Three Things God Did

​

What can we learn about God’s making the seventh day holy? Yes, He "made" the Sabbath, but the story is in how He did it. Notice the three things God did on the seventh day:

​

1.      He rested.

2.      He blessed it.

3.      He made it holy

​

The reason given for why he did actions number two and three (blessed it and made it holy) is action number one: "because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done."

​

The blessing and hallowing of the seventh day draws attention to it and imbues it with a holy purpose because of something special God did with the day. He rested not because He was tired, but to set an example that pointed man in the direction he wanted Him to go.

What is important in the account is what God did: He rested. The Bible is first a God-centered account of the Creator and His creation. What matters most is God—what He has done, has said, is doing. This is not an easy concept for self-centered man to receive. We have a man-centered worldview tattooed to our brains which keeps God out of our picture.

​

Religions feebly attempt to put God into man’s picture. A noble enterprise, but it misses the point: God is the picture. What He is like, what He says, what He does, and what He wants of us isn’t just important, it is all important.

 

Imago Dei & Imitatio Dei

​

Mankind is unique in all creation for Adam was made imago Dei, to echo the Latin of the Church Fathers, in the "image of God." We are separated from all living things by a divine mark upon our kind. Human beings are sacrosanct because of the divine mark we indelibly bear. In fact, the entire earthly creation was made for the expressed benefit of God’s image bearers who were to rule over it just as God rules over His responsibilities. Animals, void of the divine image stamp, can have no awareness of a "holy" thing. The divine image bearers, however, need to be very concerned about what is holy. The first holy thing is still in view.

​

Being made in imago Dei gives us insight into our ultimate purpose: to grow up into the full likeness of our Father/Creator. We are called to become a son or daughter of His Majesty, mirroring the divine character, and devoutly following his instructions and example. Jesus Christ was just such a son. Jesus, as the firstborn Son of God, the Second Adam, the perfected and exact image of the heavenly Father, is our example to follow in taking on the divine nature. Jesus was and is what humans were destined be from the start—in "The Image of God."

If we are made in the image of God, it follows that we should engage our lives in an imitatio Dei, "imitation of God." If we are made like God, it follows that we should act like God. To imitate Him in every way it is possible for a human to do. To let His character become our character; His love the pattern for our love; His justice how we meet out justice; His judgment how we judge, and so on. How do we then imitate the Creator’s act of making the first holy thing?

​

Jesus engaged in imitatio Dei.

​

"I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does." (John 5:19-20a)

​

Christ imitated God. What he "sees" his Father doing becomes his guide for what he does. This would include the Father’s personal example as well as the instructions and commandments given from the beginning. Did this include Christ’s observance of the Sabbath? Evidently. He was so faithful to his Father in this area of worship, so consistent in his Sabbath observance that the historian Luke records it as being habitual (Luke 4:16).

​

Jesus’ imitation of God was precise and total.

​

"For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say. " (John 12:49)

​

Not only did he follow God’s commands, he followed his intent, his spirit, his heart—the "how" in Jesus’ "how to say it" is just as important as the "what to say." Jesus said, "I always do what pleases him" (John 8:29b).

 

Mankind’s First Opportunity to Imitate God

​

Just as God separated Adam and Eve from the rest of creation by making them in imago Dei, He separated the seventh day from the other days of the week by a divine action. He rested. The verb "to rest" is sabat (Hebrew), meaning "to stop, cease." The noun form is sabbat from which we get our word "Sabbath." The seventh day came to be named by what Yahweh did on the first one—He stopped His work and rested in peace with His image bearers.

​

God is the divine Exemplar for humankind, and He manifested Himself in refraining from work and in resting. He rested from His work for the purpose of having peaceful fellowship with those He had just made in His image. He was celebrating His creation with His family. This is why He blessed this time and made it holy—the first holy thing.

​

Our human parents were alive now when God took this deliberate action. They saw it. By witnessing God resting, this now became mankind’s first opportunity to imitate Him. Having just been made in God’s image only hours before, man could now take his first step to imitate his Maker, to validate, as it were, His created design.

​

That first Sabbath, I believe, went very well. It was celebrated as all Sabbath’s should be celebrated—in joyful fellowship with God. Consider the picture: God and His son and daughter at peace, without sin, in a beautiful paradise. There was a lot to be happy about on the first holy day.

​

That first Sabbath, as biblical Canon develops, becomes the template for the Kingdom of God and the Plan of God: people and God in fellowship in a Paradise-like world, at rest without the slaveries and miseries of sin. We don’t know how long it took for Adam and Eve—and their newfound serpentine exemplar—to mess up the harmony, but it probably happened by the following Sabbath. The next picture we have of God is his arrival near sundown walking on his way to fellowship with his beloved children. This time the picture has changed. Sometime after the first Sabbath Adam and his wife ceased any imitation of God, set aside His example, and disobeyed His instructions. This Sabbath they didn’t want fellowship, they wanted to hide.

 

The First Holy Thing

​

Adam’s behavior didn’t alter mankind’s one purpose, one calling: To Imitate God. But it did illustrate the difference between God and man. God is a holy God. Holiness is defined by God. Holiness is the nature of God. For us to imitate God we must take on his holiness.

Peter, the Apostle of Christ, expresses it clearly:

​

"But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy." (1 Peter 2:15).

​

This is not a new concept as is evident from Peter’s quote from the Holiness Code in Leviticus. It has been God’s intent from the beginning.

Mankind must respond to his Creator, either in obedience or opposition. Human history since Eden is largely a sad chronicle of opposition to God’s example and instructions—including his example of resting on the seventh day. The holiness of God is shunned. The holy things of God ignored or even desecrated.

​

The first holy thing of God given to man was a special day—the seventh—made holy by God’s blessing and example. His holy presence permeated the day. His example and teaching would, if followed, lead His children to become holy as He is holy. Here we discover the purpose of the Sabbath: To fellowship with and worship our Creator and learn from His Word the path to becoming like Him. To do this we must cease/rest/pause from all other activities, important though they may be, for none can equal this divine appointment.

​

Yahweh is the One who gives the rhythm and step of the creation week. He is the one who designs time, inhabits eternity, and establishes the seventh day for a special purpose. He began what is now the ever-present rhythm of sunset, sunrise and of "six working days" followed by a "seventh (Sabbath) rest day." These were deliberate actions of the Creator to indicate the Sabbath’s universality—giving clear evidence that every human being who lives with sunsets and sunrises—Jew and Gentile—is to engage in imitatio Dei, "imitation of God," by resting as God did.

 

Moving Godward

​

Both man and the Sabbath were created by God at almost the same time. Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man (Mark 2:28) and we can see that by the very order; man was made first then, a few hours later, the Sabbath. The Creator enjoins the Sabbath upon all humanity in two ways: by his own example, and by His direct command through Moses. The former has by far the greater appeal and authority—especially for those engaged in an imitatio Dei.

​

The sixth day was man’s beginning. The seventh day was the beginning of God’s spiritual work of making man holy as He is holy. The beauty of the Sabbath is that by participating in God’s rest we can enjoy the divine gift of freedom from the labors of human existence and thus acknowledge God as our Creator. If we share His rest now, we can look forward to sharing His rest forever. The goodness and genius of God leads us in one direction: Godward (Romans 2:4).

​

The first holy thing, the Sabbath, is the Creator’s gift to move us Godward—toward becoming holy as He is holy.

Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)

​

Written by: Kenneth Westby