Hebrews Chapter Four, To Rest

 

Hebrews 4:3 For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest,” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. [4] For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; [5] and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.”

 

The author contrasts his Jewish/Christian audience with the Hebrews of yore. Whereas they did not mingle faith with hearing, resulting in the forfeiture of entry into the Promised Land, the writer references those who, having heard believed.

One of the definitions Oxford offers for the preposition “for” is, “to go in the direction of.” The direction his Christian audience is going through faith is into God’s rest. What is the writer addressing here? The Jewish audience he was writing to may have been lapsing into the exercise of Judaism again (see Acts 15:5, for example), adding works to faith and polluting the gospel of Christ. This would certainly be one valid reason why Hebrews is a veritable exposition of the Old Testament people and practices and their marked inferiority to Jesus Christ.

 

The idea of rest indicates the absence of work, like God completed His work within six days and rested on the seventh, or Sabbath day, a holy day for the nation of Israel. The writer reminds them (and us) that when we enter God’s proffered rest we, too, cease from our works. While verse 10 will expound this idea more thoroughly, we can understand that entering into God’s rest signifies a cessation of work on our end. Belief and work are contrary to one another, as the New Testament, especially the epistles of Romans and Galatians, makes painfully clear.

 

God wants His children to enter His rest by faith. The Promised Land to Israel is what our salvation is to us: a right relationship with God, being led by faith into the place of God’s election and abiding with Him there. Israel became a place peculiar among the nations as the country where God’s name dwelt. When Israel rested in Him they had victory and peace; when human effort supplanted grace they suffered defeat and unrest. In the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, the Assyrian army under Sennacherib sieged Jerusalem. Assyria had already taken northern Israel or Samaria captive; now they had come for the apple of God’s eye. Hezekiah laid out the Assyrians’ threats before the Lord. In response for his faith, trusting in God rather than man, an angel (or perhaps the Lord Himself) killed 185,000 of the Assyrian army, forcing Sennacherib to retreat to Nineveh in shame where he was murdered by his own sons, 2 Kings 19:35-37.

 

Likewise, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, a conglomeration of Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites marched against Jerusalem. I realize 2 Chronicles 20:2 mentions Syria, but verses 22 and 23 mention Mount Seir, Edom’s tribal boundary. Verse 10, in Jehoshaphat’s prayer to God, he makes mention of these three countries and how God forbade ancient Israel from invading them, because they were related through Lot and Esau. When this confederacy marched on the kingdom, Jehoshaphat trusted in the Lord’s provision over his own ability to wage war. God in turn provided the victory and commanded the king and Judah simply to sing praises to Him who would deliver them, 2 Chronicles 20:22, 23. When Judah sang, acting in faith and obeying the singular command God gave, God provided deliverance. Israel rested in God, and in turn God gave His people rest.

 

The Greek word in verse 3 for “finished,” is, “ginomai,” and means, “to become, to come into existence.” The term “works,” is the Greek “ergon” and translates, “toil (as an effort or occupation); by implication an act.” God caused the known universe to become, or come into existence by speaking. Why did He bring the material universe into existence? The writer refers to these things as His works, or toil as it is translated. He cites Genesis 2:2, when God created His “very good,” Earth and the universe as a whole. Again, why? Works are profitable to men, Paul tells us. So His work was, of course, of an extroverted nature to give to mankind freely and with amazing grace. The work of God’s hands wasn’t to compel us to love Him, much less coerce us, as the Calvinist erroneously believes; rather, it was to demonstrate God’s immense love toward us and to manifest His glory.

 

When I write fiction or biblical commentary I want to share with others. One might say these are among my works. What is my purpose for doing so? It is not to convince God that I am worthy, or my works have merit. No; instead it is to convince others that God is worthy, and He has merit. Works service others. What God did when He made the Earth and green life, and animals and every beautiful thing peopling the planet was to benefit humanity. It revealed the majesty of the Creator, yes. That much cannot be argued, either from Scripture or logic. But like a masterpiece of literature glorifies the author, so too does the existence of the creation glorify the Creator. The book is good; the author’s talent and creativity are lauded. The Earth is good; God is praised naturally for the power and sheer brilliance of creation’s splendor.

 

We must rest from works. Like God rested on the seventh day, we are to follow His example. Works are selfless. True or good works, as read in Titus, are giving and without condition. God’s works provided mankind a place to grow, work, love, and come to know his Creator in fellowship. Good works become a part of the rest God desires for His saints because we have ceased from our efforts to woo or win God’s salvation. We are not earning wages, paying off a bill, bartering or bargaining with all that we do, or abstain from doing. Christ’s work was His victorious death on the cross, accomplished since the foundation of the world, Revelation 13:8, 2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 1:2. This knowledge adds some additional force to the notion of God’s works being done since the foundation of the world, as we read here. “Known to God from eternity are all His works,” Acts 15:18.

 

Verse 5 sternly warns the price paid for disobedience to the gospel. God rested on the seventh day and hallowed it, naming it the Sabbath and commanding the Jews to abstain from work. But the Sabbath inference is used to draw attention to the need for Christians to set aside the notion of effort. Jew or Gentile, salvation is a free gift of God’s grace. When we understand this, when its truth penetrates us and convicts us of our need of grace, we too can cease from our works like God did on the seventh day and the Jews physically did on the Sabbath day, to receive the peace that comes only from God. This is no endorsement for Sabbath keeping; it remains the staple of a purely Judaist religion and has nothing to do with Christ’s church. The entire concept of the Sabbath, a day of rest, was God’s teaching tool to lead Israel into an understanding of grace. God created the heavens and earth. He separated Abram from his kin and out of the patriarch made the nation of Israel. He plants and tears down kingdoms, and appoints the time of their dwellings. He makes everything beautiful in its time and provides atonement for the penitent sinner. The Sabbath was a day of reflection about God’s person and all that He has done. The Sabbath was about God; it was never meant to be about rigid adherence to religious policy. It certainly isn’t meant to have invaded the church with the bizarre mandated Saturday worship, going so far as to denounce and vilify Sunday worship. The tragedy is that Saturday worshipers of this ilk turn the Jewish Sabbath, a day of rest, into a work—its antithesis—by its mandatory observation bereft of its original design.

 

Like the rest of the Law, the Sabbath was a tutor to lead the Jew to Christ. We learn quite clearly that the disobedient (springing from unbelief) will not partake in the rest God still offers the faithful. I have read that some consider this rest to mean Heaven, but that does not seem to make sense in this passage. The writer in verse 3, still clearly alive at the time, relates that those who have (already) believed, past tense, enter that rest. This rest is unrelated to Heaven’s bliss. The Promised Land isn’t a type of Heaven; rather, it is the life of a believer committed to trusting the Lord and walking by faith, wherever He leads. This type of rest cannot be achieved by works. The unbeliever trying to enter Heaven by force, as Jesus put it, will never find this rest, but will die outside of it as a penalty for disobedience. The saint that is saved may also lose this blessing since carnal living can separate us from the Holy Spirit’s leadership and voice, dulling our conscience and making us useless in terms of ministry.