We have seen that in creation week God set the seventh day apart to be holy, clean, a day in which no work was to be done. The only thing to set it apart from is the rest of the week—the first six days. What is the significance of the seventh day being set apart from the work week—the first six days of creation?
Take the example of the lamb again—we all know that it represents Jesus. The lamb is the type, Jesus is the antitype. The white, spotless lamb represents purity and holiness. The opposite of a spotless lamb is one which has spots, blemishes. Spots and blemishes would cause a lamb to no longer be white, and therefore no longer pure. Instead, those spots and blemishes would cause a lamb to have a mixture of black and white, light and darkness. What do these things mean? What is the principle the spotless lamb and the Sabbath share in common? Is there a bigger picture here that we have not yet seen? What is the greater significance of the seventh day, which is supposed to be kept holy, clean, and in which no work was to be done?
According to the commandment, “in 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.”
When contrasted against the holy Sabbath, the first six days of creation week, those “work” days, must be “unholy,” they must be “unclean” because the Sabbath is set apart from them, and the Sabbath is holy, and clean. The message here is that the spotless lamb has no spots, and the Sabbath has no works—therefore they are both pure, clean.
In the Old Testament, if a lamb had spots, it was considered unholy and unclean. The work week is unholy and unclean because the Sabbath, which is holy and clean, is set apart from it. Thus, the first six days of the week are unholy and unclean. We hope the symbolic picture being painted here is coming into focus, but the real test is this: will we find anything that suggests a mixture of light and darkness in the first six days of creation? If so, then all of this will be confirmed and all the pieces will fall into place.
Before we delve any deeper into the answers to these questions, we need to observe something about how the Creator uses economy in his creation. Take for instance the skeleton: how many different forms and shapes are adapted to that simple structure? God takes one concept and stretches it to the max. Another creative process which God seems to enjoy using is the fractal. In mathematics a fractal is:
a curve or geometric figure each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole” (https://www.lexico.com/definition/fractal).
Another definition of a fractal states:
A fractal is a never-ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop. Driven by recursion, fractals are images of dynamic systems – the pictures of Chaos. Geometrically, they exist in between our familiar dimensions. Fractal patterns are extremely familiar, since nature is full of fractals. For instance: trees, rivers, coastlines, mountains, clouds, seashells, hurricanes, etc (https://fractalfoundation.org/resources/what-are-fractals/).
Broccoli is a fractal—a tiniest piece has the same structure as the largest piece. Romanesco broccoli is a fractal—”the self-similar conical protrusions are composed of spiral on spiral of tiny buds” (https://thesublimeblog.org/2020/02/19/fractals-everywhere/). A leaf vein network is a fractal structure. A chambered nautilus shell is another example of a fractal found in nature.
The same type of structures can be found in the Bible. There it is called types and antitypes: these are like biblical fractals. As we have seen, a type is a person, thing, or event that foreshadows a future person, thing, or event. An antitype is the person, thing, or event that is foreshadowed or represented by the type or symbol. Here are some more biblical examples of types and antitypes.
PHARAOH
Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is an example of a type—Pharaoh is a type of Satan—Satan is the antitype of Pharaoh. Here are the parallels between them: Pharaoh made the people serve in hard bondage (Exodus 1: 14)—Satan keeps the human race in bondage to sin and death (Isaiah 14: 3). Pharaoh would not let the people go (Exodus 5: 2)—Satan does not release his captives (Isaiah 14: 17). Pharaoh perished in the Red Sea (Exodus 15: 4)—Satan will perish in the lake of fire (Revelation 20: 10).
NEBUCHADNEZZAR
Nebuchadnezzar is another type of Satan. Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon (Daniel 1: 3)—Satan is the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14: 3, 12). In the book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar took God’s people captive (Daniel 1: 3)—Satan took the earth captive (Matthew 4: 8-9). Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom was symbolized by a tree (Daniel 4: 20-22)—Satan’s kingdom is symbolized by a tree (Genesis 3: 1-4). Nebuchadnezzar made all people bow to him (Daniel 3)—Satan will attempt to make all bow to him (Revelation 13: 11-17).
