Old Testament: Gen 2.2

To read the Bible in a year, read Genesis 1–2 on January 1, In the year of our Lord Christ, 2025

By Don Ruhl 

Someone once explained to me why he did not believe, saying that when the Bible says that God rested, that means God was tired and needed the rest. Therefore, this young man argued that the one revealed in the Bible as God, cannot be God, for the true God would not get tired and need to rest. 

After the Bible shows God creating everything in six days, it then says: “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done” (Genesis 2.2). 

Did the Creator get tired? No, he simply stopped working on creating. One could also argue that he was not God for taking six days to create. 

However, God did not need six days to create, and he did not need to rest. What he did do, as revealed later in Exodus 20.8–11, was provide a pattern for Israel’s schedule. They would work six days and then rest on the seventh. 

Since man was created in the image of God, he wanted man to imitate him in at least some ways, one of which was the observance of resting once a week. 

Our God is capable of creating instantly without needing to rest afterward, but in Scripture he revealed what he did for our benefit. 

Questions: 

• Do you ever quit working although you are not tired? 
• If God ended his work on the seventh day, then is he still creating? 

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Don preaches with the Savage Street Church of Christ in Grants Pass, Oregon. 

Listen to his sermons here: GrantsPassChurchOfChrist.com