This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 30, 1977.

About a month ago, I met you at New Day in the middle of the seventh day. We only got halfway through our messages on the seventh day, and we’re going to try this morning to conclude our journey to New Day. But since it was a month ago, I have to subject you to a little review. And I know that many of you knew that was coming.

The beginning of the second chapter, the first three verses, is a conclusion. A conclusion is who you are. of what began at the outset of our Bible in the first chapter. You recall in the first chapter, the first verse, that verse which you all know by memory, we have a summary, a summary telling us that everything that has been made has been made by God. God has made everything. Then from verse two, we get the divination of how God made what was made, progressing through the sixth day and coming to finality then in the seventh day. Now, if you’re thinking, If you’re keeping score and you’re interested in taking part in a scripture in a literary fashion, you should hold this section as a unit and try to understand it in terms of itself, then of course relating it to the progression of the development of the unfolding of God’s marvelous acts as they continue in their account throughout the entire book of Genesis, and for that matter, throughout the entire first five books of the Old Testament, that section of scripture which we call the Pentateuch.

This means, then, that verse four begins a new section. And we will consider that verse when we come through that section in time. We see then that this opening of the second chapter is a conclusion. And you might recall that what we find in the middle of the second verse of the second chapter is grandly illiberal.

Now, that’s difficult, as you can tell by the regulation of the New American Standard Version, for it says, and by the seventh day God completed his work. I believe that the proper translation of that verse is, and on the seventh day God completed his work. You might recall then the problem that we had with this verse. If I was to say to you that I finished mowing the lawn today, you would think from that statement that I at least did some mowing today and finished up the time. It seems then, from the way the verse reads, that God did some work on the seventh day and then stopped. It can read that reading is correct, and on the seventh day God completed his work.

Now, this was such a problem, as I pointed out to you formerly, for those who were translating the Hebrew Bible into the Greek, that they actually amended the text. They changed the reading from the seventh day to the sixth day because it was incomprehensible for them to think of God working at all on the seventh day. And so writers of what was called the Septuagint read their texts, and on the sixth day God completed His work. God’s reading has surfaced again in our own day, because if you have a New English Bible, you would see that that’s how that translation renders the text. And on the sixth day, God completed His work.

But what is Moses saying? It isn’t, you see, that Moses wants us to get the idea that God did some work on the seventh day and then stopped. But rather, you see, Moses wants us, by inspiration, to understand that Completion and the seventh day are completely different. He wants us to understand that a creation in six days without the seventh day is incomplete, and it stops short of its goal. That’s what he wants us to understand.

So that throughout the history of redemption, the idea of God’s rest and completion and the seventh day will be inseparably joined together in those whose minds have been tuned to the tone of Scripture. creation without the seventh day is incomplete. And this concept then of completion is something that is part and parcel of the message throughout the entire Bible. So that we have, in the later books of the New Testament, writings that call to our attention that that completion, that idea of completion, is yet to be realized even amongst the people of God and for creation itself, if you will. And we are approaching the eternal Sabbath of God and the end point, the goal. of all of God’s creative works. Completion and the seventh day. Completion and God’s rest, then, inseparably joined together, speaking volumes to us that work right into the fabric of our being. There is a testimony that we are going somewhere. And that there is purpose. Even the structure of the workday tells us, and the workweek speaks to us of the fact that there is purpose and direction in life. We are mortal some way. And without, you see, the seventh day, the creation is incomplete. And without the eternal rest of God on the other side of this creation, the creation itself is incomplete.

Those of you who are under heavy trial in your faith should always keep the structure that God has ordained in mind. For that very structure is a testimony to you of God’s eternal purpose. Are you weighted down with the fear that possibly things shall not come to their appointed end? I’m suspicious that maybe God has taken a break and is now unconcerned with his creation, and especially you. As surely as there is a creation, as surely as there are seven days in a week, as surely as there is a God who has given himself a name for which he has described the whole process by calling himself the beginning and the end. So certainly shall you arrive if you endure by more faith as your appointed man. As impossible as it is for you this morning to deny the reality of creation, As impossible as it is for you to deny the reality of time, as impossible as it is for God to deny His own name, so impossible is it for the creation to fall short of its completed end. And you have God’s name to assure you of that. One question. Why do we become so afraid? Why do we give up so easily? Don’t you know that God, who made heaven and earth, loves you? And will send you to heaven. But there’s more.

The late, great professor of Old Testament at Westminster Seminary, Dr. E.J. Young, has said that there is a connection of this passage that oftentimes slips by us, and we not knowing our Hebrew would be at a disadvantage. But he says that the verse in this statement, in verse 2, we can all pick out verbs, can’t we?