MOSES
Another example of a type is Moses—he is a type of Jesus. Moses spent forty years in the desert before he started his ministry—Jesus spent 40 days in the desert before he started his ministry. Moses led the children of Israel out of the slavery of Egypt—Jesus leads his people out of the slavery of sin and death. Moses said: “the Lord will raise up another prophet like me”—Jesus was that other prophet. God gave Moses the law—Jesus fulfilled the law. Moses led the people to the promised land—Jesus leads the people to the new earth “in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).
CREATION WEEK
Seeing then how God’s mind works in such ways, it is not surprising that God set creation week as a type of the Earth’s history. We can look at the seven days of creation and see them as a fractal, where the seven literal days are equivalent to seven thousand years.
This idea that the literal week is a type of the history of the earth may sound absurd to some, but its symbolic meaning is confirmed in the Book of Genesis:
these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth in the heavens (Genesis 2:4, emphasis added).
The Hebrew word for “generations” is the word tôlēdôt. Here is how Strong’s Concordance describes this word:
This key Hebrew word carries with it the notion of everything entailed in a person’s life and that of his or her progeny (Gen 5:1; Gen 6:9). In the plural, it is used to denote the chronological procession of history as humans shape it. It refers to the successive generations in one family (Gen 10:32); or a broader division by lineage (Num 1:20 ff.). In Gen 2:4, the word accounts for the history of the created world (emphasis added).
The Apostle Peter showed that he understood that the week of creation was a type of the world’s history when he wrote the following in his second epistle:
Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder), that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.”
Notice that what scoffers are bringing into question here is the timing of the Lord’s second coming. He also takes us back to “the beginning of creation.” So Peter goes on to explain:
For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, [A REFERENCE TO THE SECOND DAY OF CREATION] by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water [A REFERENCE TO THE SECOND MILLENNIUM WHEN THE FLOOD TOOK PLACE]. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:1-8, emphasis added).
What Peter just did here was confirm that creation week is a fractal and that the seven literal days of creation equal seven thousand years of the history of the earth. What he in essence said is this: these scoffers who say that Jesus is far off in the future “willfully forget” that the second day of creation—that day when by the word of His mouth God divided the waters from the waters, and therefore the earth was “standing out of water and in the water,”—is a type of the flood—the second millennium, “by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water.”
Peter is opening our eyes to the fact that the literal creation week is a type and the antitype is the seven thousand years of the earth’s history. Therefore, the creation week is not only literal but also prophetic. And the prophetic creation week is and has always been right on schedule! This means that Jesus’ Second Coming is not going to happen in some far-off unknown time, but He will come just before the beginning of the Sabbath, at the end of the sixth day—the sixth millennium. There is plenty of evidence for this in the Bible.
The prophetic meaning of the creation week has already been explained by Peter: on the second day God divided the waters from the waters, and on the second thousandth millennium the flood came. On the fourth day God created the sun, and Jesus Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, came at the end of the four thousandth year. In the sixth day God created man in His image, and at the end of the six thousandth year the hundred and forty-four thousand will have the Father’s name written in their foreheads, being recreated in God’s image.
Thus, the second coming of the Lord will happen right on time as prophesied. He will come at the end of the sixth day, and the Sabbath, the Lord’s day, the seventh day, will be the seventh millennium, the thousand years of rest for the earth.
So we ask the question: where are we in this timeline since Jesus came 2,000 years ago? We are right at the end of the six thousand years, just before the beginning of the seventh millennium! In the fourth commandment God had stated: “six days you shall labor and do all your work,” and we have always understood this as applying to the literal six-day week. And 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 cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.”
