Gen 2:1–3 — The Sabbath Consummator

We have just read the seventh day of the creation narrative in which God rested from all of his work on the seventh day. The title of the sermon today is “The Sabbath Consummator.” That is God. God himself is not only the creator, he is also the consummator. That is he created all things in order to be the glorious theater of his glory and presence. God created the world with a purpose.

God created the world with an end. You know the word end. Sometimes it means end in the sense of termination, the end point, but it can also refer to the goal, the ultimate end to which we are aiming. Like the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, what is the chief end of man? It is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. So we are using this word end here in this sense of the telos, the purpose of creation.

The Sabbath Rest of God

God created everything with a purpose. And the Sabbath rest of God on the seventh day of creation is what demonstrates that. It demonstrates the purpose of creation. God is presented in the creation account as doing the work of creation in six days and resting on the seventh.

And this is deliberate, this is critical to understand because it shows us that eschatology is from the very beginning. Eschatology we think often as being the study of the end times and all these discussions about what is the Antichrist and what is the mark of the beast, 666. Eschatology is way more than that. That is what eschatology is now after the fall and we are thinking about the second coming of Christ. But at the very beginning, before the fall even happened, before there was even any thought in our minds at least of any kind of conflict that would lead to some sort of battle at the end of history, the Battle of Armageddon or the Antichrist crisis, before any of that was in view, God was already establishing creation as having an eschatological end, an eschatological purpose.

God is creating the work, the world, he is creating it to be a cosmic temple for him to dwell in and to consummate that creation in an eschatological end. The Sabbath signifies the fact that God rested on the seventh day. The Sabbath day signifies the completion of the cosmic temple. This language that is used here in our text, it says in verse two, on the seventh day, God finished his work. That he had done and rested on the seventh day. God finished his work on the seventh day.

This language of finishing the work is the same language that is used later on in the book of First Kings in reference to King Solomon who finished the work of building the temple. That was an earthly temple made of stone, but it was a picture of, a replica of the work of God at creation. God is being pictured here as the builder, and now he is stepping back, and he is looking at this beautiful creation that he has made, all of the different realms of creation, and all the different creatures that rule over those realms of creation. He steps back, he looks at it, and he says, it is very good. It is finished. And God then on the seventh day of creation is taking his rest, not because he is tired and needs a break and needs to be refreshed. As if he is then going to go back to work on the next day, on the eighth day, no. God is taking his rest in the sense of he is delighting in the finished work. He is delighting in what he has accomplished. Another way of thinking about it metaphorically is it is as if God is now taking his seat on the throne of his newly built cosmic temple.

Remember in Isaiah 66 verse 1, it says, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. God created the heavens and the earth to be his cosmic temple, to sit enthroned in heaven. And to reign over all creation. It is interesting too in that passage I was just quoting from, Isaiah 66, it specifically mentions creation there in the next verse. So Isaiah 66 one says, thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Then in verse two it says, all these things my hand has made and so all these things came to be.

God is the builder of the cosmic temple, and now on the seventh day of creation, he is seated upon his throne. He is taking his seat, and he is enthroned in creation, and he is enjoying this cosmic temple that he has made, and he is resting forever there. Psalm 132, verse 14 says, this is my resting place forever. Here I will dwell. Now in the context of Psalm 132, that is referring to the earthly temple that Solomon built, but we know that is only a picture of this bigger picture, this bigger cosmic temple. As Isaiah says, there is no human temple that can be made for God to dwell in.

God dwells in all of creation. He fills heaven and earth with his glory. And so God’s rest on the seventh day of creation is not a time to recover from the hard work of the labor. God does not get tired from work. He is the eternal, everlasting, infinite creator God. Rather, it is a royal satisfaction in the completed temple that he has built. God’s rest is not a chance to recover from being tired. Rather, it is a royal enthronement and satisfaction in the completed temple.

And so what does this tell us then? This teaches us something very important, and it teaches Israel something very important, because remember, this is Moses, who is writing the book of Genesis, and he is communicating these truths to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai, and he is instructing them. What is he instructing the people of God? He is doing catechism class with the people of God. What does this tell us?

When Moses narrates the story of creation and says that God worked for six days and then rested on the seventh, Moses is telling God’s people that God is not only the one who created all things, he is not only the alpha, God is also the consummator of all things. He is the omega. God is the one who consummates all of creation. He created all things for an eschatological end.

That is to be the theater of God’s glory. For God to be glorified as he is enthroned in his creation and he fills it with his glory. That is what Israel needs to know. They need to know that God is the owner and creator of all things. This whole world belongs to God. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.