And on the seventh day, God completed that verse for completeness. And often times, he renders with a declaration, so that this verse might be read this way. And on the seventh day, God began completing His work. At this point, I want your minds to go absolutely blind. Don’t you see the same This Dr. Young’s interpretation of this is proper. In the end, there is a declaratory aspect to what is taking place here in verse two. It means, then, that something very significant is taking place on this, the first of the seven days, the first of the days of the rest of God. The congregation is gathered in verse one. Do you see it?

And it is God Himself who is standing in the midst of His sanctuary, surrounded by all of His hosts. And it is God on that day who is the preacher in that congregation, and He is declaring to all who are present and to all the hosts in the sanctuary of the universe that His works are completed, and it is a joyous celebration. of all of creation in the completion of God’s words. As He Himself, the Preacher, becoming the Preacher, and I believe becoming the Preacher in visible form in the midst of that poor congregation, to declare the finality of His works. Even here, Jesus Christ is being seen as declaring the completion of God’s works as in visible form. The invisible God is made manifest and is declaring the end of His works.

What a picture! Not a God removed from His works, but in the midst of His works, and a God who is setting a pattern for the keeping of His day, as His word shall be declared on that day. And the method to save is still the same. And the state of innocency was diminished. But now we see, after a day in which there has been a wrenching of the creation, and a twisting and a perversion of the same, when God became visible again and was humming about his portals. Frankly, in the voice that was spoken that day, you hear the whisper of the celebration of joy that the new creation has begun and is complete in Jesus Christ.

Jesus himself preaches from the cross. It is finished. Not this time, the works of creation, but the work of redemption for the purpose of reclaiming everything that he and his Father and the Spirit have made. The first prophet, the first preacher, is God. Preaching in the congregation on the Sabbath day, in the new days of completion, on the Holy of Holies. The book of Revelation tells us that we shall hear those words again when Jesus returns.

This is the Open Entrance Day, I suppose that some of you have already recognized that. It’s the day after which there’s no repetition of that phrase at evening and morning, or such and such a day. And because of that, you see, it’s a day that partakes both of time and eternity, God subjecting Himself to the conditions of the day in this world, but exalting the day, hallowing it, and blessing it, and sending it apart with the substance of eternal life. And those blessings, you see, My question is that I have given it to you in the beginning of the day. Why is that?

Today, hateful man and God, taking upon Himself, may be even the appearance as of man, become subject to the day. But he who becomes white unto the man is the son of man and is born of the Father, and he is the one determined, even in his preaching, how that day shall be kept. where we as the covenant people of God have opportunity and have the freedom. We are without excuse, and you are without excuse, if you can claim Christ to be the Lord and not recognize Him to be the Lord of the Sabbath, the Sabbath which you are constrained even now, while there remains a Sabbath meeting for the people of God. how proper it is for our confession to tell us that the whole thing is to be taken up in activities of worship and praise, private and public, of our God. Such deeds are necessarily necessary to promote His glory and declare His worship among us.

These are parallel passages. parallel to the end of God’s work is His rest. And as this being is picked up in the commandments in the Book of Exodus, it is God Himself who provides the pattern for our obedience in relationship to this very event. He’s setting the tone. He ends His work, and He rests. and you are being asked to do the same. There is one thing individual for the covenant people of God. If you see Your covenant God wants you to pray the purpose of the day to His Lord in that day and over you in that day.

But since the finished work of Christ, we are pleased to celebrate not only the completion of creation, but the completion of redemption. So that our day is not something that ends our week, but instead undergirds our week. It is on the week’s first day that Jesus is resurrected and enters into His rest, having completed His work. And this is the triumphant message of grace to you, that you aren’t striving for something that is yet unaccomplished, but the accomplishment of it is undergirding your entire life, the very week that you are in right now. that this day we need to learn how to celebrate God’s goodness in creation and in redemption in our worship and in our prayers so that this day is not a burden so that it isn’t troublesome to get yourself out of bed to worship to get the children ready to constrain them by all kinds of means to go with you. It was good when he said to me that it was going to pass you by.

Our Father in Heaven, we ask You that in Your mercies You will be kind to us, for, Lord, we have not even begun to see all of the vocation of the second day. That we pray to You, Father, that we might hear even the whisper of that original creation sound. in the words of our Lord as He finishes His work of redemption on the cross, and may we come to the full celebration of the works of creation and redemption by Him. And now, Father, through Him, may we understand that our work has been completed. and that we, by faith, can now live, and we can strive according to the words of the writings of the Book of Hebrews, to enter into the rest, that we get to be honest in the Day of Resurrection. We pray until such a day as that comes, a day which will be eternal Sabbath of our lives, that we, with humility of heart, might keep this day, because of it, Jesus Christ was raised, and that we might sanctify it as our God has sanctified it. and that it might become truly the lesson He wants in our lives. We pray this in Jesus’ name.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.