There is no question that there is a literal weekly application of this commandment, but as the type always points to the antitype, then the literal week of creation points to a much greater picture, which is the 6000 years of Satan’s works system from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It points to the reward and punishment works system, which is the iniquity that was found in Lucifer when he rebelled against God’s universal order of agape love.
The Sabbath represents an age in which there will be no works from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It represents God’s kingdom of grace which according to Peter will be “a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells.”
Earlier we talked about what the real test regarding the work week was—will we find in the first six days of creation a mixture of light and darkness? Embedded in the account of creation there are clues that help us understand the issues involved in the controversy between God and Satan. One of these clues is that after each day of creation the words “evening and morning” are added. For instance, “the evening in the morning were the first day,” or, “the evening in the morning were the second day” and so forth. This pattern repeats itself until the sixth day, and one cannot help but notice that” evening and morning” are a mixture of light and darkness.
When it comes to the seventh day however, there is no mention of “evening and morning.” Is this significant? Or is it a mere oversight on Moses’ part? That this is significant is evidenced by the fact that in the Book of Revelation, when speaking of the new heavens and the new earth, John the Revelator says that the gates of the New Jerusalem “shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there” (Revelation 21:25).
The great message of the seventh day, the Sabbath, or the rest of the Lord, is that in His kingdom there is no mixture of light and darkness. This then is the message which John heard of Jesus and declares unto us, “that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.” This also harmonizes with the symbolism surrounding Jesus Christ whose garments are as white as snow whose principles are represented by the Tree of Life—a single principle—and who is also represented by a spotless, unblemished lamb.
When God asks us to keep the seventh day holy, He is pointing us to something very important. He is bringing to our attention that this day represents something that is clean, having no mixture of light and darkness. The Sabbath is a day set apart from the rest of the week which contains a mixture of light and darkness, a mixture which makes it unholy, unclean.
And related to this is the fact that there are no works involved in the Sabbath. But the six days of the week are related to works. These are the works of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which is unholy and unclean, having a mixture of light and darkness.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was placed right at the center of the Garden—at the center of the controversy between God and Satan. Right in the midst of the Garden were the two trees which symbolize two separate types of government based on two different principles and run by two different rulers.
The Sabbath was given to mankind to help us differentiate between the ruler of the six days— Satan, who has been ruling the earth for six thousand years—and the ruler of the seventh day—the Creator. It was given to us so that we can tell the difference between the lowercase god of works, and the uppercase God of grace. The Sabbath should help us to pull apart the confusion regarding the god of reward and punishment and the God of unconditional love. It also should help us see that the god of this world has brought death for six thousand years, but that the Creator God will renew all things—will bring life back to our planet. This is evident by the fact that most of Jesus’ works of healing took place on the Sabbath.
Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, “There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day.” The Lord then answered him and said, “Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it? So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” And when He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame; and all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him (Luke 13:10-17).
Satan has kept the earth “bound” for six thousand years, but the Lord will “loose” the earth “from this bond on the Sabbath”—the day that belongs to the Lord. The prophet Isaiah is pointing to the seventh millennium when he says:
It shall come to pass on that day the Lord gives you rest from your sorrow, and from your fear and from the hard bondage in which you are made to serve, that you will take up this proverb against the king of Babylon and say: how the oppressor has ceased, the Golden City ceased! The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the sceptre of the rulers; he who struck the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he who ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted and no one hinders (Isaiah 14:3-6, KJV, emphasis added).
Throughout six thousand years Satan has struck the peoples of the earth “in wrath with a continual stroke” through his law of Good and Evil. He ruled the nations in anger through the moral law of reward and punishment— this is “the staff of the wicked, the sceptre of the rulers.” Isaiah goes on to say:
the whole earth is at rest and quiet; they break forth into singing. Indeed the cypress trees rejoice over you, and the Cedars of Lebanon, saying, ‘since you were cut down, no woodsman has come up against us.’
The six thousand years of Satan’s rule reveals his character as a destroyer. The Sabbath reveals the character of God as a Creator. The Sabbath is the culmination of the first three commandments in which God is trying to tell us not to confuse Him, the Creator, with the Destroyer.
