Sabbath not only reminds us of God’s creative ability, but it points to His restorative promises. Indeed, with every healing of a person on the Sabbath, the promise of eternal restoration was powerfully reinforced. In its own unique way, the Sabbath provides a view that reaches back to earth’s earliest history and stretches forward to humanity’s eventual destiny. Again, we can say that the Sabbath points both to Creation and to Redemption.

Image © Lars Justinen from GoodSalt.com

God created this world once already. Due to sin, however, His creation has been defiled, but this defiling will not last forever. A key element of the plan of salvation is restoration-not just of the earth but, even more important, of people, beings made in His image and who will be restored to that image and who will live on the new earth. The same God who made the first earth, whose work we celebrate every seventh day, will create the earth again. (Think about how important remembering our creation must be that we are commanded to do it once a week in a special way.)

Read the following texts. What message does each one have that can be linked to the meaning of the Sabbath?

Isa. 65:17

Isa. 66:22

2 Pet. 3:9-13

Rev. 21:1

2 Cor. 5:17

Gal. 6:15

Rev. 21:5

The Sabbath declares that He who created all things in heaven and in earth, and by whom all things hold together, is the head of the church, and that by His power we are reconciled to God. . .. The Sabbath is a sign of Christ’s power to make us holy. And it is given to all whom Christ makes holy. As a sign of His sanctifying power, the Sabbath is given to all who through Christ become a part of the Israel of God.-Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 288, 289.

What practical things can you do to allow the power of God to sanctify you? That is, what choices do you make on a daily basis that either help or hinder this creative process in you?

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