One of the objections to any interpretation of Genesis 1 as other than a literal 6-day creation is God’s use of the 6 days in commanding Sabbath observance —
(Exo 31:14-17 ESV) 14 “You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15 Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. 16 Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. 17 It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.'”
The Sabbath day honored by the Jews each week is a literal day. Does that mean that God’s one day of rest constituted a literal day?
As always, the Bible is its own best interpreter, and the author of Hebrews deals in some detail with the day of God’s rest in Genesis 1.
Hebrews may be thought of as a series of commentaries on a handful of Old Testament passages. The discussion on “rest” is built on Psalm 95:7-11 —
(Heb 3:7-11 ESV) 7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.'”
It’s hardly obvious that “rest” here refers to the seventh day of creation. After all, the psalmist is speaking of the Exodus from Egypt. But consider the immediate context —
(Psa 95:3-7a ESV) 3 For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. 5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. 6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! 7 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
In fact, the psalmist transitions from a reference to the Creation to God’s rest. And the Hebrews author picks up on the point.
(Heb 4:1-5 ESV) Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,'” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And again in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.”
What is this “rest”? Well, all who believe “enter that rest” because they heard “good news” (v. 2). Surely, “rest” means dwelling with God.
The author plainly considers God’s rest to have continued from the Creation until now and to continue until the end of time. In fact, when heaven comes down to earth so that God will live with man at the end of time, in Revelation 21, that will still be God’s rest.
(Heb 4:8-11 ESV) 8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. 11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
The author of Hebrews considers God’s “rest” to continue forever. He was certainly aware of the passages that say God rested on the seventh day, but he sees the rest as never ending. How can that be?
Well, if Walton is right, and God “rested” in the Creation, as a God taking possession of his Temple and having a special presence there, then his “rest” obviously continues.
And that is a more fulfilling interpretation than the anthropomorphic notion that God became tired and needed to recover. God does not get tired. Moreover, because God sustains the universe, should he ever truly rest, we would cease to exist.
And so, here we have an authoritative, inspired interpretation of Genesis 2:2-3 —
(Gen 2:2-3 ESV) 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.
— and the author of Hebrews declares that God’s seventh-day rest continues and that we may join with God in that rest.
Now, notice that when we are resurrected, we are not pictured as lazing about on couches. Rather,
(Rev 22:3 ESV) No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.
“Worship” translates latreuo, also translated “serve,” because it refers particularly to the service performed by the priests in the Temple. It refers to the service performed for God in his worship.
This is rest because God’s special presence in the Temple of his Creation is God’s rest.
(Isa 66:1 ESV) Thus says the LORD: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?
Creation is where God rests, and when we join him in the new heavens and new earth — the re-created, purified creation — we will rest with him, that is, we will live in his new creation where we will worship him forever.
And so why does God refer to the Creation in commanding Sabbath observance?
(Exo 20:8-11 ESV) 8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 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. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
I can only speculate, but I have to let my ruminations be bound and limited by what we learn in Hebrews, as well as Jesus’ statement in Mark 2:27 that the Sabbath was made for man.
God decided that, because of his concern for man (and even his animals) that man needed to enjoy a weekly day of rest. This day would be a preview of heaven itself, and therefore the Sabbath would be “holy.”
Over time, the Jews realized that the Sabbath wasn’t just about relaxing from a hard week’s work. As evidenced by their synagogue practice, true to the real intent behind the Sabbath, the Jews spent their day of “rest” in Torah study, in teaching the scriptures, and in prayer. They would not have called these practices “worship,” because worship was uniquely at the Temple, but these practices did draw them closer to God.
Indeed, these were formational acts. They helped devout Jews become more like God, to be truer to his image and likeness. The day was holy because it was set apart for special attention to the things of God.
Although the synagogue was established utterly without command, example, or necessary inference, it was true to the heart of God and his purposes — and Jesus blessed the synagogue practice by attending and even reading and commenting on the scriptures in the synagogue.
The Sabbath was to be holy, and therefore Jesus did holy acts on the Sabbath, such as healing the sick. The Sabbath was made for man but also to honor God. And man is served and God is honored by miraculous healings on the Sabbath.
The Pharisees missed the point of the Sabbath being “holy” and couldn’t get past the absence of work, not realizing that the truest rest is serving God. Hence, the priests were allowed to slaughter sacrifices and burn them before God on the Sabbath, even though such acts were hard work.
In short, the Seventh Day, to the Jews, was a lesson in holiness and service and worship. The point of Moses’ mentioning the seven days of Creation was to remind his listeners of the holiness of God’s rest.
But it was hardy necessary for Moses’ reference to the six days of creation to be references to literal 24-hour days. After all, Hebrews teaches us that God’s rest is not a literal 24-hour day. Rather, in Exodus 2 and 31, Moses meant by “day” whatever he meant in Genesis 1 — however “day” may be interpreted.
This hardly tells us what “day” means, but it does tell us that “day” does not have to be a 24-day with a literal morning and evening, because the seventh day continues even today.
