 7, standing forth in a category by itself. It’s worth asking the question: what’s so special about Day 7?
Simply put, on Day 7 God finished the work He began. Not everything He was planning to do, is doing, or will ever do, no. Rather it is the specific work of creation in view. Which means creation is no longer in the process of being created.[2] It is finished. Entirely. This is told to us directly in v2, that on this 7th day, that God finished the work that He had done, and that’s when it adds the detail in view for us today, that God rested on the seventh day from the work He had done.
So it seems to be clear, that God’s resting comes as a result of God’s creating work being finished.
What about this rest? Does God need rest? Of course not. Sure, few things can be as refreshing as a power nap. But, God resting here on Day 7 doesn’t mean God took a nap, or closed His eyes and went to sleep, no. God needs no rest, nothing depletes Him, He never needs to be refilled, or needs a break or a breather.[3] God resting on the seventh day also does not mean that God all of the sudden became aloof, distant, or indifferent about what was going on in creation, as if he finished and then stepped away and no longer cares about creation, no.[4] What’s it mean then? All of this rest language in Gen. 2:1-3 is about God finishing and completing His work of everything that is. After finishing this great work, He rests, but even in His rest, He still rules and reigns in His providence, wisdom, and governance over all things.
But He did more than just rest, didn’t He? He blessed the 7th day and made it holy. That God’s blessing is on His creation is what sets it apart as holy, most likely. This means He consecrated the 7th day, sanctified 7th day, set the 7th day apart, and separated 7th day from the other days. Do not miss, God called all the others days good, even very good on day 6. That He calls this 7th day holy, seems to mean this 7th day has a higher purpose.
What purpose? To provide us a pattern. God worked six days creating all creation, then God rested. And by marking the seventh day out as holy we could say God was creating a distinction between work days and rest days, but we would do better to say God is making a distinction between ordinary days and holy days.[5]
That is where the sabbath principle begins. Which leads us to our next heading…
Israel Rests
This day 7 rest God enters into in Gen 2:1-3, in time, would then become a pattern for the people of Israel in the fourth commandment. We began with it, now hear it again. Exodus 20:8-11 says, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
In this fourth commandment we see the sabbath is a call to rest. That’s where the word sabbath comes from, the Hebrews word sabath means to cease or to rest. We know, from Genesis 2, that this rest is as old as creation itself, and by resting from work on the sabbath day Israel would be imitating God’s own example from creation in working six days and resting on the seventh.[6] In that sense, many call this a creation mandate, because the fourth commandment is rooted in God’s own example in the creation week. This repeating pattern was to be cemented in the lives of God’s people. So much so, that if the sabbath was regularly honored by them as a holy day of worship and rest it would serve to make them holy as well.[7]
This rest was not only built into their weekly rhythms by the fourth commandment, rest was literally where they were heading as a people. God had promised them that He would go with them into the promise land and give them rest (Ex.33:14), and God did just that. Yes due to the unbelief of this generation, they were cursed to wander in the wilderness for 40 years, but afterwards God would bring the next generation into the land Himself and by doing so He gave them rest. But would the land prove restful?
In a sense it did, this was the promise land after all, but in another sense true rest remained out of reach. When they entered the land God commanded Israel to clean house throughout the land of Canaan so that they would have rest. This, they didn’t do. So rest, again, remained aloof.
If you continue following Israel through the rest of the OT Israel ebbs and flows in their life with God, enjoying a taste of true rest under a good king, while experiencing true restlessness under a bad king. Meanwhile, prophet after prophet kept calling the people back to the Law of Moses and this Sabbath pattern. Yet, sin would reign in them, so much that God removed them from the promise land by allowing them to be carried off into exile, where they had no rest. Years later after they came back into land under the decree of Cyrus, under Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s leadership, a restlessness seemed to cling to them as they eagerly awaited to arrival of the Messiah.
The Church Rests
The Messiah would come, but He was not what Israel expected. Jesus continually challenged the religious people and religious leaders of His day pointing beyond the letter of the law to the heart of the law, teaching that true obedience to God was not just an external conformity but an internal transformation of the soul. Jesus always pointed deeper, and many times He would use the fourth commandment to do so. Perhaps the most famous remark from Jesus on this is Mark 2:27-28 when He said, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the sabbath.” Meaning, we’re not meant to serve the sabbath, it is meant to serve us. This hit home because the Pharisees had inverted this relationship, going much too far in their regulations of sabbath keeping. Here Jesus reverts the pattern back to health, where the Sabbath is God’s gift, a gift to serve man, not sit above man.
