Hebrews 4:1-11. The wilderness journey of the children of Israel, of which the writer has been speaking in chapter 3:7-19, was in view of the rest of Canaan. Into this rest those who came out of Egypt could not enter because of the hardness of their hearts, their sin and their unbelief (Heb. 3:15,17,19).
Like Israel of old, believers today are passing on their way through a wilderness world to the rest of the coming glory. This rest is the great theme of the first eleven verses of chapter 4. Let us note that it is God’s rest of which the writer speaks. It is called “His rest” and, in the quotations from the Old Testament, “My rest” (Heb 3:18; 4:1,3,5).
This rest—the rest of God—is wholly future. It is not the present rest of conscience that faith in the Person and work of Christ gives the believer, according to the Lord’s words, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Nor is it the rest of heart that is the daily portion of the one who walks in obedience to Christ, submitting to His will, again according to His Word, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Matt. 11:28-29). Nor is it the temporary rest of a tired laborer, of which we read in the Gospels, when the Lord said, “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while,” words which imply that we must be working again (Mark 6:31).
God can only rest in that which satisfies His love and holiness. God’s rest will be reached when God’s love has fulfilled all His mind for those He loves. When righteousness is established, and sorrow and sighing flee away, God will “rest in His love” (Zeph. 3:17). “Holiness cannot rest where sin is; love cannot rest where sorrow is” (JND).
The Christian is called out of this world of unrest to have part in the rest of heaven. For the moment he is in the wilderness—neither of the world he has left, nor in heaven to which he is going. Faith keeps in view the heavenly rest to which we are going, which Christ has secured for us, and where Christ is; as we read a little later, He has entered “into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Heb. 9:24).
Hebrews 4:1-2. Having this blessed promise, we are warned of seeming to come short of God’s rest. The mere professor, who gives up his Christian profession and returns to Judaism, would not only seem to come short; he would actually do so, and perish in the wilderness. But the true believer may appear to come short by turning back to the world and settling down on earth. Of old, Israel heard the good tidings of a land flowing with milk and honey, but they hearkened not to the word. (Compare Heb. 3:18 (JND) with Deut. 1:22-26.) The Christian has still more glorious tidings of yet greater blessedness in heaven’s eternal rest. To faith, these coming glories are real. If the Word is not mixed with faith, it can no more profit the hearer now than of old.
Hebrews 4:3-4. Nevertheless, though some in days of old did not believe the glad tidings of the Canaan rest, and though the vast profession today may not believe in the glad tidings of the heavenly rest, the blessed fact remains that God has a future rest, and believers are to enter into that rest. Every step they take is bringing them nearer to God’s rest. The mere professor, without personal faith in Christ, will irretrievably fall in the wilderness. God’s oath, “If they shall enter into My rest,” (a quotation from the Septuagint version of Psalm 95:11) actually means, “They shall not enter into My rest.”
The writer refers to creation to show that from the beginning God has had before Him “rest,” and to manifest the character of God’s rest. After the world was formed and man was created in the image and likeness of God, the creation works of God were finished. This led to creation rest with its two distinctive marks: first, God’s satisfaction in all that He had made, as we read, “God saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good”; second, the entire cessation from all His creation work, as it is written, “He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made” (Gen. 1:31; Gen. 2:2). Thus we learn the two great truths that mark God’s rest: the absolute complacency in the result of the labor; and satisfaction being reached, the absolute end of all toil.
Hebrews 4:5. The creation rest is a foreshadowing of the eternal rest. The creation rest was broken into by sin. Nevertheless, God does not give up the settled purpose of His heart to have a rest—an eternal rest—which no sin will ever mar. Thus again, in the days of Joshua, God’s rest is kept before us, for once more there is the good news of rest, even though the unbelief of Israel hindered the enjoyment of the Canaan rest, so that God has to say, “They [shall] not enter into My rest” (Psa. 95:11).
Hebrews 4:6. In spite of the fact that sin had broken the creation rest and unbelief marred the Canaan rest, God assures us that He still has a rest before Him, which He calls “My rest,” and that there are some who will enter into God’s rest, even though those to whom it was first preached missed the rest through their unbelief. God’s purpose to secure a rest according to His own heart is not to be thwarted by the sin and unbelief of man.
Hebrews 4:7-8. If the creation rest is marred and the Canaan rest is lost, what is the rest of God which those who believe are to enter? Joshua had failed to bring the people into the Canaan rest. David, therefore, long years after, speaks of another rest in “another day.” To set forth this rest, the writer quotes Psalm 95:7-8. This Psalm is a call to Israel to turn to Jehovah with thanksgiving in view of the future coming of Christ to earth to bring the nation into rest. In view of the glad tidings of this fresh day of grace, Israel is warned not to harden their hearts as in Joshua’s day. To refuse this fresh appeal would be to miss the earthly rest under the reign of Christ.
Hebrews 4:9-10. The writer concludes his argument by saying, “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God,” and the great characteristic of this rest will be cessation from toil, for “he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works.” Thus the great truth is established that, whether it be God’s heavenly rest for a heavenly people or God’s earthly rest for an earthly people, the rest is still future. It is a rest to which faith is pressing on. Moreover, it is not rest from sin, but rest from labor, and not rest from labor because the laborer is tired, but rest because his work is finished. As one has said, “No present rest is the rest of God; and the futurity of that rest is a grand safeguard against the snare for any Christian, most of all for a Jewish one, to seek it now here below. As God cannot rest in sin or misery, neither ought we to allow it even in our desires, still less to make it our life. Now is the time for the labor of love if we know His love, now to seek true worshippers of the Father as He is seeking Himself” (W.K.).
Hebrews 4:11. As the rest is future, and the blessedness of the rest, we are exhorted to labor or to use diligence to enter into the rest that lies before us. Later in the epistle we are again exhorted to “work and labor,” to “diligence,” to “be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Heb. 6:10-12).
There is the danger that we may despise the rest of God that lies at the end of the journey or grow weary of the labor of love on the way. Israel did both. Let us then beware lest any of us fall after the same example of unbelief. The two great exhortations are, “Let us... fear” lest we despise the promise of the rest (verse 1) and “Let us labor” on the way to the rest (verse 11).