This article is largely an excerpt from the book "Early Genesis, The Revealed Cosmology". In this book I present evidence to support each of my Twenty-Five Theses Where the Church is Getting Early Genesis Wrong." This article speaks to my fourteenth thesis. It may be a little hard to understand without the prior material in the book leading up to it. It also starts off a little plodding, but if you press on to the end I believe you will find the result well worth it, for it shows early Genesis to be both history and prophecy at the same time.
After the sixth day of Creation God completed His work and rested. This is described as the seventh day, or the Sabbath. The passage says that God blessed and set apart the seventh day. Genesis Chapter two reads:
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
This Sabbath rest, or completion of His work, continues to this day. We don’t see the sort of wholesale changes to the surface and atmosphere of the planet described in the passage. We don’t see whole new categories of living things spring up. We will never see another Cambrian Explosion for example, because we are in the “seventh day”, God’s Sabbath rest, even still. He has ceased ordering the physical features of the planet so as to make it sustain advanced life. He has ceased the creation of new phyla of living things. That work is completed.
Genesis never does end the seventh day, as it ended the previous six, by saying “the evening and the morning were the seventh day.” The Sabbath rest that God entered into on the seventh “day” is ongoing. I have heard it said that His finished work of creation is a shadow pointing to His finished work in Christ, who (in Matthew 12:8 et al) called Himself “Lord of the Sabbath.” As you read on to the end of this chapter I think that you will see that the full truth is even more glorious than that!
Hebrews chapter four teaches us that God’s Sabbath rest is available to believers today, one which paradoxically we must labor to enter into (because we keep trying to substitute our own efforts for faith?). We can rest from our own efforts to attain right standing with God through works and instead enter into the rest of His already completed work.
Indeed the Apostle Paul writes in Colossians 2: 16-17:
“16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”
So the Sabbath for man (the seventh day of rest) is just a shadow of the real Sabbath- whose substance, or body, is Christ. The Sabbath for the Land (the seventh year of rest) is just a shadow of the real Sabbath- whose substance, or body, is Christ. The original Sabbath of the Creation is Christ Himself. The substance, the body, the intent, of the each of these Sabbath rests is found in Christ. He also “finished” His work to redeem Mankind. He completed the work of obtaining right standing before His Father by living the sinless life that we could not.
That is the substance of the Sabbath rest for which both Man’s Sabbath and the Land’s Sabbath are mere shadows. Unlike the shadow Sabbaths, which last only for the particular length of time assigned to each of them, the type Sabbath of Christ’s finished work on the cross is eternal.
This is the real Sabbath, or rest. It is a Sabbath which, according to Hebrews chapter four, believers can enter into. We do that when we repent of our own ways and further when we accept by faith that God’s ways are just. We do that by, rather than trying to earn our way to right standing with Him, we instead love and trust Him and the Righteousness He has provided in the penal substitution of Christ.
The way to enter into His rest is to rest from our own efforts to attain our own right-standing before God and instead learn to love and trust Him more. Every Sabbath mentioned in the law should be seen in this light, whether it is the 24 hour Sabbath of man, the one year out of seven Sabbath for the land, or the Creation’s Sabbath where God rested from His Creative works and ceased issuing “work orders” to the natural universe. It all points to Christ, the Word.
Christ is the substance, or body, of what we consider the “Sabbath” and Sabbath days are but shadows pointing to Him. This is further confirmed when we see that the Word of God was actively working in Genesis chapter one. Christ, the Logos, or Word according to the first chapter of John’s Gospel, actually created the material universe. We know this because it says in the first chapter of Colossians (and is confirmed elsewhere):
16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
The surrounding verses make it clear that the “him” is Christ, God the Son. So when Genesis chapter one shows God creating the universe and the world, it is God the Son actually doing the work - just as He also did the work of attaining right-standing with God the Father. And just as the seventh “day” never ended in Genesis, so the rest that Christ obtained for us through His atonement for our sins will never end.
It’s not a twenty-four hour period. It is not something that we have to repeat week by week, it’s an eternal rest made possible by the finished work of Christ. Trying to force the text into being about literal 24-hour creation days doesn’t point to Christ, it diminishes Him. It actually blurs the picture concerning what God is saying about Christ and the Sabbath. I will further demonstrate this when discussing when the Sabbath Day in Genesis One began.
