To give but one contemporary application, this should encourage us to think more biblically about environmental stewardship. Furthermore, Walton notes that the temple theology that is crystallized in day seven signals an expansion in revealing the greater meaning of creation the individual functions of creation are made to serve humanity’s needs, but the creation as a whole serves as a cosmic temple for God. This interpretation also helps us see the value and goodness of creation, for it is the world itself that serves as God’s “cosmic temple” in Genesis. The “creation” of the presidency by the completion of the campaign hardly means that the president’s residence in the White House will leave him with nothing to do! This understanding of divine rest should prevents us from slipping into thinking that God has somehow “gone away” or let go of this world following the completion of its creation. I like Walton’s metaphor for this of a newly-elected president taking up his rest/residence in the White House after the completion of his electoral campaign. Furthermore, this rest is not simply a disengagement from the now-completed world, but rather a continual involvement with its normal operations. Walton points out that for an ancient audience, divine rest always happens in a temple, and a temple itself is seen as a place of divine rest. But then what exactly does it mean? It is here that Walton’s close study of both the Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern literature helps us out immensely.
God does not grow tired as we humans do, so interpreters are right to point out that God’s “rest” cannot mean the same thing as human rest. The exact meaning of God’s “rest” on the seventh day has proven difficult for biblical interpreters to understand. In the next chapters (Propositions 7-10), Walton argues that the main point of Genesis 1 is the creation of the world as God’s “cosmic temple,” and that this illuminates the meaning of God’s seventh-day “rest” and the point of the previous six days as well. As discussed in previous parts of this series, Walton’s first “propositions” urge us to consider Genesis 1 within its original context, which means recognizing that this creation account is concerned centrally with “functional” rather than “material” origins.
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