The opening pages of Scripture present to us the fruit of majestic toil in a purposeful creation. God is the skilled workman that labors over a disjointed cosmos to bring about order, goodness, and beauty. He builds, divides, and fills the earth with his glory, commissioning the first human couple to take part in this productivity.
This is what makes work central to the meaning of being created in the image of God. It is at the heart of man’s calling. Both he and his bride were placed in Eden as stewards to cultivate the natural resources God had provided to the end of turning his dwelling place into a prosperous kingdom. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15).
Working from the start
Work is not a product of the fall. It did not come about as a result of man’s disobedience. Work is a religious function tied to the inescapable reality that all human beings were created for worship. Adam’s calling to glorify God and exercise dominion required diligent labor. He was tasked with acquiring the creativity, dexterity, and resourcefulness needed to make cities out of gardens.
This would require making tools that did not exist. It would mean classifying the animals and studying the created order to learn how to best care for those placed under his charge. Shelters were in need of construction, boundaries were called to be established, and weeds were in need of pulling. The potential of this glorious inheritance would be maximized to generate wealth and provide for other image-bearers that would soon be born to join this prolific enterprise.
Like the creational institution of marriage, work is a prepolitical right and a divine calling upon which man may not infringe. Every person has the God-given right to labor for a living. The provisions of God’s law show us that those who labor are to be compensated on time, in accordance with their earnings, and with what their employer has agreed to pay (Leviticus 19:13, Matthew 20:3). The worker is worthy of his wages. God expects his creatures to be productive and has hardwired them for wealth-generating productivity.
Work is not a product of the fall. It did not come about as a result of man’s disobedience. Work is a religious function tied to the inescapable reality that all human beings were created for worship.
This is why human beings work. Sin corrupted certain aspects of this, causing man to experience the toil of frustration as he seeks to bring creation into subjection (Genesis 3:17-19). Nevertheless, God is the one who provides us the enjoyment we experience from our labors. Apart from him, it tends only to despair as it becomes monotonous drudgery and vain repetition.
The curse of the fall led to man using creation in order to serve himself rather than use the fruit of his work to serve God and his people. This explains why sins like theft and slothfulness are condemned in Scripture. Stealing represents a rejection of God’s command for people to work. Laziness entails an immoral negligence of one’s duty and a squandering of his inheritance. Stealing and laziness are attacks on wealth, the family, and God’s created order. “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man” (Proverbs 6:10-11).
Working from rest
The structure of creation not only contains the pattern of work but also the pattern of Sabbath rest. The inexhaustible Maker of the universe worked for six days and set the seventh day apart as holy. It is a sign that his people are to be actively engaged in and set apart in his world. This includes the work they complete in service to him. The Sabbath is a creational ordinance that connects God’s creative work with his active governance over the creation. He gave it as a gift to man so that his finite image-bearers could experience rest, refreshment, and renewal. It connects man back to his created purpose: the worship of God. The seventh day acts as the hinge between creation and re-creation.
After the resurrection, the early Church began meeting on the first day of the week (John 20:19, 1 Corinthians 16:2, Revelation 1:10). To a first-century Jewish audience, this was unconscionable. Nothing on earth could displace the creational ordinance of the Sabbath. Early Christians, many of them Jewish, knew this as well. What event could possibly turn creation on its head in such dramatic fashion? Followers of the Way understood that the significance of the resurrection meant that the creational ordinance of the Sabbath was to be understood in light of the new creation found in Christ! Their Master claimed that he was Lord of the Sabbath and therefore the one uniquely authorized to interpret its true meaning.
The Christian Church recognized the first day of the week as the day of rest, where the enthroned King of Glory was to be worshiped in the gathered assembly because he sat down and rested from his accomplished work in re-creation (Hebrews 1). The structure of our own seven-day week was drawn from this gift of gospel goodness, permeating its way from the church into the rest of society. The Sabbath rest in Christ that sets man free from the slavery of sin has also set entire cultures free from being the slaves of other men.
The Sabbath is a creational ordinance that connects God’s creative work with his active governance over the creation. He gave it as a gift to man so that his finite image-bearers could experience rest, refreshment, and renewal.
If the purpose of the Sabbath is to liberate man from bondage so that he may serve God, a day of rest ensures that men cannot be subjugated to endless work. The redemptive value of this cannot be overstated. New Testament writers tell us that true Sabbath rest points to the forgiveness of sins and fallen man’s restoration to service of the living God through Jesus Christ. “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:19).
The “rest” spoken of here is the one Christ referred to when he invited his listeners to lay their burdens upon him in order to find rest for their souls (Matthew 11:28). We miss this rest at our own peril. While fallen men and women work to earn their acceptance before God in hope of gaining rest, believers have been redeemed to work from the rest God has already provided and spoken over them in his Son.
Working like Christians
Despite these glorious truths, American Christians have had many misunderstandings about what it means to work in a Christian way. Equally unfortunate is the fact that in our day believers have become notorious for doing shoddy work that merely tries to copy whatever the world is doing.
God did not intend the work of his people to be a cheap imitation. Christians should be the hardest workers and do the best work. We should be the most creative and the most innovative. We should be building and making things that the world wants to copy, not the other way around. We should have the best businesses that put out the highest levels of service and whose products have the highest quality. Believers ought to set the standard in every endeavor. Our work is meant to bless the world because we know the One who provides the only basis for goodness, beauty, and truth.
Working like a Christian does not mean etching “John 3:16” on every product we create or giving an extended gospel presentation after every service we provide. Martin Luther captured well what it meant to labor for the Lord in one’s profession: “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”
Christians should be the hardest workers and do the best work. We should be the most creative and the most innovative. We should be building and making things that the world wants to copy, not the other way around.
Whatever one’s industry, he should work for the Lord and not for man (Colossians 3:23-24). Christians do not need to be a pastor or church leader for their work to truly matter. The priesthood of all believers ensures the dignity of work, whether it is done by the Christian baker, filmmaker, civil magistrate, software programmer, construction worker, business owner, attorney, project manager, or stay-at-home mother.
Every occupation has significance if carried out in faithful service to God. Image-bearers of God were made to work because we were made to worship. So let us offer up our work as a pleasing and acceptable offering to him with the knowledge that if it is done for him and by reliance on his power, then none of the work we do is in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).
