Bible Study

Rest and Renewal in Creation

What do I mean by rest and renewal?

Let's be clear from the beginning about the way I am using the terms rest and renewal in these articles.

Rest has absolutely nothing to do with being a couch potato. I understand rest to mean our understanding that good outcomes depend not on our strategies and achievements but on the operation of God's reigning love and power in our lives.

Renewal is not a self-help improvement program. I understand renewal to mean the results of God's atoning work in Jesus Christ and God's empowering work in the Holy Spirit.

Overview

In this article, I will show that Sabbath rest and sanctuary renewal are basic themes in Genesis 1-3. These themes were initially directed toward Israel's wilderness and settlement generations, but they have continuing significance for Christians. Like the ancient Israelites we believers are called to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, repesenting God's holiness and love for the world. The companion articles "Rest and Renewal in Redemption" and "Rest and Renewal in New Creation" will explore the Christian significance further.

In "Rest and Renewal in Redemption" we will see how Jesus' ministry in relation to Sabbath and sanctuary focuses on meeting the needs of those humble or desperate enough to know that they need a Sovereign God.

In "Rest and Renewal in New Creation" we will see how hope in the promised future transforms our present living and how the Holy Spirit gives us foretaste of that hope.

In the end, for Christians, Sabbath rest and sanctuary renewal come through our faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ and our receptiveness to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

This article assumes that you have read "Understanding the Bible's Literary Patterns." If you have not, please click the title to do so now and then use your browser's back-arrow to return here.

Introduction to the Five Books of Moses

The Bible presents the Five Books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) as the inspired word of God conveyed under the human authority of Moses to the nation of Israel in preparation for its movement from the wilderness into the promised land.

Whatever editing may have occurred to aid the understanding of later generations, the divine authority base and the presumed author-audience relationship remain unaltered. We are intended to read these books as addressed by Moses to the benefit of the wilderness and settlement generations.

We may find much of the purpose of God’s communication through Moses to Israel by paying careful attention to the literary structure of these writings.

The Five Books (a symmetric parallel)

The literary structure of the Five Books shows their underlying unity.

A1. The Problem: How Can a Holy God Live with Sinful Humanity? (Genesis 1--11)

B1. A Chosen People and a Promised Land (Genesis 12--50)

C1.  From Egypt to Sinai: Freed to Worship and Obey (Exodus 1--18)

D. At Sinai: Organized for Holiness (Exodus 19:1--Numbers 10:10)

C2.  From Sinai to the Jordan River: Hindered by Unbelief  and Disobedience (Numbers 10:11--25:17)

B2. On the Edge of Partial, Temporary Fulfillment: The Chosen People Prepare to Enter the Promised Land (Numbers 26:1--Deuteronomy 31:29)

A2. The Solution: Awaiting a Prophet Like Moses (Deuteronomy 31:30--34:12)

The dilemma shown at A1 above is, How can a holy God can live with a sinful humanity? For the ultimate solution shown at A2 above, Israel must await the Messiah, who is described as a prophet like Moses.

At D above, while Israel awaits the Messiah, God provides a calling of Israel to a special assignment of being a kingdom of priests and a holy nation:

Theme text: Exodus 19:6: “and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (ESV).

Explanation: Priests represent God to the people of the world and represent the people of the world before God. For Israel’s God-assigned role, it was to be holy, set apart for living out God’s ways in the world. Israel would be for the world a constant reminder of its need and of God’s desire to restore humanity to its created purpose.

Present point of emphasis: Among the laws which showed Israel how to live in a holy manner, two interim coping mechanisms stand out. These mechanisms allow Israel to partially and temporally manage the dilemma of their sin: Sabbath (resting from labor to devote time to God) and sanctuary (atonement and renewal in the presence of God, within the Five Books occurring at the tabernacle and later at the temple).

These interim coping mechanisms, given in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, and reiterated in Deuteronomy, are anticipated in Genesis 1--3.

Genesis 1, 2 and 3

Genesis 1 and 2 show us the created perfection that was lost through human sin, thus pointing us to what must at last be restored. Genesis 3 shows us the human fall into sin that creates the dilemma.

Genesis 1:1—2:3, a direct parallel emphasizing Sabbath

In this unit we see that the flow of the text points us to the significance of the Sabbath.

