One day, all who know the Lord as Saviour will cease from their labours. It will be a time of eternal rest experienced only by those who are born again.
Life will present difficult situations. The only viable solution will, at times, involve taking a step back and regrouping mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
The Sabbath was a sign between the Lord and Israel, but it also demonstrates a principle that man needs a period set aside to rest.
Every man requires rest from his labour. Failure to take time away from life's pressures eventually take time away from the sum total of a man's years.
When Adam transgressed, he affected and infected all that would come after him. When God created man, He did so after His own likeness (Genesis 1:26; Genesis 5:1), but when Adam bore a son after the fall, the Bible says that Adam “begat a son in his own likeness” (Genesis 5:3). Adam’s sin came with dire consequences experienced by all. All those born of Adam’s seed bear Adam’s image (1 Corinthians 15:47-49) and the Bible points out that “in Adam all die” (1 Corinthians 15:22). At the same time, no man faces the eternal judgment of God for bearing Adam’s image, but he does so based upon his own practice of sin and refusal to accept God’s free gift of salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ.
God created man without sin. In his infancy, man had no knowledge of evil but knew only the joys of fellowship with God. The first man had a perfect environment, a perfect spouse, and an uncorrupted mind. He had little in the way of commandments as God only gave one “thou shalt not” (Genesis 2:16-17). Of all the things man could have done within the will of God, man chose to violate God’s one restriction by partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Immediately man’s eyes were opened to good and evil, and he died spiritually just as God had promised. In order to rescue man, God sacrificed an animal, providing coats of skin to cover man’s nakedness, and removed him from the garden.
As already discussed, the word salvation is used throughout the word of God, but depending upon the context, the intended meaning varies. Failure to understand the different usages has led many to espouse some of the most egregious false doctrines. It is important to understand that the foundational meaning of the word salvation refers to deliverance. The vast majority of occurrences in the word of God actually refer to physical deliverance rather than a soul’s salvation. The word salvation can often be found within the context to describe the time when someone received deliverance from a specific trial or a threatening enemy. The most common usage today among believers relates to spiritual deliverance offered through the finished work of Jesus Christ.
