4:1 Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands
The author is referencing chapter 3, when he uses a “Therefore” so let’s read back a few verses and review last post.
3:15 As has just been said:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion.”[c]
16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
So the author warns us against unbelief. If you hear God’s voice, Today, listen. Don’t wait. Do it today. Listen, and Do not let your heart be hardened. The Hebrews were people who heard God’s voice and saw his presence in a pillar of clouds by day and a pillar of fire by night. The Hebrews saw God provide, miracle after miracle. Plagues hit the Egyptians, the Red sea parted. Manna from above fed them. Quails. And they hardened their hearts toward God. They quarreled against Moses. They rebelled, ready to stone Moses. God provided a miraculous water supply when Moses struck a rock with his staff. The people’s actions and words demonstrated a lack of faith in God. But it wasn’t just the people who disobeyed. The leaders did as well. Years after that incident, Moses himself disobeyed God when he struck another rock in Kadesh. God told him to speak to this second rock, and it would provide water, but he struck it instead. Actions sometimes illustrate where your heart truly stands. You can say you love God, you can say you are a child of God. You can say you believe. But if you don’t act like you love God, you act like you aren’t his child. If you don’t act according to what you say you believe, your actions might be revealing what you truly believe and value. You just might be acting out of unbelief. Unbelief is a dangerous road, because the Bible says that we are saved by belief.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
If you wanted to make the case that you are saved by works, or you go to heaven because you do something, this might be a place in the Bible where you can make that claim. The only “work” you could claim saves you is “Believing.” When you read more of the Bible you realize that the ability to believe is a gift from God, so that no man can boast. An unmerited or undeserved gift from God is called Grace. And we believe that the Bible teaches that we are saved by Grace. We go to Heaven, not because of what we do, but because of what Jesus did. Now, the Hebrews were unable to enter the rest God promised them because of their unbelief, and if we are also unbelievers, we are unable to enter the rest that God promises us.
For this reason, the author of Hebrews writes we should see to it that nobody has an unbelieving heart.
3:12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.
We should encourage one another as long as we can call today “today”. That means as long as time exists, and we exist in this world, we should encourage each other. This is a lifetime pursuit. And it’s a team effort. That’s the function of meeting together in a church. To encourage each other. He doesn’t say, see to it that you don’t have an unbelieving heart. He says see to it that nobody has an unbelieving heart. This is kind of a good place to begin Hebrews 4.
4:1 Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. 2 For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed.
Again in 4:1, the author writes that we should be careful that none should fall short of this rest. We should each be careful not just for ourselves, but for our community. because there’s a promise that still stands. There’s something God promised that hasn’t fully happened yet. Throughout the book of Hebrews, the author’s been comparing Jesus to various people. Jesus is superior to prophets, Jesus is superior to kings, Jesus superior to the angels, and in Chapter 3 Jesus is superior to Moses. Jesus is like the builder of the house, and Moses and all the rest of God’s creation are like the house. But the reality is it isn’t just Jesus who is superior. What he represents is superior. Moses represents the covenant that is the Law. Jesus lived that, and now represents the New Covenant, The New Covenant is superior to the Old Covenant. The New Covenant means we are dead to sin and we now have freedom. Not freedom to sin, but freedom from sin. Freedom from the law’s punishment. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Just like Jesus was compared to Moses, the author wants us to compare ourselves to the Jewish refugees. They had the good news of Freedom from slavery, having been enslaved to Egypt. We have the good news of freedom from slavery, having been enslaved to the world, our flesh, our sin. They were experiencing the presence of God. We experience the presence of God. They had received promises of rest from God, and so have we. But their good news was of no value to many of them. They didn’t share the faith of those who obeyed. Other translations say the message was of no value to them because those who heard did not combine it with faith. They didn’t obey, they didn’t act. The reason was because they didn’t have faith, they didn’t believe. Know that we are saved by grace, whosoever believes shall not die, but have eternal life. We are saved because we believe, and we believe because God chose for us to believe. There’s nothing we are able to add to that, or else we could boast in ourselves. If that were the case, then the thing that we add, is actually what’s saving us, and God’s grace is no longer all powerful. That falsehood would mean that God’s sovereignty is subject to my choices or my actions. That doesn’t sound Biblical anymore, both on a doctrine of salvation (being saved by works, Not Grace), but also on a doctrine of God’s character (God is not really as sovereign as my choices). But the point is we are saved for something amazing, and we will talk about it more today. There’s still a promise that exists for God’s people. Hebrews 3 alludes to it, and 4:1 says it. What is it? The promise of entering God’s rest. It still stands, and it is a promise deliverable to those who have believed, according to Hebrews 4:3
4:3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,
“So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world.
