2.4

The Sabbath in Genesis

God’s works are spontaneous responses to His words. When God spoke creation into being, no discernible pause or process separated His words from their expression. On each new day, God originated new forms and life in history that confirmed and were confirmed by the cyclical order He established. On the day God rested, He spoke no word to create any thing. On this seventh and last day, God rested because “God completed His work which He had done” (2:2). The Sabbath is God’s response to completing His works. We can almost say that as all creation is in response to God speaking, so is His rest in response to completing His works

The words of God can be compared to human promises. Our words convey an implicit assurance that we mean what we say or will do what we say at some point in time (Deuteronomy 23:23). The words we choose to speak are natured to commit us to them. Whether or not we keep our word or even remember that we spoke it, we are accountable to it because it came from us. As soon as they leave our mouth, our words are identified by and to us. There is a commitment between our words and us. In this sense, what we speak is a promise and whether or not we keep our promises depends on our integrity, willingness and ability to keep our words. God’s words are promises that He always fulfills because His words, His will and His abilities agree and come together as one. No separation exists among the various aspects of His being. There is no gap or inconsistency between what He says and does. Creation fully expresses the words God spoke, in the beginning and now. God’s rest completes His works, in the beginning and now. It is specifically God’s completed work that is associated with His rest, distinct and far greater than the sum of His works. God’s greatest glory in HIs works is in their completion, in His rest. Life in God’s rest is not defined by the strivings in time under the sun but by a vital nurturing in His time of rest, in His promises fulfilled in His Sabbath

God established time in creation that is measured and defined by its linear and cyclical movements. Beyond creation is the time of God’s rest. There are no means by which God’s Sabbath time can be measured because it continues uninterrupted and without end. God does not need to ever stop resting to finish creating some thing He left undone. Neither can it’s ways and patterns be explained or perceived by our mind or senses because God’s Sabbath is holy, set apart from all He created and from the knowledge He has given us to apprehend this world. At the foundation of all things where His rest abides, all that God has created is complete since He completed creation, and continues to be complete. His work is settled since He rested from it. No further work can disturb His rest. God’s rest endures without measure, beyond all reach

Although we can’t control or change created time, we can at least measure its passing and apprehend something of its nature by its effects in and around us. But who can measure or know time of the Sabbath? It is beyond the capacity of our known system to contain. It is different from the cosmos in unknown ways. If God does not speak the Sabbath into His creation, we can never hope to fathom what such an indefinable, inaccessible holy time means to us — unless God somehow speaks it into His creation