Creation points to the Sabbath

[Hobie]

It is very clear in the Bible that at Creation, the weekly cycle was set up and we see Sabbath was made for man as the seventh day of the week. We find Christ making very clear that the Sabbath was made for man, and He declares that He is Lord of the Sabbath.
Matthew 12:8
For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.

Jesus Christ is “Lord even of the Sabbath day" but the fulness of that statement needs to be understood by understanding who Jesus was. By identifying Himself as "Lord even of the Sabbath day," Jesus was, in reality, revealing that He Himself was the One who originally made Earth in six days, and rested on the seventh day. The New Testament is very clear that Jesus Christ is not just our Savior, but is also our Creator. Notice carefully:

John 1:3 All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that has been made.

John 1:10 He [Jesus] was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.

Eph. 3:9 God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.

Col. 1:16 For by Him [Jesus] all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.

Jesus is the Creator, the Jehovah of all the Bible. He is the Lord Jehovah that walked in the cool of the day in Eden. Jesus was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jesus was Jehovah God who gave the Ten Commandments. Jesus was Jehovah God who was in the pillar of fire by night and cloud by day. Jesus was Jehovah God who appeared to Moses in the fiery bush and declared I am that I am.

What Jesus claims about Himself - John 8:48-59
48 Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?
49 Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me.
50 And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth.
51 Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.
52 Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.
53 Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?
54 Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God:
55 Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying.
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.
57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

With solemn dignity Jesus answered, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM. Silence fell upon the vast assembly. The name of God, given to Moses to express the idea of the eternal presence, had been claimed as His own by Jesus.

Lets look at this story of Moses and the Burning Bush in Ex 3:14-15..

Ex 3:14-15.
14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. 15 And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.

Now scripture shows us even more clearly who Christ is.

Revelation 1:11 Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

Revelation 1:17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:

Revelation 2:8 And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive;

Revelation 22:13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Isaiah 41:4
Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.

Isaiah 44:6
Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.

Isaiah 48:12
Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last.

Jesus identifies Himself as the First and the Last, and look at who is the Savior:

Isaiah 43:11
I, even I, am the LORD ; and beside me there is no saviour.

Isaiah 45:21
Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.

Hosea 13:4
Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.

1Timothy 1:1
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope;

2Peter 3:18
But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Philippians 3:20
For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

Jesus is truly the Creator, Jehovah, the First and the Last, our Saviour and Lord of the Sabbath. It is His day of worship from Creation, the day of rest, made for man not man for the Sabbath..

Genesis 2:1-2
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

The Sabbath was not just for the Jews, but for all mankind which the Creator gave us. Our Lord and Saviour shows us. Thus Jesus Christ is our Creator. The One who created, rested. Thus the Sabbath commandment, when correctly understood in the light of both the Old and New Testaments, points to Jesus Christ, the Creator.

 

[Hobie]

So at Creation, the weekly cycle was set up and Sabbath was given to us, as the seventh day. As the various days of the week were back then in ancient times called the first day, the second day, etc., all the way to the last day of Creation, the seventh day, for these were their Biblical names. So what does the weekly cycle tell us, well here is a good explanation..

"Society's seven-day calendar week is the only major rhythm of human activity that is totally oblivious to external nature. This so-called "social week" rests on mathematical regularity alone. We may casually assume that our week is really a division of the moon cycle. If that is our assumption, we forget that the lunar cycle is not a twenty-eight-day cycle, but approximately twenty-nine days, twelve hours, forty-four minutes and three seconds -- or 29.5306 days between new moons. A precise quarter of the lunar cycle amounts to the uneven figure of 7.38625 days. So any week using that true length would begin at different times of the day every time the cycle started. There is just no way to neatly divide the lunar cycle into weekly blocks of complete days.

