Resting in God's Finished Work
- Ryan Martin
- Apr 11, 2020
- 5 min read
Luke 23:50-56
"Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment."
Surrounding our time of focused reflection on the Passion week of Christ, we rightly put great emphasis on the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross, as he became a penal substitute for sinners like you and me. Our Easter celebration then culminates on the first day of the week (or as we often note “on the third day after Jesus died”) when Jesus was victoriously resurrected from the grave conquering sin and death. However, what often gets missed is the day in between – the day God rested.
Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”
It’s important that we not overlook the fact that Christ died and was raised, but right in between that gospel proclamation, bookended by crucifixion and resurrection, he was buried. Jesus Christ really did die, and his burial is proof of that, as we see from Luke’s gospel account.
Why do I emphasize this point? This is not so much to delve into the theological debates as to where Christ went when he died. Rather, I want to highlight this idea of rest – a theme we see throughout the Scriptures, starting back in Genesis with the creation narrative.
For six days, God created the heavens and the earth, and at the completion of each day, “he saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.” Genesis 2 then opens up with these words, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation” (Gen. 2:1-2).
The seventh day was not any less important, any less "blessed" than any of the other six days. Rather, it was a day of completion, a day of noting finality–a day of rest.
This theme of rest continues on into the giving of the Law, as we see in Exodus 20:8, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” A day that God has ordained set apart as a day of rest to focus our attention on him. Even our own Statement of Faith notes the uniqueness of such a day of remembrance and rest:
We believe that the first day of the week is the Lord’s Day; and is to be kept sacred to religious purposes by the devout observance of all the means of grace, both private and public; and by preparation for that rest that remains for the people of God.
In other words, we recognize, practically speaking, that some have to give themselves to their vocation on this day (i.e., medical professionals, first responders), but for most Christians and members of a local church, that should be the exception more than the rule. This day is to be focused primarily on being with God’s people as a means of remembering who we are in Christ, worshipping our great God, and resting from our labors.
But this idea of rest continues, even as God promises his people to enter into that Promised Land or land of rest after having conquered their enemies during the time of Joshua. We know that just generations before, the people of God harden their hearts, and a whole generation died out and would not see that rest.
The Psalmist and the author of Hebrews pick up on that warning that God puts forth in the Old Testament, but point not just to a physical rest, whether it be from labor or in entering into conquered land, but a more eternal rest, a rest for God’s people.
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, ‘They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.’ Therefore, I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest” (Psalm 95:7-11).
The author of Hebrews notes this warning, but follows it with a word of exhortation:
“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end . . . So we see that they [those in the generations at Meribah and Massah] were unable to enter because of unbelief. Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it” (Hebrews 3:12-4:1).
This passage of warning is meant to spur us on into that rest of God, to find our redemption in him alone, and to fix our eyes on the One in whom is rest for our weary souls. And how do we enter such rest? Hebrews 4:3-9 reminds us:
“For we who have believed enter that rest . . . So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”
So, we come back to that idea that as God rested from his labors in creation, it then points forward to an ultimate eternal rest that we find in a spiritual work accomplished not by us, but by Christ alone. When Jesus cried out, “It is finished” it was a declaration that he had completed the redemptive work he was sent by the Father to accomplish. This finished work on the cross is sealed, then, as Christ’s body is laid on a slab of rock, in a sealed and borrowed tomb on Saturday.
God, in the person of Jesus Christ, rested from his labor, but we know there was still a work of resurrection just around the corner. And it is through that life lived, without sin, a death fully bearing the wrath of God against sin, a burial in a borrowed tomb, and a resurrection that breathes eternal hope and joy, having defeated sin, that allows us who hear his voice to enter into his rest because of his finished work on the cross.
Christian, find rest for your souls on this Saturday in the salvation that’s been completed for you by the work of Christ on the cross. You’ve been sealed by the Holy Spirit, having been raised by the same resurrection power that Christ was, in God, as we celebrate this Easter!
Rest well.
"God Rested" by Andrew Peterson
~ written by Ryan Martin
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