Hebrews - Part 8 Enter His Rest (Hebrews 4:1-11)

Since we enter Hebrews 4, we get to a passage that I find a little bit difficult at times. I'll just tell you why up front. The reason why is that there is a verse in Hebrews 4, verse 9, where the author writes, so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. And that verse, some people think is about a Sunday Sabbath. And when I read this passage, I don't see that clear.

Like, by the way, this means Sunday Sabbath. But I can see how you would get it from there still. But I've heard people just toss that verse out like as their first defense for the Christian Sabbath being on Sunday. Which, as you guys should know, I'm a Sabbatarian. And I do believe we have a Sunday Sabbath and the fourth commandment is abiding. But I believe the fourth commandment is abiding because of the eternality and perpetuity of God's law and the universality of it upon all people, more so than Hebrews 4.9.

So when you're reading this section, you know, I've been asking my kids this a lot. What are the three most important rules of Bible interpretation? That's context, context, context. So when you're reading this section, you remember a few things. And I kind of joke with the context, context, context that you have the immediate context, right? What are we talking about in Hebrews, right?

In Hebrews, we're talking about something going on right now. We talked about Jesus being a son in God's house, and we can also be in God's house. So there's a context there of Jesus and Moses were being contrasted in God's house. Remember, there's no chapter breaks when this was written. You have a bit of a broader context, which is what's Hebrews about?

Hebrews is something I've been coming to understand about Hebrews is that Hebrews is about the contrast of faith and religion of works. Not so much that contrast, but just the proving that it was faith all along that was saving people. And that's something that I've really started to understand about Hebrews. and in the same context as that, Hebrews is about comparing the old covenant and the new covenant because the old covenant was not, in fact, a covenant by faith.

The old covenant was something different. And so believers have always been united to Christ and each other by faith in Christ. and it's just been different levels of revelation that people had of him at different times have been the distinction. And so keeping that in mind helps you. And then, again, keeping the whole context of the whole Bible in mind, you know, Hebrews wasn't written in a vacuum.

Hebrews was written along with other books of the Bible, and in particular Hebrews quotes the Old Testament a lot. so let's read some verses and then try to understand what what the author's saying so i'm going to go back to verse 16 of chapter 3 so if you're i got my paper bible because my paper bible i can just read on the computer i have to click a lot i don't want to do that so verse 16 of Hebrews 3 for those for who were those who heard and yet rebelled was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses and with whom was he provoked for 40 years was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the wilderness and to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient. So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. And so we know this is a reference to the people who were in the wilderness who never entered the promised land.

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it for good news came to us just as to them but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened for we who have believed enter that rest as he has said as I sworn my wrath they shall not enter my rest although his works were finished from the foundation of the world for he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way and God rested on the seventh day from all his works and again in this passage he said they shall not enter my rest Since therefore it remains for some to enter it and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience again he appoints a certain day, today, saying through David so long afterward in the words already quoted, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. So this happens in Hebrews a few times at least, and I don't have them listed, where the author of Hebrews will make some statement, then he'll say a bunch of other things, and then he'll make another statement that's utterly similar to the previous one.

And I'm starting to notice these things. And this is something that doesn't come from, I think I talked about this before, this doesn't come from waking up and just reading a few chapters a day. And then maybe a year later, you read those ones again. This comes from meditating on the same passage over and over. So I want you to notice a few things first.

In my Bible, it breaks out the quotes from Psalm 95. as I sworn my wrath they shall not enter my rest they shall not enter my rest there's these quotes that he actually said in the previous chapter as well so he kind of repeats a few things just saying hey it's like he's exegeting this other passage so this this passage is helping us understand Psalm 95 another thing one of the commentators helped point out is it said David wrote Psalm 95 in Hebrews in verse 7 says saying through David so long afterward in the words already quoted today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts well if you look in the Bible in Psalm 95 it doesn't say a Psalm of David and so the author of Hebrews by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is telling us David wrote that Psalm even though it's not told to us explicitly it was David in the Old Testament. So that's kind of neat. If you look at verse one, therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to fail to reach it.

