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“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). At least one reason why God specifically took six days to create the heavens and the earth and then rested on the seventh day was to support His intention that we also work six days and commit the seventh day to His worship, spiritual work, and works of necessity and mercy. This idea is neither new with this author, nor to this century as will be seen below.
Reformer John Calvin, in his Commentary on Genesis 2:3, said, “Whence it also appears, that God always had respect to the welfare of men, I have said above, that six days were employed in the formation of the world; not that God, to whom one moment is as a thousand years, had need of this succession of time, but that he might engage us in the consideration of his works. He had the same end in view in the appointment of his own rest, for he set apart a day selected out of the remainder for this special use. Wherefore, that benediction [Genesis 2:3] is nothing else than a solemn consecration, by which God claims for himself the meditations and employments of men on the seventh day.”68
Puritan preacher Bartholomew Ashwood, in his Heavenly Trade, quoted another author, Mayer: “In the original, the command to work six days is given in the same commanding terms as the command to not work on the Sabbath. The same reason is given for both; the one is taken from God’s resting on the seventh day, and the other from His working six days” [language updated by the author].69
Commentator Matthew Poole wrote, “He rested, not for his own need and refreshment, for he is never weary, Isaiah 40:28; but for our example and instruction, that we might keep that day as a day of religious rest.”70 Obviously, similar logic will apply to the six working days.
Contemporary author Rowland S. Ward wrote, “The simple affirmation that the Sabbath originates at creation does not explain its character. To that question more than one answer has been given. Yet even if one does not understand the creation days to be of the same length as our solar days, it is agreed by all that the narrative of God’s creation week aims to provide a pattern for human activity. It is to have a rhythm of work and rest based on a seven-day cycle, the day of rest also providing opportunity for worship of the Creator.”71 Now obviously, if the narrative aims to do something, then the work that the narrative describes must have the same aim; God’s purposes are all unified and there can be no disunity of intent between His actions and His revelation of those actions.
68John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses called Genesis, Rev. John King, translator (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1984, ISBN: 0-8010-2440-4), Vol. 1, 105.
69Bartholomew Ashwood, The Heavenly Trade Or The Best Commerce The Only Way to Live Well in Impoverishing Times (London, Printed for William Marshall at the Bible in Newgate Street, 1688), 256.
70 Rev. Steven Dilday, translator, The Works of the Reverend Matthew Poole, The Exegetical Labors of the Reverend Matthew Poole (Culpeper, VA: Master Poole Publishing, 2007), Vol. 1, 121.
71 Anthony T. Selvaggio, editor, The Faith Once Delivered (Phillipsburg, NJ: Puritan and Reformed Publishing, 2007, ISBN: 978-1-59638-020-2), 194.
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