Monday, August 23
Creation may be “very good,” but it is not yet complete. Creation ends with God’s rest and a special blessing of the seventh day, the Sabbath. “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.” (Genesis 2:3).
The Sabbath is part and parcel of God’s creation. In fact, it is the culmination of Creation. God makes rest and creates a space for community where humanity (in those days the core family of Adam and Eve) could stop their day-to-day activities and rest side by side with their Creator.
Unfortunately, sin entered this world and changed everything. No more direct communion with God. Instead, painful births, hard work, fragile and dysfunctional relationships, and on and on — the litany of woe that we all know so well as life on this fallen world. And still, even amid all this, God’s Sabbath remains, an enduring symbol of our creation and also the hope and promise of our re-creation. If they needed the Sabbath rest before sin, how much more so after?
Many years later, when God frees His children from slavery in Egypt, He reminds them again of this special day.
Read Exodus 20:8-11. What does this teach us about the importance of the Sabbath as it relates to Creation?
With this command, God calls us to remember our origins. Contrary to what so many believe, we are not the chance products of cold, uncaring, and blind forces. On the contrary, we are beings who are created in the image of God. We were created to share fellowship with God. No matter that the Israelites had been treated like slaves with little worth. With each Sabbath, in a special way they were called to remember who they really were, beings made in the image of God Himself.
“And since the Sabbath is a memorial of the work of creation, it is a token of the love and power of Christ.” Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 281
Think about how important the doctrine of a six-day creation is. After all, what other teaching is so important that God commands that we devote one-seventh of our lives, every week, and without exception, to remembering it? What should this fact alone teach us about how crucial it is that we remember our true origins, as depicted in the book of Genesis?