And then in verse 11, let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. So I, you know, I just, I see those verses as the bread and some kind of rest sandwich, I guess here, you know, like he's, he's saying the same thing in the first verse and the last, and then he's, he's explaining things in the middle. And so those are things that I'm starting to notice as I study passages over and over rather than just reading them. and that helps me in my mind, it helps me form maybe a context block where here's a set of verses that if I really look at those together, I'm probably going to see the logic that's going on.

So you're not just going to have verse one and verse 11 be so similar and then verses two through 10 are just, you know, random fortune cookie like verses where you can just pull out number six and that one can go on your mirror and it can inspire you to lose weight. And then number eight will help you, you know, if you're angry and then maybe verse 10 is the one that you have to read every morning to remind yourself you're God's child. That's not how the Bible was made.

It wasn't made for you to take verses and make that verse just mean something to you out of context and help you through the day. I'm not opposed to people having a verse written on their mirror, but whatever it is that'll help you see that verse over and over. What I'm opposed to is when we basically abuse these verses to the point where we're not making it mean what it meant.

And I think that that is problematic, A, for you, because you want the actual power of God in your life. And if the power of God is going to be in your life to help you overcome sin, fight despair, encourage others, be an asset to the church of God, if the power of God is going to be in your life, it's going to be there as the result of properly understanding the meaning of God's word that you're using to try to, for lack of a better phrase, tap into God's power. and and so you need to understand what these things mean for yourself secondly if you're going to encourage someone else you need to use verses properly one of the things that helps other people is when you know a word fitly spoken right it's like a it's like an apple in a tray of gold or silver something like that it's a proverb when when you go to a believer who's having trouble with sin, with despair, whatever it is they need. When you properly give them pieces of God's word, that can help them.

Now, you don't always have time to give them a whole context, right? I'm not going to read you the book of Hebrews when you're having a bad day. I might pull out a verse or two from Hebrews. So I need to make sure that when I pull that verse or two out, it means what I trying to tell you it means at the time So if I just find a verse that you know says something that sounds kind of nice but it not about the situation the person in or it doesn mean what it sounds like I have to be careful And then thirdly, in your apologetics with non-believers in particular, you don't want to misuse a verse because it's just not right.

But also, if they know it's not right, then what was the point, right? If I'm arguing with even another Christian of a different theological persuasion from me, I need to use verses in context correctly to defend the points I'm trying to make. Otherwise, you know, so otherwise you're going to get a guy that says, well, faith is by works because he read a couple verses in James or salvation is by works, not faith, right? and and you can you can make that case from from james i think 224 right that no one is justified by their faith but by works because james says something like that we have to know that what those verses mean before we we misuse them so back to hebrews 4 now so that was kind of the just an overview of how to think through it while the promise of entering his rest still stands in chapter 4, verse 1, let us fear, lest any of you, and I saw some commentators said this translation could be, lest any of us also, should seem to have failed to reach it.

And so he is comparing the people of God in the first century, and I'll go ahead and expand that to any people of God reading this chapter, he's comparing us to the people who were in the wilderness, people who were delivered out of Egypt. But like Jude said, let me read this to you. In Jude 1, well, it's only one chapter, but in Jude verse 5, now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

And so what we have is we have this picture of people who in the Exodus were delivered from the slavery they were in so that they might be free to worship God the way God desired them to worship him. Some of them, in some way, it would have appeared that their prayers were answered for deliverance. They had, even in those cases, some of them had been in homes where the blood was on the door.

Maybe some of them had put it there themselves. They had done the sacrifice necessary to be freed from Egypt. And yet God's telling us some of those who were delivered from Egypt by Jesus, Jude tells us, were destroyed afterwards. Why? Because they didn't believe, because they didn't trust God by faith. They were doing things based on their own self-righteousness. and so they were part of the the covenant people of god in the old testament they weren't delivered and so here we are in the new testament and we're going to have people who are part of the visible church the visible people of god the people of god who appear to have been delivered from their slavery to sin and they do not truly believe and so we will seem to fail to reach god's rest so this seems to be talking about god's ultimate rest now the old testament people it was talking about the rest that was promised when they would be finished in the wilderness.

