Isaiah 40:28 “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.”
If you were to read the Creation story you’d notice an interesting conclusion to the amazing genius of God’s creative plan. From stretching out the Universe, to separating light from darkness, the depth of God’s power has not been understood. Then, as if God wanted to place a cherry on top it all, God created man and declared it very good.
After an eventful week of meticulous wisdom and planning, the Bible declares that God rested. Could God have been tired from such a grandiose plan? Was His power depleted or His brain exhausted from His masterful work?
The Bible gives us the answer….it says that ‘God does not grow weary, nor does He lose strength or become exhausted’ from exerting too much effort. No, God doesn’t grow tired, so when He rested from His work it must mean something other than taking a long nap from a tough work week.
A Limitless God
As we survey God’s revealed Word we witness many different aspects of God’s glory.
Psalm 147:5 “Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit.”
The attributes we all know and experience as humans are not the same with the Lord. Don’t get me wrong, when Jesus walked the Earth as a man He allowed himself to be vulnerable to all the weaknesses that we endure. He experienced the frailty of the flesh and I’m sure it has helped many people believe that God can now sympathize with our weaknesses. Personally, I believe God demonstrated an understanding of the human condition way before He formed the first cell from the dust of the ground. When God formed man He knew what He was doing and as He designed every element of our being. He didn’t need to experience the human condition to know what we are going through, He is intimately acquainted with all our ways and His understanding is unlimited.
Psalm 121:4 “Behold, the Protector of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”
It is far too easy to attribute human conditions to God’s divine qualities, it’s what we know, it’s how we all relate to life, and ultimately we are bound to relate our perspective to how we see God.
But He is not the same.
1 Timothy 1:17 “Now to the King eternal, immortal, and invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen”
We as people are limited to what we see and know, what we can test and wrap our brains around. We grow weak and weary, we have a beginning and an end, we are bound to the physical and we certainly do not have the power to create something from nothing. The Lord had no beginning, and He has no end. He has always been God and He will always be God, no matter how many different ways people come up with their own version or worship another pathetic idol, it won’t make one iota of a difference to the Lord. He will always be sovereign over all things.
So then we are brought back to the question…why did God rest?
Since God is outside of nature and is not bound by time, then when God rests it is not in the sense that we would rest. When God rested it implied that He ceased from His work and considered His masterpiece. He looked upon all that He had done and proclaimed it ‘good’. The Hebrew term for rest is the word shabath (shah-BAHTH), it is the origin for Sabbath.
The moral law given to Moses proclaimed the Sabbath day to be Holy. The fourth commandment was to be kept by Israel or it would be an offense against God. To disregard the Sabbath is to commit sin, just like every other commandment.(1 John 3:4) So when Jesus taught that to love Him is to keep His commandments, the Sabbath was a key part of that expression.
The number seven in the Bible is reflective of completion. Creation was formed, God’s majesty was revealed, and the day of rest was the final point of His perfection. Without the day of rest, creation would not be complete. So when God rested he demonstrated a process that we are to replicate.
There are many studies that show the benefits of resting at the end of the week, which are both physical and spiritual benefits that coincide with God’s ordinal perfection.
Genesis 1:31 “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”
It is Good
When God completed His work He reflected upon all that His hands had made and He proclaimed it good. When we cease from our work and reflect on the week we can say with confidence…Lord, your work is good. All that you gave me to do, in all the ways you lead me I see your goodness and worship your name.
The response of worship can only come from His people. Only those who know Him can truly see and know His work. The Spirit of God was evident at Creation and He is evident in the lives of believers around the world. The Lord has not changed from the beginning and He will not change in the future.
Revelation 4:11 “Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things; by Your will they exist and were created.”
Only God is good. Everything made by Him reflects His goodness but only He embodies the image of perfection. Mankind has been corrupted by sin and all of Creation with the fall. There are few things that have not changed, and God’s moral law is one of them. The law reflects the nature of God’s character and subjects all of Creation to its moral order. It is harsh, it is unwavering, and it is holy. Offend the law and you forfeit your life. Obey the law and discover the pathway to understanding. But to be free from the judgement of the law only can come through the sanctifying work of Christ.
Jesus taught the law, He applied it in every element of His life, and He upheld the law until the very end. Jesus did not sin therefore He demonstrated mastery over the law and qualified Himself to not just teach it but reveal its true intent.
Mark 2:27-28 “And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
Jesus reflected on the true intent of the Sabbath….to make man holy.
To be holy is to be “set apart” or consecrated for God’s special purpose, primarily referring to His absolute moral purity and separation from sin. Since the law is holy, everyone who abides by the law is made holy. The sabbath is like God’s punctuation point at the end of a significant statement. At Creation, He demonstrated His creative genius, He displayed His absolute power, and He formed a universe that proclaimed His name among His people for the rest of time. When He rested, He stopped and showed us what to behold.
Do we stop long enough to take in all that God has done? Do we recognize His mastery over our reality and worship Him?
We can’t see Him if we don’t know Him. How can you look for evidence of someone you don’t even know? You can appreciate the beauty and not appreciate the meaning behind it. You can enjoy the pattern without understanding why it was implemented.
For those who fail to look, they will never know His rest.
Hebrews 4:2 “For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.”
There are many who have hardened their hearts and refuse to look beyond their circumstances. The gifts that God has given were done so to coordinate with God’s divine order. Disregard the gifts and you miss out on the benefits that makes life a blessing. The gift of the Sabbath is more than a day of rest, it is a day of remembrance, a day of worship, and a day of revelation. When God’s people rest on the Sabbath, the proclaim God’s goodness to the world.
Hebrews 4:11 “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”
The rest that God’s people practice today is a foretaste for what is to come. They will rest in the shadow of the Almighty and enjoy His presence forever.
U.T. 