Gary North

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 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 (Gen. 2:2-3).

The Hebrew word translated here as "sanctified" refers to setting apart. God set apart the seventh day.

This passage is the first reference in the Bible to the sabbath. God rested on the seventh day. He completed all of his work on the sixth day. He had nothing more to do, and so He rested.

It seems strange to speak of God as resting. God is omnipotent. He spoke the universe into existence. To speak of God as needing a rest makes no sense. Yet the Scriptures are clear that God did rest. This means that He ceased from the labor of creation. It does not imply that he needed rest and recreation. It means that He was setting a pattern for man, who is made in His image. We find that God revealed to Moses in the Ten Commandments that man is to rest because God rested on the seventh day.

Before the Fall of man, there is no indication that Adam grew weary. It was not exhaustion that would have led Adam to rest. Man was not in need of recuperation. He was in need of limits. God established limits on the productivity of man. He established the precedent of one day of rest in every seven.

This precedent later became a law. It was not a law prior to the Fall of man. Adam was not told that he had to honor a day of rest just because God had honored a day of rest. That requirement was established under the Mosaic law, but it was not established in the garden of Eden. There was only one law governing Adam: he was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There is no suggestion anywhere in the text of the Bible that God told Adam that there was a second law which he was required to obey.

Nevertheless, it is a good idea to abide by a precedent set by the Creator. Adam would have been wise to acknowledge ritually that he was subordinate to God. God rested on the seventh day. Adam should have, too -- not as a matter of law but as a matter of honoring a superior. Adam did not feel a physical need to rest on the seventh day. He should have felt a sense of obligation to honor God's day of rest, because God was his creator.

MAN, THE OVERACHIEVER

God did not need rest physically. God did not need to rest at all. God wanted to protect mankind from overreaching. By His action of resting, God pointed to the necessity of a man's acknowledging his own limitations. The day of rest was to be honored by mankind as a means of testifying that man is not nearly so creative as God is. Man was not to strive for equal or greater creativity than God possessed, in a vain attempt to match or exceed the productivity of God.

An extra work day in the week was undoubtedly tempting to man as a way to achieve his goals. God wisely established an example of rest one day in seven. In doing so, He was reminding man symbolically that man is not God, and he should not strive to become God. He should not attempt to work constantly as a way of overtaking the productivity of his creator.

Before the Fall of man, there was no possibility that man could work himself to death. Death was the product of a specific form of rebellion. The curse of Adam's body and the curse of the ground (Gen. 3:17-19) were the result of Adam's sin, not the result of working an extra day. God had made a point: six days of labor are sufficient to achieve one's goals. To work an extra day is to attempt to overcome a fundamental limit that God placed on mankind.

Furthermore, to work on the seventh day is a rejection of a gift of God to man. God enabled man to be productive and to achieve his goals in history while resting one day per week. He did not call upon man to work seven days a week, and the proof of this grace to man was the fact that God Himself ceased laboring on the seventh day.

YOUR FINANCES

What has this got to do with your finances? It has to do with your knowledge that God has established cause and effect in history in such a way that every person can achieve his goals by working six days out of seven. By acknowledging that God Himself achieved His goals in six days, man is acknowledging that he is under God. He respects God, and he imitates God, because he acknowledges that he is completely subordinate to God. He acknowledges that everything he possesses has come as a result of God's grace to him.

Also, he does not work his way into favor with God. He does not need to work seven days a week in order to achieve the dominion assignment which God originally assigned to Adam and Eve. God is pleased with a man's work six days a week, and He graciously allows him to rest on the seventh day. God is not a severe taskmaster. He does not work his subordinates seven days a week. His subordinates should acknowledge the graciousness of God as the master of creation by refusing to work on the seventh day.

There is another factor to consider. When an individual does not work one day and seven, he forfeits the income that he could have generated. He is testifying by his actions -- or rather inactions -- that he is not concerned about this loss of income. He is not concerned that he will not achieve his goals in life just because he takes off one day and seven.

He is testifying that, with respect to the grace of God, he will receive all the wealth that is required of him by God by working six days a week instead of seven. He is acknowledging his complete dependence upon the grace of God for whatever he achieves in history. He is announcing, by his own actions, that he does not believe that he can achieve his goals in history by means of his own strength. He can do so only by the grace of God. This is grace: God grants him a day of rest in seven. It is a day in which he does not have to worry about his economic future. God will take care of him, and he testifies to this by refusing to work one day and seven.

This is important for everyone's finances. It is an acknowledgment that we must not work full time to achieve our goals as Christians. We have to work part time: six days out of seven. If we do this -- if we accept his gracious day of rest -- without worrying about our finances, we learn the self-discipline that is required to achieve our goals in history. Self-discipline does not involve work alone; self-discipline involves rest. This is confidence in the promises of God, the grace of God, and the strength of God in upholding us in our respective callings and occupations.