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The sixth day marked the completion of the creation. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.62 The abundance is marked by the use of the word 'host'. It is a term used of the myriads of stars and the innumerable company of angels. It points to the inconceivable multitudes of creatures, in this case of many different kinds. We may ask, in what sense can it be said that on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made ...63? Obviously not in the sense of finishing it off for the work of creation ended on the sixth day, emphatically marked off from days one to five by the addition of the definite article. The completion on the seventh day thus consisted of the cessation evident in the fact that no further works of creation were performed. Thus God rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.64 The Hebrew verb shabath, 'to rest' or 'to cease'65 is closely related in form to the noun 'seventh' so that the mention of the latter would immediately convey the idea of resting from labour. On each returning seventh day it must necessarily come to mind that on the seventh day of the first week God produced nothing new but set a pattern for man's working for six days and resting for one day. This was confirmed by the fact that God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.66 As God had blessed the birds of the air, the creatures of the sea and the male and the female so he blessed the seventh day that it might be a source of peace and joy to his entire creation just as it was to him a day of delighted contemplation of his works as he was refreshed in beholding their perfection and excellence before him. It was specially because the day was set apart by God that it could furnish such refreshing and joy to mankind. Just as with fowls and fishes, and men and women, the divine blessing carried with it the energy necessary in order to the accomplishment of the end in view, so with the instituted day of rest, God endowed it with an uncommon power to accomplish the end for which it was designed. This was to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness and to experience sweet and refreshing fellowship with him. Just as in the experience of mankind the procreation of children and productive dominion depend upon the divine blessing, so the experience of true, abundant and lasting life flourishes where men call the Sabbath a delight. Only where the day is kept holy to the Lord can there be the enhancement of that intimacy of communion with him, which involves the restoration of the fellowship of paradise. By God's own action the day is marked by rest, holiness, delight and prospect. It is from the beginning and is designed to continue to the end when creation will pass into the eternal Sabbath. The keeping of the day holy to the Lord is of universal and perpetual obligation as the inclusion of this requirement in the Ten Commandments shows. Sabbath observance is no less a duty than the love which excludes murder and the purity that excludes adultery. Written on the tables of stone by the finger of God were the words: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.67 From this commandment we learn: (a) The proper name for the day is Shabbath, from which we get "Sabbath". (b) The Sabbath is to be remembered as a holy day to the Lord. (c) It is to be remembered by cessation from work. (d) It is to be remembered by allowing others to cease from work. (e) It is to be kept with conscious recollection that we follow our Maker's example. (f) The day that God blessed in blessing the seventh day was the Sabbath day. (g) It is the day in which to anticipate the divine blessing. By God's blessing the Sabbath day allowance was made for the intended change of day from the seventh day to the first day of the week when Christ should have risen from the dead and the day have become "the Lord's Day".68 For, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, the seventh day of the week; and from the resurrection of Christ to the end of time, the first day of the week is appointed to be the day in which we anticipate God's blessing because he has sanctified it to the end that by rest from labour and devotion to his worship men may experience that eternal life which flows from God to believers as beams of the sun upon the earth.
Notes and References
62. Genesis 2.1
63. Genesis 2.2a
64. Genesis 2.2b
65. Genesis 8.22
66. Genesis 2.3
67. Exodus 20.8-11
68. Revelation 1.10