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Video 59
Does God need a rest?! – Ecclesiastical -Bishoy Fakhri

In the Book of Genesis, chapter two mentions, "Thus the heavens and the
earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 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: 1– 2)
The repeated question here is:
Does God need a rest?
Does God get tired, so He needs a rest?

There are two considerations in Scripture that we must take care about them:
First, The Bible is not so superficial as to ask a naive question that God gets
tired and rests.
Second, The Holy Bible is God’s book presented to humans, so it must use
human language that humans can understand.
We cannot judge God in a human way or project our humanity onto God, but we
understand the way in which God expressed His actions so that we, as
humans, can understand them.
The logical way to understand the question:
First: Is God flesh and blood to get tired and rest? God is a Spirit, and the Spirit
doesn't take a rest. The Holy Bible mentions this word to give a deeper
meaning. It's unacceptable to take a naïve sense, which neither the Jewish nor
the Christians say and consider that God felt tired and needed rest.
Second: Did God need effort to create? The answer is "No". Because The Holy
Bible says, "For He spoke, and it was done;" (Psalms 33: 9) so, creation
didn't need hard work. Therefore, God did not get tired because He did not
make an effort, and when the skeptic says that God got tired and rested, why
did He wait after six days? Why did He not get tired on the first day, or the
second day, or the third day? Therefore, we see that God does not rest in our
human concept. The scholar Origen says. (Jesus answered those who accused
him of working and healing on the Sabbath.) "My Father has been working
until now, and I have been working." (John 5: 17) so he did not get tired and
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rested, but instead, he is working until now, indicating that there is no day on
which God rests from Watching over the conditions of the world, for the Lord
has not ceased His divine care for creation, for God always includes creation
with His care. Saint Augustine says (He is not tired, and I do not need rest, nor
has he left his work until now. As our Lord Jesus Christ says, "My Father has
been working until now, and I have been working." (John 5: 17). So, God
didn't choose this expression. He didn't stop a particular activity because He
didn't feel tired or took a rest. He didn't stop working. That expression had
another meaning.
 So it is logical that God is not a body to get tired and rest, and why did He
not rest on the first, second, or third day even though He was created on
these days? The sayings of the Holy Father that God has been working
until now during His care for His creation, and He has not stopped His
work.

Let us discuss the word rest:

The Holy Bible, in the Book of Genesis, chapter two, used the word “to rest,”
which is “Shabbat,” from which the Saturday comes, and it means that He
stopped enough or reached the end of the work. Here, what is meant is not that
God rested from His work or was tired, but because creation was completed,
the heavens. He is finished, the creation is complete, and God devotes Himself
to caring for the creation.
This word was mentioned (74) times in the Old Testament. We cannot say all
the verses, but through the verses, we realize that the word (Shabbat) was
mentioned (47) times because He finishes His work. So God rested on the
seventh day, for He finished His work and began caring for Him. With creation,
and it was mentioned (11) times in the sense of resting, here the word
(Shabbat) was mentioned in the sense of resting, not from his fatigue, but
because creation was completed. He began to take care of creation, so we
cannot look at it from a human perspective but from a divine perspective.
Unfortunately, because the Arabic language is limited, we cannot base our
beliefs or doctrinal concepts on the jurisprudence of the Arabic language.
Instead, we return to the ancient language in which the Holy Bible was written;
although it is all comfort, in Hebrew, it is different from that. Shabbat means
rest, but there is another word, such as the word (discussion), which means rest
after fatigue; or the word (Navash), from which the word (Nahum) comes,
meaning consolation or rest. So other Hebrew expressions were used to
indicate rest after fatigue, but the expression about God resting after completing
His creation implies that He finished or stopped His work. So God finished his
earth's foundation, rested on the seventh day, and began his care for creation.
He did not stop working. , "My Father has been working until now, and I
have been working." (John 5: 17). These are His words, but the most
beautiful meaning here is that He found His rest in the completion of His

