The Seventh Day
Genesis 2:1 – 3
There are some who have tried to calculate the exact date and day on which God began His creation. James Ussher, the 17th century Anglican Archbishop of Ireland, calculated that the Earth was created on Sunday, October 3, 4004 BC. James Ussher was a great scholar whose calculations were much more than wild guesses and speculation. It’s well worth reading about how he came to this date, and the careful scholarship he exercised to do so. While it is very hard to be certain about the exact date and day of the week, his determination of the year the world began is likely very accurate. What may surprise you is the fact that the calculations of a year by the ancients were quite accurate. Therefore we can, in fact, trust ancient writings with regard to dates, both in the Bible and elsewhere. Just as we use leap years, today, to keep our seasons from shifting, the ancients used similar systems to keep their years in line. In fact, Ussher pointed out that the ancient Hebrew and Egyptian years were the same length as our years. They did not use lunar cycles, as some claim, but followed the solar cycle, which kept their agricultural cycle in sync with their feasts. Their years were divided into 12 30-day months, to which they added 5 days at the end of the 12th month for three years, and 6 days in the fourth year. 12 times 30 plus 5 is – big surprise – 365 days!
But what about the seventh day? What day of our modern week corresponds to the original seventh day of the creation week?
Genesis 2:1 – 3
It is clear from our passage that God set apart the seventh day as special. What does that mean and how does that apply to us, as Christians?
I Creation was Complete
- Genesis chapter one is the record of the creation of everything. In the first six days of the physical world, God created everything. This included the Earth and the universe and all the physical laws. None of the physical laws existed before God created them. The Earth and the universe did not exist before God created them. Time and space did not exist before God created them.
- The heavens and the Earth and everything in them were finished in the six literal days of creation.
- We noted as we examined chapter one that God used the phrase, “and there was morning and evening,” describing the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and six days. This term is repeated six times! That means it is very, very significant. This is not vain repetition. This is not an accident, nor poetic form, nor anything else but what it really is: God wanted us to be certain that He was referring to six, literal, 24 hour days. He made it abundantly clear that he was not talking about six very vague periods of time that might each be millions or even billions of years in length.
- Even those who hold to the gap theory believe that the days described in Genesis 1 were literal, 24 hour days. They believe there was a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 by reading in some great cosmic battle between good and evil, but they do not try to make the days described after that into ages, because the description given for each day is too literally describing 24 hour days.
- Thus, the entire creation of all things was completed on the sixth day.
- We noted as we examined chapter one that God used the phrase, “and there was morning and evening,” describing the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and six days. This term is repeated six times! That means it is very, very significant. This is not vain repetition. This is not an accident, nor poetic form, nor anything else but what it really is: God wanted us to be certain that He was referring to six, literal, 24 hour days. He made it abundantly clear that he was not talking about six very vague periods of time that might each be millions or even billions of years in length.
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II The Seventh Day
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God ended His work on the seventh day.
- This does not mean that God was still working on the seventh day. This is what is called a Hebraism. It is a Hebrew manner of speaking, meaning not to do any part of the work on that day. God finished all his work of creation in six days and did no part of it on the seventh day. His work was ended, or complete, on the seventh day.
- It is extremely important to note at this point that we do not know what day this corresponds to in our modern calendar! We begin our week on Sunday and end on Saturday, thanks to Julius Caesar, who brought in the Julian calendar in 45 BC. This calendar was modified and refined by order of Pope Gregory the 8th in 1582, giving us our modern calendar, the Gregorian calendar. When this happened, the dates changed rather dramatically. For example, in October 1582, because the Julian calendar was judged to be 10 days out of alignment, the calendar counted from the first Monday to Thursday as 1,2,3,4, then switched to the Gregorian calendar on Friday and continued as 15,16,17,18 and so on.
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Sunday became the first day of the week first in ancient Egypt, where it was set aside as the day of the sun in honour of the sun god, Ra. The Romans, whose calendar was heavily influenced by the Egyptians, adopted the sun’s day as the first day of their week.
