Episode Details

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we give thanks to you for this day. We praise you. We ask, O Lord, that your kingdom may come and that your will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. And Lord, as we read your word now, may that be realized. May your will be realized in our lives. Please unite our hearts to fear your name. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Reading

Gen 2:1-3.

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2. And 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. 3. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”

Meditation

What is it that you look forward to the most? We’re almost always looking forward to something, whether it be a graduation, a visit from our children, a stroll and coffee at the local cafe, or two hours of quiet reading in a comfortable chair (oh bliss!!). This is true on a personal level but, according to scripture, it’s also true on a cosmic level. Creation itself is looking forward to… something. We read about this in Romans 8:19:

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.”

This “end” of creation was anticipated right back at the start – on the seventh day. The Sabbath as a day of rest is all about completion. Many Christians today give little thought to the Sabbath. It’s thought of by most as a long bygone ordinance of the Old Testament. Many Christians would say it’s part of the Mosaic law and has no relevance to Christians today. Some might say that the Sabbath points forward to a spiritual reality of rest that we will have when Christ returns, and others still just wouldn’t think about it much at all.

But what is the Sabbath really all about? In these final few studies, we’re going to take some time to think about this question. As you read the account in Genesis, it’s very clear right from the start: there’s something different about the seventh day. The first six days have a morning/evening refrain, lacking on the seventh day. God himself declares the seventh day to be holy – that’s no small thing in itself! But what is going on with the Sabbath day?

In the big picture sense, what the Sabbath is really all about is the completion of creation. In Genesis 2:1-2 we read: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And 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.” A key aspect of the seventh day was that God finished the work of creation. The Sabbath thus marks the completion of creation, it is the completion of the creation. There is a certain logic that flows through the first six days revealing the purpose of the created order. On day six, it all culminated in the creation of mankind. Man, as Psalm 8 and Hebrews 2 show, would be the means God would use to shine the light of his glory and presence into the creation. Day seven is no anti-climax or tag-line in the creation narrative, it is rather the fulfillment. Day seven completes God’s creation.

It’s true in the immediate sense of the Genesis prologue – the Sabbath literally completed God’s creation. But it also points toward something bigger. As we open up and explore the scriptures, what we find is that the original sabbath foreshadows, symbolises, and anticipates the end and goal of creation as a whole. Let me try and show you what I m