The Purpose of the Sabbath (Gen. 2:1-3)

Sermon preached on Sunday, 25 October, 2009

The Sabbath is one of what are called creation ordinances, that is divinely-given details for human life that were present before sin entered the world but which are still expected of humans even although life has been marred by sin. In Genesis 2, we read of three such ordinances: marriage, work and the Sabbath.

As we read the account of creation in Genesis 1, we should note that there are two climaxes. The first concerns the climax of the created order, which was the creation of humans; the second concerns the climax of the days of creation, which was reached with the arrival of the Sabbath. It was God’s pleasure that both should be combined in man having the provision of the Sabbath. We could say, as far as the original week of creation was concerned, that each subsequent day was better than the day before. There is not an eighth day, which indicates that however notable and worthy the activities of the first six days were, the activities of the seventh were suited for man’s highest abilities.

At a basic level, God’s provision of the Sabbath is a reminder of two things. First, it is important that each week there should be one day that is totally different. What has happened in our society since Sunday became a ‘normal’ day is that the actions of every day become the same, and there is no variety.

Second, the existence of the Sabbath is a reminder that work is not the highest activity of man. Some people are ‘workaholics’. If we spend Sunday wishing it were Monday so that we can resume work, then we are missing out on our highest calling. Work was important in Eden, but it was not the highest activity of Adam and Eve.

One of the problems of the modern world is that each person faces too much stress. Stress can come from a variety of sources and I am not suggesting that all stress is avoidable. Yet much stress exists because people work too much, perhaps because they want to get more and more things. Value is assessed by what we do and what we have. But at the beginning, man received his highest value by meeting with God on a stress-free day.

Somebody has said that the Sabbath is the only day on which we do not need to wear a watch. We must regard the time of church services, but in a sense that should be all.

A feature of Christian living that is striking by its absence is the mention of Sabbath-keeping in many modern books on spirituality. These books, many of which are excellent, comment on the importance of prayer, Bible reading, fasting etc. Yet God set aside one day in which our spirituality could be developed, in which all these other disciplines can be done in a more comprehensive manner than on other days.

The Sabbath in Eden
The appearance of the Sabbath is a reminder that God is the Lord of time. He decides how long a week should be, and what should be done on each day. As long as his authority would be recognised, there would not be any problems for Adam and Eve. This feature of God’s sovereignty is revealed shortly after Adam and Eve had been given authority by God to govern the earth. Yet they had not been given unlimited authority, for God had kept some things for himself. The Sabbath was a reminder that they had a King.

The first Sabbath was blessed by God. The term ‘bless’ contains the idea of ‘speaking well about it’. When we bless God, we speak well of him. So when God blessed the seventh day he was stating that this was to be the best, most important day of the week. Calvin comments that this phrase indicates that God loved the day: ‘Thus we may be allowed to describe the day as blessed by him which he has embraced with love, to the end that the excellence and dignity of his works may therein be celebrated.’

This distinctiveness of the day is also seen in the other term that is used, that God sanctified the day, that is, he set it apart from the other days for a special purpose, which was, in one word, ‘rest’. It was set apart for God to rest and also for man to rest.

On the first Sabbath God rested from his work of creation. It was not the rest of inactivity, for he was still engaged in his works of providence; it was not the rest of indifference, as if he was not interested in his creation; it was not the rest of exhaustion, as if he had stretched his powers to the limits. We get some insight into what is meant by God’s rest in Exodus 31:17: ‘It [the Sabbath] is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.’

When we think of God resting we should note several details connected to it. First, his rest included rejoicing in the finished work of creation. God takes great pleasure in his actions because they are perfect. What is flawless pleases him. ‘The eternal God, though infinitely happy in the enjoyment of himself, yet took a satisfaction in the work of his own hands. He did not rest, as one weary, but as one well-pleased with the instances of his own goodness and the manifestations of his own glory’ (Matthew Henry). This divine celebration was the fuller version of God’s cry of delight that was expressed very day of the creation week (apart from the second day).

Second, it was refreshment in the fellowship of his people. God did not wish to take part in the Sabbath rest without the presence of Adam and Eve. Only they were capable of appreciating the great works of God. A dog looks at the sun and sees only the sun. Adam looked at the sun and did so knowing that God had made it. The Creator and his creatures found pleasure in focussing on the great things God had done. No doubt this fellowship involved praise of God as Adam and Eve marvelled at his great abilities, as they wondered at how God could create such splendour. This day with God should have given them a sense of security, that he was in control. There would also be a sense of satisfaction in being reminded that their God had done all this for their good; the satisfaction would not be in the created things but in God. Their minds would be in awe of God, their hearts would be in love with God, and their wills would be engaged in serving God.

Third, the Sabbath was a figure of the eternal blessedness that would be given to humans if they remained sinless. Adam and Eve were given several symbols by God that illustrated spiritual realities. For example, the two trees, one of which indicated that there was eternal life and the other which indicated there was a wrong way to discover the knowledge of good and evil. The Sabbath was a weekly reminder that ultimately there would be a permanent Sabbath, perhaps when the human race had completed the task given to it in Genesis 1:26.