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creation, so God rested in a sense; He saw His rest and pleasure in the
completion of His creation.
The meaning does not stop at the linguistic meaning only, but there is the
symbolic meaning about which the Church Fathers said that the six days of
creation refer to our temporal life. Thus, we find "evening and morning" in each
day except the seventh. This refers to our eternal life as if God indicates that
the six days of creation are our earthly life where we will work on earth. The
seventh day will come, our eternal rest, in which God will sit with a man in
eternal, never-ending rest in which there will be no evening and morning. We
also rest in God when we live with Him forever. Man's rest is with God, and
God's rest is in making man happy. "Come to Me, all you who labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11: 28). Then we find rest
in God, and when God rewards man, He says, "Enter into the joy of your
lord.” (Matthew 25: 23). So, God's rest is in making man happy, and man's
rest is in his presence in the presence of God. Christ worked the divine order in
His creation, and then rest to suggest to man that his days on earth are days of
fatigue and work, and then the day of rest comes in Him (Christ) because
proper rest is in God Christ. The valid Saturday is Jesus with whom we rest. So
Christ took a covenant with man, the Sabbath covenant, to remember God on
the seventh day, the day of rest. For this reason, He is the Lord of the Saturday,
and because He used to say to man: You work in the six days mentioned in the
Book of Exodus, but on Saturday, remember the Lord to sanctify it, as this day
is not for rest because we do not work every day for 24 continuous hours, but
we work for some time and rest. But this day, we meet with God and remember
His care.
Here, we touch on that times are always linked to astronomy. For example, the
year is the Earth’s rotation around the sun for 365 days, the month is the
Moon’s rotation around the Earth, and the day is the Earth’s rotation around
itself every 24 hours. Still, the week is a divine arrangement to remind man of
God’s care for him to He lives in covenant with him, to tell him that God is the
valid Saturday in which you will find rest.
So, arrangement, symbolic or spiritual, we find that Saturday is God. in which
man finds his rest, and the Saturday on which God rested is the Saturday to
which creation returns, remembers, feels His care, and enters into a covenant
with Him.
 Before we speak about the Christian concept of the word "God rested," we
see how the Jews understood this sentence:
The book of Genesis was in the hands of the Jews. Did they know that God
rested after being tired? Of course not; the Jewish understanding is a model
according to the Jewish Rabbis in the middle Ages:
 First: Rabbi (Abram Ben Azra) whose nickname is (Ben Azra) between 1089
and 1092:

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 He says, “By the seventh day, God completed His work. The word
‘completed’ does not mean that work was completed on Saturday. God did
not perform any work, meaning that God completed creation and rested.”
Here, he did not say that he rested after being tired but stopped working on
Saturday, meaning he did not do any work on the Sabbath. So, the Jewish
rabbi in the eleventh century did not mention that God rested after being
tired. Still, as a measure, God says to man, “Do not work on Saturday but
remember the Sabbath to sanctify it, and because man’s rest is in God, who
remembers His providence.
 Another Rabbi named (Hazakia Ben Manuh) in the thirteen century:
He says, "Saturday doesn't have a language of rest. Because it's written that
the Lord Almighty doesn't feel tired and doesn't sleep." thus, God can't have
taken a rest if we apply the meaning here. He also uses the expression
mentioned in Isaiah: "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The
everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither
faints nor is weary.His understanding is unsearchable." (Isaiah 40: 28).
This is the Jewish thought or explanation which goes with that God doesn't
rest after being tired. The words in Isaiah don't get tired because of creating.
He finds His rest in finishing creation and calls man for real rest in Him.
 Here, we touch on the profound concept of rest, which the Apostle Paul
reached. We will move from the farthest beginning, the Book of Genesis, to
the farthest end, the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Hebrews. St.Paul the
Apostle presents the concept that Christ is more excellent than Moses and
Joshua. Joshua is the one who brought them into Canaan, which he refers to
as rest. He tells them they are a generation that disobeyed God and died in
the wilderness; even the second generation that entered Canaan did not
obtain rest. Still, you, true believers, can bring proper rest in Christ Jesus, an
eternal rest that will never end. This is a valid Saturday. Let us read, step by
step, the fourth chapter of Hebrews: "For we who have believed do enter
that rest, as He has said: "So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter
My rest,'" although the works were finished from the foundation of the
world." (Hebrews 4: 3). Here St.Paul the Apostle says (You Christians will
not be like the Jew lost in the wilderness who will not enter, but God gave the
promise and the promise cannot be broken by your entering Jerusalem, but
the true Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem is reserved for you so that you
may enter it and find your rest in it, Christ who Believe in Him. He who rested
on the seventh day entered before us as our forerunner and a high priest
leading us in His triumphal procession.)

