“Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us

 of entering into His rest, any of you should seem

to come short of it”—Hebrews 4:1.

Paul exhorts them to fear lest they come short of the promise of His rest.  How we Gentiles also ought to avail ourselves of the promises of God that have been given us through the Gospel.  In verse 2 the apostle tells us the gospel was preached to them, that is, those that wandered in the wilderness.  All of the Old Testament scriptures pointed forward to Christ and were typical of the Lord Jesus Christ.  In this chapter we read of a better rest than the one they had under Joshua.  The word preached did not profit them because it was not mingled with faith in them that heard it.  This principle is still true today.  The Word does not profit us unless we receive it with an open and believing heart.  There is rest for the believer who by the hearing of faith receives the Word and rests in the finished work of Calvary. 

These Jewish Christians were not enjoying this rest that Paul is speaking of in this portion of scripture because they were endeavoring to enter into it through their own works when God had finished it through Calvary’s atonement. 

In verse 3 we see that the works were finished from the foundation of the world in God’s purpose, the provision for the rest was finished from the foundation of the world.  In speaking to the Church Paul speaks of us being chosen in Him from before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1:4, etc.  But in his letter to the Hebrews it is from the foundation of the world, because he is speaking particularly to the Hebrews.

The Sabbath was ordained in the Old Testament as typical of the rest that God wanted His people to enter into, they were not permitted to do any work on that day, only that which they should eat.  So the Lord is our rest and as we rest in Him we cease from our works and feast upon Him.  When God ordained the Sabbath in Exodus He entreated them to enter into His rest.  But they became occupied with the letter of the Sabbath keeping rather than resting on the promise of God.  There was to be no self-seeking on the Sabbath, no planting, no plowing, no reaping, no gathering, but a complete rest and a double enactment of the spiritual services, the sacrifices were doubled on that day.

Some must enter into God’s rest and unbelief hindered those people in the wilderness.  When we enter into God’s rest we enter into Christ.  He is the answer to the Sabbath in the Old Testament, He is our Sabbath.  Those things in the Old Testament are written for types and shadows and are for our admonition upon whom ‘the ends of the ages are come.’  The rest that the children of Israel outwardly endured is typical of the spiritual rest that the believer enjoys, who has a vision of the finished work of Calvary and rest in the Lord and His promises; these truly keep the Sabbath.  Those who really break the Sabbath today are those who through their own works mar the work of redemption.  When we say our works are necessary to God’s salvation we deny the finished work of Calvary and do not keep God’s Sabbath.  The people who use a day to be kept as a means of salvation are really spiritually breaking the Sabbath. 

With verses 7 & 8 Paul shows that the rest the children of Israel were promised under Joshua was not the rest that God had in mind, but this also was typical of another day and a more complete rest. The Jews will enter into this promised rest during the millennial age that is near at hand.  We who are saved through Jesus’ blood enjoy it now spiritually.  We rest  continually in Him and trust His saving, keeping and sustaining power. 

In verse 10 we see who has entered into rest:  it is those who cease from their own works AS GOD DID from His; when God rested He rested completely.  He did not work and call it rest.  When God finished creation, He rested and He hasn’t added anything to His work of creation since.  If the work of creation were not complete, God could not have rested, but the fact that God rested proves creation was  complete, nothing could  be added, and God rested.

If the work of redemption is not complete then indeed, we need to work to get saved and to keep saved, but if the work of redemption  is compete  then we can rest  in it.   If Jesus’ blood really saves us, if the words of Jesus on the cross are true: “it is finished,” then our works to get saved or to keep saved can only mar the rest that God wants us to have, and the more we work to earn salvation or to keep salvation the more we show our unbelief and fail to enter into God’s rest – just as Israel did.  Don’t misunderstand me, there will be good works, not to get saved or to keep saved, but because we ARE saved.  We are constrained by the Life within to do the will of the Father.  We are not working to finish our salvation, but to bring the Good News to others of a finished work so they also can rest.

Verse 11 tells us of Kadesh-Barnea: we are reminded of the example of unbelief the leaders in Israel set that day.  They had the promise of God that He would give them a land flowing with milk and honey; they went into the land themselves and came back with the report:  “It is a goodly land,” and they brought the evidence with them, the fruit of the land. The sad part was they saw giants in the land. The longer they talked about the giants the less the living God and His promise to give them the land meant to them, until they were ready to stone Caleb and Joshua for encouraging them to go in and possess it, and they cried for Egypt. They believed more in the giants than in the promise of God.  Unbelief had come, and instead of putting it away they courted it.  The sword of the Lord fell, and Israel wandered 40 years until all that generation that disbelieved God had died, and the Lord brought a new generation into the land of Canaan.   They wanted to go up after they saw their folly, but it was too late, the decision was made, they had said No to God’s promise.

We therefore, ought to labor that we might not disbelieve God, that when God promises anything in His Word we can say ‘Amen’ to His promise even though obstacles might seem to hinder it from being fulfilled in us. He keeps His own word if we REST upon what He has said. He will keep it in our lives and every Giant of Unbelief will come down!  The essence of the verse 11--“Let us believe God.”  Paul exhorts the Hebrews to believe God so they might enter into the REST promised them as a nation in the OT scriptures.  But we still see them today abiding in unbelief, and they are not enjoying the promises that God made to them for that reason.

---Rivers of Grace.