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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman God's
Sabbath Rest Genesis 2:2 reads: "By the seventh day
God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested
from all his work." While being raised in
1950's and 1960's Evangelical Christianity I was taught that God finished
His creative work after which He rested, as if to say He needed a nap.
I guess that's why my parents took a nap Sunday afternoons while us
children couldn't do anything too strenuous.
It's why we didn't dine out in a restaurant after a Sunday service.
It was God's Sabbath rest. In recent decades
Biblical scholarship has learned much about the ancient world of the Old
Testament that was previously unknown.
This knowledge has helped us understand the Old Testament better
than ever, and that includes the meaning of God resting on the seventh
day. In the cultural setting
of the ancient world which we must consider when reading Genesis, one
in authority rested on a throne, not on a bed.
It was on the throne where he worked at ruling.
Once knowing this cultural setting we understand that God rested on
His throne, not on His bed. It
was on His throne where He worked as He administrated what He had created.
The same is true with Jesus, as the second half of Hebrews 1:3
implies. "After he had
provided purification for sins, he sat down
at the right hand
of the Majesty in heaven." Note the words "sat
down at the right hand" in the above verse.
They are a first-century, Greco Roman metaphor describing Jesus
ruling on His throne beside God. We
see this throne in Revelation 5:1. "Then I saw in the right
hand of him who sat
on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven
seals." Once Jesus finished His
creative work of providing us salvation, like God, He rested on His
throne, where He works at being ultimate authority (Matthew 28:18).
As God the Father and Jesus rest on
their thrones, we have our thrones on which we should rest.
Ephesians 2:6 states that we sit alongside Jesus.
In modern terms, we share an office with Jesus from which we go out
to work. "And God raised us
up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ
Jesus,"
To be clear, we have
work to do. Read Ephesians
2:10. "For we are God’s
handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in
advance for us to do." Hebrews, chapter 4,
defines the New Testament Sabbath rest for us, as seen in part in Hebrews
4:9 and 10. "There remains,
then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s
rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his." For us, rest means not
working for our salvation because Jesus has done that work for us.
That being said, like God and Jesus we have work to do, work that
imamates from God's throne that is meant to accomplish His will.
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