Then what about the sun? Doesn't the cycle of seven relate to the center of our solar system? Again, no! The 7-day week is also independent from the annual solar cycle of 365 1/4 days. A "year" of 52 weeks would have just 364 whole days. Nor is the week in harmonic sympathy with the star year of 366 1/4 days. Star days or "sidereal days" are about four minutes shorter than solar days (an observer will see a particular star at the same position four minutes earlier on successive nights). In short, there are no known external rhythms in nature that could explain the near universal existence of the seven day social week.

Yet, the importance of the seven-day week -- or heptad, a series of seven -- is monumental....Apart from the biblical record, historians have had difficulty placing the precise beginning of the seven-day week. It is simply acknowledged as an ancient practice of very early origin in the evolution of civilization."...The Amazing 7-Day Cycle (Part 1)

 

[Hobie]

The Sabbath was created at the very beginning of human history. In Genesis 2:1-3 we read that God blessed and sanctified the seventh day. The Hebrew word translated 'sanctified' in Genesis 2:3 and 'hallowed' in Exodus 20:11 is qadash, a word meaning 'to hallow, to pronounce holy, to consecrate, to set apart for holy use.' In Mark 2:27, Jesus says: 'The Sabbath was made for man.' The Greek has an article before 'man,' so the phrase could be rendered, 'The Sabbath was made for the man.' This is basically points to Adam, the first man and representative of the whole race that descended from him.

There is no denying that God was here setting aside the Sabbath as holy time. Is it logical to believe that God first created man, then the Sabbath, and then failed to mention to man that the seventh day was holy time? Certainly not! God must have immediately explained to Adam all about His sacred seventh day. We might say that God preached a sermon to Adam and Eve on the first Sabbath of human history, telling them how to observe His day as He wanted it to be observed. Many have seen this..

"What could be the meaning of God's resting the seventh day, and hallowing and blessing it, which He did, before the giving of the fourth commandment, unless He hallowed and blessed it with respect to mankind? . . . And it is unreasonable to suppose that He hallowed it only with respect to the Jews, a particular nation, which rose up above 2000 years after." Jonathan Edwards.

"..the most judicious commentators agree that Adam and Eve constantly observed the seventh day, and dedicated it in a peculiar manner to the service of the Almighty; and that the first Sabbath . . . was celebrated in Paradise itself, which pious custom [was] transmitted from our first parents to their posterity." John Kitto

It is just not reasonable to think that God would make the Sabbath for man and then keep it from him for over 2000 years until Moses. The very fact that the seven-day week existed and is with us today, is good evidence the Sabbath also existed.

A week of seven days is frequently shown in Scripture. In Genesis 7:4 and 8:10 and 12 we see that Noah was acquainted with a seven-day week. Unless the Sabbath was their pivot of time, people then could not have used such a measure of days. In fact, the marginal rendering of Genesis 7:10 is 'on the seventh day,' a reference to nothing but the Sabbath. We may be sure that Noah, a just man who walked with God, knew about and kept God's seventh-day Sabbath.

In Genesis 29:27-28, we read that Jacob fulfilled a week for Rachel. The week here is not synonymous with the seven years Jacob served Laban for Rachel, nor does it mean seven years passed before Jacob married Rachel. The language shows Jacob married Rachel one week after he had married Leah, and then he served Laban another seven years..

In Genesis 50:10, we find that Joseph mourned for his father Jacob seven days, that is, one week. So Joseph knew about the seven-day week.

Exodus 7:25 mentions a seven-day period in the time of Moses just before the Exodus. This is certainly an exact week, for we read, 'seven days were fulfilled.' In addition, Numbers 12:14-15 mentions a seven-day period following Israel's departure from Egypt and before they arrived at Mt. Sinai.

Again, in Judges 14:10-18, we read that Samson's marriage feast lasted for seven days, another reference to the week.

Once again, in Job 2:13, we are told that Job's three friends sat and grieved with him for 'seven days and seven nights' a complete week.

So it is obvious that a seven-day week with the seventh-day Sabbath was familiar to the patriarchs from what scripture shows us.