Why did God rest on the Sabbath?
“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made”
The word rested is the Hebrew word shâbath, which is where the word translated into English as Sabbath (or Shabbat) finds its origins. Notice that God made it holy. Just like everything else in creation, it’s God who created the seventh day and made it holy.
What did God do when He rested? The word shâbath means: to desist from exertion, cease, celebrate, keep the Sabbath, suffer to be lacking, leave, put away or down, make to rest, rid, still, or take away.
Why did God rest on the Sabbath? Was He tired? No!
“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength”
God had just created Adam and Eve in His image and placed them in His beautiful garden. His next step was to cease all exertion and set aside time, a whole day, to spend with His people. This was part of His perfect plan for all humanity (not just Israelites) and for Himself in a sinless paradise.
Talking of the Sabbath’s creation, Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). God did not rest on the Sabbath so that He could watch us rest and be gratified by the ensuing worship. He made us, and then made the hours to spend with us. God rested on the Sabbath day because He wanted to spend the time with us.
When God rests on the Sabbath, He steps outside of His eternal time, into the restraints of our time to spend quality time with us.
God gave us a command to remember to keep the Sabbath as a time set apart for God, because He would always remember to keep time set apart for us. The seventh-day Sabbath is about remembering to take time for someone you love!
Dr Gary Chapman’s book The 5 Love Languages identifies quality time as the universal ‘love language’ that every person will ‘speak’.
The four other ‘love languages’ are receiving gifts, acts of service, physical touch, and words of affirmation. All are desired in varying amounts by different individuals based on what speaks to their heart; however, quality time, Dr Chapman says, is the one ‘language’ that makes everyone feel loved.
Perhaps that is because it is possible to speak the four other ‘love languages’ more frequently and meaningfully in quality time.
Spending quality time with people in and of itself is a gift: a gift of oneself to that person. We put our interests and agendas aside to spend time with them.
Within quality time we can serve through listening and perhaps respond with an appropriate further act of service. Listening also allows for an opportunity to give words of affirmation and, through physical proximity, give that physical touch.
Dr. Chapman defines quality time this way:
“A central aspect of quality time is togetherness. I do not mean proximity. Togetherness has to do with focused attention. A husband who is watching sports on television while he talks to his wife is not giving her quality time, because she does not have his full attention. A husband and wife playing tennis together, if it is genuine quality time, will focus not on the game, but on the fact that they are spending time together."
“The language of quality time also has many dialects. One of the most common dialects is that of quality conversation. By quality conversation, I mean sympathetic dialogue where two people are sharing their experiences, their thoughts, their feelings, and their desires in a friendly, uninterrupted context. If your spouse’s primary love language is quality time, such dialogue is crucial to his or her emotional sense of being loved. Sit down. Ask questions, and listen”.
Why did God rest on the Sabbath? God loves quality time! He loves to share experiences, thoughts, feelings, and desires in a friendly, uninterrupted context.
Someone once wrote that love is spelt T-I-M-E. If we want to know what people love most, we look at what they spend their time on.
When we look through the Bible, we find many references to time. Out of the 554 verses that refer to time in the Bible, 38 refer to God being bound by time.
That number is relatively small compared to the overall figure, but the fact that God, who created time, would make Himself subject to it is enlightening!
God wants to put aside all His other time-consuming activities and make time for us, and He has been doing that since the beginning of Earth’s history.
That quality time that God gives us when He rests on the Sabbath is not only restorative but transformative. During that quality time, our unholiness could be exchanged for His holiness, which is perfect: it is holy, holy, holy (Revelation 4:8).
Even before sin, Adam and Eve’s holiness came from their Creator. The Sabbath was a perpetual reminder that the closer they were to God, the greater their likeness to Him.
In winning the world back to Himself, God declared the same truth, by God (in Christ) visibly resting on the Sabbath (John 7:8). It is not a coincidence that Jesus rested on the seventh-day Sabbath in His great demonstration of God’s love.
If it didn’t matter, Jesus could have been crucified on a different day and died well before or after the Sabbath, but the timing was planned. Everything else in Jesus’ life was timed to perfection—and so was His death. He rested in the grave at the appointed time after laying everything aside for us on the eve of the Sabbath.
Through Christ, God was saying:
“Remember. Remember I’m the One who makes you holy. My ability to make time holy demonstrates my ability to make you holy. Give Me your time, as I have already given you My time. Choose to draw close to and be present with me in every way, as I have chosen to be close to and present with you in every way. Exchange your character for My character and reap the blessing, as I have already taken your character and borne the cost”.
This is what occurred at the cross. He has offered this from the first Sabbath in the creation week: a closeness that exchanges unholiness for holiness.
At the creation of the world, we were made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). However, with the fall of Adam and Eve we lost much of that likeness. To remade in the likeness of God, we need is quality time with Him! We especially need to spend quality time with Christ when He is most present, such as on the Sabbath. Our presence is important, but His is imperative.
Why did God rest on the Sabbath? So that He could spend quality time with us. This would keep us and remake us in His image. The Sabbath day is waiting. God is there, waiting. Will you join Him? He wants to spend the transformative and restorative quality time with you!
