Within the church, the role of work is rarely taught. John Stott, in Issues Facing Christians Today, notes that “many people...have never heard a sermon on work" despite being church members for numerable years. This is strange given that a large majority of the church’s congregation are workers in some capacity - whether in paid employment or in another context. As much time is spent in the work environment, it is here that, as Stott notes, the Christian faces his “deepest challenges emotionally, ethically and spiritually".

Whilst recently attending a Bible study on the Ten Commandments, the following question was asked: “Which [commandment] would you want to try to keep and why?" A significant number described how they often overlooked the command to observe the Sabbath, even though they felt that resting for one day a week was desirable.

This essay will explore why the Christian often struggles to rest or observe the Sabbath, proposing that there is a profound symbiotic relationship between work and rest. It will also set forth the idea that resting can be a proclamation of the Christian’s redemption in Christ.

Work

The Christian can understand work to be inherently good because it was established in creation prior to the Fall. In the Genesis creation account, God is represented as a worker as his creative plan unfolds day by day, or stage by stage. When human beings are created, they are described as being made to work:

“And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion…The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it." (Genesis 1:28; 2:15)

God gives some of His own dominion over the earth to humanity, decreeing that they exercise their creative gifts in subduing it. John Piper described God as the “Primal Worker", writing how God initially created ex nihilo and then commands that mankind creates out of His creation. In this way, humanity images or mirrors God as Creator. Stott described this as follows: “[humanity’s] potential for creative work is an essential part of [it’s] godlikeness".

With the Fall in Genesis 3, work becomes burdensome and frustrating. The ground is said to become “cursed", and mankind will eat of it’s produce “in pain". Man will have food to eat “by the sweat of [his] face". Due to the Fall, Christianity upholds that the image of God in humanity became corrupted and defaced. Hence, the purpose of work became distorted; it is often seen as futile and is no longer for joyous creativity.

Some Christian theologians emphasise that mankind’s imaging of God is not wholly destroyed. Wayne Grudem states that “God’s image is distorted but not lost". In Genesis 9:6 God authorises the death penalty for murder: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image". Grudem notes that, despite the sinfulness of humanity, man still bears some likeness to God. James 3:9 describes how people in general “are made in the likeness of God". As humanity is still an image-bearer to some degree, Christians hold that purposeful work can still be accomplished. This is especially true when viewing the redeeming work of Christ as a renewal or recovery of more of God’s image.

John Stott emphasised how work ought to be for the Christian’s fulfilment. God “enjoyed perfect job satisfaction", revealed though His declaring creation as “good". Since the Christian tradition holds man to be made imago Dei, his work should also be satisfying and fulfilling. This was confirmed by Pope John Paul II in his 1981 encyclical Laborem Exercens (“On Human Work") who said “work is a fundamental dimension to man’s existence on earth" and that through it he “achieves fulfilment".

Work is also seen to be purposeful when it has a benefit to the community. The converted robber is encouraged to do “honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need" (Ephesians 4:28). Stott says how “work is a contribution to the community and not a detraction from it".

Ultimately, the Christian understands the purpose of work to be for the glory of God. The Bible records how God speaks, through the prophet Isaiah, of humankind as those “whom I created for my glory" (Isaiah 43:7). Humanity’s purpose, in all that it does, must be to fulfil the reason God created it: to glorify Him. Hence, the Christian is urged to “do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31). This is stated more directly in terms of work and vocation when Paul exhorts the church congregation of Colossae to “work heartily, as for the Lord" (Colossians 3:23).

However, the distortion of work still stands, often manifested in people’s addiction to busyness. Tim Kreider, writing in the New York Times, made the observation:

“Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they aren’t either working or doing something to promote their work."

American pastor R. W. Glenn states that “the cry of business is the anthem of our culture", explaining this addiction to busyness by the fact that today’s culture is a meritocracy. Contemporary society is such that an individual’s identity is bound up in his achievements: the status and salary of a person’s job, the prestige of the university attended, the car that one drives or the house in which one lives. Glenn terms this as the “culture problem": human beings are “résumé builders", who try to gain acceptance into the inner circle of their company’s management, or into the inner circle of a particular group of people.

The Christian faith clearly holds work to be valuable. Work is commanded, and the Bible contains warning about idleness: “if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10). However, many Christians today seem to overcompensate, and conform to society’s pattern of excessive busyness. Glenn terms this as the “church problem". This remainder of this essay will attempt to uncover the root cause of the potentially unhealthy preoccupation with work, and outline how rest places a vital role in the life of a Christian.

Rest

Stott makes an interesting point when he states that the climax of the creation account is the institution of the Sabbath, not the creation of man to subdue the earth. This is qualified by his assertion that as “human beings [we] are our most human not so much when we work, as when we lay aside our work in order to worship". Stott states that it is the combination of both working and worshiping (through resting from our work) that allows man to realise his “full humanity".