[to be continued]
Each day of creation is spoken of as having a morning and an evening. God speaks. Things happen immediately. The creation days didn’t need to be millions of years. Evolution denies God. Genesis reports on what God did in six creative days.
The Sabbath rest Hebrews says remains for God’s people is when we cease from our works to accept the easy yoke and light burden Jesus spoke of in his great invitation (Matthew 11:28-30). That is, when we accept that salvation is by grace through faith and not our own works of righteousness. I blogged about this here and here about four years ago.
Ray misses the point. “Evening and morning” refer to the literal daily cycle of the Jews, the day beginning at sundown followed by the night’s rest and ending at the following sundown after the period of activity. The seventh day has no “evening and morning” associated with it, yet it extends into our present – and in an even greater way, into our eternal future. Why could the first six days, with beginnings and endings, represent times of great creative activity between times of “rest” from creating. From what I know about the fossil record (and I’m certainly not even a novice in that field), it shows sudden appearances of new life forms followed by long spans between. Could this not be consistent with times of great creation energy preceded and followed by periods of “rest” from the work of creating?
In an earlier comment I mentioned that I have vacillated between a literal 6-day creation and an old earth. The discussions in this series make me (at this time) lean toward an old earth position, at least partly because otherwise the fossil record would show a God who lies to us about the past of the earth. To me, there seem to be many ways of reconciling the fossil record with Genesis without saying everything began about 6,000 years ago.
Ray. Evolution, specifically Darwinian evolution does indeed attribute creation to randomness. Intelligent design a knowledges a designer. But evolution and the age is the universe are two different topics. However there is very little to suggest that “poof” was how God did it
For those familiar with the Hebrew , evening and morning are used in Daniel with an obvious meaning greater than 24 hours. Also, there is considerable support for the phrase meaning ” from chaos to order “. It’s certainly not as clear cut as some suggest and in view of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary there seems to be a curious loyalty to 24 hour time
I understand Genesis account to be literal. God could have easily created everything full grown, including an eco system fully in place, giving the earth an appearance of being old (including carbon 14). If this isn’t the case, then perhaps a new topic could be a discussion of what Adam and Eve represent if the account is not literal. One wouldn’t think you can have both ways.
Ray wrote,
1. I said nothing about evolution. The evidence for an ancient earth is not based on evolution. The evidence for an ancient universe is not based on evolution. Why even bring the topic up?
2. Evolution does not deny God. Some evolutionists deny God. Some Christians argue that evolution denies God. But there are devout Christian scientists who accept evolution but also see the hand of God in the ancient universe and planet. Indeed, the entire Intelligent Design movement within Christianity accepts evolution but finds evolution inadequate to explain much of the creation. Hence, they argue against the sufficiency of evolution but not evolution in general.
If you accept an earth created to look old, then the science should be irrelevant to you. In fact, if God made the earth to look old, the evidence for evolution is simply part of making the planet appear older than it is, and so there’s nothing to be upset about.
It’s only when you insist that the earth is young and that science proves it to be young that a conflict arises between orthodox science and that Christian worldview. And even then, evolution is not the issue — the scientific evidence for an ancient earth and ancient universe are the issue — which is why I’ve not bothered with evolution. It’s a huge distraction from the real issues.
I don’t spend a lot of time contemplating how and when God created this earth, according to the bible the average time we will spend here is 70 years, I would guess that most won’t achieve that goal, with all the problems we have here. I wonder more about the new heaven and new earth where I will spend eternity. Now that is a long time. Evidently God didn’t do his best work on the home nor the body we live in, else why would we be promised a better one in both cases.?
Tom wrote,
Walton’ analysis of Genesis 1 is not so much figuration vs. literal as an Ancient Near East view of the world vs. a Modern view of the world. Thus, he argues that the text is much more about God assigning to the cosmos each element’s proper function than describing when each element was made from nothing. So the issue is much bigger than literal vs. figurative.
Even so, if we were to read Psalm 104 again, we’d find some statements to be literal. Some to be figurative. We might disagree over just where to draw the line, but a document that contains figures of speech is not necessarily ALL figures of speech.
Hence, it’s entirely consistent with Walton’s interpretation for Adam and Eve to be literal people who really walked the earth. That is, in fact, Walton’s belief. It is also mine.
jAY
rom 5
P.S.
as and update by the spirit of god
Ray, if this is true — if this is the only right interpretation — then God rested for one and only one 24-hour period, which ended. Which means that the writer of Hebrews — and God Himself, who is quoted by the writer of Hebrews — is talking gibberish when they refer to humans, existing after that 24-hour rest period ended, being able to enter God’s rest.
But *if* that 7th YOM continues to this day, then it gives us remarkable flexibility in the interpretation of the six YOMs that went before it.
Jay, that may be so, but it seems to this layman to be entirely inconsistent with the ancient-earth interpretation of the fossil record, which gives us no depiction whatever (yet?) of a literal Adam and Eve.
Nick wrote,
Origin would agree with you. He scoffed at the idea that Adam and Eve might have been literal people. But my reconciliation of fossils, Genesis, and Romans will follow in the next few posts.