Introduction: Creation of Heavens and Earth (1:1-2)

A1. Day 1: Creation of Time (Ordering of Day and Night) (1:3-5)

B1. Day 2: Ordering of Waters Makes Room for Air (1:6-8)

C1. Day 3:

a. Ordering of Waters Makes Room for Land (1:9-10)

b. Bringing Forth of Vegetation (1:11-13)

A2. Day 4: Filling of Heavens with Lights and Regulating of Times and Seasons (1:14-19)

B2. Day 5: Filling of Waters and Air with Living Creatures (1:20-23)

                   C2. Day 6:

a. Filling of Land with Living Creatures (1:24-25)

b. Creation of Human Beings to Rule Over Vegetation and Creatures (1:26-31)

A3. Day 7: Sanctifying of Time (2:1-3)

Notice the arrangement of the activities described for the seven days

1. The seven days break down like this:

2. The seven days may be paired like this:

3.  On Day 6, human beings are created in the image of God, that is, with the capacity to represent God’s nature and purposes. Human beings are consequently given dominion (rulership) over plants and animals. Human beings are not to rule for themselves, but for living out the nature and character of God for all creation. For the children of Israel in the wilderness, preparing to enter the promised land, the point is that their calling to represent God as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation is what all human beings were intended to be from the beginning: representatives of the nature and purposes of God.

4. Days 1, 4, and 7 all have to do with time.

5. If Day 6 were the last word, human beings might be justified in concluding that they are in charge of everything within their grasp. But we need to know that we have a Creator with greater wisdom, power, righteousness, and love than we have within us. But Day 6 is not the culmination; Day 7 is. And so the creation account lays the foundation of the Seventh Day Sabbath.

The Sabbath principle

The creation story of Genesis 1:1—2:3 tells us that God did what we cannot: by his Word and Spirit, he created everything that exists. He is Sovereign, and he deserves our reverent worship. It is not all up to us. We can trust the God who planned, ordered, and filled all things to provide all that is necessary for us to live out the role he has assigned to us.

Sabbath is a time set apart from other time, a time for us to acknowledge the worth of our Creator and our dependence on him, a time for us to heed his Word and Spirit.

As Christians, we must find ways to keep the Sabbath principle without the details of the Law of Moses. Without the Sabbath principle, we will not stay on the path toward becoming what God has created us to be. 

Genesis 2:4-25, a symmetric parallel emphasizing sanctuary

In this unit, we discover that the presence of God is the heart of the garden and the foundation of the meaning of human life.

A1 Introduction: This is what came from creation (2:4).

B1 There is no man to work the ground so the Lord God forms the man (2:5-7).

C1 The Lord God appoints the man and makes trees grow (2:8-9).

                            D. The four rivers (2:10-14).

C2  The Lord God rests the man in his purpose and instructs him about the trees (2:15-17).

B2 There is no helper/partner for the man so the Lord God builds the woman (2:18-23).

A2 Conclusion: The initial result is a man and woman beginning human family and community (2:24-25).

Let’s look at this passage section by section, working from the outside in toward the center:

A1. My translation: “This is what came of the heavens and the earth when they were created.”

A2. What did come of creation? Answers are at the end of Chapters 2, 3 and 4.  In Chapter 2 the answer at (A2) is: The man and the woman form a covenant community under the sovereignty of God. In their original goodness, they are naked and unashamed. In their original perfection, they have no reason for shame and no need to be afraid of each other.

B1.  Two reasons are given for there being no useful vegetation in the land:  (1) No rain in the land. (2) No man in the land.

The Spirit/breath of the Lord God is the defining characteristic of this man’s life. In Hebrew the word for man derives from the word for dust. The Hebrew word group is adam/adamah. The Spirit of God will give the dust-man the potential to represent God’s purposes in working the land.

B2. The man has been created for community, but he is isolated. The Lord took from the man a section of his side and from that built a woman. The man exclaimed, “At last, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” Here was a helper fit for the man.

Helper is elsewhere in the Bible most often used in reference to Israel’s God. God as Israel’s helper is the one who makes possible Israel’s existence as a divine covenant partner. The woman is the one who makes possible the man’s existence as a human covenant partner.  That is how she is his helper.

B1 and B2 thus tell us that human beings were created for work and love, serving God and one another.

C1. The Lord God planted a garden. In the Ancient Near East, it was mostly kings who had such gardens. In this first of such royal gardens, pre-dating and excelling those which the readers and hearers might have encountered, the Lord God put the man/adam as a royal son of God.

The word most translations render put (Hebrew siym) can mean placed, assigned, set apart, or destined to a certain status. My translation is  appointed.  The adam was appointed to represent the sovereignty of the Lord God in the garden. The man’s temptation will be to claim sovereignty without reference to the representative mission.

The Lord God made to spring up in the garden every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. There were two special trees in the center of the garden. One was the tree of life. Those who had access to it would not die.  The other was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We will see more about it in Chapter 3.

C2. The second word that most translations render put (Hebrew nuah or nuach) is not the same Hebrew word that I earlier translated as appointed(siym). This second word could rather be translated as rested. It has to do with settling, calming, or relieving distress. It is related to the name Noah who came to bring rest to a violent world.

God rested the man in the garden to work or till or cultivate and to keep or guard or take care of.

