The Foundations of the Sabbath ~ Part 2 of 3

Alan Dunn

THE ESCHATOLOGICAL: HISTORY MOVES TO THE SABBATH

Eschatology is embedded into time by virtue of God’s goal oriented, teleological focus evident in the work which He completed through the course of the Creation Week. God’s creation acts transpire in the unfolding of time which is linear, sequential, delineated by ordinals that culminate in the Sabbath day. Time is the milieu in which divine deeds and words are revealed to men, and is itself revelatory of the God of order. What God does outside of time does not constitute the substance of revelation, except to the extent that God tells us of His pre-eternal counsels, decrees and purposes which come to expression in time in His revelatory acts and words. God’s primeval action in creation time gives structure to history itself.((Nash, Ronald H. The Meaning of History (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1998). Cullmann, Oscar, Christ and Time (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1964), 23. “All Christian theology in its innermost essence is Biblical history; on a straight line of an ordinary process in time God here reveals himself, and from that line he controls not only the whole of history, but also that which happens in nature! There is here no room for speculations concerning God that ignore time and history.”))

Time is purposeful. Time is the stage for the prophetical. Time is teleological and eschatological. The chronological schema of the Creation Week forms the paradigm by which all history unfolds. “Before all other important things, therefore, Sabbath is an expression of the eschatological principle on which the life of humanity has been constructed. There is to be to the world-process a finale, as there was an overture, and these two belong inseparably together. To give up the one means to give up the other, and to give up either means to abandon the fundamental scheme of Biblical history.”((Vos, op. cit. 140. “The Sabbath brings this principle of the eschatological structure of history to bear upon the mind of man after a symbolical and typical fashion. It teaches its lesson through the rhythmical succession of six days of labor and one ensuing day of rest in each successive week. Man is reminded in this way that life is not an aimless existence, that a goal lies beyond.”)) Time forms the matrix of man’s existence and the framework in which God’s revelatory words and actions transpire. Man is a creature of time and time itself is a vehicle through which God communicates His divine purpose to man. God is transcendent, yet He comes into time and sanctifies it and thus constitutes Sabbath time.((Vos, op. cit. 305. “The historical can be supernatural, the supernatural can enter history, and so become a piece of the historical in its highest form. There is no mutual exclusiveness. It is pure prejudice, when historians lay down the principle that they are allowed to reckon with the natural only.”))

Time is designed to move man progressively forward to God’s teleological eschatological purpose: Sabbath rest, that is, life lived with God. This life with God was set before man as his eschatological hope even before he fell into death through sin. To us as fallen sinners, this hope is soteric, but our soteriological hope is nothing other than Adam’s created hope now elevated by the work of the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, into resurrection glory.

Ours is essentially Adam’s eschatological hope: the hope of entering God’s Rest. To say that our soteric hope is the same as Adam’s creation hope is not to say that we hope to return to the original pristine Garden as though the Fall, Redemption and Restoration never occurred. Rather it is to look at the hope into which Christ brings us in light of Adam’s eschatological hope. Eschatology therefore, precedes and is more foundational than soteriology for Creation itself, prior to the Fall, was essentially eschatological. “The eschatological is an older strand in revelation than the soteric. The so-called ‘Covenant of Works’ was nothing but an embodiment of the Sabbatical principle.”((Vos, op. cit. 140.)) “Due to the presence of eschatology being imbedded in protology, the Sabbath principle continues throughout redemptive history.”((Fesko, op. cit. 185.)) “The Sabbath principle is so deeply imbedded in the structure of biblical religion as to precede and underlie everything else.”((Vos, Geerhardus, The Pauline Eschatology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1979), 66.))

This eschatological Sabbath principle is therefore to be perceived in Scripture’s statements which reveal God’s overall historical schema. One such statement in the Old Testament is Hab 2:3, For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal, and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay. The vision is given in Hab 3 in which Habakkuk sees the coming of the Lord as the Savior of His people and destroyer of His enemies. “The appointed time of fulfillment that shall come… suggests that this end (goal) refers to the final stage of God’s outworking of the redemption of His people.”((Robertson, O. Palmer. The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005), 171.))

The goal to which history proceeds is the coming of Christ, the consummation of history and our entrance into eternal Sabbath blessing. A New Testament passage giving us another succinct schema of history is 1 Cor 15:20-28 which informs us of Christ’s present administration of the Kingdom which He will deliver up to the God and Father upon the abolition of death, then all things will be subjected to Him that God may be all in all. This language does not describe “some metaphysical absorption”((Garland, David E. 1 Corinthians (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2003), 714.)) into the being of God, but the perfection and consummation of God’s being with us and His creation. It is creation’s arrival at God’s redemptive eschatological goal of Sabbath blessing.

