Orange Moon "His Rest" Part 2 - Rest and Refreshing

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"His Rest"

Part 2 - Rest and Refreshing

 

     "It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed" (Exodus 31:17).

 

    How could an omnipotent being who cannot become weary, regardless of how vast a universe He might create, be "refreshed"  upon its completion?

 

    "Hast thou not known?  Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?" (Isaiah 40:28).

 

     We may find at least some explanation in the Apostle John's declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ as "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8).  In full knowledge that the creation of the world would lead to the suffering, sorrow, and forsakenness of His beloved Son on the cross of Calvary, God nevertheless created.  It is not difficult to imagine that the act creation would have elicited great and painful emotion in our Lord's heart.  He knew that creating all things all things would result in the necessity of redeeming all things at the highest and most terrible cost to His Son (including the execution of His wrath against Him - Isaiah 53:4).  Perhaps, therefore, the emotional "refreshing" referenced by Moses speaks of our Lord's awareness that creation would ultimately result in grievous ramifications and sorrows beyond measure.  "He is... a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3).

 

   Creation led to Calvary.  Had God never made all things, He would never have been required to redeem all things by the terrible cost of executing His wrath against sin by executing His wrath against His Son.  "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:21).  In such holy light, we may reverently conjecture that the seventh day in which the Almighty God was "refreshed" speaks to to the spiritual and emotional cost He experienced by forming a universe wherein a cross awaited His Beloved.  Yes, creation led to Calvary.  What sorrows might this have evoked in the heart of God as He made all things?  Perhaps the seventh day of His rest and refreshing speaks to us of such holy wonder.

 

    Surely this leads to holy worship, and the desire to better know the refreshing of our redemption through Christ.   The suffering of the Lamb of God made salvation and relationship with God a free gift to be received by faith rather than an attainment to be earned by works (Romans 4:1-5).  We live from this rest, believing that the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus so perfectly made atonement for our sins that we do nothing to originate or maintain the relationship.  We rest and are refreshed every time we rightly consider that the Lord Jesus perfectly completed the work of our redemption.  Our works then flow from our grateful and trusting hearts as the product of love, the love of God "shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5).  "We love Him because He first loved us" (I John 4:19). As the writer of Hebrews so beautifully expresses, we cease from our own works, "as God did from His" (Hebrews 4:10).  How can we fail to worship in such holy light, the light of rest and refreshing long ago known by our Lord in creation, and now known by His trusting children in salvation?

 

"For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength."

(Isaiah 30:15)

 

"Weekly Memory Verse

      Sanctify them through Thy truth.  Thy word is truth."

(John 17:17)

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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