The climax of Creation week is a shock.

On Day One through Day Six, God is hard at work. In marvellous succession of detail, the Creator transforms emptiness into energy, shapelessness into splendour.

Day Six ends with a divine romance—our first parents in passionate wonder. It's the love story that gives birth to all love stories. But the creation of male and female is not the finale; it's the preparation.

When the finale arrives, it's not with a thunderous roar but in breathtaking silence.

The silence enters when God abruptly ceases his work. Creation is hushed in expectancy. One phase of things is ended, completed, executed, concluded, accomplished, discharged, filled up, and done.

When all tasks are done, there's a glorious outcome—rest. When our first parents sleep that night, they sink into the beauty of God's finished work. It's Earth's Sabbath—the first, the original.

Daylight arrives on Day Seven. Adam and Eve are keen to explore their garden paradise. But a mysterious influence draws them to explore a more intriguing priority—the heart of Creator God.

A sanctuary of time

"It's all good." That's God's assessment throughout Creation week. Each day is good, and Sabbath-rest is the climactic good.

Day Seven is good for Adam and Eve, because they discover ecstasy in friendship with supreme Being. Day Seven is good for God, because his Spirit finds euphoria in fellowship with people made in his image.

God at rest. Earth at peace. Creation celebrated. Beings in intimacy. God with his children present in a sanctuary of time. This is Sabbath—divine family time. It's when God's kids delightedly turn their attention from the things that are made to the Maker of things.

A second phase

As God pauses at Creation, he pauses also at the Cross. On Creation's Day Seven, God declares he has "finished" his work. Millennia later, the word from the Cross comes as if in deliberate echo: "It is finished." Genesis 2:2; John 19:30.

With the death of God's Son, a second phase of God's work is ended, completed, executed, concluded, accomplished, discharged, filled up, and done. There's one thing left now—to rest. To sink into the beauty of a finished work.

The Bible's conclusion? There is Creation and there is the Cross—two pinnacle events interlocked in divine purpose. "There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his." Hebrews 4:9, 10.

In history, some have perverted the gift of Sabbath-rest into a work that helps assure our salvation. In God's mind it's the opposite. True Sabbath-rest comes when we cease our own work, and rest in Heaven's finished work on our behalf.

A gift for humanity

You've heard Day Seven referred to as the "Jewish Sabbath". It's a common mistake. They were not Jews in Eden, just a couple of original humans. The worship experience given there is not the Sabbath of Jews but the Sabbath of humanity. Scripture delivers the good news that the invitation for Sabbath-rest extends to non-Jews, foreigners, and all humankind. Isaiah 56:3–7.

When Jesus steps onto the scene to restore rest to the world, he consistently keeps Creation's Sabbath. He never challenges the Sabbath itself—but he aggressively challenges the way its observance has been perverted.

It's remarkable that Jesus goes out of his way to revitalise Day Seven and bring back its delight—despite the fact that these efforts offend the religious leaders, and propel Messiah to his death. John 5:18.

In the heart of the covenant

Scripture tells us that Sabbath-rest nestles in the heart of God's everlasting covenant—his guarantee for our rescue, a guarantee that is sealed with his own blood. Nine books of the Bible refer to the "everlasting" or "eternal" aspect of God's covenant—a truth often missed when Bible students delve into the details of its manifestation in two phases called the "old" and the "new".

Sabbath is the recurring reminder God gives believers that their story began in perfect rest, and that through Christ they can discover perfect rest again. This is the core of the ever-lasting covenant. See Genesis 2:2, 3; 9:16; 17:7, 13, 19; Exodus 20:8–11; Deuteronomy 5:12–15; Exodus 31:16; Leviticus 24:8; Isaiah 55:3; 56:6; Ezekiel 37:26; Hebrews 13:20.

At the Cross, Jesus spills his blood to secure the covenant; then he enters the deep Sabbath-rest of the grave. Those closest to him enter Sabbath-rest, too, as they have always done. His disciples "rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment". Matthew 26:28; Luke 23:56.

Hallelujah! Resurrection morning arrives; new life begins. It is now as it has always been from Creation—first the rest, then the life. Romans 6:4.

The week

The week—unlike days and months and years—is not determined by the rotation of heavenly bodies. Science and secular history have no explanation for "week." But God's Word explains. The week is determined by the rotation of Creation's Sabbath.

We are blessed by world-wide testimony of faithful Israelites to this Sabbath. Despite many challenges in their history, our Jewish colleagues have never lost the cycle of Sabbath.

In Israelite history, long after Creation, God gave a number of annual sabbaths that were specifically Jewish—a variety of rest days and celebrations. From the Christian perspective these have passed, because they commenced at Mount Sinai and were entirely wrapped in the historic "old covenant", awaiting the fulfilment of the Cross. See Hebrews 9 and 10.

For life, for health

Sabbath-rest is for our life; it's for our health. Can you imagine our world if human beings everywhere would stop for this one sacred day each week to find refreshment in the Creator? Can you visualise the benefit to your own life and health through this recurring day of vitality for your mind, body and spirit?

Can you picture the blessing that comes to families when they cease their furious activity and come together with God for worship and refresh-ment once a week in Sabbath-rest?

Sadly inconvenient

The weekly Sabbath was given at Creation, affirmed in the heart of the Ten Commandments, extended by invitation to the world, kept and revitalised by Jesus. Yet it's sadly inconvenient for our frenetic lives. Almost the entire world marks the gift "Return to Sender", and directs it on its way.

Early Christians did not refer Sabbath back to God. Something we know they did give up—the Jewish rite of circumcision. And what a commotion that produced! See Acts 15. Can you imagine the uproar if the first Christians were also abolishing the Sabbath of Creation? The New Testament would be full of that story. Given the sparks over the old covenant rite of circumcision, any setting aside of Creation's Sabbath would have brought a bonfire.

But the New Testament is silent on this. No sparks. No bonfire. The sacred Sabbath-rest continued in early Christendom for some centuries, until an amalgamation of political and religious pressures led to its demise.

Needed now!

If Sabbath was needed in the pure peace of Eden, it's needed much more in the sin-ravaged commotion of our modern lives.

It's a retreat into God's heart so we can extend ourselves more energetically into God's world. I recommend Sabbath-rest enthusiastically for your life and health.

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Copyright © 2010 by Ed Gallagher, Auckland, New Zealand. / Scripture quotations taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION.
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission.