Why should we rest?

What the Bible says

Scripture speaks about rest differently from the world. It is not only a break that lets us work better. It stands at the end of the creation story.

Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on that day He rested from all the work of creation that He had accomplished.

Gen 2:3

The day God blessed is the seventh, the day of rest. God did not rest because he was tired. Matthew Henry says, "God did not rest as one weary, but as one well pleased" Matthew Henry. Creation was good, and he dwelt in it with delight. We are invited into that rest.

At Sinai the invitation becomes a commandment rooted in creation.

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

Exod 20:8

For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.

Exod 20:11

When Deuteronomy repeats the commandment, the reason is different. Here Israel is told to remember slavery.

Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

Deut 5:15

In Egypt Israel worked without rest. So the sabbath is first of all a sign of freedom. The same passage extends it to servants and foreigners, "so that your manservant and maidservant may rest as you do" (Deut 5:14). Rest was not the privilege of the comfortable but a right guaranteed to the lowest. The two reasons are two sides of one God: the one who made the world is the one who freed the slaves.

Jesus gave the day back as a gift rather than a burden. When the Pharisees objected that his disciples were plucking grain on the sabbath, he said:

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Mark 2:27

Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

Mark 2:28

The sabbath is not a rule that crushes people; it was made for them. And its Lord is also the one who gives rest.

Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Matt 11:28

This rest goes beyond the calendar. Jesus once told busy disciples, "let us rest for a while" (Mark 6:31).

Hebrews points further ahead.

There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

Heb 4:9

For whoever enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His.

Heb 4:10

The seventh day foreshadows the complete rest God promises, and a weekly rest is a foretaste of it.

The church's witness

Augustine opens his Confessions by saying that God made us for himself and our heart is restless until it rests in him Augustine, Confessions 1.1.

On Matthew 11:28 Augustine asks, "To what end then does He say, 'Come unto me,' all ye that labour, but that ye should not labour?" Augustine.

On Mark 2:27 Matthew Henry writes: "The sabbath is a sacred and Divine institution; a privilege and benefit, not a task and drudgery" Matthew Henry. On Hebrews 4 he says there is "a more spiritual and excellent sabbath remaining for the people of God, than that of the seventh day" Matthew Henry.

How to keep the sabbath today is disputed among Christians. One view holds that the sabbath commandment is a permanent creation ordinance and still binds, and that the Lord's Day, the day of the resurrection, has taken its place. Many in the Presbyterian and Reformed traditions teach this. A second view holds that the sabbath was a sign of the Mosaic covenant, fulfilled in Christ. Sunday is then the day for gathering to remember the resurrection, not the commandment simply transferred; Lutherans and many others stand closer to this, and still keep regular rest as a gift. Third, Seventh-day Adventists and some others keep the Saturday sabbath. The Catholic Church teaches Mass attendance and rest from work on Sunday. All agree that God gave rest, that it is bound up with trusting him, and that true rest is completed in Christ.

The New Testament shows Christians meeting on the first day (Acts 20:7), but whether this transfers the sabbath is exactly where these views part.

In the original languages

The Hebrew for "Sabbath," shabbat (שַׁבָּת), is tied to the verb shavat (שָׁבַת), "to cease." Sabbath is not collapsing from exhaustion; it is stopping work, as God did in Genesis 2:2. To cease is to acknowledge that the work is in God's hands.

The "Sabbath rest" of Hebrews 4:9 is sabbatismos (σαββατισμός), a word found only here in the New Testament, for the rest God's people will enjoy. In Matthew 11:28, by contrast, "give you rest" is anapauo (ἀναπαύω), and the noun is anapausis (ἀνάπαυσις): to let someone lay a burden down and breathe. Jesus' rest is a promise to refresh the weary.

Common objections

"The sabbath is Old Testament law, and Christians are not under the law." This objection has real support in Paul. He writes, "let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a feast, a New Moon, or a Sabbath" (Col 2:16), and "One person regards a certain day above the others, while someone else considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind" (Rom 14:5). So condemning one another over days is not Paul's way. But this does not make rest unnecessary. The rhythm of rest was there at creation (Gen 2:3), and Jesus said the sabbath was made for people. How the commandment should be kept is disputed; that rest is God's gift is not.

"I cannot afford to rest. If I stop, I cannot make a living." For shift workers, carers and day labourers, rest is a hard practical matter, and Scripture knows it. In the wilderness God gave two days' bread on the sixth day, and the people rested on the seventh (Exod 16:29-30). The commandment was first aimed at slaves who could not rest, and a structure that allows no rest is a matter for a community, not just one person's laziness. As individuals we can lean on the psalmist: "In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for bread to eat — for He gives sleep to His beloved" (Ps 127:2). That is not an order to stop working but a release from the belief that my toil keeps me safe.

"Isn't rest just laziness? Doesn't God keep working?" Jesus said, "To this very day My Father is at His work, and I too am working" (John 5:17). God never stops sustaining the world, so rest does not mean stopping works of mercy, as Jesus' healing on the sabbath shows. Rest is to cease producing and to enjoy what God has done. Scripture warns against idleness too, but idleness avoids work, while sabbath rediscovers its meaning. Matthew Henry, on Exodus 20, distinguishes mere sloth, which may be bodily rest but not holy rest, from the sabbath's rest in the service of God Matthew Henry.

Going further

Rest may be the hardest commandment for us to obey. It makes us anxious, and not being able to stop looks like diligence. Scripture sees rest as an act of faith: to confess that when I stop, the world is still in God's hands, and that my worth does not come from my output. Isaiah says, "By repentance and rest you would be saved; your strength would lie in quiet confidence" (Isa 30:15).

You might ask yourself: do I feel guilty when I rest, and whose voice is that? Who around me cannot rest?

To read further, see What is work for?, How can I overcome anxiety? and What is true freedom?