The Lost Meaning(s) of the Seventh Day

The Lost Meaning(s) of the Seventh Day Victoria Conference February 28, 2012 sktonstad@llu.edu

Primary Texts Creation Prophecy Gospel Genesis 2:1-3 Isaiah 56:1-8 John 5:1-18

Primary Texts Creation Prophecy Gospel Protology Eschatology Genesis 2:1-3 Isaiah 56:1-8 John 5:1-18

1. Sabbath as Divine Commitment

Sabbath at the Source • Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. (Gen 2:1-3)

Preliminaries • “The Sabbath originated in Israel as God’s special institution for His people.” H. P. Dressler, “The Sabbath in the Old Testament,” in From Sabbath to Lord’s Day, 23. • “Scripture wishes to emphasize that the sanctity of the Sabbath is older than Israel, and rests upon all mankind.” Umberto Cassuto, Genesis, 64.

Pattern of Intent and Actualization • Then God said, "Let there be..." and there was...(1:3) • And God said, "Let there be ..." And it was so. (1:6-7) • And God said, "Let .." And it was so. (1:9) • Then God said, "Let .." And it was so. (1:11) • And God said, "Let there be..." And it was so. (1:14-15) • And God said, "Let ..." So God created (1:20-21) • And God said, "Let..." And it was so. (1:24) • Then God said, "Let us..." So God created (1:26-27)

Pattern of Appraisal and Delight • 1st Day: And God saw that the light was good (1:4). • 2nd Day: And God saw that it was good (1:10). • 3rd Day: And God saw that it was good (1:12). • 4th Day: And God saw that it was good (1:18). • 5th Day: And God saw that it was good (1:21). • 6th Day: And God saw that it was good (1:25). • 6th Day: God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good (1:31).

Creation and Christianity • “God therefore made the present world and bound the soul to the body as a punishment.” Origen on First Principles,I.8.1. • “For if all things can exist without bodies, doubtless bodily substance will cease to exist when there is no use for it.” On First Principles, II.3.2. • “Thus, it appears that even the use of bodies will cease; and if this happens, bodily nature returns to non-existence, just as formerly it did not exist.”Ibid., II.3.3.

Sabbath, Creation, and Universality • “The text of the Hebrew Bible in the last analysis forbids us to speak of the theology of creation without sustained attention to the sabbatical institution.”Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994 [1988]), 100.

Universality and Inclusion • And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.“ (1:22) • God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it“ (1:28) • Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. (2:3)

Event and Intent • “God finished the work that he had done, and he rested [shābat] on the seventh day” (Gen. 2:2). • “God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it” (Gen. 2:3).

Gift and Blessing • “A blessing is the utterance of a good wish; applied to things, it means their endowment with permanently beneficial qualities.” • “The Sabbath is a constant source of well-being to the man who recognises its true nature and purpose.”Skinner, Genesis, 38.

Personhood • “God finished the work that he had done” (Gen. 2:2) • “A cause cannot cease to be a cause without ceasing to be. It must produce its effects to infinity. God is not a cause, then, for we are told that he decides to rest.” Jacques Ellul, What I Believe (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 153.

Presence and Participation • “By resting on the seventh day, God is thereby shown to have entered into the time of the created order.” Terence Fretheim, God and the World in the Old Testament, 63. • God “adopts the community of creation as his own milieu.” JürgenMoltmann, God in Creation: An Ecological Doctrine of Creation (London: SCM Press, 1985), 279.

Celebration and Delight • The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth-- when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world's first bits of soil. (Prov 8:22-26)

Celebration and Delight – 2 • When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race. (Prov 8:27-31)

No Commandment • “God finished the work that he [God] had done, and he [God] rested [shābat] on the seventh day” (Gen. 2:2). • “God blessed the seventh day and [God] hallowed it” (Gen. 2:3). • Witherington: “Were Adam and Eve, before the Fall given a commandment to keep the seventh day holy?” • “Nope.”

Commitment vs. Commandment • The Sabbath “is not an institution which exists or ceases to exist with its observance by man; the divine rest is a fact as much as the divine work, and so the sanctity of the day is a fact whether man secures the benefit or not.” - Skinner, Genesis, 35. • “The first Sabbath is cosmic, only hinting at what its significance will be to man.” Shimon Bakon, “Creation, Tabernacle and Sabbath,” JBQ 25 (1997): 84.

“It Was Good” • “Empirically speaking, however, life after Eden and to this day is frequently not "very good," and at times it is not even good. On the contrary, life can be replete with suffering and subjugation.” Pinchas Kahn,, “The Expanding Perspectives of the Sabbath,” Jewish Bible Quarterly, 32 (2004), 243.

Memory and Promise • If the orientation of the seventh day from the beginning oscillates between memory and hope, between the reality of Paradise Lost and the prospect of Paradise Regained, the oscillation of hope is stronger than the oscillation of memory. Tonstad, The Lost Meaning of the Seventh Day, 59.

Sabbath at the Source • Intent and actualization • Appraisal and delight • Universality and inclusion • Presence and participation • Plenitude and blessing • Memory and promise

Sabbath at the Source • Intent and actualization • Appraisal and delight • Universality and inclusion • Presence and participation • Plenitude and blessing • Memory and promise • Calm vs. conflict

From Protology to Eschatology Creation Prophecy Gospel Protology Eschatology Genesis 2:1-3 Isaiah 56:1-8 John 5:1-18

The Lost Meaning(s) of the Seventh Day