Hebrews 4

     See Appendix II, Our Sabbath Rest

     4:1-13.  Therefore… (1); from 3:7 ff., the writer has been warning us not to be like those who refused to believe God, and thus could not enter his rest.  Sabbath means rest, and this chapter continues to explore God’s Sabbath, and how it remains for us as Christians to believe God, accept his finished work, and enter into his rest.  Appendix II explores this important covenant concept that runs through God’s word from the beginning to the end.

     We have already seen that God created the world (and all that is) through his Son (1:2).  Now, “today”, in these last days, God has spoken to us again through his Son whom he sent to be the author of our salvation, and to bring many sons to glory (2:10).  While a promise remains of entering his rest through faith in his Son, we must not be like those who did not fear God and fell short of it, dying in the wilderness because of their unbelief.

     4:3-5.  Notice that God’s rest, which we are urged to believe God and enter, is the finished work from the foundation of the world, the seventh day rest from creation.  The eternal God stands at the beginning and the end, resting and yet ruling over his finished work, and calling it very good (Gen.1:31-2:3; Rev. 22:13).

     4:6-9.  Joshua’s possession of the Promised Land was typical and temporal, not the eternal Sabbath rest that remains for the people of God to possess by faith.  Otherwise, David would not have been still speaking of the Day such a long time after Joshua.  By God’s sovereign grace, the day of salvation is the day we hear God’s voice and do not harden our hearts.  The day is fixed and certain (7).  Now is the day of salvation (see 2 Cor. 6:1-2), and there will be no other (3:11, 18-19).

     4:10.  On the sixth day of the week of our hope, Jesus prayed in the Garden, and surrendered himself to the Father’s will.  He finished his work on the cross, and committed his Spirit in faith into the Father’s hands.  He kept the Sabbath for us on the seventh day, resting in the tomb from all his work.  The eighth day, the first day of the new creation, he came forth in victory to eternal life.  This is Jubilee, the hope of eternity for all those who rest from their own works by believing in God’s finished work for us in Christ.  This is the true Christian Sabbath, to rest in the finished work of Christ and celebrate his resurrection. 

     4:11-13.  This is one of the many seeming paradoxes of the faith.  Resting from our own works in faith is not sloth and presumption, but a diligent day-by-day watchfulness and struggle against remaining unbelief (i.e., disobedience), a working out of our own salvation in fear and trembling (cf. Php. 2:12-13).  And God is ever at work in his rest also (cf. John 5:17).  His holy living and active word is ever examining and judging our innermost thoughts and intentions of the heart, and nothing escapes his notice.  There is nothing that he has made, no creature, which is hidden from his sight.  Though sin may seem at times to escape any consequences, it is not so.  Furthermore, there is no rest for the wicked (cf. Is. 57:20-21; Rev. 20:10, 14-15).

     4:14-16.  That being the case, let us rest in our great high priest, who is capable of sympathy for our weaknesses, having shared our flesh and blood and the force of temptation.  Yet he is able to help with grace in our need, since he knew no sin, nor was any evil in him.  He rules from his throne, able and willing to extend mercy.  “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden…you shall find rest for your souls” (Mt.11:28-29).