This understanding adds new depth to the teachings of Jesus on the Sabbath. He said “The Sabbath was made for Man, not Man for the Sabbath.” It becomes a statement on law and gospel. Man was not made to earn his way to salvation by works such as keeping the Sabbath. Rather the substance of the Sabbath is a rest from our own works because The Word of God has finished the work for us. Truly the Sabbath is for Man- for His salvation!
The Book of Hebrews in chapters three and four has a long argument which touches on the Sabbath, and also on the contents of the previous chapter concerning the variation in observed time. It is a difficult passage to understand outside of the context of what we discussed earlier (in the book) regarding what perceived time would look like in a place where space was unchanging as compared to what we see in the natural universe.
These are things about the nature of time and space that humanity did not understand before the middle of the 20th century. In spite of this, several paradoxes in scripture are cleanly resolved once this understanding of space-time is applied to the passages! Generations of Christians had to accept on faith that they were true, even if they could not give a good explanation of how they were true. Today, we can explain.
Chapter three of Hebrews says “5 And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; 6 But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we…”
Moses was, in his life, in his acts, in his acquisition of the Law and composition of the Torah, testifying “of those things which were to be spoken after”. That is, about things which were yet to be plainly revealed. What he was saying in his own day was really meant to point to things in the future which would be spoken about long after the Torah was composed. The things in the Torah and the law were mere shadows of the reality which came to pass in our realm much later- in Christ.
Though Moses and Joshua came well after Adam and the events of early Genesis, Hebrews 3:5 says that when Moses recorded them he was testifying of things which were to be spoken of later. This is much like the diagram in the previous chapter. In Heaven, the Sabbath day had started at the last of the foundation of the world. On earth, the true meaning of that Sabbath had not yet reached earth. This is what is alluded to in the mysterious words of the following chapter (4) in Hebrews:
3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.
5 And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.
So even though the “rest” was supposed to be on the seventh “day” in Genesis chapter two, God spoke over a thousand years later of men entering that rest as a future event. In one place in scripture the Sabbath rest of God began long ago, but in another place it is thousands of years later and it is still questionable whether or not they are able to enter into it. What gives?
Even if the first six days were literal 24-hour days, surely the seventh day is not. It is a rest that men had still not entered into (because of unbelief) all those generations later. It happened in Heaven long ago (“although the works were finished from the foundation of the world”), but on earth men had not entered in (“if they shall enter into my rest”). Like I showed in the diagram, time here is stretched, and we see only the foreshadowing of things which have long since transpired in the eternal sphere. Moses lived in the fore-shadow of what was to come, and when he wrote of that foreshadow it testified to the coming reality which cast the shadow.
In verse nine the passage points out that other scripture still speaks of yet another day to enter into that rest. It was not a day in the life of Adam, and not a day in the life of Moses. As the Apostle Paul writes further, starting in verse eight of Hebrews chapter four…
“For if Jesus (editor’s note: many modern versions read “Joshua”) had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.
9 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
His rest is not limited to one of our days. We can celebrate one day out of seven to rest, but those days are not the Sabbath. They are only shadows of it. The true original Sabbath rest is not a particular solar day that happened on earth long ago. It is a spiritual condition we can enter today. The true Sabbath Day of rest had not begun here on earth in the time of Adam. It had not even begun at the time of Moses and Joshua, for Paul points out that it said in another Old Testament passage that there “remaineth” yet another “day”, another Sabbath rest for the people of God…..
10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
If we believe in Him then the rest which He entered into becomes our rest. And what is the “labor” which we must do to enter in? Jesus said (John 6:29) “This is the work of God: to believe on the One whom He has sent.” We must work to have faith, rather than fall back in faith on our own works. That is unbelief, which prevents us from entering in. How then might we strengthen our belief? Well, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. (Romans 10:17).” If you truly hear what His Word says, then you will believe. You will not have to psyche yourself up to believe. You just will.
Since hearing His word is the key, hear then what His word says about the Sabbath in Genesis chapter two, and what it does not say:
1Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
Notice that though the creation was finished at the end of the sixth day in verse one, God did not end His work at the end of the sixth day. He ended it on the seventh day. The heavens and the earth were completed at the end of day six, but God did not end his work then. They were done, but God’s work was not done. He had yet one more work to perform, which is mentioned here only obliquely.
I guess you might call this a “gap theory” in Genesis that I do accept. There is a gap between verse one and two, not in the first chapter of Genesis, but in the second. Things were finished and complete on the sixth day, but God’s work was not ended then, but on the seventh day. I shall endeavor to show that what happened between verses one and two was the fall of Adam. Because of that God had one more work to do. That work, which ended on the seventh day, was redeeming what He had created in the first six days.
