I suppose the Creator could have set things up that way since he is able to do anything, but the idea strikes me as strange and even stupid. We accept that God made trees, marvelous and beautiful living things that they are even in the raw, and that we can use them to fashion into lumber for houses, boats, furniture, carvings, paper, whatever use we can invent. It seems logical and normal for us in the order of things that we have been given an earth full of wonderful raw materials from which to fashion into useful things. We accept the fact that Cadillacs don’t grow—despite the fact that a guy in west Texas planted a long row of them along a highway.

Great Yahweh didn’t have the creation grow squared, already milled lumber, but he gave us trees. He also buried billions upon billions of tons of iron ore, coal, oil, and every mineral for which we could ever hope to devise a use. Cadillacs and Fords come out of the ground from God’s buried treasure and after some intelligent fashioning, we drive to McDonald’s to eat a cow and some wheat that have been fashioned into a burger.

The point is this: Raw creation needs fashioning to be made suitable for higher purposes--be they a computer, a Boeing 777, medicine, surgical instruments, a furnace, a water pump, a refrigerator—you name it. Bringing things from raw to finished is the enterprise of man.

God anticipated man would be virtually full-time engaged in fashioning his environment when he gave forth his blessing to "be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it" (Gn 1:28).

But isn’t mankind itself also part of the raw creation that needs to be fashioned for a higher purpose? Man- and womankind were not made just to rule the earthly elements. We have a surpassingly higher calling—one given in God’s own voice as he was about to create us: To the heavenly host he declared, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…."

Here is how it all works: Man rules and fashions the earth; God rules and fashions man.

God, who is able to create the physical cosmos, is also able to create a spiritual man made in the Divine image. In fact, he has successfully been doing it for thousands of years, and I’m sure you are profoundly happy that he is now working on you.

God has devised the best possible method to fashion and mold man into his Divine character image. He has powerful means and effective tools to do this work. His holy Spirit can work mightily upon the human heart to convict, change, cleanse, lead and inspire. His sharp tools include his revealed law, Godly traditions that remind and bind the faithful to truth, and a calendar of Sabbaths to keep us ever mindful of our Maker.

The Sabbath is a tool to fashion man/woman into God’s image? Consider this: In order to become like God one must know what God is like. This simple logic is supported throughout the Word of God. Knowing God is the key to becoming like God. Speaking of backslidden Israel, Yahweh declares, "My people are fools; they do not know me" (Jer 4:22). How did a people which at its beginning had known God, witnessed his power, and received his blessings, later decay to such ignorance of God that they must be called "fools"?

For one thing, they rejected the very things that could keep them mindful of their Maker—the very tools that God could use to fashion them into a holy nation making of them a light to all nations of how great their God is. Once again, the Bible is clear on how a chosen people lost knowledge of God.

"They did not follow my decrees but rejected my laws—although the man who obeys them will live by them—and they utterly desecrated my Sabbaths. So I said I would pour out my wrath on them…" (Eze 20:13).

God want to fashion us after himself. He invites us to come learn of him, to walk and to fellowship with him. One of his helpful tools is time. He said to his people,

"Keep my Sabbaths holy, that they may be a sign between us. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God" (Eze 20:20).

The Sabbath isn’t something we "keep" as a legalistic ritual having some innate, magic-like essence that rubs off on the "keepers." As the nationally famous Rabbi Daniel Lapin puts it, "We don’t keep the Sabbath, the Sabbath keeps us in relationship with God."

Rather than an exercise in an ancient religious ritual, the Sabbath is a vibrant day that celebrates a current and living relationship between Maker and "makee." As the Lord God himself explained it, "a sign between us." It is a day that cycles every seven to remind us of who we are and why we are—created to be fashioned into the divine image.

If this relationship between God and man is sincerely established and maintained there is a natural outcome: "Then you will know I am the Lord your God." If God can establish a corollary between (a) worshipping him on his Sabbaths and, (b) coming to know him, I think we can too. A goal of the Bible Sabbath Association and the ACD is to hold high the Sabbath as God’s gift to assist all in drawing near to him.

Certainly, the Sabbath is not the sole portal to the knowledge of God, but it is God’s preferred day to pause and worship him as Creator and Savior. It is one of the precision tools God uses to form and fashion us from raw carnal flesh into a spiritual son or daughter. It facilitates building a relationship—a weekly meeting specifically to learn of and worship our Maker.

God has enshrined in time a memorial of his creation and invites us to pause to consider the meaning of our being. When we forget or refuse to do that, it won’t be long before we lose that special relationship and forget the God that made us.

We humans have been quite creative at using (and often abusing) the earth’s living things and elements. We have also been given raw time to use or abuse. It just comes with the rising sun and it is ours to waste, or use for good purposes. God invites us to fashion our week with him as time’s object and his day at week’s pinnacle. Just as the six days of creation build to the climax of the seventh and crowning day when God makes it holy and begins a relationship with his first son and daughter, we can make our week in his image. We can make it the crown of the week and use it to draw near him.

Just as a raw diamond must be cleaned, polished, and fashioned with facets to bring out its full, coruscating glory, we need similar work. Cars don’t grow out of the ground, they’re made by man from suitable raw material. Spiritual sons and daughters of God don’t grow from church pews or anywhere else, they’re hand made by God. Invite him now to use his best and eternal methods and tools to fashion you into his glorious image. He knows what he doing.

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