So the Sabbath was a reminder of what God had done, a rejoicing with him in his goodness, and a foretaste of the life that would be theirs if they continued to obey him.

Sadly we know that sin disrupted the sinless Sabbaths of Eden. Because of Adam’s sin God and fallen man can no longer meet together to view a perfect world. The creation has been cursed, death leaves its ugly scar in every life, and in any case God and fallen man no longer speak as friends.

But we know that is not the end of the story. God had a rescue plan to deliver fallen man from his state of sin and misery. That plan involved Jesus, the Son of God, coming into the world to undo the effects of Adam’s fall.

Jesus and the Sabbath
It will be worthwhile making some comments on how Jesus regarded the Sabbath when he lived in Israel. There can be no doubt that he loved to keep it because the law of God was in his heart. We don’t know how many Sabbaths God and sinless Adam enjoyed together; probably not many. It is likely that Adam fell soon after he was created. But we do know that God and sinless Jesus, the last Adam, spent many happy Sabbaths together. These three features of thinking about God’s works, of having fellowship with God’s people, and of anticipating the blessedness to come would have been true of Jesus’ Sabbath-keeping from his childhood.

When Jesus began his public ministry, he did certain things on the Sabbath. In Mark 1:21-34 we are given an example of what he did. He went to the synagogue and taught, and he went to the home of his friends. I suspect he would continue speaking about God there. But he also delivered people from bodily troubles and demon possession. In that Sabbath day’s activities we see that Jesus enjoyed the same three aspects of Sabbath keeping: he thought about God and the things he had done, he had fellowship with his people, and he gave foretastes of the deliverance that he will bring about when the days of blessedness come (bodies restored in the resurrection and demonic powers overthrown)

There are other details of Jesus’ Sabbath activities that could be mentioned, but I want to say something about one particular Sabbath, the Sabbath when his body was in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. He had died because he was undoing the effects of Adam’s sin, and because of that, as far as his human nature was concerned, he could not meet with others on earth to think about the things of God. A meaningless Sabbath ritual was being performed in Israel by those who had crucified the Lord of the Sabbath. But Jesus was spending that Sabbath in heaven, anticipating his future triumph on the following day when he would rise from the dead, having destroyed the enemies of our souls, and in doing so would change the Sabbath to the first day of the week.

The Sabbath and us
We noted that several things took place on the first Sabbath. One was that the choice of the particular day indicated that God was the Lord of time. This aspect is also seen today because it is only God that could have authorised the change of day from the seventh to the first – the original Sabbath was the first full day of the completed created order; the first Lord’s Day was the beginning of the new creation inaugurated by the resurrection of Jesus. So we should remind ourselves that we are gathering to meet with the divine King on every Lord’s Day. In our hearts there should be the spirit of submission.

Then we noted that the Lord had blessed the Sabbath in a manner that suggested he loved it as a special day. This is also the case with the Lord’s Day. Throughout the Christian era it has been the day that the Lord has made beautiful with the proclamation of the gospel. On this day, down the centuries, multitudes of souls have been delivered from the penalty of their sins. It is a question to ask ourselves: have we benefited from the number of Sabbaths we have enjoyed? Every decade we have had more than 520 Sabbaths. If we are fifty years old, we have been given by God over 2,500 Sabbaths. Have we met the Saviour on one of them and tasted the forgiveness of our sins?

The Sabbath was also an occasion for remembering the great things that the Lord has done. Originally, this recollection only involved the natural creation. We can still celebrate this, for example, when we sing Psalm 19 or Psalm 147 (indeed the words of this latter psalm would have been very suitable for unfallen world if sin had not entered). But today, on the Lord’s Day, we have greater works of God to think about – the great things he has done in redemption. We can think about the life of Jesus, the death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, the ascension and enthronement of Jesus; we can think of the doctrines of justification (becoming right with God), adoption (becoming members of God’s family) and sanctification (becoming like God). There is much to engage our minds and warm our hearts and stimulate our service. And we should always recall that we do all this in the presence of God, who is refreshed by the same things that refresh his people. He was refreshed on the day that Jesus rose from the dead. He is refreshed when people receive blessings from him.

The Sabbath was also a time of fellowship between God and his people. We too can have that kind of sharing together, to meet together in the presence of God and know his blessing. On this day we should meet together to encourage one another by speaking of the Lord’s goodness and mercy to us.

The Sabbath was also a picture of the blessed state waiting for God’s people at the end of the journey. The Lord’s Day does that for us, pointing us forward to the glorious resurrection that awaits God’s people. This is a reminder to those of us whose vision of the future is limited by the demands of the present. On this day, we meet in anticipation that the Lord, who gave the Sabbath in order for his creatures to celebrate the original creation, will one day bring into existence the new heavens and new earth. On this day, we gather in adoration before the Lord of all and confess our gratitude that full salvation is yet to be ours. On this day, we rest in him and rest with him as we contemplate the glory to come.

So we can see something of the ongoing significance of the Sabbath. Let us use our Sabbaths wisely so that we will be ready to meet the Lord of the Sabbath when he returns.