9.20.9 – God Rested

This morning, we’re going to cover days 5-7 of creation, but as we do that, I want to back up and consider something that was said earlier that has great import on what we’re looking at today:

Genesis 1:2
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (ESV)

Some translations say the spirit of God was brooding over the surface of the deep. This is actually a good word because it’s like a mother bird brooding over her nest. Not in anger, but in anxious anticipation. Anxious for what?

Remember something I already said: the Old Testament is primarily the story of one family and how God used that one family to bring salvation to the world. The Spirit of God is anxiously brooding because that family is about to come on the scene:

Genesis 1:20-2:2
God spoke: "Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life! Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!" God created the huge whales, all the swarm of life in the waters, And every kind and species of flying birds. God saw that it was good. God blessed them: "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean! Birds, reproduce on Earth!" It was evening, it was morning-- Day Five.
God spoke: "Earth, generate life! Every sort and kind: cattle and reptiles and wild animals--all kinds." And there it was: wild animals of every kind, Cattle of all kinds, every sort of reptile and bug. God saw that it was good. God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, And, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth." God created human beings; he created them godlike, Reflecting God's nature. He created them male and female. God blessed them: "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth." Then God said, "I've given you every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth And every kind of fruit-bearing tree, given them to you for food. To all animals and all birds, everything that moves and breathes, I give whatever grows out of the ground for food." And there it was. God looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good! It was evening, it was morning-- Day Six.
Heaven and Earth were finished, down to the last detail. By the seventh day God had finished his work. On the seventh day he rested from all his work. (The Message)

Why? Why do two atoms of hydrogen bond with one of oxygen to form water? Why does the universe work?

Doesn’t Order, anywhere, presuppose an Orderer? And even as we learn how the universe works, they “how” can tell us nothing about the why. Revelation does that.

Created

This is a big word. The Hebrew word that’s used 3 times in this chapter is bara. It’s important because while we think of this whole chapter as being about Creation, the word “creation” only appears three times.

Each time, it introduces not just creation, but something really new in the creation process. Vs 1: the creation of the universe; vss 20-23, the creation of blood-bearing life; v 24, the creation of humans. The three biggest moments in creation. Nothing to creation; unconscious life to conscious life; conscious life to self-conscious life.

As I mentioned last week, God is going to great pains to create methodically and with order, and even instructs us—through Moses—of that methodology and order. And the order is building up to the creation of man.

This bugs many people today because they find it arrogant for us to think of ourselves as being on top of the food and intelligence chains. How irrefutable the truth set forth in Scripture that all life is a Divine gift—the very Breath of the living and true God (Gen 2:7). But man is something special!

“Man was initiated by a solemn announcement rather than by a command. The lower animals were made each after their kind, but man was made after the image of God. Appointed as head of all other creation, man was the pearl, the crown of creation.” – Elliot

The doctrine pointedly emphasized in Scripture that the cosmos with its myriad forms of life was brought into existence for man’s use and benefit (Gen. 1:28-30; 9:1-3) is looked upon as absurd by many detractors (especially humanists), and the idea is egotism on man’s part. In one breath, they’ll tell us we’re just insignificant specks in the universe, then in the next tell us our knowledge has the potential to be infinite and we have a shot at omniscience.

We’re going to see in later chapters, though, that man wasn’t created to just be, but to shepherd the earth and it’s creatures. We were put at the top and we were given a charge.

Created for a Purpose or Just Created?

Throughout the rest of the Genesis cosmogony, the writer, while noting that there are divinely graded “kinds” of living beings, puts supreme emphasis on the moral and spiritual character of the cosmos, and its dependence upon its Creator (“God saw that it was good,” vv. 4,10,12,18,21,etc.) and especially upon the “towering significance of man” as a moral agent and the lord tenant of the whole Creation.

Even if man is ever able to create life in the lab chemically, it still begs the question, why do those ingredients, so gathered, produce life? Is there, then, an ultimate source to life beyond just the chemicals involved? (I say yes.)

Why were we created? Just for this life? Notice, when God created, even man, he pronounced us good. For anything to be “good”, it must be “good for something”. We were created to put on immortality? (2 Cor 5:1-10; 1 Cor 15:35-57; Phil 3:20-21; Rom 2:5-7, 8:11, 8:22-23)
Man is incommensurable with the rest of the universe. He is of a different kind and by his moral nature is more akin to God than to his works. – CC Crawford

We are something special!!!

And then there was “rest”

And then we’re told that God rested on the seventh day. Or, as some translations read, God finished his work on the 7th day. So does that mean he did some work that day? Did God stop doing benevolent work on the 7th day? Of course not. Should we still do benevolent works (even on a day of worship)? Absolutely!

Now, does God’s rest derive from joy of achievement rather than from the relief of fatigue? (Joy of achievement.) And, is there a 1-to-1 relationship between the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Lord’s Day or is it just an analogy?

When Adam named Eve Eve, we’re told it was because she was the mother of all living. Which she wasn’t at the time. But she would be. This is called “pro-lepsis”, when a writer from the present adds something to a text about the past showing how the text of the past applies to the present. Say I’m writing about George Washington as a boy and I refer to him as “George, the Father of Our Country.” As a boy, he wasn’t yet the Father of Our Country, but the boy would become the man who was. Pro-lepsis.

In the same way, we’re told that the 7th day was set aside from the beginning, even though the “Sabbath day” wouldn’t be made official for a couple thousand years. God chose the day and gave it a purpose right at the beginning, but didn’t establish that purpose with the people until later.
All this leads the Psalmist to ask, “What is man that you are mindful of him?” The nobility of the love is determined by the nobility of its object. It is a circle. We are made noble by the love of God. Our love is made noble by directing it at God.

What do I DO with this?

Do you know what your purpose is? Where have you looked to find out?

God has given you a manual (the Bible) he’s given you a guide (the Holy Spirit) and he’s given you a direct line to him (prayer). Use all three to discover your purpose.

He’s also given us each other. We are called to submit to one another and to encourage one another. Are you doing both?