In the New Testament, when we're talking about the ultimate rest, we're talking about the promised land, heaven for us, the time when we will cease from these labors. Now, it's something to watch for. When he talks about rest, he's going to talk about rest in different ways in this chapter. And so we have to be, we have to kind of be thinking through, What does he mean in each case?

And there's a tension in the New Testament, especially that we see with our life. And it's something that guys before me have termed the already and the not yet. And this is a very important way to understand a lot of scriptures. And that's that there's, as a believer, there are a number of things that we have made a claim to already or we have received already. but we also have not yet fully realized these things.

So for example, your salvation. There is a form of salvation that you have already received. You've been justified, but you are being sanctified. It is a present tense concept in your life. You have not been sanctified, but you have been justified. And you are not yet glorified.

In fact, That has not begun in any sense other than your sanctification being the precursor to it. You will be glorified when you die or if Jesus returns while you're alive. And so there is a tension sometimes in scripture between there's things that we already realize, but at the same time that we're already experiencing them, they are not fully experienced. and the the authors of the new testament just speak of these things in in very plain terms often and sometimes you have to try to discern well is he talking about something that's not yet or something that's that's already or maybe he's talking about the same thing in both contexts here and so remember that as we read about the rest because i think he's doing that here So in verse 2 the author teaches us something that I hope the people in this group know now For good news came to us just as to them but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith And so he says, you know, this good news came to us.

Well, this is the gospel. Okay, this is the word, you know, euangelico in Greek, or we would say evangelizing. You know, he's saying they were evangelized just as we are. They were given the good news. Remember the book of Hebrews. These people are sitting there thinking that Jesus was this new thing and he didn't replace the old covenant.

The old covenant was still something they would do as a religious work. And so he says, no, they received the good news too. they received the good news of Jesus Christ coming into the world now did they have all the information no Jonah hadn't been written Isaiah hadn't been written I mean the people that left with the exodus if anyone had a pretty good excuse for not knowing much it would have been them chances are they weren't walking around with bibles while they were slaves in Egypt so So these people had very little bits of actual revelation of God that they could sit and meditate on. But they it says here, the good news was preached to them.

Somebody told them and maybe just through the type of Moses. And there was a little more, of course, you had the serpent in the wilderness deal. There was things going on, but they understood that there would be a deliverer, that if they would look to the deliverer instead of to themselves, they would be delivered from their slavery. And if they would, with a sacrifice of blood by a perfect lamb provided by God, that they would be delivered.

And they understood enough to believe. And we can trust God knows this, and God is correct when he tells us this in verse 2. And he's telling them, they had good news come to them, but the message they heard didn't benefit them. Why? Because they were not united by faith with those who listened. and so he's saying even in the people of god the visible people of god so this could be a good presbyterian verse you know i'm not gonna get into all that now but a presbyterian could say see you could have a mixed multitude of people that are all the people of god some aren't believers i would just say well in the visible church that's true we will have some people who believers.

They're not part of the new covenant, and that's one of the reasons why believing the new covenant is a different covenant from the old covenant, not just the same covenant administered differently, but the old covenant's covenant of grace. The new covenant, or the old covenant's a covenant of works. The new covenant is a covenant of grace. It's a different covenant.

We believe that if you're in the new covenant, you're in the new covenant, and if in the Presbyterian view the new covenant could contain people who won't believe because that's how the old covenant worked and they see those as more of the same we'll say more continuity between them but he says they didn't it didn't benefit them why because they were not united by faith with those who listened so I want you to notice that this is about faith the author of Hebrews is trying to let the people know it is by faith that you are saved and it always has been they were delivered by faith they were delivered by the thing that they did to get out of Egypt but it was faith that would ultimately allow them to enter God's rest and it was because they didn't believe that they didn't enter and he's warning the people in the first century, you better fear God. And you better put your faith in him, run to him by faith, so that it won't seem like you failed to enter his rest as well. And then he says, for we who have believed, enter that rest.