So now the author is trying to logically explain what this promise of rest quoted in Psalm 95 means. First, it doesn’t mean the very first Sabbath rest that was discussed way back when God was creating the world. God’s been done creating the world for a while now, and in that regard, His works have been finished for a Long time. If God’s resting from creation is The Promised Rest, then humanity has been in God’s rest since the beginning. So he’s talking about something else, but to understand it, we should first understand that rest.
4 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “On the seventh day God rested from all his works.”[c] 5 And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest.”
So there’s a contrast between the rest described in Psalm 95 and that God experienced in creation. That ‘somewhere’ is just Genesis 2:2. Hebrews would definitely understand that quote, and most Christians should too. All you have to do is open a Bible and read from the beginning, and you don’t even have to finish 2 chapters, and you’ll get that reference. Genesis 2:2-3
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done
The Bible has always alluded to the idea of rest. God created the heavens and the earth. There were 6 days of creating, and there was one day of rest. God set a precedent for us. It was not necessary for God Himself to rest, knowing what we know about Him. He is all powerful, so he didn’t need to take a break or stop. Also, if you look at the order of creation, God did all the work of creating at one time before taking the rest. The rest happened after the work was complete, so we know the rest was not necessary to complete the work. It wasn’t like, “hmmm. I just created land and seas, and all this vegetation. I am pretty tired, let’s stop here and finish with the last three days later”. That’s how I rest. When God rested, he was already done. His rest was a message for us, and a form of instruction for our benefit. In Genesis 2:3, God also blessed the Sabbath day, which means he made it a holy day long before there was the Law or prophets. This precedent was set so that we could learn about rest. God blessed a day and made it holy, which means God set it apart and intended for it to be unlike the other days. This post will start to borrow material from an older post about Sabbath Rest. Feel free to compare. Later, during the time when Moses was leading his people out of Egypt we see another instance of observing the Sabbath. Exodus 16:23,29
23 He said to them, “This is what the LORD commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of sabbath rest, a holy sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.’”
29 Bear in mind that the LORD has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where they are on the seventh day; no one is to go out.”
A few months after the Israelites were saved from Egypt, they began to grumble against God, complaining of their hunger. The people were surviving on Manna, but Manna was a unique food. The way that worked was you would gather what you needed for one day, and if you tried to save it overnight, the manna would stink and get maggots in it. Miraculously, on the day before the Sabbath, people could gather what they needed for two days, and the Manna would last an extra day. On that sabbath, the Israelites were commanded to rest, and told not to gather any manna. Even if they wanted to, there was no manna to gather. Chapter 29 reiterates what we read in Genesis, “the Lord has given you the Sabbath”. This day is a gift to the Israelites. The rules of observance of the Sabbath in this chapter of Exodus were simple. Do not gather Manna, and stay where you are – do not go out. And on the day before the Sabbath, the command was “bake what you need to bake and boil what you need to boil” – or basically prepare what you need for the Sabbath. This all happened before the Israelites even had the law or Commandments. Later in Exodus, when God gives Moses the 10 Commandments, we see the Sabbath law further defined. Exodus 20:8-11
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
From this passage, we understand that God’s desire for his creation to rest is very important. Important enough for its own Commandment, but also important enough that God wanted the Israelite community to observe it, including men, women, children, male and female servants, animals, and foreigners that lived amongst God’s people. Commanding people to stop working requires planning for the day off, (a mental exercise) and it also requires faith and trust that God will provide for you even after you’ve attempted to provide for yourself (a spiritual exercise). The action is in line with the faith.
Throughout the Old Testament, observing the sabbath looked different at different times. If I wanted to keep the sabbath, and not desecrate it, what exactly is prohibited? There is not one universal example in Scripture. Each different group at different points in History did different “work” for 5-6 days of the week. For the Israelites we read about in Exodus 16, their work was gathering manna and baking it. Desecrating the sabbath meant trying to gather manna on the sabbath, and baking or boiling on the sabbath. Later in Exodus 35:1-3 says that nobody should light fires in their dwellings. Israelites who do work should be put to death. In Numbers 15:32-36, it tells of a man who broke the sabbath collecting wood, and was stoned to death. Gathering Firewood was a common job at that time, and to do work like cooking or keeping warm, you needed to light a fire.
Leviticus 16:31 says the Sabbath is a day to deny yourselves and rest
If someone told me to take a day and rest, my first thought is not deny myself. My first thought is sleeping in, getting brunch, going out for a massage. Taking a nap. My idea of rest would be treating myself to luxuries or indulgences. While all of these things are nice, Sabbath rest means putting God first, instead of yourself.