And so, after His work of creation, the Lord rested on the seventh day. The Hebrew word for “rested” used in the Ten Commandment in the Book of Exodus is the word nûach. The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon explains what nûach means:
The shepherd would guide his flock to a place of water. Here is water for drinking as well as green grass for pasturing. Once the flock arrives, they are free to rest after the long journey. A guided journey to a place of rest. A sigh of rest (Ancient Hebrew Lexicon).
This reminds us of the promise that our Good Shepherd will guide us, His flock, to “a place of water”—the “water of life.” There, we will have “water for drinking as well as green grass for pasturing.” Once we arrive, we will be free to rest “after the long journey” of six thousand years, “a guided journey to a place of rest.” Isaiah prophesied “the whole earth” will be “at rest and quiet” and we will “break forth into singing.” This is the meaning of the Sabbath rest. The earth will rest from Satan’s work system because God’s grace will reign on the earth.
This brings us to the last word, the word “blessed.” The Lord “blessed” the seventh day as a prediction that one day God’s grace, which is the “path of blessings” will be law of our land. God also blessed the Sabbath because in it He will present us the gift of life through the resurrection that will take place at Jesus’ Second Coming, at the beginning of the seventh thousandth year.
This is the deeper spiritual significance to the Sabbath. But this meaning cannot be grasped unless we put it in the context of the great controversy between God and Satan. We need to see it in the context of the cosmic polemic.
We have devoted an entire chapter to the Sabbath in the first book of our God on Trial series, The Demonization of God Unmasked. There is much more to the meaning of the Sabbath. This commandment directs us to remember something extremely important about our God: He is the Creator. He is not the Destroyer. Rather, He is our Savior and Redeemer—the One who sets us free from the slavery of the Destroyer.
God is all that Jesus revealed: He is the friend of humanity. He is the only true friend of sinners. He is compassionate, merciful, forgiving, self-giving. He is not an accuser. He is the life-giver, the redeemer and the healer. There is no darkness in Him, no evil trait in Him, no violence in Him, no punishment in Him. He is the Prince of Peace. He has forgiven us all sins. The Sabbath was given to us so that we would never forget that God is our Creator and not our ruthless, cruel, punishing Destroyer.
“The wrath of God” is revealed against anyone who continues to see God in the false light that Satan shed on Him from the moment Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Why? Because as we believe, so it shall be done unto us. By believing in the false god, we give ourselves into his hands.
Again, take special notice of the following words: this wrath is not an arbitrary punishment from God—rather, it is a natural consequence of what we believe about Him. Our belief about God determines what jurisdiction we fall under—whether in God’s jurisdiction or Satan’s jurisdiction. In God’s camp there will be love, light, and life. In the camp of the accuser there will be destruction, darkness, and death.
How we see God will determine what we expect from Him. It will determine how we relate to Him and how we relate to each other. It will determine which moral law we live by. It will also define who we are at our very core, because we inevitably model ourselves after the God we believe in. If we see God as a Destroyer, we will become destructive people. If we see God as unforgiving, exacting, and cruel, we will become the same. If we see God as punishing, we will punish those around us.
The Sabbath is useless to us, unless we keep it with the true understanding of the God of the Sabbath. If we don’t know the true character of God, then keeping the Sabbath becomes merely works—we do it simply because we feel we have to do it in order to keep the Commandments and be saved. Those who keep the Sabbath in this manner can’t wait for the Sabbath day to end so that they can go back to the business of real life. They eagerly look forward to the sunset, so that they can pursue the things they really love on the very moment the day is over.
Not knowing the true God of the Sabbath is what the Bible means by ungodliness. Ungodliness, then, is the root of all evil. Ungodliness is to misrepresent God, to ascribe to Him a false character and to commit the ultimate blasphemy: to ascribe to Him Satan’s destructive character.