As he said, as I swore in my wrath, as he has said, They, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. So he's saying those of us who believe are the ones who are going to enter God's rest. And it's an interesting phraseology because you can see it as a temporal thing that happens right away.

We who have believed enter that rest, but you could also see it as future. and I think it's I think there is a both here because we enter a rest when we rest from our works we enter into resting in Jesus Christ immediately we cease from trying to achieve the favor of God by our own self-righteousness, by trusting in Christ and receiving him and actually being baptized into Christ. So you enter a rest immediately when you trust in Christ. At the same time, there is going to be a future rest where you will cease from all of the afflictions of this world.

When you will one day be glorified in heaven, you will no longer have to fight the battle of sin in your own flesh, you will no longer have competing interests between worshiping and praising God as your spirit desires to do, and the petty distractions that this world offers that take your attention away from him. You will be able to rest from that. I mean, if you're a man in 2021 that's a Christian today, which you all are supposed to be, You are in a battle every single day.

And other than when your head finally hits the pillow, you have to fight not to sin all day long. And if you're not fighting, maybe you're not in the war enough. And even in my sleep, I can wake up in the morning and realize, wow, I had a wicked dream. I wish my brain didn't even create those kinds of images. And so we have no rest from this cursed world in so many ways.

And yet one day we'll be delivered from it but even in this cursed world we can find rest in jesus christ from our labor so we wake up in the morning we don't have to worry am i am i forgiven of my sins because we can rest in christ each time you sin you can rest in the fact that jesus paid for your sins you can remember that your status before god as a child has not changed just because you sin today you rest in jesus christ but so he says although his works were finished from the foundation of the world well now he's talking about God. And he says, these people aren't going to enter God's rest, even though God's works were finished from the foundation of the world. So he's saying that the world in a sense is already, God's already resting.

And so how are we not entering his rest? He says, for he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way and god rested on the seventh day from all his works well that's genesis 2 2 and genesis 2 2 says and on the seventh day god finished his work that he had done and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done so god blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it god rested from all his work that he had done in creation so god in Genesis chapter 2 rests, which is a phenomenal thing to say because God doesn't get tired. It's not like God was exhausted.

To create a world is nothing for him. He is all-powerful. He creates the world by his word. It's not like he even had to do any work in any sense that we think of energy being expended. But God rested. He ceased from his creative work that he was doing.

He stopped. So Sabbath means stop or cease. God ceased to work as an example to us and to show us a few things. And the first one is that God's moral law in the fourth commandment to sabbath is from the beginning of creation it's one of the one of the first commandments we can we can we can infer as we read genesis you know i mean we know we shouldn't steal i guess because everything's owned by god in chapter one there's not really any chance of adultery yet you know there's a there's a few things that are just so uh that we could figure out but the fact that there's a sabbath is right there this is way before god gave the ten commandments and so that's one of the arguments for the eternality or the universality of the sabbath rest is is that is that god rested on the seventh day long before he gave any kind of law to israel And so he's spoken of the seventh day in that way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works.

Now we're starting to talk about the fact that there is a weekly Sabbath. There's a weekly ceasing of our labors that has a few designs, but one of them in particular is, it's a picture of and a reminder of what Jesus Christ has already done for us. So on Sunday, if you practice the Sabbath as the fourth commandment would outline for you, you would, for example, stop doing your work that you do for your company that makes you money.

So maybe you cut grass and you don't cut grass on Sundays, right? And one of the things that And what I'm saying is, you know, I not saying that you have to work to get something I saying that what I saying is you know what I saying is that what I saying is that pictures is that all week long You have to work to get something you have to earn the wage that you going to receive and on sunday you reminded for one day god will take care of you that that in some ways you don't have to do anything and he's going to take care of you and that's what that's what salvation really we came because salvation is you just reach up for help and trust that God will save you, not that you're going to do anything. Okay, even your baptism, even if you got circumcised, you know, all the things that people have made up that you do in addition to what Christ did, none of those things will help you.

You have to be at rest. You have to cease from trusting in your own strength and self-righteousness in order to be saved. And so the author of Hebrews is bringing up the seventh day as an example of a type of Jesus Christ. The Sabbath rest that was practiced throughout the history of Israel was a picture of Jesus Christ being the ultimate rest in whom we would rest, and a picture of the final rest we'll have when we are finally glorified that's it but it says in verse five and again in this passage he said they shall not enter my rest so he's reminding us that there was a group of people who actually were living in the time after god ceased from his work so that doesn't count as the as rest they actually were part of the group that would have been practicing the sabbath stuff with old testament israel keep in mind in old testament israel breaking the sabbath would have resulted in death people who made it through several years as an israelite they were doing the sabbath okay they were ceasing from their labors outwardly they were not breaking the sabbath in the ways that that would have been noticeable by others they certainly would have done it in their hearts and what what god's saying is look they didn't enter my rest even though they were part of this group in the old covenant being a sabbath keeper doesn't save you so he's talking about an actual rest where it's i'm resting in christ so and it works for us too you can go to church your whole life and and not go to heaven keeping god's law which we cannot do so keeping god's law outwardly so other people don't notice isn't what saves you sure it might make you feel self-righteous for 70 80 years in this world but that's not going to help you on the day of judgment so we strive to enter god's rest which is a future state by resting in god's provision today jesus christ and i would say you know as the result we obey his law because we love him and that will include resting on the sabbath but i don't think that's the point of the passage so i'm gonna i'm gonna keep going that's a pet thing for me i want to get to sometimes though but he says in verse 6 since therefore it remains for some to enter it and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience so he repeats verse 2 basically but in verse 2 he said they failed to enter because of unbelief in this verse he says they failed to enter it because of disobedience disobedience is the sign that you don't believe disobedience is the outward manifestation of the fact that you actually have your faith in something other than what god has said so if you believe that you know eating healthy is going to be good for you you're going to and you want things good you're going to eat healthy it's that simple you know if you if you believe a cup of poison will kill you.

You don't drink the cup of poison. So we ultimately act out our beliefs all the time. And what you're acting out will show what you really believe in your heart. So this is why when people tell us, well, I'm a Christian, but, and then they have all these weird fetishes of things, or they practice all sorts of strange things in their life. We say, well, I don't think you're a Christian because you don't really believe what God has said about for example murder about adultery You don believe what God has said about stealing So we will say that to them because their behavior shows that even though they received the good news the gospel they haven't fully rested in Christ because of their disobedience.

Remember Jude 1.5. although you once fully knew it jesus saved the people out of the land of egypt destroyed those who did not believe so some people will not obey the gospel call they will not believe so then he says and he appoints a certain again he appoints a certain day in verse 7 today saying through david so long afterward in the words already quoted so he's like repeating himself today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts this is this is the call the call is today you are to believe it's not about the future okay it's not just hey let's travel with this gang and hope to enter the land they enter in the future. All right. It's not follow the big group of people that are leaving Egypt.

So now, hey, you no longer have to be a slave. I mean, these people hated slavery so much that within seemingly hours of leaving it, they're complaining and want to be back there. All right. Like read, read about the Israelites so quickly after the Exodus, they're just whining. that God hasn't done all these wonderful things for them. We're no different.

If you've been saved and you've been justified and you've been forgiven of your sins, you're still liable to all of the miseries that this world offers because of your sin. You are owed nothing by God. He has already given you more mercy and grace than any of us could have imagined. He's already given you more mercy and grace in the fact that you can rest in Christ today, even in the midst of the afflictions that are nothing compared to the hell you deserve.

So Christians need to stop complaining about the circumstances of their life and instead rest in Jesus Christ today. And this is why when we preach the gospel, I've quoted this verse a lot on the street. I say, today, if you hear my voice, I say, If you hear God's words through my preaching, don't harden your heart. Today, if you're receiving the gospel, is the time to rest.

It's not a future. It's not something you just hope will happen or, you know, because your grandpa was a pastor or, you know, you hope it's going to happen. You know, after you do your bucket list, well, then I'm going to believe in Jesus. I want to watch these movies first. It's not how it works. Today is the day.

Because if you harden your heart, we might not be able to see this. But if you harden your heart, you may be hardened to the point where God won't soften it. Where you will just continue. And I've met some old people who, they have hard hearts. It's crazy. We think of old people as nice and kind all the time because America was, I think, kinder 80 years ago.

But what I've noticed is a lot of the older generation, they are really hard against hearing the gospel. because they've heard it. And they hardened their hearts when they were young. They said, I'll do that when I'm later in life. And now they've gone all these years with a hard heart. And now to think about being told your entire life is garbage. Everything you've done counts as nothing if you would just trust in Christ.

That doesn't sound like good news to an 80-year-old hard heart. All right? today if you hear his voice do not harden your heart says david told us that well this is after the rest that joshua and his people were dealing with right so he tells us for if joshua had given him rest right so he's pointing out the people of israel didn't get into God rest that we talking about here And that was always being referred to and typified by the Old Testament rest He says if Joshua had given them rest if Joshua the son of none the one who finally Moses turned everything over to when he was going to die who led them across If Joshua had given them rest it says God would not have spoken of another day later on so his point is this the old testament covenant old covenant rest that the Egyptians were seeking at the time wasn't the ultimate rest that I'm talking about now if Joshua had been able to give it to him he wouldn't have said later today today enter his rest because the whole point is there's a future rest that we all want to eventually rest in. And the way you know you're going to be there is if you're resting in Christ today.

So he says, so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God's rest, now this is present tense, it's actually like a perfect tense, right? Whoever has entered it, so it's happened already, has also rested from his works as God did from his. And then he says, let us therefore strive to enter. So he just uses the rest in two senses.

Whoever has entered it means you've entered it now, presently, it's finished. We'll strive to enter it. And so there's this Sabbath rest that remains, which means there still is a rest for us that's greater than the rest that the Israelites one day received when they actually did enter the promised land. There's a better rest. It's not what they had before, and we're not trying to mimic that.

We're not trying to create the promised land again in Jerusalem. There's a heavenly city. The city of God is where we're going to reside. And he says, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. And I think that the people of God, I don't think this verse proves, well, there remains a seventh day Sabbath. I don't think it's that simple.

But I think if a Sabbath rest remains for you, that we still have that picture. And we get to enjoy that picture every Sunday. And in a world where you are so busy, and you're so tired, and you've worked all these years, and you still can't retire, you know, and now you're worried your 401k is going to get blown away by the government that's going to screw it all up.

Like, yeah, we don't have any real rest here for God to say, hey, take one day out of seven and just quit all that stuff. Just focus on my goodness. What a grace and what a mercy. And I think a believer will want to do that. And I think a believer will start to see how, wow, this really helps me see the beauty of of what heaven will be like for me. It's just a glimpse of it.

So he says, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Whoever has rested in Jesus Christ's finished work on their behalf has rested from his works, your own works, in the same sense that God created, spent six days doing that, and then God ceased from his work on the seventh day. And if you don't see how I've just all of a sudden turned this into the rest is Jesus Christ, this is very much about Jesus, the last four verses of the chapter help prove that.

But then he says, let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. And so we'll finish the chapter next time. And we'll see that this goes right into Jesus being the high priest. it takes us from this concept of resting to understanding who jesus is and how he's the one that we're going to stand before he's the one that we put our confession in and he's the one who can sympathize with our weaknesses and so we strive to enter the rest meaning we we today rest in Jesus Christ, knowing that that helps us have the promise that we will one day fully rest from all these things that currently plague us.

Thank you for listening to Be a Berean with your host, Michael Coughlin. I am a writer at thingsabove.us and I also have a personal website, michaelcoghlan.net You can contact me by emailing me michael at thingsabove.us I hope that you have been encouraged to search the scriptures.