THE THEOLOGICAL: GOD’S PRESENCE CONSTITUTES THE SABBATH

In order to perceive the essence of Sabbath as living like God and living with God, we must consider God’s original Sabbath behavior in Gen 2:1-3. The seventh day is repeated three times “indicating its significance above all the other days.”((Waltke, Bruce K., and Cathi J. Fredricks. Genesis: a Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2001), 67.)) God finished His creation work. “The point made by this verb is that the universe is no longer in a process of being created. What Gen 2 allows for is not additional creation but procreation and self-perpetuation.”((Hamilton, Victor P. The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1990), 142.))

We are struck by Moses’ disuse of linguistic patterns that he previously employed when describing the six days of God’s creation work. There is no repetition of the familiar and there was evening and there was morning so that the seventh day is presented as an unending day, pointing to its eternal eschatological purpose.((Waltke, Ibid. 68. The absence of the morning and evening language is “perhaps because the Sabbath ordinance continues and humans are exhorted to participate in it (Ex 31:17) and to look forward to the eternal, redemptive Sabbath rest (Heb 4:3-11).” Bush, George. Notes On Genesis. Vol. 1 (Minneapolis: James & Klock, 1976), 46. “It is observable that this day is not described by evening and morning, like the other days, which consisted of light and darkness, but this is all day or light representing that glorious sabbatical state of the world yet future, spoken of Is 60: 20; Rv 21:25.”)) God’s rest in Hebrew is His “shabath,” referred to twice. Moses uses a synonym in the fourth commandment “nuach” (to rest), as well as “naphash,” (to be refreshed). Six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labor (shabath) in order that your ox and your donkey may rest (nuach), and the son of your female slave, as well as your stranger, may refresh (naphash) themselves (Ex 23:12). Geerhardus Vos observes, “In connection with God, rest cannot, of course, mean mere cessation from labor, far less recovery from fatigue… “Rest’ resembles the word ‘peace’((This observation invites us to mine the rich vein of God’s “Shalom” as another aspect of God’s Sabbath blessing.)) … a positive rather than a negative import. It stands for consummation of a work accomplished and the joy and satisfaction attendant upon this.”((Vos, Biblical Theology, op. cit. 140.)) As we will see, this Sabbath behavior of God is normative for man’s image-bearing behavior.

“In the first six days space is subdued; on the seventh, time is sanctified.”((Hamilton, Ibid. p.142.)) God distinguished Sabbath time when He blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. When God blessed the seventh day, Moses indicates that God communicated words concerning the Sabbath to the man. To “bless” is a verbal activity. Previously, Moses epexegetically coupled saying or said with blessed (Gn 1:22,28; cf. 14:19; 24:60; 27:27; 48:15; 49:28) so when the solitary blessed is used regarding what the Lord did to the seventh day, we can safely assume that He spoke words “which conferred abundant and effective life”((Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Chicago: Moody, 1980.)) to this specific day.

Moses does not tell us what words God spoke when He blessed the seventh day, but in that He blessed the day, He spoke words, we must assume, to Adam. Adam knew from God’s verbal communication that the seventh day was peculiarly blessed. “When God blessed the seventh day, he must have pronounced it to be the time for conferring his choicest blessings on man.” ((Roger T. Beckwith and Wilfrid Stott, The Christian Sunday: A Biblical and Historical Study (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1978), 145. “When God ‘blesses’ a thing, he does good to it and good to men through it. Hence, for God to ‘bless’ the Sabbath implies that he makes that day a blessing to men.” Bush, op. cit. 47. “As it cannot be conceived how any particular day can be said to be ‘blessed,’ otherwise that by being made the appointed time for the communication of some benefit or happiness to intelligent creatures. When God blessed the seventh day, he must have pronounced it to be the time for conferring his choicest blessings on man. He blessed it therefore, by connecting inestimable blessings with the proper observance of it. He consecrated it as a day of holy rest and worship; as a season set apart for the devout contemplation of the Creator’s works, and the divine perfections manifested in them, and whoever honors the day with a corresponding observance will not fail to experience the peculiar blessing of Heaven in consequence… a day of positive happiness to man. The grand scope of its observances, is to bring the creature into nearer communion with the Creator and whatever has this effect cannot but be a source of augmented blessedness to the subject of it…. a foretaste of the very bliss of heaven.”))

