What we are to understand of God’s resting on the seventh day, after the six days’ work explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• True Worship and the One God

  Augustine clarifies that God's rest is not anthropomorphic but signifies the eternal rest of believers in God, aligning with true worship of the one God.

• Eschatology and the Last Things

  The chapter points to the eternal rest promised to believers after good works, prefiguring the final rest in God.

Characters to notice

• Augustine

  Author and interpreter of the meaning of God's rest.

• Holy Scripture

  The sacred narrative that states God rested on the seventh day.

Key passages

• “When it is said that God rested on the seventh day from all His works, and hallowed it, we are not to conceive of this in a childish fashion, as if work were a toil to God, who 'spake and it was done,'—spake by the spiritual and eternal, not audible and transitory word.”

  We should not think of God's rest on the seventh day as if He were tired, because He created everything simply by speaking His eternal word.

  Augustine corrects a literal, childish interpretation of God's rest.

• “But God's rest signifies the rest of those who rest in God, as the joy of a house means the joy of those in the house who rejoice, though not the house, but something else, causes the joy.”

  When we say God rested, it means that those who are in God find rest in Him, just as the joy of a house refers to the joy of its inhabitants.

  Augustine uses figurative language to explain that God's rest is about believers' rest.

• “Most appropriately, therefore, the sacred narrative states that God rested, meaning thereby that those rest who are in Him, and whom He makes to rest.”

  So when Scripture says God rested, it means that those who belong to Him and are made by Him to rest are the ones who rest.

  Augustine emphasizes that God's rest is a promise for believers.