But they also need to know that God did not just create this world to be a place for man to live. He created this world for God’s presence to be there, for God to dwell. In that eschatological goal of being the omega consummator. Not just the alpha creator, the alpha originator, but the omega consummator who has an eschatological purpose and goal for all that he has done.

God is a teleological God. That is, he has telos, he has purpose, he has ends in view. God does not just create things and then leave them there statically just to sit there. He creates things with a purpose, with a goal, with a motion towards an end. And that is what God is showing us here. That is what Moses is teaching us as he is showing how God created all things in order to have this eschatological end or telos. God has a purpose for creation.

The Sabbath Rest of Adam

Furthermore, not only does God rest on the seventh day, but then he invites and commands man to also rest on the seventh day. So in verse two, it says, 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 verse two is God’s Sabbath rest. But then in verse three, So God then turned around and blessed the seventh day for man and made it holy for man because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

You might think, well it does not specifically say that part there for man, but how do we know that? Well we know it from a number of things. One is the fact that this same language is picked up later on in the fourth commandment. In the fourth commandment it says that God blessed the seventh day and made it holy for Israel to keep. So the fact that God blessed the seventh day and made it holy shows that it has to do with the human being who has to participate in this rest and to imitate God. Another thing that helps us to see this is not only the parallel in the fourth commandment, that it uses this very same language, but also Jesus himself.

Remember what Jesus said. He said that man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man. So we have that clear idea then that the Sabbath here is being commanded for Adam. This is the ordinance of the weekly Sabbath for man to observe in imitation of God. So just as God, for six days, went about his creative work and then he rested on the seventh, so also man, being made in the image of God, is to imitate that same pattern. And he is also to work for six days.

Now his work is not a creative work. He does not have the power to create out of nothing. But his work is like God’s. So his work of being fruitful and multiplying and subduing the earth and filling it with many image bearers to reflect God’s glory, filling that cosmic temple with human beings, that cultural work of being fruitful and multiplying and taking dominion over creation is like God’s work of creation. It is creative work. It is not creative out of nothing. It is simply taking what is already there in creation and bringing out the potential within it But it is like God. It is a creative work that is similar to God. It is the finite creaturely version of God’s work.

And so just as God worked for six days and then rested on the seventh, so also man. Is called to imitate God since he is made in the image of God and he is also to work for six days and rest on the seventh. But notice that God’s Sabbath rest and man’s Sabbath rest are not identical. God’s Sabbath rest is eternal and unending.

That is why in the creation account, all the other days of creation end with this refrain that says, and there was evening and there was morning, day one, and there was evening and there was morning, day two, and so on, all the way down to day six. You can see that at the very end of Genesis chapter one, verse 31. God saw everything that he had done, everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. But you do not see that with the seventh day. The seventh day does not say, at the end of it, and there was evening and there was morning, the seventh day. The evening-morning formula is missing on the seventh day. Why?

Because God’s rest on the seventh day is eternal. Man’s rest is different. Man’s rest ends after that day is over and then he goes back to work on the next day. And he continues that cycle over and over again, week after week, doing the work that God gave him to do, to be fruitful and multiply and take dominion over creation and to bring out all the potential within creation. He is to work and then to rest on the seventh day and to repeat that over and over again. Unlike God, whose rest on the seventh day is eternal and unchanging.

What is the significance of this then? That you have in verse two, God’s rest, which is this eternal rest in heaven, and then you have man’s Sabbath rest in verse three, that is an earthly replica of God’s rest, but it is a finite rest. It is a cycle of week after week, not an eternal rest, at least not yet.

Well, the significance is this, that God is calling Adam to enter into his rest. Into God’s rest. God’s rest on the seventh day contains a promise inherent within it. A promise to man that he one day When He finishes that work of being fruitful and multiplying, the whole cultural mandate, and taking dominion over the earth, once He fulfills that work, after many weeks have gone by, week after week after week, and generation after generation, and the whole world is populated with little image-bearers that represent the glory of God being replicated until it fills the cosmic temple, with image bearers of God, the human family, coming from Adam and Eve. Once that is done, then, eventually, Adam will be able to rest from that long work over many ages, and he and the whole human family will be able to enter into God’s rest. We know that is the significance of it because later on in the Bible, in Psalm 95, The author of Psalm 95 puts the language this way.

The author is saying, calling to the people of Israel and saying, do not harden your hearts like you did in the wilderness at Meribah when you complained and you asked for water and you did not believe in God’s power. Do not harden your hearts like that. And it even says there in the text that they shall never enter my rest. It is in Psalm 95. It is an amazing verse. Psalm 95 verse 11, the last verse of the psalm. He says, because they went astray, because they did not believe in God in the wilderness, therefore I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. So just think about the significance of that.

