The Rhythm of Creation and Redemption Text: Exodus 35:1-3
Introduction: The Grammar of a Godly Society
We live in an age that is profoundly confused about the basics. Our generation has forgotten the fundamental grammar of reality, and as a result, we are trying to write a coherent sentence without nouns or verbs. We want a society of justice without a standard of justice. We want human rights without a divine right-giver. And we want rest without a Sabbath. The modern world is a frantic, exhausted, and restless place precisely because it has rejected the pattern of work and rest that God has woven into the very fabric of creation itself.
The Sabbath is not an arbitrary rule, a piece of religious furniture that we can discard when it becomes inconvenient. It is a creation ordinance. It is part of the created order, like marriage or gravity. You can defy gravity, but you cannot do so for long and expect a good outcome. In the same way, a society that rejects the Sabbath principle will eventually find itself in a state of perpetual, wearying motion, a hamster wheel of production and consumption that leads nowhere but to burnout and despair. Our twenty four seven culture, with its endless notifications and demands, is not a sign of progress; it is a sign of slavery to the idol of mammon.
In this passage, Moses has come down from the mountain with the instructions for the Tabernacle, the dwelling place of God among His people. But before he gets to the blueprints for the curtains and the lampstands, he begins with the Sabbath. This is profoundly significant. Before the people are to build God a house, they must first order their own lives, their own time, according to His pattern. The worship of God is not confined to a place; it begins with the ordering of our days. The calendar comes before the cathedral. A society that honors God will be a society that honors His time. This command, placed right here, teaches us that our work for God must flow out of our rest in God.
But this is not a gentle suggestion. It comes with the sternest of warnings. This reveals that the Sabbath is not merely about personal piety; it is a matter of public justice and covenant loyalty. To profane the Sabbath was to attack the very heart of Israel's identity as the covenant people of God. It was a declaration of independence from the Creator and Redeemer. And in our day, while the civil applications have changed with the coming of Christ, the principle remains. A culture that forgets to rest in God will inevitably find itself ruled by tyrants.
The Text
Then Moses assembled all the congregation of the sons of Israel and said to them, “These are the things that Yahweh has commanded you to do: Six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy day, a sabbath of complete rest to Yahweh; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. You shall not kindle a fire in any of your places of habitation on the sabbath day.”
(Exodus 35:1-3 LSB)
The Covenant Assembly (v. 1)
The chapter begins with a summons to the entire community.
"Then Moses assembled all the congregation of the sons of Israel and said to them, 'These are the things that Yahweh has commanded you to do:'" (Exodus 35:1)
This is a formal, covenantal gathering. The word for "assembled" is where we get the Hebrew word for a congregation or assembly, the qahal. This is the Old Testament equivalent of the New Testament church, the ekklesia. Moses is not giving his personal advice or some helpful life hacks. He is delivering the authoritative Word of Yahweh to the constituted people of Yahweh. This is not a negotiation. These are commands to be done.
This reminds us that the Christian life is not a solo endeavor. We are called out of the world and into a congregation, an assembly. It is in the context of this gathered body that we hear the Word of God and are instructed in how to live. The modern emphasis on a private, "spiritual but not religious" faith is a complete fiction. The Bible knows nothing of such a thing. Faith is corporate. We are saved as individuals, but we are saved into a family, a body, a kingdom. And it is this body that is responsible for ordering its life according to the commands of God.
The Rhythm of Rest and the Penalty of Rebellion (v. 2)
Moses immediately reiterates the foundational command that governs all of life and work.
"Six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy day, a sabbath of complete rest to Yahweh; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death." (Exodus 35:2 LSB)
The pattern is simple and clear: six days of work, one day of rest. This is the rhythm of creation. God worked for six days and rested on the seventh, not because He was tired, but to establish a pattern for His image bearers. Work is good. God is a worker, and He made us to work, to take dominion and build and create. But our work is not ultimate. Our identity is not found in our job. The six days of labor are bracketed and defined by the seventh day of rest.
This rest is described as "a sabbath of complete rest to Yahweh." It is a holy day, meaning it is set apart, distinct from the other six. It belongs to the Lord. To treat the Sabbath like any other day is to steal from God. It is to say that all my time is my own, which is a lie from the pit. All our time belongs to God, and He graciously gives us six days for our labors and reserves one for holy rest and worship.
