God’s Word for You
Genesis 2:2 To rest
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, August 15, 2026
2 Since on the seventh day God was finished with the work that he had done, he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.
God’s rest (sabbath) was not a rest of the physical body, since God is Spirit (John 4:24) and therefore needs no bodily rest. God’s rest was not a mental rest, nor a spiritual rest, for he had no need of those things, either. No, the rest of God here on the seventh day of creation was simply to cease all of his work of creation, because it was completed. There was no more to be done. He still works today, but through means and as part of his divine providence. The earth is watered by the dew and the rain, crops grow and produce seed, the animals and mankind produce children, all through the means God established during the act of creation.
This verse is cited by our theologians even about the propagation of the human soul. For it is not our belief that God had already made every human soul during the creation week and that he simply assigns them to human bodies at conception, as if he is measuring out seed from a barrel (the pre-existence of the soul), nor that God creates a new soul each time a body is conceived. We believe that the new soul is made naturally at conception, and that it is produced by the parents. Scripture gives us few passages to support this mystery, but it best explains how original sin is passed down.
As the Formula of Concord states: “God does not create and make sin in us. Rather, along with the nature which God still creates and makes at the present time, original sin is transmitted through our carnal conception and birth out of sinful seed from our father and mother” (Formula of Concord, SD I:7). On account of this corruption, the Law of God accuses us and condemns us for this sin which is in our nature, unless that sin is forgiven for the sake of Christ.
Without getting too far afield of our consideration of the first Sabbath day, we should also explain that we do not mean to say that the body and soul are produced separately by parents as they conceive their children, but the whole person, body and soul, is brought forth from the whole person (meaning both parents in their union). Therefore the conception of Christ who was sinless was different from the conception of all other children, who are conceived already sinful (Psalm 51:5).
Original sin, like all sin, is covered and paid for by the blood of Jesus. His conception and birth placed him under the law (Galatians 4:4), “to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Galatians 4:5). When we say that Christ did everything to redeem us, we mean that he left nothing at all to chance, and he attended to every detail. We call these things his active obedience. He did everything required under the law to rescue us, and all who put their faith in him are completely and forever forgiven.
That work of forgiveness is completed today. When Jesus completed his work of suffering and dying on the cross (his passive obedience), he said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Those words were very much like the words here in Genesis 2:2, for when he finished the work that he had done (first creating, then saving), he rested.
Christ prefigured the Sabbath for us in the grave. “He properly kept the Sabbath there, where, laid to rest, he ceased from all work. He neither saw nor heard nor slept nor woke nor ate nor drank nor digested; he stirred neither his tongue nor any muscle, neither hand nor foot; he neither stood nor walked. If anyone wants to keep the true spiritual Sabbath, he must be completely dead with Christ. No one will keep it properly unless he is truly dead. However, we begin to keep the true Sabbath here when our old Adam ceases from all of its work, powers of reason, will, desires, and lust—all of which will need to cease and be dead during the true Sabbath. And all that is in us needs to be godly, as Paul says in Galatians 2:19-20: ‘Through the Law I died to the Law so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. I live, yet now not I, but Christ lives in me….’” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 62:379). And the holy Scripture teaches us: “There remains a Sabbath-rest for the people of God, for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:6).
Holy Father, teach us truly to love the rest of the Sabbath day, which we set aside as the day Christ rose from the dead. Let us make it a day when we gratefully listen to your word, receive your full forgiveness, and give you the praise of our lips that is also in our hearts.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.