Jeremiah 17 tells about how nobody should carry a load through the gates of Jerusalem or into and out of their homes. The instruction found in Jeremiah 17 is directed at the inhabitants of the city of Jerusalem, but it wasn’t a blanket command for ages to come.
Numbers 28:9-10 explains that burnt offerings of Lambs without defect should be given every sabbath.
How can you give a burnt offering, if there’s no fires allowed to burn the offering? We must remember that Sabbath was a day to bring offerings to the temple, so Levites and priests were always “desecrating” the Sabbath by doing their work. In 1 Chron 23:31 we see that the Levites had the job of standing every morning and evening to thank and praise the Lord, including on Sabbaths during burnt offerings. But they were never found guilty of “desecrating” or breaking the Sabbath. Jesus pointed this fact out to his opposition, and Jesus encountered lots of opposition when he did things that the Pharisees considered “work”. We will look at those things a bit later.
These Sabbath rules were made for our benefit. God wanted us to have rest from our work, and fellowship with Him. But, as sinful humans, we profaned that rest. So, what does it look like to desecrate the Sabbath? It means doing the same things that we do the other six days; we work. Everybody should know what “work” looks like to them, and it will be different for every person with a different job. God wanted his people to cease doing the things they normally did. It would also profane the sabbath to try and get ahead of other Israelites that WERE taking the day off. The sabbath day should look different, holy, set apart. Scripture says a few specific things, but they are addressed to different groups. God isn’t specific in a universal sense, but I don’t think he needs to be. It should be fairly simple. we should know what work is. We spend lots of time working. When the command is vague, what ends up happening is legalism set in. The Jews made rules and regulations about how far somebody is allowed to walk (Acts 1:12 mentions a “sabbath Day’s Walk”, they made up regulations about how much was acceptable to carry (in John 5, the invalid who was told to pick up his mat and walk was rebuked by Pharisees for carrying a mat), Pharisees made rules about what activities were ok, and which weren’t. So we end up seeing Jews trying to follow various laws for rest. After a certain point, when you try very hard to NOT work, you end up working extra hard to follow the “law”. It becomes a burden, and on top of it, you have priests and levites who regularly work on the sabbath, criticizing and condemning their fellow Jews when they don’t follow the sabbath laws right. This continued throughout Jewish history but prophets mentioned the sabbath too. The prophets spoke on God’s behalf and we learn God was not pleased with what the Sabbath had become.
Isaiah 1:13
13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
Hosea 2:11
I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals.
In people’s hearts, the Sabbath had turned into something that didn’t honor God. They held festivals and assemblies, but they weren’t resting in God. Their hearts weren’t humbled or stirred in worship. God had given something to His people, and they took it and made it perverse. Either by ignoring rest altogether, by judging each others’ ability to rest, or by growing in pride for their own following of the rest laws. God pointed forward to a new day and a new covenant. Look in Amos 8:4-10
4 Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, 5 saying, “When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?”— skimping on the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, 6 buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.
People’s desires were to return to work, market wheat, buy and sell. This passage shows that it was common for the businessmen to cheat by skimping on the measure and using dishonest scales. The day of rest had become something they resented, it was a nuisance and it got in the way of their pursuit of profit. Sometimes in the present day, we think going to church is a hassle or a nuisance.
7 The LORD has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done. 8 “Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt.
9 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. 10 I will turn your religious festivals into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.
Amos prophesied that God will end the Sabbaths and turn festivals into mourning. The true Israelites would mourn on “that day” as if for an Only Son. The sun was to go down at noon, and the earth would darken on “that day” Let’s read what happened on “that day”. Mark 15:33-34
33 At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34 And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
The day that was prophesied as the end of Sabbath festivals was the day Jesus died on the cross. Is the sabbath over? Has God done away with it by sending Christ? The festivals, assemblies, and burnt offerings and regulations are certainly obsolete after the finished work of Christ. When God finished creating, he rested. Similarly, when Jesus finished his works, he sat down at the right hand of God. But the Bible talks of a new Sabbath, a Sabbath that is only possible after the ministry and work of Christ. Hebrews 4:6
Therefore since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience, 7 God again set a certain day, calling it “Today.” This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted:
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”
The Psalm 95 rest promised through David is something different than what the Jewish priests provided. God blessed the Sabbath day. He didn’t “unbless” it, when He put an end to the festivals and assemblies. Hebrews 4:1 says There’s a promise to enter rest that still stands. As long as we say today is “Today” there remains an opportunity to hear God’s voice and not harden our hearts.
