Creation: Day 7

Genesis 2:1-3 “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”

Just Stop!

The Hebrew word for “rested” that we see in Genesis 2:2 is the word “shabath”. While it is translated here as “rest”, it literally means “to stop.” This is the word that is most often translated “Sabbath”. This is the word that has applied to every seventh day since the very beginning. Every seven-day work week has its pattern here, in the first two chapters of Genesis.

Every other measurement of time has some kind of outside factor.
Our years are governed by the earth’s revolution around the sun.
Our months are governed by the cycles of the moon.
Our days are governed by the rotation of the earth.
But the seven-day week has no external contributing factors. It doesn’t fit evenly into our months or years. There is simply no explanation for the seven-day week outside of the Bible!

As a comical side-note, the French Revolutionary government tried to change the week from seven days to ten. This change started in 1793 and only lasted for ten years. It was a disaster! The radical atheists revolutionaries recognized the Biblical nature of a seven-day week, and they tried to remove this from society. But it didn’t work; it couldn’t work. It seems that humanity has the seven-day week ingrained in our nature!

God didn’t take a day off here because He was tired. He didn’t need to rest...He did it to give us a pattern. In Exodus 20:8-11, we see that God took seven days to Create the world as a picture of how we are supposed to operate:
“Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.”

This is the way it’s supposed to be - six days on, one day off!

A Standing Appointment

But the Sabbath was not only intended to be a day off. God had much more in mind for this special day. This is obvious from His statement, “...the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.” When you read through the law (the first five books of the Bible), you will see that the Sabbath is always described as “holy.” Clearly God meant for it to be more than a day off. As a matter of fact, this was God’s standing appointment to gather His people together and meet with them.

Listen to what Leviticus 19:30 says, “Keep my Sabbath days of rest, and show reverence toward my sanctuary. I am the Lord.” Apparently, God wanted His people to be connected with His sanctuary - His place of meeting - on the Sabbath day. But this principle is stated even more clearly in Leviticus 23:3, “You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of complete rest, an official day for holy assembly. It is the Lord’s Sabbath day, and it must be observed wherever you live.”

Do you see it? God’s plan from the very beginning was always to gather His people to a place, and meet with them once a week. The Sabbath day is intricately linked together with a meeting place. Was there such a place at the very beginning? Do we read in the Bible about a place where God would come and meet with Adam and Eve?

It just so happens, there’s solid evidence from Scripture that God did just that - He would come and walk and talk with the first couple in the Garden.
Genesis 3:8 shows us that God had a custom of “walking in the Garden in the cool of the day.” Adam and Eve met with God in the garden - walking and talking together. What must these conversations have been like? This much we know...God did not have a single word to say about Adam’s past - it was all centered on the future God wanted for them!

We also know that these visits weren’t exclusive to the three of them. According to Jesus in Luke 10:18, Lucifer was a Heavenly angel. But according to Ezekiel 28:13, he was frequently in Eden. Apparently, there was a angelic entourage that followed the Creator to meet with His highest creations! We know from the rest of scripture (Genesis 28, Revelation 2-3) that angels continue to attend God’s meetings with His people.

Let’s be clear, God wants to visit us at any time and in any place. There’s no limit to His relationship with you - so don’t think I’m limiting God to one day a week. But there is a set time  - a standing appointment - when He wants His kids to gather together in His name. And from what we see in scripture, He wants this special time at least once a week.

A Completed Work

Once God placed His crowning creation, mankind, on the earth – He knew everything was perfect! So He pronounced His finished work of creation as “very good!” From this phrase in Genesis 1:31, we see that everything in creation, natural and spiritual, were in their ideal condition! This means two things:

There was no death, disease, or suffering.

No animal lived off of the bloodshed of others. No physical body on earth was riddled with disease. There was no suffering, no sadness, and no death.

This is why we see in Genesis 1:29-30 that every living creature on earth – including every dinosaur, every shark, and every other animal that we call a predator now – was originally a vegetarian. God gave them the plants for food. “and God said, ‘See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of the earth, and every tree. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food’; and it was so.”

You see, it wasn’t until after the fall that bloodshed became part of the world. Death entered the world through sin. This is what Romans 5:12 tells us: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned…” In 1 Corinthians 15:26 death is called an enemy. It’s an intruder into God’s perfect creation.

There were no fallen angels before day 6.

What do you think God’s definition of “good” is? Do you think He would call Satan - as he is now - good? Of course not! There is nothing good in that corrupted being! Ezekiel 28:15 says that it was iniquity that brought about the fall of Lucifer, along with his angelic cohorts. God certainly doesn’t think iniquity is “very good”! So when God saw that everything He made was very good - this must include even the angels!

Actually, Ezekiel 28 tells us that Lucifer was not a fallen angel during the creation week. Look at what verse 13 says: “You were in Eden, the garden of God…” When was Eden made? Day six! Lucifer was still in his perfect state in the Garden of Eden!

We Will See The World Like This Again!

Understand this: Every created thing was very good when God was done with it! This was a world free of sin, pain, sorrow, and death! What must it have been like? One day the world will be like this again...and we’ll know it first hand!

Revelation 21:1-4 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

One day, God will re-create the world. When He does, it will permanently be the way He intended it to be - with no more sorrow, sufferring or curse. One day - we will see the world as it was meant to be!