God blessed the seventh day
Genesis 2:3 - Perhaps it is on Saturday — the original Sabbath — or on the more traditionally Christian Sunday, but we should always keep a day open for rest and contemplation of God’s creation.
Graphic generated by ChatGPT (OpenAI) using the DALL·E model.
“Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”
Genesis 2:3 NIV
The second chapter of Genesis begins with an ending — the ending of God’s week of creation. Just before this in Genesis 2:2, we read that “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.”
Wait, isn’t God omnipotent — all-powerful? Why would He have to rest? The answer is quite simple, as David Guzik of Enduring Word points out:
God did not need rest on the seventh day because He was tired. He rested to show His creating work was done, to give a pattern to man regarding the structure of time (in seven-day weeks), and to give an example of the blessing of rest to man on the seventh day.
God did this by blessing the seventh day and making it holy (sanctifying it). Throughout the Bible, blessings come from God as a divine favor to His people. God set apart the seventh day as something special, indicating to all of humanity from Adam to people in the present day that it is important.
The seventh day became a constant theme in Scripture to symbolize rest and completion of a task. In Exodus 20:8-11, this became known as the Sabbath:
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping 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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
The Israelites were to keep the Sabbath day holy as a constant reminder of God’s rest after creation. The blessing of the seventh day also prefigures the conclusive rest found in Christ. From Hebrews 4:9-10:
“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.”
In addition to blessing the seventh day, God also “made it holy”. God sanctified it to distinguish it from the six other days of creation and by doing so, He set a pattern for His people to follow — to rest after work. Sanctifying the Sabbath foresees the holiness required of His people, where He calls His people to “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” (Leviticus 19:2)
God rested because He was done with His creative work and satisfied with it (“saw that it was good”). The Hebrew verb for rest — שָׁבַת (“Shabbat”) — is the root of the word for Sabbath, a day to rest from labor, and contemplate and appreciate His creation.
God had created everything in six days, and now added a pause that set the stage for humanity to be stewards of the earth (see Genesis 1:28). His creation of the universe and everything in it testifies to His power, and should be the foundation upon which we build our relationship with God. In the context of the New Testament, the act of creation points our new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17):
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
The NIV Bible translation I’m using here ends the verse with “that He had done”. The original Hebrew word for “done” is עָשָׂה (ʿāśâ), better translated as “accomplished”. God didn’t just randomly throw together the universe; it was an accomplishment following a very deliberate and orderly process. What was the ultimate accomplishment? Salvation through Jesus Christ when He said “It is finished” on the cross (John 19:30) and completed His redemptive work.
Perhaps it is on Saturday — the original Sabbath — or on the more traditionally Christian Sunday, but we should always keep a day open for rest and contemplation of God’s creation.
Heaven On Wheels Daily Prayer:
Father in Heaven, thank You that Jesus is our Sabbath rest, peace with God that passes all understanding. We thank You also that we have become new creations in Christ and have been promised eternal rest through our trust in Him for salvation. We pray that many more people come to that realization, that faith in Christ’s sacrificial death and glorious resurrection will secure for them that same eternal rest. We pray this in Jesus’ name, AMEN.
Amen👆👆👆