I want to relate two passages of Scripture here.
The first is Genesis 2:1-3: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 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. 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." This passage is well-known and straightforward. After six days of creative work, God rested on the seventh day. Not literally, of course, since God cannot tire. However, using an anthropomorphism, Moses describes God in terms that his readers could understand. Notice that God is not described as resting from everything, but specifically from the work of creation. The physical universe and its denizens were complete, as He had designed them to complement one another.
However, one phrase is consistently overlooked: "and made it holy." That phrase necessarily relates to men, since God need do nothing in relationship to Himself to be holy. We will come back to that.
The second passage is Hebrews 4:1-13: "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. 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. For we who have believed enter that rest, as He has said, 'They shall not enter My rest,’ although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: 'And God rested on the seventh day from all His works.' And again in this passage He said, 'They shall not enter My rest.' Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again He appoints a certain day, 'Today,' saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, 'Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.' For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account."
This passage is the theological explanation of what Jesus said during His earthly ministry: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27).
There is a claim often made by anti-Sabbatarians that the Sabbath was part of the law of Moses, and was, therefore, abrogated along with the other ceremonies, such as the sacrifices and the food laws. When in response I have pointed to the reference from Genesis 2, these people have claimed that, since the word "Sabbath" isn't used in it, this passage refers only to an act of God, not to the continuing Sabbath. However, look at what I have already mentioned from Genesis 2:3, that God made the day holy. That can only refer to men's use of it, since God cannot do anything unholy. Also, notice in Hebrews 4 that the author there relates the rest awaiting believers in Heaven to God's rest, which, in turn, is withheld from unbelievers. It is even explicitly called a Sabbath rest in verse 9! How, then, can anyone claim that the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment is different from God's rest in Genesis?
To my mind, the logic of Hebrews 4 requires us to believe in the continuing validity of the Sabbath for Christians, not as a burden, but as a blessing intended for us by Jehovah, the Lord of the Sabbath, the preincarnate Jesus (Matthew 12:8).
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