But then we come to the penalty: "whoever does any work on it shall be put to death." This strikes our modern ears as harsh, extreme, and utterly out of proportion. But this reaction reveals more about our own diminished view of sin and our inflated view of ourselves than it does about God's justice. Under the Old Covenant, Israel was a theocracy, a nation in a special covenant relationship with God. Certain sins were treated not just as personal failings but as acts of high treason against the King. Profaning the Sabbath was a public repudiation of the covenant. It was like tearing up the constitution. It was an act of rebellion that threatened the very foundation of the nation. The man gathering sticks in Numbers 15 was not just picking up some kindling; he was publicly defying the central sign of the covenant. His execution was a stark warning that you do not trifle with the commands of a holy God.
Now, in the New Covenant, the civil and ceremonial laws of Israel are no longer binding in the same way. Christ is our Sabbath rest, and He has fulfilled the demands of the law. The church is not a civil government, and we do not execute people for Sabbath-breaking. But we must not make the mistake of thinking this means the principle is gone. The moral law, summarized in the Ten Commandments, remains. The death penalty here shows us the ultimate gravity of our sin. All sin, all rebellion against God's commands, earns the death penalty. "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). The fact that we are not immediately struck down for checking our work email on a Sunday is not because the sin is trivial, but because the death penalty has already been carried out on our substitute. Christ received the death penalty for us, for all our lawbreaking, including our Sabbath-breaking. This should lead us not to carelessness, but to profound gratitude and a renewed desire to honor the Lord's Day, not out of slavish fear, but out of joyful love for the One who rested in a tomb for us.
The Specific Prohibition (v. 3)
A specific application of the Sabbath principle is given in verse 3.
"You shall not kindle a fire in any of your places of habitation on the sabbath day." (Exodus 35:3 LSB)
This is a classic example of Old Testament case law. It is not an exhaustive list of everything forbidden on the Sabbath. It is a specific example designed to teach a broader principle. Kindling a fire was foundational to many kinds of work in the ancient world, from cooking to metalworking. Prohibiting the starting of a fire was a way of prohibiting the start of a normal workday. It meant that preparation for the Sabbath meal had to be done the day before. It was a practical command that forced the Israelites to plan for their rest.
This is where the Pharisees in Jesus' day went so wrong. They took these case laws and spun them out into an absurd and burdensome web of regulations, defining exactly how many steps you could take or what kind of knots you could tie. They turned a gift of rest into a heavy yoke. They missed the principle for the particulars. Jesus, as the Lord of the Sabbath, came to restore the Sabbath to its true purpose. It was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). It is a day for works of mercy and necessity, a day for healing and doing good.
For us today, the principle of not kindling a fire applies to those things that represent the start of our regular work. It means we should strive to set aside our ordinary occupations, the things that consume our energy and attention during the week, in order to focus on worship, fellowship, and rest. This doesn't mean we must sit in a dark, cold house. That would be to fall into the same trap as the Pharisees. It means we should thoughtfully and deliberately order our lives so that the Lord's Day is distinct, set apart for the Lord. It is a day to cease from our labors and feast on the goodness of God.
Conclusion: Working from Rest
This passage, coming right before the detailed instructions for building the Tabernacle, sets the entire project in its proper context. The great work of building a dwelling place for God was to be fueled by a rhythm of rest in God. The Israelites were not to be so consumed with the project, even a holy project, that they neglected the God of the project.
This is a permanent lesson for the church. Our work for the kingdom, our building of the church, our evangelism, our discipleship, all of it must flow from our rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ. The New Covenant begins with rest. The Old Covenant pattern was work, then rest. In Christ, the pattern is inverted. We enter into His rest first, by faith, and then we work from that position of rest. "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works" (Ephesians 2:10). We do not work in order to be saved; we work because we are saved. We do not labor in order to find rest; we labor because we have found rest in Him.
The Lord's Day, the first day of the week, is our weekly celebration of this reality. We gather on the day of resurrection, the day the new creation began, to celebrate the fact that Jesus has done it all. He is our true Sabbath. And as we rest in Him, He empowers us for the six days of labor that follow. A church that takes the Lord's Day seriously will be a church that is spiritually refreshed and ready for the work of the week. A Christian who delights in the Sabbath will be a Christian who is a fruitful and effective laborer in the kingdom. Let us, therefore, cease from our own labors, and enter into that glorious rest which God has commanded and provided for us in His Son.