A similar sense of interdependence between work and rest is discussed in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. Bonhoeffer draws a parallel between a weekly Sabbath and rest from work in general through prayer, using “prayer" and “rest" almost as synonyms:

“Just as it was God's will that man should work six days and rest...on the seventh, so it is also God's will that every day should be marked...by both prayer and work."

Bonhoeffer elaborates on the relationship between work and rest (or prayer) by explaining how they are exclusive from one another, yet belong “inseparably together". He states that having one without the other causes both to lose their clarity and purpose.

Christian author Timothy Keller, in his recent book Every Good Endeavour, echoes Bonhoeffer in proposing that the relationship between work and rest is “symbiotic". Keller develops this through outlining two levels of symbiosis. The first is concerned with the practical benefits of resting and in the second Keller talks about what he terms “the work under the work".

The Christian can understand resting, or observing the Sabbath, as a means of putting work into perspective. Rest relativises work. Danielle Sallade, who writes for The Gospel Coalition, states that Christians who regularly rest from work “take the focus off of [themselves] and place it back, rightly, on God". Stott quotes from Henri Blocher’s In The Beginning, The opening chapters of Genesis, who says that rest:

“protects mankind from total absorption by the task of subduing the earth, it anticipates the distortion which makes work the sum and purpose of human life."

The Christian tradition also values rest because it enables the Christian to more easily trust in God for provision. Sallade state that Christians often forget that “God is our ultimate provider". Resting protects the Christian from falling into self-sufficiency. Jesus’ discourse against worry in Matthew 6:25-34 is set in the context of work and material need. Jesus reminds the gathered crowds that birds “neither sow nor reap nor gathers into barns" yet God provides for them. Jesus then teaches how God the Father will likewise provide for His people, through posing the rhetorical question, “Are you not of more value than they?"
The theological understanding of God as Provider is profoundly encouraging to the Christian. The God of the Bible is represented as upholding the universe (Hebrews 1:3) and as the source of “every good gift" (James 1:17). A third potential benefit for resting or observing the Sabbath comes with the notion that rested people are more productive.

The deeper level to the symbiotic relationship between work and rest relates to “the work under the work", which according to Keller haunts humanity. He defines it as man’s “need to prove and save [himself], to gain a sense of worth and identity". Keller argues that human beings often use their work as a means of self-justification. He then contrasts this with the “gospel-rest" available to the Christian, as they remind themselves that they are unable to earn salvation through work.

Keller’s “work under the work" notion nicely parallels Glenn’s description of the “culture problem" and the “church problem" discussed previously. Glenn describes the church’s problem as follows: the Christian believes that he initially receives God’s acceptance by grace, but then holds that he must maintain acceptance by works. In other words, many Christians exhibit a disconnect between their confessional theology (ascribing to the doctrine of grace) and their function theology (convincing themselves that their continued acceptance by God is somehow dependent upon merit or good behaviour). In this way, many Christians are, as Glenn calls it, “résumé builders" who attempt to gain acceptance into the inner circle of the heart of God. Thus, the “culture problem" and the “church problem" are the same in essence.

Whilst it is inevitable that a person must build a résumé to be accepted by the meritocracy of today’s culture, the “church problem" stems from the Christian’s misunderstanding of a basic element of the Christian doctrine of grace: justification by faith. The Christian too often seeks his own self-justification as opposed to trusting that he is justified by faith in Jesus Christ.

The doctrine of grace has certainly not been without controversy, but generally, with respect to Western Christianity, holds to the following principle: the basis of justification of sinners is the divine promise of grace, received through faith. Humanity is not justified on the basis of its merits.

The reason that the Christian struggles to unwind, feels guilty of a lack of productivity, and is often addicted to work stems from the belief that his acceptance by God is based on his own work and performance. This is why the Christian struggles to rest or observe the Sabbath. The devastation experienced when the Christian fails to be accepted by the meritocracy is symptomatic of this belief. However, when the Christian can rest in God’s approval and acceptance, he does not depend upon the approval of anyone else.

So one can see that there is some sense in which a Christian’s inability to rest or observe the Sabbath can stem from his misunderstanding of the nature of his redemption. When God instituted the practice of the Sabbath in Deuteronomy 5, He portrayed it as a reenactment of emancipation from slavery in Egypt.

“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 a Sabbath to the LORD your God…You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day."

Therefore, to observe the Sabbath is to declare one’s freedom. For the Israelite people this meant freedom from slavery and captivity in Egypt. For the Christian today, the Sabbath declares freedom from the slavery of seeking approval and acceptance by the meritocracy.

Augustine said of God “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you". When the Christian rests or observes the Sabbath, they ultimately are resting in God’s acceptance of them regardless of sin and and an absence of good works.