- Not all cultures begin the week with Sunday. Some begin with Monday and end with Sunday. The Jews do not name the days of the week, but use first day, second day, etc., until shabat, or sabbath in English, the seventh day. According to their traditions, this goes all the way back to day one of creation. The reality is that so many things have happened since creation, including the world wide flood, that no one can say for certain.
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What IS important is that God created everything in six literal days, and then rested on the seventh.
III He Rested
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- The Bible says that God rested from all his work which he had made on the seventh day. The word that is translated as rested is shabath, meaning to cease, desist, rest. God did not continue to create on the seventh day, but he ceased from creation.
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This is very significant! The creation was finished in six days. The seventh day was a significant period of time in the creation week, comprising one seventh of the entire week.
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When we consider what God did in the previous six 24-hour days, the fact that God took an entire 24-hour day to rest to cease from his work of creation shows that His creation was truly finished. His “resting” means that his work of creation was complete. It was not a work in progress, as theistic evolution claims. Theistic evolution mocks God, as if He couldn’t possibly have done what He did in such a short time.
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- The Bible says that God rested from all his work which he had made on the seventh day. The word that is translated as rested is shabath, meaning to cease, desist, rest. God did not continue to create on the seventh day, but he ceased from creation.
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IV He Blessed the Seventh Day
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The Bible says that God blessed the seventh day. Moreover, it says He sanctified it, which means that He made it holy.
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We are told that He blessed the seventh day and made it holy because it was on the seventh day of the very world, itself, that He created, that he ceased from all the work that He created and made.
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- A simple way to put this is that the seventh day is holy, because God made it holy. What is the significance of this for us, as Christians? First of all, the Bible, speaking of Jesus, says, “And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.” Mark 2:27,28 The sabbath was made for man. It was given for a number of reasons. One is that it is important to set aside a day to rest from our work. Another is to picture the rest mankind can have from the penalties and sufferings of sin by entering into His rest, which comes from repenting and trusting Jesus Christ as Saviour. Jesus made this remark when the Pharisees were calling out Jesus’ disciples for doing what was considered work under the law of Moses. In fact, the law of the sabbath given to the Hebrews was for them specifically, and it came with a death penalty for breaking it! (Exodus 31:14 – 17) The sabbath rest given to Israel pointed to the rest that the people of God, those who have trusted in Christ, have. It showed that those who enter into His rest and therefore are no longer relying on their good works have true rest in Christ. “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.” Hebrews 4:9,10
- Some still judge others for not setting aside the seventh calendar day as the sabbath. But God says, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:” Colossians 2:16 That is between the true believer and God.
- Paul wrote by direct inspiration from God: “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.” 1 Corinthians 16:2 This is very significant, because this was written in a time when Rome ruled most of the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. The calendar used was the Julian calendar, so the first day of the week was, indeed, Sunday. However, we have no idea of whether it was the original first day of the week, any more than that the seventh day at that time was the original seventh day. The first day may even have been on the original seventh day!
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And finally, after Jesus Christ rose on the first day of the week, his disciples began to meet on the first day, or Sunday, rather than on Saturday, as the Jews did. This is why Paul told them to lay by, or bring offerings, from the abundance God gave them, on the first day of the week. This was the day they gathered together for public worship.
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- Paul wrote by direct inspiration from God: “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.” 1 Corinthians 16:2 This is very significant, because this was written in a time when Rome ruled most of the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. The calendar used was the Julian calendar, so the first day of the week was, indeed, Sunday. However, we have no idea of whether it was the original first day of the week, any more than that the seventh day at that time was the original seventh day. The first day may even have been on the original seventh day!
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Conclusion
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At some point, God willing, we will be examining the law God gave to Israel through his servant, Moses. We will learn more about the seventh day there, and how God commanded the Hebrew people to keep the seventh day sabbath and how it is a sign between God and the people of Israel forever. But we will also see that this commandment was specifically given to Israel to set them apart from the pagan world around them. Even then, it was a picture of the separation that ought to be apparent between the way God’s people live compared to the world. Just as God made the seventh day holy to commemorate his rest, we who have entered his rest through faith in Jesus Christ ought to live holy lives.