Genesis 2:3 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Genesis 2:3

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The sabbath principle, the day of rest: it is made a blessed day. He blessed it, he sanctified it, which means he set it apart and declared it to be holy. It’s a day of favour, a day of privileges; it’s clearly a commemoration of creation. On the seventh day there is inaugurated a special day. God did not do this for his benefit. God doesn’t dwell in time as we do. He would not for his own sake declare a day in time, a day of the week from that time on to be special and blessed and sanctified. It is, of course, for man’s benefit that this was done, and so we have the creation ordinance of a day of rest. Here then is the seventh day, a time for worship. If Adam and Eve had continued in bliss and in life in the Garden, there would have been a sabbath rest every seventh day. In the event they fell, but that creation ordinance stands, and we may well assume that those first generations kept the sabbath rest, the memorial of God’s great work in creation. That’s an ordinance that was established then: the best of days to enjoy, a day for God, a day for reflection. Of course, it was made law from the time of Moses, the fourth commandment, and it was linked to this Creation ordinance. ‘Remember the sabbath day’, as though to say it’s always been in force. It always was an obligation from the very beginning for man to reflect and to have this day set aside for God. And so it is today. In the time of the New Testament the apostles, no doubt by direct inspiration, began instead from the very beginning to meet on the first day of the week, the day of resurrection. And the day, plainly by divine authority, was changed from the seventh to the first, but the sabbath principle remains, and so we believe in the sabbath rest. A pastor came to see me once and we were talking about different things, and suddenly he said to me, almost proudly, almost defiantly, ‘I am not a Sabbatarian’. He rejected the notion of the fourth commandment and the principle of the fourth commandment applying for today. What a tragedy! What a great shame! There are churches where it isn’t taught, where it is ignored, where people take in entertainment and all kinds of things on the Lord’s Day, but here is the creation ordinance, beginning in verse 3. The fourth commandment like all the commandments forming the moral law is abiding. There is to be a rest from our normal activity and time given to worship and the Lord’s service. Certainly the sabbath rest is a figure of the rest to be enjoyed eternally by God’s people in Christ, but while time continues, the six-day pattern of worship and the setting aside of this day as special should be honoured. At the time of Moses it picked up a significance which went beyond creation. Creation is a massive and a wonderful thing to commemorate week by week, but the redemption of the people and their deliverance from Egypt also became a great part of the theme, and so in the New Testament we commemorate the day of resurrection, and when you speak of resurrection you speak inevitably also of Calvary and atonement, and so those great themes came in in the New Testament, and that’s the Lord’s Day that we have to this day.Furthermore, he sanctified it, which means he set it aside for sacred purposes. It became special for God and for holiness. He blessed, he gave an example of resting from his labour and he gave it as a special gift and set it aside for worship and for spiritual purposes ‘because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.’

Application

It is a day of resting from all your ordinary work. But it's more than that, he blessed it. He endowed the seventh day with something for man. As the Scriptures unfold we see it is a day not only of rest, but a day for worship and study of the Lord and praise and thanksgiving to him. This is a blessing to man. What a tremendous gift it is to man, every seventh day to reflect on creation and upon God and to seek fellowship with him, and to call upon his name and to study him. Man is made a worshiping being and has this special opportunity for communion with God: to seek him and know him and enjoy him in company with others of the same mind. God blessed the Sabbath day. The Hebrew indicates he gave it as a gift and a blessing. Without a view of God and a day of worship, man is so much the poorer.

Questions

There are some true believers at the present time who say, ‘No, no. God only gave a day of rest, and it didn't pick up religious significance really until the law of Moses, and then the commandments came in and the Sabbath commandments as one of them. That was strictly to do with the Old Testament and the law of Moses, and it doesn't apply in the New Testament. So this was not a creation ordinance. There are no commands before Moses of this kind. There were no commandments; there is no law. So the religious significance of the day of rest did not come in until Moses. But here it is: ‘God blessed’, gave as a benefit to man. You could just about see that as only the principle of a day of rest once a week, but then ‘and sanctified it.’ You can't get away from that. It's a day set aside and dedicated for holy purposes, for holy use. ‘Because that in it, he had rested from all his work, which God created and made.’

The main proof text which friends give for saying the Sabbath had no spiritual or religious significance until the law of Moses, is in Colossians 2:16, where in the course of a long exhortation to people about not following Jewish customs, the apostle Paul, speaking about festivals and special days, says in effect, don't let anyone bully you into keeping Jewish festivals, special days and Sabbaths. ‘There it is,’ they say, ‘the Sabbath has no religious significance outside the Jewish era.’ But it's quite clear that that passage is not saying what they claim it says. It's speaking only about the extra restrictions that were attached to the Sabbath by the law of Moses, and the high Sabbaths attached to new moons and special feasts. It's not talking about the ordinary Sabbath day of worship of the Jews at all which was included in the Ten Commandments. It's speaking about the extra festivities that were brought in and special days and festivals for the Jewish era, which have passed away.

In Genesis 26:4-5 God speaking to Isaac commends Abraham because he ‘kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.’ There were laws kept by Abraham, long before the law of Moses and the Jewish covenant came in. Abraham, because he was a saved man, kept God's laws, and God rewarded him on that account. When we go back to Genesis 1 and 2, we notice what some of these laws were, which would stand for all times, and the Sabbath ordinance, the observance of one day out of seven for the Lord, would be one of them. Now, we don't keep today the Jewish Sabbath, because right at the beginning of the gospel, the apostles plainly changed the day from the sixth day of the week to the first day of the week, the day of resurrection of Christ.

The Sabbath was being kept by the godly all down the years. In Exodus 16:22-30 it is recorded that the people failed to keep the Sabbath as instructed, for they went out on the Sabbath to gather the manna when God had made a special provision and told them not to gather on that day (Exodus 16:5). This is before the law was given in Exodus 20. The Ten Commandments did not introduce the Sabbath for the first time, but the words are, ‘Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.’ This is something which we have been exhorting you to practice. This is something which has been passed down to us across the ages, and it's still alive. The Sabbath was to be kept as it had always been kept, as a holy day, as a day of rest and as a day for the worship of God. That rest was not for the relaxation of the people, but for the recognition that God rested on that day and he forbade work on that day. The arrangements for the collection of manna were worked out accordingly. What is this talk about the Sabbath? Plainly, it's still being observed after all these generations, before it's announced in the law. What is more, the passage refers to God's commandments.

At the time of the emancipation of the children of Israel from Egypt, now that they were under the law, there was a new significance attached to the Sabbath. It was not only the day to remember creation, the day to meet with God and reflect and worship and pray. It was also a day to remember and to give thanks for their redemption, their deliverance from Egypt. Then of course with the resurrection of Christ and the moving of the Sabbath to the first day of the week by the apostles, it picked up the ultimate purpose to praise Christ for his redemption and for Calvary and his resurrection, and it became the day of resurrection.

Outline

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Introduction

Genesis 2:3 Commentary and Bible Study