WHY DID GOD REST? by L. A. R.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 19, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 19.

WHY DID GOD REST?

By L. A. R.

There Remains a Rest for Those Who Will Receive It — Of What Does It Consist? — The Pledge that We Will Receive It

THERE is no rest until there has been work. After work, comes the rest; and if all the work is done, then there is nothing left but rest. This seems like a very matter-of-fact statement; but when we look at it in a spiritual way, it teaches an important truth.

DID IT IN SIX DAYS

When God created this world, He did it in six days; and when the six days were over, the whole work was done. The labor was absolutely complete, and we have God's word for it that this was so: “And the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” Gen. 2: 1.

Then do you not see that if the work was all done, the very next thing would be rest? And so we read that on the seventh day God rested from all His work which He had made. On that day He did no work, for He rested from all His work. There was no work left to be done, because He had finished His work, and now He rested from all His work which He had made.

ETERNAL MONUMENT TO THE FACT

Therefore the Sabbath is an evidence — a positive proof — an eternal monument to the fact that God finished His work, and it is therefore a pledge of a finished creation. As long as the Sabbath remains, it tells us that God did a good work, a perfect work, a work that even God Himself did not need to amend or correct, or change in any way. He looked, and, behold, it was very good — perfect, finished.

Hence if there is anything about creation that to-day seems faulty, or if there is anything about us that seems imperfect or apparently unfinished, we have in the Sabbath a pledge that God's part was all right, and is all right, and that what may seem to be imperfect or unfinished is seen by the Lord through Christ as complete and finished, and in God's good time it will all appear again exactly as it is in the mind of God.

WE MAY ENTER THE FINISHED WORK

It is true that sin was introduced into the creation of God, and that for the benefit of man, God cursed the earth, and allowed it for a time to be imperfect, made it subject to vanity. Rom. 8: 20. So the material world seems to dispute the word of God. But even now there is a perfect creation, an absolutely finished work. And we may each one enter into this finished work, which is nothing more nor less than rest — God's rest. Hebrews 4.

And the Sabbath is still a pledge of this rest — this finished work. “For He hath said somewhere of the seventh day on this wise, And God rested on the seventh day from all His works.” “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” The Sabbath is the pledge that there is such a rest for us.

THERE IS A SECOND ADAM

We have just quoted inspiration assuring us of what God has said about the seventh day, that on that day God rested from His work. It is the eternal monument that God did rest, and that He has never had to do over again creation's work. The first Adam failed, but there is a second Adam who has not failed; and when sin has been entirely eradicated from the universe, we will find the earth as beautiful as ever, the world unmarred, perfect, complete — a finished creation.

So the Sabbath is a pledge of the rest that the Christian enjoys in Christ, the peace that flows like a river, the righteousness that advances like the waves of the sea, peace that passes knowledge, and joy unspeakable and full of glory. The Sabbath is the pledge of it all.

SIN GIVES NO REST

There is no rest in sin. There is no rest for the wicked. “The way of the transgressor is hard.” “The wicked are like the troubled sea; for it can not rest, and its waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” He that has entered into God's rest has ceased from his own works, sin, as God ceased from His work on the first seventh day of this world. Heb. 4: 10.

This ceasing from sin is the rest that belongs to God's children. And as the Sabbath is the pledge that God ceased from His work back there and rested, it remains still the pledge of God's rest for His children, — a pledge of all this rest and comfort that is offered to us through Jesus Christ.

PLANNED AT CREATION

All that Christ is to us now was planned and prepared at creation. So says the Scripture: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.” They have all been created and prepared ages ago. And now as we accept these good works in Christ, which were prepared long ago, we do not have to struggle in our own strength, nor seek to manufacture them by our own human power. If we give ourselves over to the Lord, He works in us; and the Sabbath is a pledge of all that we thus receive through Christ.

Thus Christ but more firmly establishes the Sabbath by giving us added reasons for observing it as a pledge of the finished work; that is, the rest and peace that we have from God through Him. L. A. R.