To demonstrate this first let us consider what is not said. The text in Genesis chapter two never says concerning the first Sabbath “the evening and the morning were the seventh day.” Notice that not even the “evening”, or start of the day, is mentioned. Many have pointed out, as I have, that the seventh day in early Genesis never ended, but now we see that the teaching of the Apostle Paul in Hebrews was that, as far as we on earth could tell, the Sabbath day never even began in early Genesis. In heaven it did, but on earth it did not happen in the time of Adam, or even that of Moses. When then did this true Sabbath, still ongoing today, begin?
In the gospel of John chapter five Christ says something quite remarkable when the Pharisees complained that He was working on the Sabbath:
16 And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day. 17 But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
Jesus said that the Father was working right up until then, so He was going to work too! Jesus was telling them that the Father had never stopped working. He did not stop working on the seventh solar 24-hour day- either the original one or the one the Pharisees were complaining about. The Father was working continually up until that point.
Wait, didn’t the Father take the seventh day off? How then could He be working right up until that point? The resolution to this mystery is that the rest which came from finishing the work on that first Sabbath had already occurred in heaven. The manifestation of that event had not quite reached earth. Much like a radio broadcast of a live event in a distant galaxy would not reach the earth for eons of time, we understand that what which was accomplished in heaven at the beginning was now about to be received on earth.
We know that God’s Sabbath had not yet begun on earth because of what Paul said in Hebrews three and four about the order of things in the time of Moses and Joshua. Moses was testifying of things in the future, and they were looking to a future day. We know that it had still not occurred when Jesus told the Pharisees that His Father was working right up to that moment.
Sure, God had finished making heaven and earth, and the host of them, but He had other work to do, and would not rest until all was accomplished. God finished His creation, but not His work. Or more precisely, His work was finished long ago in heaven but the manifestation of it had not yet reached the earth below.
Then when did it reach this earth? When did God take His rest? When did the morning of the seventh day spoken of in Genesis finally begin on this earth?
The answer to all of those questions is the same. The work ended when Christ announced on the cross “It is finished”. His rest began on that Sabbath day. He “ceased from His labors” by resting in the ground until the resurrection! Since that time Christ and the Father have been at rest. The Holy Spirit works still, but Christ sat down at the right hand of God, as is written in Hebrews 10:
12 But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
13 From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
God was not finished with His creation until the cross. Up until then the Father had been working, and so the Son would work as well. Jesus was serving notice that as God He was not on an earthly seven-day schedule. He was on the Father’s seven day schedule. He was still on the sixth “day” and would continue His work of “making Man in our image” right up until He proclaimed “it is finished!” on the cross. Then the seventh day could begin and that day continues up until the present time.
The rest spoken of in Genesis chapter one was completed in heaven long ago (Revelation 13:8), but was not revealed here on earth until the resurrection. 1st Peter chapter one shows that Christ was chosen before the world began, but only revealed in these times…..
18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
The work was determined in the heavenly realm in the beginning, testified to by Moses in the law, but revealed on earth in Christ 2,000 years ago. Why is the seventh day so special? Was God in need of rest? Was He really looking forward to His day off so that He could finally do all the things that He wanted to do? That is seeing God as man, but He’s not.
He did not bless the seventh day because He could finally get a rest, but so that we could finally share in His rest. He blessed the day because His efforts to deliver the things He had created and made were fulfilled on the Sabbath. This is “testifying of things not yet spoken of.” This is speaking of a day which Moses had not yet lived through.
He did additional work beyond making and creating everything. There was also His work of redeeming the human race which He created and made. He built creation with the freedom to choose other than Him, but also made a way for its errant inhabitants to be delivered from the consequences of that choice- if they repent. This work He completed on “the seventh day”, and therein He rested.
While the debate rages on whether or not early Genesis is reliable history, the truth is now being revealed with each page of this book that you turn over: Not only is early Genesis reliable history, it is also reliable prophecy! As it is written, He has “declared the end from the beginning”. Because the history is reliable you may know that the prophecy is also reliable. And as some of this prophecy has come to pass you may know by the prophecy being reliable that the history is also reliable.
After all these accusations hurled against the reliability of early Genesis by the uninformed, we at last come to understand the truth of the matter. The only thing unreliable was our ability to understand it! The reliability issue lay not in the veracity of the word, but rather in the understanding of the readers.
Get the book.
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