Now when we read that first angel’s message to “worship the Creator of heaven and earth. The Creator of the sea and springs,” we are reminded that the first mention of the Sabbath comes in the Bible at the end of creation week. Think back in imagination to the very dramatic events of that first week of this earth’s history. The war had begun already in heaven. Satan had already leveled his charges and his accusations. One third of the angels had already agreed with him that God is not worthy of our love and our trust.

Right in the middle of that devastating crisis, God invites His family to watch Him as He creates yet another world—this time, ours. How easily He could have created our world with a snap of His fingers, in just an instant of time. But in the dramatic and significant setting of the great controversy, He chose instead to do it in six twenty-four hour days. On the first day, all He said was “Let there be light.” That’s all. And then on days two, three, four, and five, God in unhurried majesty and drama unfolded His plans for our earth. By the sixth day, what a beautiful place this was! Where now were Satan’s charges that God was selfish?

The most unselfish of God’s gifts in creation was freedom. He created us in His own image with power to think and to do. And we know from human history that He created us free to either love and trust Him, or hate Him and spit in His face, because both of them have, in fact, happened. He created us able to do it! God even allowed Satan to approach our first parents at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And He didn’t hide that tree in some dark corner of the garden; He put it right in the middle near the Tree of Life, so that Adam and Eve would see it every time they came to that other tree. “In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:9, NIV).

Now the God we know could be trusted not to allow our first inexperienced parents to be tested more than they were able to resist. You know He would not do that. And so Satan was only allowed to approach them at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve were warned not to risk a confrontation with their wily foe. In that warning God was already demonstrating the meaning of that famous key text, 1 Corinthians 10:13: “But God keeps his promise, and he will not allow you to be tested beyond your power to remain firm” (GNB). Paul could have said instead, “God can be trusted. . . ,” that’s what God keeping His promises is all about.

You see, that tree was not put there as an arbitrary test of obedience. That tree was put there to help them, to protect them. What is not directly stated in Genesis is that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not placed there before sin, but after sin. The war had already begun. The Enemy was already on the loose. If the tree had been placed in the garden before sin, it would have been an arbitrary test. But coming after sin, it was there to help them and protect them like every other one of God’s gracious laws. Then God stunned the universe by sharing with us some of His own marvelous creative power. God so designed it that when a man and a woman come together in love, they are able to share life with little people; to create little people in their own image.

Isn’t it interesting to watch our children and our grandchildren? They look so much like us. They behave like us, at our best points and at our worst points. Truly, they do reflect our image and God designed it to be this way. You may recall God’s words in Genesis 1:28: “Have many children, so that your descendants will live all over the earth and bring it under their control” (GNB). That was His original plan. The Song of Solomon right in the middle of the Bible reminds us that this whole thing was God’s idea. That we should be male and female and feel the way we do about each other, and say the things we do to each other, and come together in love, and create little people in our own image. He thought that all up Himself.

He could have created us to look like E.T. or maybe little green people with antennae. And babies could have come in test tubes. But that is not the way that God designed it. That worries some people. “What kind of a God must He be to think it up this way?” And then to put a whole book in the middle of the Bible that confuses some people and delights others? Think what The Song of Solomon says about our God; reminding us of the original creation week and of the Sabbath that came at the end of it. The universe watched all this, the universe that had heard the charges against God. And when creation was over, they said “That’s very good.” Love and admiration for God must have known no bounds. Where now were Satan’s charges that God does not respect the freedom of His creatures? Or that He’s very selfish in His use of authority and power?

The climax of the creation story comes in Genesis 2:2, 3:

On the sixth day God completed all the work he had been doing, and on the seventh day he ceased. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day he ceased from all the work he had set himself to do (NEB).

When the text tells us that God “rested,” it does not mean that He was tired. It was more like an attorney saying, “I have presented all my evidence. I now ‘rest’ my case.” God ceased from all His work. Can you imagine how the universe spent the next twenty-four hours as they celebrated with God the first seventh-day Sabbath?

Now this Sabbath was not Adam and Eve’s seventh day. It was their second day. And if the Sabbath were designed to give us a rest every seventh day since our creation, we should be observing Thursday. The first Sabbath was God’s day of celebration. He called on His family throughout the universe to join with Him in reflecting on the significance of what had been done; the answers He had given to Satan’s charges, the falsity of Satan’s accusations, and the truth about freedom, love, and generosity on the part of our gracious Heavenly Father.

You see, the Sabbath was given after sin, not before. If it was given before, we might think of it as an arbitrary test of our obedience. But it was given after sin, because we needed it. It must have seemed to the universe looking on that the great controversy had been won that Friday night. But no event of creation week had answered Satan’s most serious charge, the charge that God had lied to His children when He warned that the consequence of sin is death. Nothing during creation week, eloquent as it was, spoke to that issue.