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. 9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;
The promised rest doesn’t involve entering the promised land like Moses and the refugees longed to see. If that was the case, when Joshua brought the Hebrews into the promised land, there would be no more talk of Sabbath-rest. God wouldn’t have spoken about another day through the prophecy and psalms of David. There’s a promise here.
10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.
Anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works. God created the heavens and earth. Then he rested. In Genesis 3:19 God cursed mankind saying “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Since we are mankind, since we still live, that curse is upon us. There is no free lunch. There is no short cut that allows us to bypass work. We would be well advised to take rests from our jobs, our work, our labor. That’s what the Bible tells us to do, and common wisdom agrees. But until we return to the ground, we will continue to do things. We will do good things and we will do bad things. But in Jesus Christ, we have another type of rest. We rest from our works, not just taking a day off from our jobs, but something more significant. We rest from the idea that we are justified by our works or our deeds, because In Christ, we are justified by grace. We become disobedient when we try and work our way to God’s rest. Jesus told us this when we read Matthew 11:28
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Some translations say Come to me all who are weary and tired from carrying heavy loads. That heavy load is the burden of trying to follow the law, and falling short every day. In Luke 6:5 Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Christ is declares that He is lord of the Sabbath. He is the giver of rest, and through Him and Him only can we experience the Rest that God has intended for us. When we are in Christ, we are no longer attempting to be justified or made right by our works. We remove that burden. We are made acceptable to God by grace, and by the Work of Christ. We enter a rest from our works when we enter into Christ. The irony is that we acting the most disobedient when we work our hardest. The harder you work to make sure you aren’t breaking the Sabbath, the harder you are working, and breaking the Sabbath! The harder you work to earn your salvation, the further you demonstrate you are from understanding how salvation was purchased. We can’t even rest acceptably in God’s eyes apart from Christ. I can understand that my actions aren’t good enough. I know that My thoughts are sinful, I get that my words and lips are unclean. But now I find out that even my time of rest needs to be made clean before God. No part of us is free from the necessity of Christ and Him Crucified. I can’t even rest right. Our REST needs to be purchased by his precious blood. Similar to the Sabbath day burnt offerings of Lambs without blemish, Christ sacrificed himself and allowed us to be reconciled with God so we can enter that rest. Unlike any Lamb that was brought to the temple, Christ’s sacrifice was sufficient forever, which points to a permanent rest, not a temporary one that the Jews experienced on a weekly basis. How restful can a Sabbath be when you know in your mind that next week, you need to come up with another sacrifice? The rest that God wants for His people is a permanent fellowship and acceptance before his throne. The idea that we need to do certain things on a certain day of the week, or avoid doing certain things on a certain day of the week is missing the point. No matter what things we do on Saturday, or Sunday, or any other day of the week, I can guarantee that we aren’t doing them well enough, and our works are not good enough. No matter which things we avoid doing on Saturday, or Sunday, or any other day of the week, I can guarantee that we aren’t avoiding 100% of our sins. The people that try and keep the Sabbath by doing “this, that, and the other thing, while avoiding “that and those other things” are trying to enter the rest by their own deeds or lack of deeds. When you try and enter into a Sabbath rest by works, you can’t enter, because those works demonstrate your unbelief. Those works are disobedience. What we need is rest from the worries of living up to a certain standard, and the only way to enter that rest is by believing in Christ. Colossians 2:16-17
16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.
The Sabbath is pointing directly to a state of being declared righteous in Christ. Whether you see all days as the same, or you see one more holy than the others, Paul said in Romans that you should be convinced in your own mind. If you see fit to take a day off to savor Christ and worship God, you are free to do that, and I am confident that by God’s grace, you will encounter Him and have a very fruitful day. If your work schedule forces you to go in on a Sabbath, you are also free to do that because Christ has covered your sins and made you acceptable before God. However If you take a day off, because you feel like not doing so would be a sin and result in your condemnation, then you should reassess your standing before God, and study the power of Christ over all sins. Christ is Lord of the Sabbath, He alone gives freedom. Not the freedom to sin, but the Freedom from sin. Freedom from Judgement. Freedom to rest. All the festivals and sabbath days that the Jews observed were just a shadow of the reality found in Christ. By studying rest and Sabbath, we learn more about the supremacy of Christ. This is the intention of the Author of Hebrews. He constantly compares Jesus Christ and proves he is supreme. We are the benefactors of Christ’s supremacy. When our lives are over, we who believe have fellowship and a Sabbath rest that no amount of our work could ever purchase.