What did God do on the seventh day of creation?

How touching the testimony of God's complacency in the, as yet, unsullied creation! He rested on the seventh day: surely not in any such sense as that in which we use the word rest, as contrasted with fatigue, but simply as contrasted with the six days' work. "The heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them;" "and God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it," as that on which He could with delight survey the completed work. How beautiful a type of that eternal rest He is yet to have in the redeemed creation! (Rev. 21:5-6.)

The Lord God of old entered His rest or sabbath as Creator. He had gone through the work of six days, and on the seventh He rested and was refreshed.

Number 7 is the number of completeness, and on that day God rested from all His work. In this case only we read of His blessing the day, as well as sanctifying it. It is set apart from all the others as having a far superior significance, "because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made." Creating is bringing into existence from nothing, but making is modeling something from what had already been created. God's literal rest on that day is significant of something much more important.

The writer refers to creation to show that from the beginning God has had before Him “rest”, and to manifest the character of God's rest. After the world was formed and man was created in the image and likeness of God, the creation works of God were finished. This led to creation rest with its two distinctive marks: firstly, God's satisfaction in all that He had made, as we read, “God saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good”; secondly, the entire cessation from all His creation work, as it is written, “He rested on the seventh day from all his work which He had made.” (Gen. 1:31; Gen. 2:2). Thus we learn the two great truths that mark God's rest: the absolute complacency in the result of the labour; and satisfaction being reached, the absolute end of all toil.

Three things are mentioned. First, God ended His work — the dawning of the seventh day brought with it the end of His labor. Second, God rested; this is what the day brought in for Him — rest. Third, God blessed and sanctified it. The blessing of the day can alone consist in the delight and satisfaction of God concerning the accomplished work which thus makes rest possible. It is sanctified, in that it is set apart to the enjoyment of this delight and satisfaction. Who shall say what the men sure of these things is to be in that sabbath-keeping of God into which His people shall enter with Him?

There are few subjects on which so much misunderstanding and contradiction prevails as the doctrine of "the Sabbath." Not that there is the slightest foundation for either the one or the other; for the whole subject Is laid down in the word, in the simplest possible manner. The distinct commandment, to "keep holy the Sabbath day" will come before us, the Lord permitting, in our meditations on the book of Exodus. In the chapter now before us, there is no command given to man, whatever; but simply the record that, "God rested on the seventh dray." "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. and God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." There is no commandment given to man, here. We are simply told that God enjoyed His rest, because all was done, so far as the mere creation was concerned. There was nothing more to be done, and, therefore, the One who had, during six days, been working, ceased to work, and enjoyed His rest. All was complete; all was very good; all was just as He Himself had made it; and He rested in it. "The morning stars sang together; and all the sons of God shouted for joy." The work of creation was ended, and God was celebrating a Sabbath.

Genesis 2:1-3, really belongs to Genesis 1, and completes the paragraph. The seventh day was a day of rest for God. His work had involved both creating and making, but all was now complete, and evidently He has not set His hand to work of that order from that time until now. The entrance of sin necessitated His taking up work of another order, and the Lord Jesus alluded to this in saying, "My Father works hitherto, and I work" (John 5:17).

The Seventh Day. We have thus reached the end of the works of God. "In six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath Day, and hallowed it." After labor comes rest. We may say, in the language of man, that God has rested from His works since their completion. He has no longer been putting forth the labor which is suggested in the work of creation. This sets aside the thought entertained by some, of subsequent creatorial acts. Physically speaking, we have been living in the Sabbath of God, so far as His cessation from creative labor is concerned.

For what remains is rest, and only rest, God's rest in love over His accomplished work. Seven times He has pronounced all "good," the last time "very good." Now "evening" and "morning" come no more, but full, ripe, unending "day" — a day blessed and sanctified of God as the day of His rest.

Having finished His work in preparing the earth and heavens, and making the inhabitants of the earth, it is written, “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made” (Gen. 2:2). The entry of sin into the world broke into the rest of God, and God set to work again, not to restore the conditions that had been marred by sin, but to work in view of another world into which sin could not enter, and where He could find His eternal rest in the blessing of all those who would share that rest with Him.