The word translated work or till or cultivate could more broadly be translated as serve. Interestingly, it is the same word later used to describe the service of religious officials, and the word comes to mean worship. It is the word God speaks through Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh: “Let my people go that they may worship me in the wilderness.” 

The word translated to know or to guard or to take care of, can also be translated to heed or to obey. Again, it is a word closely associated with the jobs of religious officials in tabernacle and temple, but it is also a word central to the identity of Israel. The most important text in Judaism is “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might.” In that passage, the word hear is from the same root word as the word translated to keep in the passage we are now studying. The words chosen to describe the man’s duties in the garden (to till and to keep) are closely linked with the words used in relation to the later sanctuaries of tabernacle and temple (to worship and to obey). The man was being appointed to the role of royal priesthood that was later to be Israel’s calling.

The Lord God then gave the man the one restriction by which he was to preserve his role. He was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In Hebrew, knowledge is not just mental awareness, but personal experience. The man was not to bring into his personal experience the whole realm of good and evil. He was not to claim autonomous choice for himself. He was not to choose an evil means as a shortcut to an end that appeared good to him, but he was to worship and obey God, to do things in God’s way so that he would continue to represent God’s nature and purposes and to be worthy of his royal priesthood. He was voluntarily to heed the instruction of the Lord God.

The Lord God was the high king. The man and later the woman, created in his image for dominion, were his vice regents, exercising their supervisory roles under the instruction of the Lord God. Their resemblance to the Lord God was dependent on their keeping of his word. This anticipates the later instruction to Israel: “You shall be holy as I am holy.” Only by declining moral autonomy could the man, woman, and later Israel maintain their status as royal children in the image of God. Only by making this choice voluntarily could they truly love, worship and obey.

D. The central passage is about the four rivers. Why would such a passage be at the heart of this literary unit? Why are the rivers so important? In the Ancient Near East, rivers were thought to flow from the presence of God.  The point is that this is a place where the life-giving presence of God is made available. This is a sanctuary, a holy place. Evidence from Psalms and Ezekiel:

Psalm 46:4-5:“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns” (ESV).  

Ezekiel 47:7-9, 12: (a vision of a river flowing from the temple toward the Dead Sea)  47:As I went back, I saw on the bank of the river very many trees on the one side and on the other. And he said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and enters the sea; when the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh. And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes....And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing” (ESV).

Is there other possible evidence that the garden is a sanctuary?

1. The passage mentions gum resin and onyx in connection with the garden. Gum resin was used extensively in ancient temples, including Israel’s temple. Onyx stones were engraved with the names of the sons/tribes of Israel in the tabernacle.  

2. Genesis 3 implies that Adam and Eve, prior to their sin, were accustomed to being in the presence of God when he walked in the garden in the cool of the evening. 

3. It is possible that the almond branch imagery of the lampstand in the tabernacle was to represent the tree of life from the garden sanctuary.

4. We have seen that the wording of Adam’s assignment: to till and to keep can convey the sanctuary words to worship and to obey. Adam’s and Eve’s highest responsibility in the garden is to trust God and to obey him so that they may represent his purposes in creation. It is both a royal and a priestly responsibility. Therefore, I conclude that the theme of this section is that the garden is a sanctuary. The centrality of the rivers symbolically makes that point.

Genesis 3:1-24 (a symmetric parallel-and-a-half, with two inserts labeled F1, F2)

In this unit, we will see the human-divine hide-and-seek game. At the E-level God seeks the humans, but their choices make them unfit for the presence of God. At F1 and D3, there is already a foreshadowing of the redeeming work of the Messiah.

A1. The serpent tempts the woman. (3:1-5)

B1.  The woman yields to temptation. (3:6a-d)

C1. The man yields to temptation. (3:6e-g)

D1. The man and woman know that they are naked and attempt to cover themselves. (3:7)

E1. The man and woman hide from the LORD God. (3:8)

                                  E2. The LORD God seeks the man.  (3:9)

D2. The man explains that he is naked, but the LORD God asks how he knows that he is naked. (3:10-11a)

C2. When the LORD God asks if the man has broken the commandment, the man prepares to answer. (3:11b-12a)

B2. The man blames the woman. When the LORD God questions the woman, the woman prepares to answer. (3:12b-13c)

A2. The woman blames the serpent(3:13:d-e)

A3. The LORD God curses the serpent. (3:14)

F1.  The LORD God  foretells the nature of the relationship of the serpent to the woman’s offspring. (3:15)

B3. The LORD God pronounces the woman’s punishment. (3:16)

C3.  The LORD God pronounces Adam’s punishment.   (3:17-19)

F2.  The man names his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. (3:20)

D3. The LORD God makes clothing for Adam and Eve from animal skins. (3:21)

E3. To prevent the human beings from eating of the tree of life, the LORD God sent them out from the garden and placed the cherubim and a flaming sword to guard against their return. (3:22-24)

Explanation of the sections

A1—C1. Why is the serpent more crafty than other animals? He is unnaturally crafty because he is being used as a tool of the enemy of God. Satan has at some previous time rebelled against God, and things outside the garden are no longer in their perfect condition. Now Satan makes his moves on the garden and against this couple created in the image of God:

As a side point, we now find out that Adam, who had heard the original command from the LORD God, has been standing by all the time, saying nothing. Now he eats without resistance. If anything, he is more culpable than Eve.