If God is saying, they shall not enter my rest, that implies that they were supposed to enter his rest. That implies this idea that God’s rest has been continuing ever since the seventh day of creation. It is an ongoing rest that is a reality for the people of God to enter into. Now, of course, this is in a post-fall redemptive context, but the implication is the same for Adam. Adam also, he did not have that threat that he would not enter God’s rest, because sin had not yet entered the world, but the implication is that God’s rest is there available for him if he does the work, if he finishes that cultural mandate that God has assigned to him, that one day he too would be able to enter into God’s rest.

God blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it and set it apart to be a sign to man that just as God is the Sabbath consummator as he is the one that brings about the eschatology of creation, so also he is inviting man who is made in the image of God to imitate him and to enter into God’s rest. Exodus 31, verse 13, calls the Sabbath the sign of the covenant. Why? Why is the Sabbath the sign of the covenant? Because it is a promise of eschatological rest for man if man keeps the covenant, if man does the work. It is a sign of God’s covenant, promising that if man does his task, the cultural mandate assigned to him, then man would earn the reward.

What is the reward that he is looking forward to? Bodily glorification, not just for Adam, but for the whole human race. If Adam had not sinned, there would have been this development of humanity, becoming this glorious human race. And then at the end, having finished the work, God would glorify all of the bodies of the human race, and he would bring the human race into that consummated cosmic temple. God has built the temple, he has built the framework, he has built the structure, but now man is supposed to populate and fill that temple with the human race and that human race then would be glorified.

The image of God in which man was created was not yet perfected. There is still this eschatological hope that the image of God in man would be brought to an even higher state of glorification. And of eternal rest, no more cultural mandate, no more being fruitful and multiplying and subduing the earth and taking dominion over creation, all of that hard work of construction and agriculture and mining and all the things that Adam and the human race was supposed to do, that is now done. And then man would enter into God’s eternal rest.

Remember, man is God’s vice-regent. We looked at that last week. Under God, man is like a king under God. He is not the great king, God, but he is under God to represent God and to be fruitful and multiply and do royal activity of subduing the earth and ruling over creation. And as man works for six days and rests on the seventh, every week, he is learning that all of his cultural activity, all of his royal work that he is doing is to be devoted to God, that it is aiming towards an end.

It has a purpose. He is not just going to be working forever. He is looking forward to the fulfillment of God’s glorious kingdom. He is looking forward to the day when all creation is complete, when the cosmic temple is filled with image bearers, and now is brought into God’s eternal Sabbath rest.

Man is to observe a weekly Sabbath as an act of obedience, showing that all of his cultural work has a purpose, has a telos, has an end, has an eschatological goal, And if Adam had not sinned, and if he had done what God had commanded, if he had fulfilled that cultural mandate, then that would have happened and there would have been this glorious eschatology even at creation. It is an amazing thought to think about. What if Adam had never sinned? What if the purpose that God had set up creation with in the beginning had worked out according to that plan of man doing this cultural work and bringing about the consummation of the cosmic temple as all of creation is ushered into God’s eschatological Sabbath rest forever?

It is quite a thought. And it may seem a little speculative, but it is very helpful to think that because now we can see that this is exactly what Christ has done. Even though Adam disobeyed and even though Adam failed miserably to keep that covenant and to observe that covenant sign, even though he broke the covenant, Yet God has, even before Adam’s sin, God had a plan of salvation. He had a plan that he would send his only son to become a man, and that as the second Adam, he would fulfill what Adam failed to do. Adam failed, and we also fail, do we not? We fail so often.

We live in this world as if this world belongs to us. And we do not really think about the fact that God created this world for His glory. That God created this world with an eschatological end in view. And all that we do is supposed to contribute to that. And instead, we focus on ourselves. We misuse this creation. We use it for our own pleasure. We do it in almost like a blasphemous way. Denying that God is the creator. We use this created world as if it is ours, as if we can do with it as we please without realizing that God made this world for his glory. But Christ has done what Adam and what we have failed to do.

The Sabbath Rest of Christ

Christ has done the work. He is the one that perfectly kept God’s law. He is the one that is fulfilling the cultural mandate by his death and resurrection. He is the one that has entered into that Sabbath rest already. When Christ rose again from the dead and was ascended into heaven and exalted at the right hand of God, that was the moment when The Sabbath rest was completed and consummated. Christ has entered into that Sabbath rest already, and we enter into it by faith.