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 Christ, who rested, entered the great Saturday through His resurrection and
death, and we obtain rest through our death with Christ and our resurrection
with Him. Therefore, the rest that the Apostle St.Paul speaks about is the
rest of Christ in completing salvation. We are called to obtain this salvation
and this proper rest in Christ. We practice the pledge of rest through our faith
in Him. We go in and out and find Pasture. We enter Jerusalem and live with
the promise of rest from now on through our faith in Him. For Christ, who
rested by the work of His first creation, is an indication of the redemptive
work of Christ on the Great Saturday in which He exists. We will obtain this
rest in the grave through our faith in Christ and our death with Him.

"For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: "And
God rested on the seventh day from all His works" (Hebrews 4: 4). An
additional point is that this is one Holy Bible in which the apostle Paul said the
exact quotation which was mentioned in the book of Genesis and that's
because it's one Holy Bible. We find it in the third chapter, which uses words
from Psalm 95. Thus, he uses words from 1000 years ago BC and 1500 years
BC.

What is the relationship between God’s rest in creation and God’s rest in
Jerusalem?
Here, the Apostle St.Paul connects it, “and in this also “They shall not enter
My rest." Since therefore, it remains that some must enter it, and those to
whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience"
(Hebrews 4: 5 – 6). The Jews did not enter because of their disobedience.
"again, He designates a certain day, saying in David, "Today," after such a
long time, as it has been said: "Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not
harden your hearts." (Hebrews 4: 7). This is the Psalm that David mentioned,
and since David is talking about the historicity of rest after the incident with
Joshua, he is not talking about Joshua. Still, he is talking about us who believe
in Jesus. “For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward
have spoken of another day"(Hebrews 4: 8)
“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God." (Hebrews 4: 9)
“For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works
as God did from His." (Hebrews 4: 10) Here, he talks about the fact that
Christ rested through redemption on the cross, and God rested on the seventh
day after the completion of His creation, and we who believe in God and are
united with Him obtain the rest that He brought us and called us to. He offers us
an eternal, eschatological rest that does not end on a Saturday in which there is
neither morning nor evening (the eternal day). So, providentially, God, from
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eternity and since the creation of the world, sets a system for what man wants it
to be, for His redeemed creation, that God rests in His creation and works the
first creation and the second (new) creation for man to obtain rest. Rest has
been planned for us since eternity, calling to We enter and move from the works
of the sixth day of our life on earth to the rest of the love of the seventh day.

 Do we accept to rest with God?

 Do we accept to be in eternal life with God?

For this reason, we find Saint John in the Revelation of John the Theologian
saying, "Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, "Write: 'Blessed
are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." "Yes," says the Spirit,
"that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them."
(Revelation 14: 13). So death in Christianity is a comfort in Christ. The rest of
Christ is the completion of redemption, and His happiness in that man is saved
and enters and goes out and finds Pasture, and the Shepherd is the guarantor
of our salvation and rest.

Sum of everything mentioned:

1. The Holy Bible is written for man in a language that man understands.
2. God is a spirit that cannot get tired.
3. Linguistically, “He rested” means that He stopped working on the
completed creation, but He is working until now through His care.
4. God plans to provide rest as an example of the proper rest that a person
who believes in Jesus obtains, which is eternal rest.
5. God can't feel tired because “He gives power to the weak, And to those
who have no might He increases strength." (Isaiah 40: 29). God does
not get tired, does not get faint, and does not get weary.
6. Also, the Christian and Jewish concepts do not have the concept that God
is tired but that God rests and rejoices in His creation, which He loved,
gave Himself for, and called them to rest in an eternal covenant. In Jesus
Christ forever.

Accept rest in Jesus, " Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11: 28).

Glory be to God Forever Amen.

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