D1.   When Adam and Eve eat of the fruit, they know themselves and each other as grasping. They are ashamed of themselves and afraid of each other. They must cover themselves.

E1-E2. They hide themselves from the LORD God, but he comes seeking them. This is the turning point of the passage.

D2. Adam explains his hiding as being because of his nakedness, but the  LORD God asks how he knows that he is naked. What has led to this shame?

C2—A2. The LORD God questions the man about whether he has broken the commandment. The man blames the woman—and, by implication, God, for giving him the woman. The woman blames the serpent.

A3. The LORD God curses the serpent.

F1. The serpent will war with humankind, but the woman’s offspring will crush him. Whether Moses knew it or not, this anticipates Eve’s singular offspring Jesus and his defeat of Satan. 

B3.  The consequences of the woman’s sin are that her family life will be painful, from love pains to labor pains. She will end up being frustrated and dominated. This is descriptive, not prescriptive. Whatever view Christians may take of New Testament passages about marital submission, those passages do not have in mind husbands dominating wives. Domination is a consequence of sin, and Christian rebirth should set a different path.

C3. The consequences of the man’s sin are frustration in work and the facing of the fact that we live under a death penalty.

F2. Eve name means mother of all the living. Eve is the mother of the Seth’s line that produced Noah from whom all survivors of the flood and ancestors of later biblical people descend.

D3. The Lord God clothed Adam and Eve in garments of skin, meaning that something had to die  to provide clothes for their sin. This describes the dilemma to which Jesus’ sacrificial death provides the final answer.

E3.  The Lord God cannot tolerate sin within his perfect garden sanctuary because sin is incompatible with his holy presence and because sin must not be allowed access to the tree of life, or it will be made permanent. Cherubim are posted to keep the garden sanctuary that Adam and Eve did not keep free from sin.

Genesis 2:4—3:24, taken as a whole (a symmetric parallel)

We now form a larger unit consiting of the two previous units. At the center of this unit is the sin and God’s uncovering of it. This sets up the dilemma that must be resolved in the rest of the Bible.

A1 Creation of Man and the Establishing of Sacred Space (2:4-17)

B1 Creation of Woman and the Establishing of Human Community (2:18-25)

C1 Serpent Tempts Woman (3:1-5)

D The Sin and God’s Uncovering of It (3:6-13)

C2 Punishing of Serpent (3:14-15)

B2 Punishing of Woman and the Disrupting of Communal Harmony (3:16)

A2 Punishing of Man and the Banishing of the Man and Woman from the Sacred Space (3:17-24)

The dilemma

What became of creation? At the end of Chapter 2, we saw a holy community of Adam and Eve. Now at the end of Chapter 3, we see a fractured community at odds with God and itself. God is now faced with a dilemma.

The results

By the end of Chapter 4, we will see the descendants of Adam’s and Eve’s third son Seth beginning to call on the name of the Lord. A chosen line is emerging.

Much later, God will call Seth’s descendants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel to be blessed and to become a blessing to the nations. Later still, he will call Jacob/Israel’s descendants to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

The Sabbath and sanctuary the Lord commands to his chosen people testify to the rest and renewal that he wants for all his human children. But the Sabbath and sanctuary of the Law of Moses are not sufficient to produce the transformation that is ultimately needed. They are a stopgap measure, a coping mechanism, a foreshadowing. The story of redemption awaits the Messiah. Genesis 3 points ahead not only toward the temporary solution, but also toward the ultimate solution.

Sabbath and sanctuary for Christians

Let us conclude by noting that the calling Israel received in the wilderness to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation is not limited to old Israel. In a new context, the calling is renewed for the church.

1 Peter 2:9 says to Christian believers: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (ESV).   

Sabbath and sanctuary will have a new meaning for this new chosen people, but they will still have a meaning. The language of the new royal priesthood is echoed several times in the Revelation to John at the very end of the New Testament.

Here is one example from Revelation 5:9-10, when the heavenly beings sing to the Lamb of God: “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth’” (ESV).

In order to explain how the Sabbath and sanctuary principles get reapplied for Christians, we will need to study further. Our next subject is “Rest and Renewal in Redemption.”

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