Part 3 - The Fall and the Restoration

The Model of Restoration: Commandment Four

"Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day" (Deut. 5:12-15).

Resting in a finished work

The explanation for the Sabbath is different here than in chapter twenty of Exodus. There, the last part of the commandment reads, "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it" (Ex. 20:11). As previously seen, both the creation account and the deliverance from Egypt are types of the redemptive and sanctifying work of Christ. This is a work of establishing the standing of man before God. This work includes redemption, justification, and sanctification. It is finished. There can be no other work accepted by God concerning the redemption of fallen man. It is required of those who would be reconciled to God that they rest in the finished work of Christ (See Part 1: The Creation of the Church). This forms the foundational fourth point in a proper relationship with God.

In the fall, Eve attempted to make herself a better person, seeing the tree as "a tree desirable to make one wise." She did not rest in her state before God as His work, but attempted by her own strength to change herself into something higher. The essence of the Fourth Commandment is that one's standing and who one is before God is His doing, and this work of God must be rested in. One must rest in God, knowing that one stands before God based on His strength, not one's own. The redeemed are the work of His hands.

A restoration to God's righteousness

The model of restoration shows that it is God's "mighty hand" and "outstretched arm" that creates and establishes the redeemed. Those who would come to God must reject the use of their own strength and instead rest in God's strength. It is God who exercises righteousness in the earth (Jer. 9:24). Romans states, "What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone" (Rom. 9:30-32). To pursue righteousness by the works of the law is to use one's own strength and engage in a work. But this avenue of pursuit is not God's way. God's way is rest in His strength and work which requires faith in Him.

Commandments two, three, and four are aspects of keeping the First Commandment where Yahweh is to be the only God with no other gods beside Him. When man's heart rebelled in the fall, the actions of his soul, mind, and strength reflected his heart. Man placed himself in God's place and the rest of his makeup acted in the place of God as well. It is God's fullness and love, God's understanding and judgment, and God's strength and righteousness that must not be competed against or replaced. This is where there is to be no other god and where Yahweh is to be all in all.