"He needed no rest;
A: He was
--laying the foundation of a divine institution,
--the memorial of His own great work.
“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.” The fourth commandment states the same fact: He “rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”
--The blessing and sanctification of the seventh day was because that God had rested upon it.
--His resting upon it then, was to lay the foundation for blessing and sanctifying the day.
--His being refreshed with this rest implies that he delighted in the act which laid the foundation for the memorial of His great work.
The second act of the Creator in instituting this memorial was to place his blessing upon the day of his rest.
A third act completes the sacred institution. The day already blessed of God, is now, last of all, sanctified or hallowed by Him. To sanctify is “to separate, set apart, or appoint to a holy, sacred or religious use.” To hallow is “to make holy; to consecrate; to set apart for a holy or religious use.”
*The time when these three acts were performed is worthy of especial notice.
--The first act was that of rest. This took place on the seventh day; for the day was employed in rest.
--The first act was that of rest. This took place on the seventh day; for the day was employed in rest.
--The second and third acts took place when the seventh day was past. “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work.” Hence it was on the first day of the second week of time that God blessed the seventh day and set it apart to a holy use.
The blessing and sanctification of the seventh day, therefore relate not to the first seventh day of time, but to the seventh day of the week for time to come, in memory of God’s rest on that day from the work of creation.
--The days of the week are measured off by the revolution of our earth on its axis; and hence our seventh day, as such, can come only to dwellers on this globe.
--To Adam and Eve, therefore, were the days of the week given to use. Hence when God set apart one of these days to a holy use in memory of His own rest on that day of the week, the very essence of the act consisted in his telling Adam that this day should be used only for sacred purposes.
--Adam was then in the garden of God, placed there by the Creator to dress it and to keep it. He was also commissioned of God to subdue the earth. When therefore the rest-day of the Lord should return from week to week all this secular employment, however proper in itself, must be laid aside, and the day observed in memory of the Creator’s rest." J.N. Andrews
