SPROUL: God extends His holiness to a day; sanctifies, consecrates, a Sabbath day.
Sabbath day is to remind us that we are called to holiness.
The end of the crescendo, the completion, the goal of creation, is seen on the seventh day, on
the Sabbath day. What does that mean? Let’s look at the text. Refresh our memories of the record.
We read in chapter 2 of Genesis, “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed and all of their
hosts—all of their complements. And by the seventh day God completed His work which He had done,
and He rested on the seventh day from all of His work which He had done.”
We have a tendency to read the creation account as when the work was done in six days,
and the seventh day is anticlimactic. It’s the day where God takes it easy.
But what do we read in verse 3 of chapter 2? “Then God blessed the sixth day and sanctified it.
Because in it He rested from all His work, which God had created and made?” No. We read
in the text that God blessed and sanctified, set apart, made holy the *seventh* day.
God extends His holiness to a day;
sanctifies, consecrates, a Sabbath day. Why? If we trace that concept throughout all of the Bible,
we see that the goal of the Christian life is to enter finally into His rest,
to enter into the perpetual Sabbath. The goal of creation is Sabbath rest and holiness.
God sanctifies the completion of His creation. The end of His creation, the goal, the purpose
is holiness. And we see this thing reiterated throughout Scripture. Why has God made man?
So that man might be holy, that he may be sanctified, and the perpetual remembrance of
this is designated by the creation command of one day in seven to be set apart, to be consecrated.
Not merely to give man a respite from his labor. Remember that in the context of the Sabbath day,
man does more than rests. This is the day in which he is given towards concentrated attention
to his relationship to God. This is the day of worship. This is the day of celebration.
This is the day in the Old Testament where the people of God came together
to bring their praises and their fruits before God. In the New Testament,
the Lord’s Day becomes the Sabbath. And again, the people gather together in worship and adoration to
receive the instructions of God, to hear the Word of the Lord, to sit under the preaching
of the law and of the commandments of Christ. In other words, in one day in seven, people are
called upon to reflect again on the goals of their life. Who are we? What is our destiny?
What is our task? What is our mission? What is our purpose? Sabbath day is to remind us
that we are called to holiness. We are called to mirror and to reflect the uniqueness of God; that
our lives are to be lived out in the service of our Creator in fellowship and in harmony with Him.