Let’s begin at the beginning. Truly: in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth – that beginning. It is the beginning of everything, and without it, we cannot know God. 

People generally know that God made the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. It’s a wonderful story. God spoke Creation into existence so that the entire project took on a life of its own and began to produce, reproduce, and manifest.

Just think about the wonder of soil and what it gives to humanity. It has been so since the beginning. On the third day, God gathered the waters so that dry ground became visible. The soil had a life of its own because God spoke its potential into being so that the earth began to bring forth. The soil sprouted life.

Then God said: “Let the earth produce vegetation: plants yielding seed and fruit trees on the earth that bear fruit with seed in it, each according to its kind.”
And so it was.
The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in it, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. (Genesis 1:11–13)

God planted a garden so that the beauty of Creation could be reflected in the wonder of humankind. Humanity experienced Creation in all its glory, as the crown of it. In the final act of Creation on the sixth day with the making of man, God connected the temporal and the eternal with a special day—a day without end.

The seventh day was a day of rest, humanity’s first day. There was no evening and morning after the dawning of the seventh day. It was meant to be God’s eternal rest in which humans were to live. The temporality of Creation measured in six days was connected with the eternal rest—the earthly with the heavenly in eternal union, eternal connection: the Sabbath.

In such a wondrous moment, a pattern was established—a model of communication, literally an evening conversation. In the cool of the evening breeze, God came to talk. In that conversation, the character of the Source of all goodness and beauty was revealed in the full glory of the Presence of the Almighty Creator God. Isaiah sings of this:

Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and His understanding no one can fathom. (Isaiah 40:28)

The conversation that began there has never stopped throughout the ages—not even in the thunderous, deafening, life-altering, creation-destroying circumstances when humanity exalted itself as God and ascended the throne of the knowledge of good and evil.

Suddenly, humans had to hide, because the knowledge and experience of truth and glory can never be mixed with sin—but… not out of hearing range. No sin can ever silence the call of God. These are the words that echo through all ages, over all people:

Adam, where are you?

This is the essence of the Christian faith. We have a God who seeks us and calls us. Christianity is all about our Creator-God who calls us back into the beauty and rest of the Garden, into His Sabbath rest without fear or wrath.

The Creator God’s great Plan of Redemption was already in place. The Covenant He made with Himself while Abraham slept brings us back into the rest. It is not about our miserable attempts to please a great and holy God. It is about God, and God alone—His love, His approach, and His plan. The Covenant comes before the Law—Abraham before Moses. In the Law, God reveals His character within the covenant relationship that He maintains and upholds.

Throughout the centuries that follow, the priests, prophets, and kings are called to restore the Sabbath. The key to Sabbath rest is the conversation in the evening breeze. Again, Isaiah sings:

If you listen carefully to Me, you will eat what is good,
and you will delight in rich food.
Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David. (Isaiah 55:2b–3)

David – really? David with his unstable household, rebellious children, cruel generals, too much war, deceit, and adultery – David? Yes, David. David knew the Creation-conversation, the Garden’s rest. It is David who sings:

…for a day in Your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.(Psalm 84:10)

This is the climax of the Sabbath of Atonement, after the Death and Resurrection of Jesus—the culmination of the threefold manifestation of the Sabbath—Pentecost, the birth of the Church of Jesus. The Garden Conversation is restored—in a heavenly language.

This agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written:

“After this I will return,
and I will rebuild David’s fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it,
that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord—
even all the Gentiles who bear My name,
says the Lord, who does these things.” (Acts 15:16–17)

The restoration of the Conversation, to enter the Sabbath rest, so that the best place on earth is a secret place with God where we can rest in the cool of the evening breeze—the Sabbath of Creation, of the Covenant, and of Atonement.

This is healing. This is restoration. This is where the future is decided.