The Sign of a Finished Work
By E. E. Andross
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.” “For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.” Gen. 1:1; Ps. 33:6, 9. As the earth came forth from the hand of its Maker, it was exceedingly beautiful. Everything was perfect. Man, having been made in the image and likeness of God, was now crowned with glory and honor, and set over the works of God’s hands. Heb. 2:6-8. “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” Gen. 2:1; 1:31. No taint of sin, no tear of sorrow, no pain or shadow of death, marred the happiness of the holy pair that had been placed in the garden of God. The great Jehovah had clothed the whole world in a garb of beauty. Everything revealed the touch of the Master Artist. The delicate flower, the beautiful landscape, the broad expanse of the heavens, all bore silent witness to the fact that the divine hand had wrought. “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” Ex. 31:17. “The eternal purpose which he purposed in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Eph. 3:11) was now, so far as God’s part was concerned, completed; it only remained for man to prove, by his loyalty to his Creator, that he was worthy of such a high calling. While the “morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38:7), while the Lord took delight in his finished work, the great memorial of the Creator’s power to complete his glorious work in righteousness was erected (Ps. 111:4; 135:13); the eternal sign that he is God was given. Eze. 20:19, 20. “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.” The seventh day now became the blessed, sanctified rest day of the Creator. And since what God blesses shall be blessed forever (1 Chron. 17:27), it is still his blessed, sanctified rest day. The Hebrew verb qadash, here rendered sanctified, is defined by Gesenius, “To pronounce holy, to sanctify; to institute any holy thing, to appoint.” The Lord, therefore, set apart the seventh day to man’s holy use for all time. Mark 2:27. This beautiful scene was soon changed. The tempter, lurking in the garden of delight, induced man to accept him as his master. In sorrow and shame he is now driven forth from his paradise home. Instead of the pleasant labor hitherto appointed him, he was now to be subject to anxious toil, disappointment, grief, pain, and finally to death. Before leaving his beautiful home, however, he is given the glorious promise of a Saviour. The One who made the world, and all things therein, and who upholds all things by the word of his power (John 1:3, 10; Col. 1:13-17; Heb. 1:1-3), who had given to man the Sabbath, now promised a new creation. The great plan of redemption was opened up to man. The Creator was to be the Redeemer. The Sabbath which had been given as the sign of the eternal power and godhead of the Creator, is now to become the seal of the new and everlasting covenant by which he is to be restored to his lost home in the “new earth,” which “shall remain before me, saith the Lord,” and in which “affliction shall not rise up the second time.” Ex. 31:16, 17; Isa. 65:17; 66:22, 23; Nahum 1:9. All things save the marriage rite and the Sabbath—the one the safeguard of the family, and the other of the church—are lost to man through the fall. The two sole relics of man’s Edenic rest are preserved to him, are brought beyond the cherubim-guarded gates of paradise, and the Sabbath now serves to encourage him to trust to the omnipotent arm of his Creator and Redeemer to restore him to his lost estate. The rest, the blessing, and the sanctification which man had known while obedient to the will of God had now departed; but with extended arms and bleeding hands, in pitying love and forgiving mercy, the great Creator calls him, saying, “Come unto me, . . . and I will give you rest.” “I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save,” will “bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.” I will be your “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” Matt. 11:28; Isa. 63:1; Acts 3:26; 1 Cor. 1:30. At the same time he says to the man who is thus made “a new creature in Christ Jesus,” “Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations: that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.” Ex. 31:13. It is the sign “that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Phil. 1:6. Thus from the moment that the gates of paradise were closed upon disobedient man, to the blessed moment when they will once more be opened to the obedient (Rev. 22:14; Isa. 26:2), the Sabbath remains as the sign of his finished work, the pledge of our glorious and final rest. Heb. 4:3-11.