The author of Hebrews picks up on this in Hebrews chapter four. In Hebrews chapter four he says, for we who have believed enter that rest. It is not we who have worked who enter that rest like Adam was supposed to do. It is we who have believed who enter that rest because Christ is the one that did the work and we simply rest in it because Christ has achieved it for us. He goes on to say in Hebrews chapter four, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest, quoting from Psalm 95 verse 11, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.

For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works. That was our text there. That is Genesis two, verse two. And again, in this passage, he said, they shall not enter my rest. That is Psalm 95 11. So the author of Hebrews is combining Psalm 95 11 with Genesis 2 2, just like I did earlier in the sermon. And he is saying it is the same rest. The rest of God on the seventh day is the same rest that he was talking about with Israel when he said, Because of their disobedience and unbelief, they shall not enter my rest.

Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, meaning Israel, Again, he appoints a certain day, today, saying through David, so long afterward, in the words already quoted, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

The Christian Sabbath as a Foretaste of Rest

When we talk about this topic of the Sabbath and the biblical theology of the Sabbath, not only given to Adam at creation, but also repeated with Israel at Mount Sinai, and then now fulfilled for us in the new covenant in the first day of the week when we gather together as God’s people on the first day of the week for worship. When we talk about this doctrine of the Sabbath, we are always tempted we are very tempted to skip over Christ and to just go directly from, okay, there it says in Genesis 2 that God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, picked it up in the fourth commandment, it says that we should keep the Sabbath, and so we need to keep the Sabbath today. But we have to recognize that there is this intermediate step, is that Christ is the one who has perfectly done the work and entered into the Sabbath for us. And so this explains why in the New Covenant as Christians, first of all, while we do not rest on the seventh day, we rest on the first day because that is the day Christ rose again from the dead and entered into that rest.

And secondly, it explains why we do not have that same rigor that we saw in the Old Covenant. In the Old Covenant, whoever breaks the Sabbath shall be put to death. I do not think we do that today, do we? Do we like go around and check up on people and say, ah, I saw you watching a football game. We are going to take you out and stone you.

No, no. The New Covenant Sabbath is a day of rest on the first day of the week and it does not carry that same threat of capital punishment because Christ makes all the difference. That is why Jesus said that he is the Lord of the Sabbath. He has authority to determine how the new covenant people of God are to keep the Sabbath. Jesus said he is the Lord of the Sabbath in order to show that he has the authority to change the day from the seventh day to the first day by his resurrection, but also to show us that we go about our callings to the glory of God not in order to enter into that rest, not in order to achieve that rest by our own works, but rather to rest in the achievement of Christ himself and to express our thankfulness for the rest that Christ has earned for us by his grace. When we think about the new covenant Sabbath, that is the Lord’s day, We should rejoice in this glorious opportunity that the Lord has given us to have a foretaste of that eternal rest that has been won for us by Christ.

In the… In the church, as we talk about the questions, and this becomes a big discussion for many Christians, is wanting to know exactly what we can and cannot do on the Lord’s Day. And we start to devolve into all of these very negative questions about, well, you cannot do this, or you cannot do that. The focus of the Lord’s Day should not be on that fearful old covenant Sabbath of trying to avoid being put to death.

Rather, the focus of the Christian Sabbath should be a delight. It is a festive day of rest in which we rejoice in Christ. What a privilege we have to gather together as God’s people. And in the Reformed tradition, twice on Sunday, in the morning and the evening, to gather together as God’s people in order to enjoy, through corporate worship, a foretaste of the heavenly rest that Christ has won for us. Instead of focusing on what we cannot do on the Sabbath day, let us flip it around and rejoice in what we get to do. What a glorious thing we get to have this opportunity to gather as God’s people, as the redeemed of the Lord, as the author of Hebrews says, let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, but let us stir one another up to love and to good works, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. He is looking ahead already to the second coming of Christ. Every Sabbath, every Lord’s Day, is a little reminder of the second coming of Christ, a little foretaste of the second coming of Christ, and it is right around the corner.

Yes, it may be in actual, factual terms, it may be many, many years away, but in terms of the spiritual reality of it, it is already a reality in our hearts, and we get to enjoy that presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper as well. It is interesting, is it not, that you have for both in Hebrews 10, when it says, all the more as you see the day drawing near, and also in the words of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, when Paul gives us that teaching about what Jesus said, when he said that on the night in which he was betrayed, he took bread and he gave thanks and so on. And Paul says we should eat this bread and drink this cup until the Lord comes. And we should do it with a confession of faith in our hope in the coming of Christ. There is this eschatological expectation that suffuses the day.