God also sanctified His time of rest (Gn 2:3). Gn 2:3 is the first use of this verb in Scripture. How we to understand “sanctification” in a time prior to the Fall? We think of “sanctification” as being separated from sin and set apart unto God, but what does “sanctification” mean in a time before there was sin? “The verb qadash in the Qal connotes the state of that which belongs to the sphere of the sacred. Thus it is distinct from the common or profane. In the Piel and Hiphil it connotes the act by which the distinction is effected. It is a denominative verb.”((Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Chicago: Moody, 1980.)) When God sanctified the Sabbath, He separated that day from the normal course of the six days. He differentiated this period of time from the other six periods of time, not because those six days were bad or sinful. Indeed, they were of the very good created order of God (Gn 1:31). But by sanctifying the seventh day, God elevated that day from what was ethically good to what was theologically holy.((Hamilton, op. cit. 143. “As is well known, the Hebrew verb qadash means ‘to set apart.’ By virtue of being sanctified, one day of rest is set apart from six days of activity. It is divine designation alone that marks the seventh day as holy. Humanity does not confer sanctity on this day by abstention from work. In the words of Westermann, ‘The sanctification of the Sabbath institutes an order for humankind according to which time is divided into time and holy time… By sanctifying the seventh day God instituted a polarity between the everyday and the solemn, between days of work and days of rest, which was to be determinative for human existence.’” [Genesis, 1:171.]))

Theological holiness pertains to the person and presence of God Himself. What constituted the sanctity of the seventh day was God Himself. The Sabbath is a period of time, blessed by God and set apart so as to have a peculiar association with God Himself. In a blessed and sanctified way, God Himself is present in Sabbath time. To enter into God’s rest is to enter into a time (and place) that is filled with the holy presence of God. Ceasing from otherwise good and normal labor to rest securely in communion with God, to be refreshed by His vivifying presence, such is the blessing of Sabbath to man, the gift of God Himself enjoyed in a shared life, a shared love.

On the Sabbath, God gave Adam “quality time,” holy time, time for His words of blessing, time when God came to man, His creature-son, and enjoyed their loving intimate filial relationship. His personal presence is indicated by the pregnant words of Gn 3:8, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. The setting is the tragic rebellion of the Fall, but these words tell us more about God’s Sabbath blessing given to man. It was the Lord God Himself who has arrived on the scene. God was present. The fallen couple heard the sound of the Lord God walking. These words suggest a theophany. Keil and Delitzsch go so far as to suggest that God’s presence was an adumbration of the Son’s incarnation.((Keil, C. F., and Franz Delitzsch. Genesis: Commentary on the Old Testament (New York: Hendrickson, 1989), 97. “He comes to them as one man to another. This was the earliest form of divine revelation. God conversed with the first man in a visible shape, as the Father and Instructor of His children. He did not adopt this mode for the first time after the fall, but employed it as far back as the period when He brought the beasts to Adam, and gave him the woman to be his wife (chap. 11.19-20). This human mode of intercourse between man and God is not a mere figure of speech, but a reality, having its foundation in the nature of humanity, or rather in the fact that man was created in the image of God… [These anthropomorphic visitations of God were a] divine condescension which culminated in the incarnation of God in Christ. They are to be understood, however, as implying, not that corporeality, or a bodily shape, is an essential characteristic of God, but that God having given man a bodily shape, when He created him in His own, image, revealed Himself in a manner suited to his bodily senses, that He might thus preserve him in living communion with Himself.”)) It is debated whether God the Son manifested Himself in a proto-incarnate form, but it is evident that God Himself is somehow “physically” present and could be heard walking. This was not the first time that the couple heard the Lord God walking in the Garden.((Hamilton, op. cit. 192. “The verb used here to describe the divine movement – mithallek – is a type of Hithpael that suggests iterative and habitual aspects.”)) It was His habit to walk in the cool (ruach – wind, spirit) of the day.((Hamilton, op. cit. 192. Hamilton suggests that this was a more comfortable time of the day as opposed to the heat of the day when the Angel of the Lord and His two accompanying angels visited Abraham (Gn 18:1).)) Moses says it was not just “a” day, not just any day, but the definite article “the” presents us with a particular day. The only singular day that has been given particularity at this point in history was the seventh day, blessed and sanctified by God. It can be surmised from Gen 3:8 that God was doing as He was wont to do: He came to the couple on the Sabbath, on the day that He blessed with words of life and sanctified by His own refreshing presence.

Sabbath is established by God’s behavior in which He speaks Sabbath words and sanctifies that time by His own personal presence come to commune with man. To understand and receive the blessing of Sabbath, we must put our eyes, not so much on commandment, as on Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath who still comes to His gathered people on the first day of the week to bless, sanctify, and preserve them through this wilderness journey into their eternal Sabbath rest.

Alan Dunn, © 2013

The Foundations of the Sabbath Part 1
The Foundations of the Sabbath Part 3

Notes for the Foundations of the Sabbath Part 2: