One of the first things we learn about work is that we are to regularly stop doing it (Gen. 2:1-3). The creation account of Genesis 1 culminates in the Lord’s setting aside His creative labors in order to rest. That divine rest becomes a model for those made in the image of this working-and-resting God, which means that all humanity is likewise called to regularly rest from daily labor (Ex. 20:8-11; Deut. 5:12-15). Human rest is first presented to us as God’s rest. He completes His creative work, sits back, looks at it, declares that it is good, and then He rests. Even for the Lord, rest springs naturally out of work.
God calls humans to work and rest not merely because these are helpful suggestions for a good life but because they mark what it means to be human, because they emanate together out of the divine character in whose image we have been made. We work and rest because God does, and we are crafted in His image. This is true for all human beings, whether they realize it or not. Work is the means by which we carry out our calling as God’s image-bearers in the world, and rest is the means by which we reflect the lordship of the Creator who made us in His image.
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