The Christian Sabbath and the participation in the Lord’s Supper, which we will do in a moment, is an eschatological reality where that future hope, which was what God created the world from the very beginning to have in mind, that future hope has already been achieved through the resurrection and ascension of Christ. And when we gather together every Lord’s Day, we are already, anticipating that, we are already experiencing that reality of the new creation that has dawned in the resurrection of Christ. How wonderful it is that God has given us the means of grace and he has given us the Lord’s Day to be an opportunity to rejoice in that, to feed upon it, to taste and see that the Lord is good, to enjoy that Sabbath rest. And so why would we want to ruin the day by spending the whole time watching football. Why would we want to ruin that glorious blessedness that God has given us on the Lord’s Day by simply pursuing our own desires and going shopping and only being worried about ourselves in this life? Let us lift up our eyes to the heavenly reality that Christ has already achieved for us.

This doctrine of the Sabbath not only helps us to understand the beauty of what the Lord’s Day is all about and how we should delight in it and rejoice in it and be faithful in attending worship and participating in and receiving the means of grace, but another thing too is that it helps us to give us a different focus for our understanding of what is sanctification in the Christian life.

What is sanctification? Sanctification is the work of God’s Spirit in us. We are already justified, we are already guaranteed heaven because of the work of Christ, but because we have the Spirit in us, he is progressively transforming us into the image of Christ, and he is working in us and helping us to more and more put to death our sinful deeds and desires, and more and more to live in a way that pleases the Lord. Learning how to dedicate all of our callings, all that we do Monday through Saturday, to God’s glory, whether we eat or drink, all of our activities, all of our cultural work, doing it with a desire to glorify the Lord and to be a witness to our neighbor. That is what sanctification is. But it is very easy It is very easy to fall into this idea that we are doing all of that, that we are asking the Lord to help us with all of that, to more and more put to death our sins and more and more honor the Lord with our callings and all that we do throughout the week.

It is easy to do all that with a old covenant, covenant of works mentality, that you are doing all this work in order to achieve the end, in order to achieve heaven, in order to achieve the Sabbath rest. And indeed, that was the case for Adam before the fall. He was under a covenant of works. And that is why he had to work for six days and then rest on the seventh day, because he was to work in order to enter into God’s rest.

But that is not the way it is for us in the new covenant. As those who are believers in the Lord, we do not pursue our callings, we do not pursue more and more putting to death our sinful deeds and desires in order to enter God’s rest. It is actually just the opposite. We pursue all those things because Christ has already achieved that rest for us. And then we go about our callings. Then we go about pursuing purity and sanctification in our lives in order to be thankful, in order to rest in and receive the fullness of what Christ has already achieved for us. We do not work in order to rest the way Adam was supposed to do. Rather, we rest. In order to work. We have already been given that rest by Christ.

That is what Jesus said, did he not? He said, come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden. What was he referring to when he said those who are laboring and heavy laden? Those who are bowed down with these loads on their backs. He is referring to the fact that the people of God at that time were under this intolerable yoke of bondage because the Pharisees were keeping up all these rules upon them. They had to do this, they had to do that, and follow all these traditions of the elders. And they had to keep God’s commandments and all the man-made commandments on top of that. And they had to do all this. In order to achieve God’s rest.

Jesus says, the Pharisees and the scribes, they bind big burdens upon your backs, although they themselves will not even lift a finger to do it themselves, they are hypocrites. But they put all these big burdens upon the people of God and say, you gotta do this and you gotta do that in order to be right with God. And Jesus says, no, it is the opposite. He says, come unto me, all you who are weighed down and burdened down with all these man-made laws. Come unto me. And I will give you rest because I am the one who has done the work for you.

It is a completely different mindset, is it not? As we approach the Christian life and as we strive to be obedient and strive to serve the Lord in our families and in our callings and all that God has called us to do, now it is from a different mindset. It is not a mindset of trying to earn salvation, of earning that Sabbath rest, it is just the opposite.

It is as the author of Hebrews says, we who believe, enter God’s rest. We receive the rest because Christ has already achieved it for us. As he said in his high priestly prayer just before he went to the cross, “Father, I have accomplished the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me together with you in your presence with the glory that I had with you before the foundation of the world.” That is the shift in our thinking now. Sanctification is the result of what Christ has done for us. It is the consequence of having achieved that rest already in Christ. Thank the Lord for His grace. Grace to us in Christ. Thank God that we have a second Adam who has done what the first Adam miserably failed to do. Thank the Lord that we have someone who did the work. He is carried the burdens and he has brought us all the way into the promised land already. And so we can rest in that. And as we rest in that, as we rejoice in that, we are then called to live for him in a way that pleases him.