Tuesday, March 29
Read Genesis 2:2, 3 and Exodus 20:8-11. Why is the seventh-day Sabbath related to Creation? How does this connection impact how we keep the Sabbath?
It is precisely because “God ended” His works of Creation that He instituted the Sabbath. The seventh-day Sabbath is, therefore, the expression of our faith that God finished His work then, and that He found it “very good.” To keep the Sabbath is to join with God in the recognition of the value and beauty of His creation.
We can rest from our works just as God had rested from His. Sabbath keeping means saying yes to God’s “very good” Creation, which includes our physical bodies. Contrary to some ancient (and modern) beliefs, nothing in Scripture, Old or New Testament, denigrates the body as evil. That’s a pagan concept, not a biblical one. Instead, Sabbath keepers are grateful for God’s creation — which includes their own flesh — and that is why they can enjoy the Creation and why they take care of it.
The Sabbath, which marks the first “end” of human history, is also a sign of hope for suffering humankind and for the groaning of the world. It is interesting that the phrase “finished the work” reappears at the end of the construction of the sanctuary (Exodus 40:33), and again at the end of the building of Solomon’s temple (1 Kings 7:40, 51) — both places where the lesson of the gospel and salvation had been taught.
After the Fall, the Sabbath, at the end of the week, points to the miracle of salvation, which will take place only through the miracle of a new creation (Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21:1). The Sabbath is a sign at the end of our human week that the suffering and trials of this world will have an end, as well.
This is why Jesus chose the Sabbath as the most appropriate day to heal the sick (Luke 13:13-16). Contrary to whatever traditions the leaders were stuck in, by the Sabbath healings Jesus pointed the people, and us, to the time when all pain, all suffering, all death, will be over, which is the ultimate conclusion to the salvation process. Hence, each Sabbath points us to the hope of redemption.
How by resting on the Sabbath day are we experiencing the rest and salvation that we have in Jesus now and that will be fulfilled, ultimately, in the creation of the new heaven and new earth?
Wednesday, March 30
The creation of humans is God’s last act of Creation, at least in the Genesis account. Humans are the culmination of the whole earthly creation, the purpose for which the earth was made.
Read Genesis 1:26-29 and Genesis 2:7. What is the connection between these two different versions in regard to the creation of humanity?
That God has created humans in His image is one of the boldest statements of the Bible. Only humans have been created in the image of God. Though “God made the beast of the earth after his kind” (Genesis 1:25), “God created man in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). This formula has often been limited to the spiritual nature of humans, which is interpreted to mean that the “image of God” is understood to signify only the administrative function of representing God, or the spiritual function of relationship with God or with each other.
While these understandings are correct, they fail to include the important physical reality of this creation. Both dimensions are, indeed, included in the two words “image” and “likeness” describing this process in Genesis 1:26. While the Hebrew word tselem, “image,” refers to the concrete shape of the physical body, the word demut, “likeness,” refers to abstract qualities that are comparable to the divine Person.
Therefore, the Hebrew notion of the “image of God” should be understood in the wholistic sense of the biblical view of the human nature. The biblical text affirms that human individuals (men and women) have been created in God’s image physically, as well as spiritually. As Ellen G. White clearly comments: “When Adam came from the Creator’s hand, he bore, in his physical, mental, and spiritual nature, a likeness to his Maker.” — Education, p. 15.
In fact, this wholistic understanding of the image of God, including the physical body, is reaffirmed in the other Creation account, which says that “man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7), literally, “a living soul” (nefesh), as the result of two divine operations: God “formed” and God “breathed.” Note that the “breath” often refers to the spiritual dimension, but it is also closely tied to the biological capacity of breathing, the part of the man that was “formed … of the dust of the ground.” It is the “breath of life”; that is, breath (spiritual) and life (physical).
God will later perform a third operation, this time to create the woman from the body of the man (Genesis 2:21, 22), a way to emphasize that she is of the same nature as the man.
