Exodus 20:9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.
The first thing we see God doing, in Genesis, is working. He declares it to be work in Genesis 2. God worked for six days. He is a God who works.
Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
Since God is a God who works, when he made man in his image, he gave him work to do. Genesis 2:15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
Work not only reflects God's nature (as he is a God who works) but is also something he gave Adam to do before he fell into sin. At this point in history, nothing had been soiled by the fall. Consequently, the work that God gives man to do, in and of itself (and within whatever other boundaries God puts around it in his word) is good. (It is sin that makes this good work difficult.)
And in the course of time, which is the seven-day week, God gave man six days to do all of his work. "Six days you shall labor and do all your work."
(It should be noted that the only reason we have a seven-day cycle in time, is because of the creation account in Genesis. There is no seven-day cycle associated with or set by the sun, moon, and stars.)
In this seven-day week, we have six days to work, go shopping, run errands, conduct business, and so on. God graciously gave us these days for this purpose.
It should also be noted that in the Fourth Commandment, nothing is said about the exact days of the week. It does not say, for instance, that the six days of work that we are to do begin on Sunday, or Monday or any other day. Rather, it only says, "six days you shall labor and do all your work."
In addition, by adding the phrase, "but the seventh day..." the Lord indicates that the days are in succession. So, one works for six days and then on the seventh day, in succession, he ceases his work. (We hope to cover this in more detail later.) This follows God's pattern of behavior at creation.
This is an important distinction because if God said, you shall work for the first six days of the week and then rest on the seventh day of the week, then not only would the pattern of six days of work followed by a day of rest be set, but also which days of the week as well. It would be God's will then for man to work the first six days of the week and then rest on the seventh day of the week.
But the phrase "of the week" is not in the commandment. Therefore, we are not bound by this understanding. (There are more reasons why Saturday is not the Sabbath, and we will address this in future posts.) It is the pattern of six days of labor followed by a day of rest from labor that we are to follow.
The behavior and teaching of the Apostles and church in the New Testament set the day of rest from labor as the Resurrection Day or the first day of the week. The Sabbath, also called the Lord’s Day, (which is the first day of the week - Matt 28:1, Acts 20:7, 1 Cor 16:1-2, Rev 1:10), is the day set aside by our Lord for the assembling of the church in his presence. This is made evident by the appearances of Christ, the teaching and behavior of the Apostles and the practice of the church.
With the church resting from its labors on the first day of the week, the six days of labor followed by the seventh day of rest, in succession, is kept.
The Sabbath Day then, in part, is a day of rest from the good labor God gives us the other six days. Before the resurrection, this pattern was kept in Israel by their working the first six days of the week and resting on the seventh day. With Christ's resurrection on the first day of the week, the pattern shifted to resting from labor on the first day of the week and working the other six days.
When we understand that work is a good gift of God and that he gave us six days to accomplish all of it, we can then see the blessing of the Sabbath day - a day of rest from these good labors, a day of refreshment of our minds, hearts, bodies and souls.
Even the Lord benefitted from the Sabbath day. In Exodus 31:17, we are told, "...that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.'"
Let us follow the example and teaching of our Lord, by enjoying the good work he gives us to do for six days, and then enjoying the day of rest from our good work on the Sabbath.
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