Well, on Jesus would live and teach, saying much about true rest. Most powerfully in Matthew 11:28-29 He said, “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Implied in this statement is a glorious truth. The rest Israel was to experience in the sabbath, where was it ultimately found? It was found in Christ! This is what it means that Christ is the fulfillment of the Law. It all culminates in Him.
After His death and resurrection He sent the Spirit to fill His Church and He sent them out to spread His message. Would the pattern of weekly rest continue in God’s new people? That is the a very practical question for us today.
Well, throughout the history of the Church many would tell you that the sabbath, rooted in creation remains a binding command for God’s people. Fulfilled in Christ, yes, but not abolished and still binding. The day shifted from Saturday to Sunday because the early Church reoriented its worship around the resurrection, calling it the Lord’s Day. This view would say true sabbath aims at the spirit of the law, not the letter, and that the Christian sabbath is to be a day of worshipful rest, where we’re to do everything we can to enjoy God as much as we can.
That’s a good view. It is. Many godly men and women hold this view. It’s the view of most of the reformers, and the view of most of our reformed confessions. I used to hold this view too. But, I don’t affirm such a view anymore. I’m not a Sabbatarian. I don’t think the fourth commandment is binding any longer on Christians. Let me explain…
I believe the sabbath was a specific command given to Israel as a shadow pointing forward to the reality that has now arrived in Christ. Meaning, the requirement to set aside one day in seven is fulfilled and therefore no longer binding, rather than just transferred to Sunday. Along with the passage from Mark 2 we mentioned earlier, Colossians 2:16-17 is an anchor text for this. There Paul explicitly tells believers “…let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” This passage is clear, Paul calls sabbath keeping a shadow which is fulfilled in Christ who is the substance. Paul also says, in Romans 14:5-6, one person esteems one day while another esteems every day alike, and that each person should be fully convinced in their own mind. This is evidence of that Paul viewed the sabbath as a matter of Christian liberty, not law.
So I’d say this. The rest God offers us in Christ isn’t a weekly appointment but a continuous daily reality. Hebrews 4 states this plain as day, saying that this rest is already ours in Christ and we should strive to enter that rest all our days. Sabbath is the daily posture of a believer who has stopped striving to earn what Christ has already finished. Rather than viewing one day as set aside for worshipful rest, we’re to treat everyday as worshipful rest, resting from our works, resting in Christ’s work for us, so that every day becomes equally sacred and equally holy. Remember the Heidelberg Catechism question we read earlier? The everlasting sabbath can begin here and now!
Or as Charles Spurgeon so wonderfully put it, “Holiness is the best sabbath dress…suitable for everyday wear.”’
Lastly, see where all of this leads to…
Everlasting Rest (Conclusion):
Hear the words of Revelation 14:13, “And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”
Church, true rest is nearing, when all our toil will be over, when all our work will be done. What a day that will be! The great hymn On Jordan’s Stormy Banks says it so well, “When shall I reach that happy place, and be forever blessed? When shall I see my Father’s face, and in His bosom rest?”
There is a reason there’s no “evening and morning” verbiage on day 7 back in Genesis 1-2. It’s because day 7 never ends…one day envelop the whole world in the end.
Church, here’s the call today. The fourth commandment is calling you not a kind of rule keeping, or ritualistic ceremonial sabbath observance. The call is to come to Christ, and to rest in Him. Every time you find yourself striving, to prove yourself at work, to hold your family together by sheer effort, to earn the approval you’re chasing, stop and remember the work is already finished. Not your work. His. In all of life you’re not laboring for God’s favor; you’re laboring from favor already given. So when you feel that urge to prove yourself in this world, take it as your call to sabbath, to stop, and to rest in Christ’s finished work.
St. Augustine said it, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
May you know such rest, more and more!
[1] Kenneth A. Matthews, Genesis 1-11:26, NAC (Nashville, Tennessee: B&H, 1996), 176.
[2] Hamilton, Genesis 1-17, 142.
[3] R. Kent Hughes, Genesis, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2004), 42.
[4] James Montgomery Boice, Genesis 1-11 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1982), 100.
[5] Hamilton, Genesis 1-17, 143.
[6] Wenham, Genesis 1-15, 36.
[7] Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Academic, 2001), 71.
