“and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.”
Genesis 2:2b
In Part 1, we looked at the purpose of the Sabbath and saw how the Sabbath was not just a day for physical and mental rest; those were the benefits of keeping the Sabbath, but the purpose was to be a sign that we are God’s people and that He, the Creator and Savior, is our God. This purpose of the Sabbath, is why God’s followers are still to remember God’s holy day.
In this article, we will look more closely at creation when God instituted the Sabbath.
Established at Creation
Besides the purpose of the Sabbath, another obvious evidence of the continual obligation to honor the Seventh-day Sabbath is the preservation of the seven-day week cycle. Like the Sabbath, the observance of a seven-day week has been carried on through the ages. I have found no explanation for a seven-day week outside of the Bible. Science attributes the year to the revolution of the sun, the month to the cycles of the moon, and the day to Earth’s rotation; yet the week has no scientific significance. The days of the week cannot even be divided into the number of days in a month or a year. The Bible says that God Himself measured off the first week, and, like every week since, it has continued to consist of seven literal days (Genesis 1). “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth” (Psalm 33:6). “For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast” (Psalm 33:9).
The seven-day week, along with the rest of God’s creation, has been preserved throughout time.
“You alone are the LORD; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them, and You preserve them all.” (Nehemiah 9:6)
God counted each day in that first week, but He did not name each day; He called day one the “first day” (Genesis 1). Likewise, days 2 through 6 were assigned ordinal numbers. It was only the seventh day that God named—calling it the Sabbath. Indeed, nowhere in the Bible do we find a record of any other day of the week being named. Even in the New Testament, after Christ’s death, the Bible still only calls the first day of the week, “the first day” (Acts 20:7).
It wasn’t until thousands of years after creation that man, not God, called the first day “Sunday” in honor of the sun god. The fact that God named only one day, calling it “Sabbath,” which means “rest,” and that God never changed the name, nor ever subsequently gave any other day a name, shows that God intended the seventh-day Sabbath to remain the “rest” day.
We also see, at creation, that God performed four unique acts on the seventh day that He did not do on days one through six. God 1) rested on the seventh day; 2) blessed the seventh day; 3) sanctified the seventh day; and 4) refreshed Himself on the seventh day (Genesis 2:2-3; Exodus 31:17).
The seventh day was the rest day of the Lord. He did not simply cease His work after six days, but He Himself rested on the seventh day. He rested not because He needed to, but, as we saw in the first article, to create a memorial and example for mankind.
God also placed a blessing on the seventh day. He did not bless any other day, nor is there any evidence in Scripture that He later placed His blessing on any other weekly day. Furthermore, there is no Scripture that says God removed His blessing from the seventh-day Sabbath.
God didn’t stop with blessing the day, but he also sanctified it, i.e., made it holy. To sanctify means to set apart for a holy purpose (See Leviticus 8:30). So now it is the blessed holy day. Like with the blessing, there is no other day in Scripture that God made holy, nor is there any evidence that He made another day holy. The scripture also provides no evidence that God removed the “sanctification” or “holiness” from the seventh day.
Lastly, God was refreshed on the seventh day. In other words, God delighted in the Sabbath. It was a pleasure for Him to spend this day with His people.
God took four unique acts on the seventh-day Sabbath that He did not take on any other day of the week, at creation or at any point thereafter. He never rested on Sunday, blessed Sunday, made Sunday holy, nor was refreshed on Sunday. Nor did He do any such things on any other day of the week. So, as far as Scripture is concerned, the seventh day remains the blessed, holy rest day of the Lord.
Additionally, as shown in my prior article, the Bible uses the definite article—“the”—showing that God picked a specific day. It doesn’t say God rested on “a” day, or made “a” day holy, but it specifically says He made “the” seventh day blessed and holy.
It is also important to understand “when” God blessed the Sabbath day and made it Holy. The Bible says, “Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made” (Genesis 2:3).
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
Call to Action
As we can see, just from the story of creation, that “the Sabbath was made for man” (Mark 2:27), and continues to be God’s blessed and holy rest day.
Will you receive this weekly blessing and keep His day holy?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
