Hebrews 4:1

Here, I. The apostle declares that our privileges by Christ under the gospel are not only as great, but greater than those enjoyed under the Mosaic law. He specifies this, that we have a promise left us of entering into his rest; that is, of entering into a covenant-relation to Christ, and a state of communion with God through Christ, and of growing up therein, till we are made perfect in glory. We have discoveries of this rest, and proposals, and the best directions how we may attain unto it. This promise of spiritual rest is a promise left us by the Lord Jesus Christ in his last will and testament, as a precious legacy. Our business is to see to it that we be the legatees, that we lay our claim to that rest and freedom from the dominion of sin, Satan, and the flesh, by which the souls of men are kept in servitude and deprived of the true rest of the soul, and may be also set free from the yoke of the law and all the toilsome ceremonies and services of it, and may enjoy peace with God in his ordinances and providences, and in our own consciences, and so have the prospect and earnest of perfect and everlasting rest in heaven.

II. He demonstrates the truth of his assertion, that we have as great advantages as they. For says he (Heb 4:2), To us was the gospel preached as well as unto them; the same gospel for substance was preached under both Testaments, though not so clearly; not in so comfortable a manner under the Old as under the New. The best privileges the ancient Jews had were their gospel privileges; the sacrifices and ceremonies of the Old Testament were the gospel of that dispensation; and, whatever was excellent in it, was the respect it had to Christ. Now, if this was their highest privilege, we are not inferior to them; for we have the gospel as well as they, and in greater purity and perspicuity than they had.

III. He again assigns the reason why so few of the ancient Jews profited by that dispensation of the gospel which they enjoyed, and that was their want of faith: The word preached did not profit them because it was not mixed with faith in those that heard him, Heb 4:2. Observe, 1. The word is preached to us that we may profit by it, that we may gain spiritual riches by it; it is a price put into our hands to get wisdom, the rich endowment of the soul. 2. There have been in all ages a great many unprofitable hearers; many who seem to deal much in sermons, in hearing the word of God, but gain nothing to their souls thereby; and those who are not gainers by hearing are great losers. 3. That which is at the bottom of all our unprofitableness under the word is our unbelief. We do not mix faith with what we hear; it is faith in the hearer that is the life of the word. Though the preacher believes the gospel, and endeavours to mix faith with his preaching, and to speak as one who has believed and so spoken, yet, if the hearers have not faith in their souls to mix with the word, they will be never the better for it. This faith must mingle with every word, and be in act and exercise while we are hearing; and, when we have heard the word, assenting to the truth of it, approving of it, accepting the mercy offered, applying the word to ourselves with suitable affections, then we shall find great profit and gain by the word preached.

IV. On these considerations the apostle grounds his repeated and earnest caution and counsel that those who enjoy the gospel should maintain a holy fear and jealousy over themselves, lest latent unbelief should rob them of the benefit of the word, and of that spiritual rest which is discovered and tendered in the gospel: Let us fear lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it, Heb 4:1. Observe, 1. Grace and glory are attainable by all under the gospel: there is an offer, and a promise to those who shall accept the offer. 2. Those who may attain them may also fall short. Those who may attain them may also fall short. Those who might have attained salvation by faith may fall short by unbelief. 3. It is a dreadful thing so much as to seem to fall short of the gospel salvation, to seem so to themselves, to lose their comfortable hope; and to seem so to others, so losing the honour of their holy profession. But, if it be so dreadful to seem to fall short of this rest, it is much more dreadful really to fall short. Such a disappointment must be fatal. 4. One good means to prevent either our real falling short or seeming to fall short is to maintain a holy and religious fear lest we should fall short. This will make us vigilant and diligent, sincere and serious; this fear will put us upon examining our faith and exercising it; whereas presumption is the high road to ruin.

V. The apostle confirms the happiness of all those who truly believe the gospel; and this he does,

1. By asserting so positively the truth of it, from the experience of himself and others: "We, who have believed, do enter into rest, Heb 4:3. We enter into a blessed union with Christ, and into a communion with God through Christ; in this state we actually enjoy many sweet communications of pardon of sin, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace and earnests of glory, resting from the servitude of sin, and reposing ourselves in God till we are prepared to rest with him in heaven."

2. He illustrates and confirms it that those who believe are thus happy, and do enter into rest. (1.) From God's finishing his work of creation, and so entering into his rest (Heb 4:3, Heb 4:4), appointing our first parents to rest the seventh day, to rest in God. Now as God finished his work, and then rested from it, and acquiesced in it, so he will cause those who believe to finish their work, and then to enjoy their rest. (2.) From God's continuing the observance of the sabbath, after the fall, and the revelation of a Redeemer. They were to keep the seventh day a holy sabbath to the Lord, therein praising him who had raised them up out of nothing by creating power, and praying to him that he would create them anew by his Spirit of grace, and direct their faith to the promised Redeemer and restorer of all things, by which faith they find rest in their souls. (3.) From God's proposing Canaan as a typical rest for the Jews who believed: and as those who did believe, Caleb and Joshua, did actually enter into Canaan; so those who now believe shall enter into rest. (4.) From the certainty of another rest besides that seventh day of rest instituted and observed both before and after the fall, and besides that typical Canaan-rest which most of the Jews fell short of by unbelief; for the Psalmist has spoken of another day and another rest, whence it is evident that there is a more spiritual and excellent sabbath remaining for the people of God than that into which Joshua led the Jews (v. 6-9), and this rest remaining, [1.] A rest of grace, and comfort, and holiness, in the gospel state. This is the rest wherewith the Lord Jesus, our Joshua, causes weary souls and awakened consciences to rest, and this is the refreshing. [2.] A rest in glory, the everlasting sabbatism of heaven, which is the repose and perfection of nature and grace too, where the people of God shall enjoy the end of their faith and the object of all their desires. (5.) This is further proved from the glorious forerunners who have actually taken possession of this rest - God and Christ. It is certain that God, after the creating of the world in six days, entered into his rest; and it is certain that Christ, when he had finished the work of our redemption, entered into his rest; and these were not only examples, but earnests, that believers shall enter into their rest: He that hath entered into rest hath also ceased from his own works as God did from his, Heb 4:10. Every true believer hath ceased from his own works of righteousness, and from the burdensome works of the law, as God and Christ have ceased from their works of creation and redemption.

VI. The apostle confirms the misery of those who do not believe; they shall never enter into this spiritual rest, either of grace here or glory hereafter. This is as certain as the word and oath of God can make it. As sure as God has entered into his rest, so sure it is that obstinate unbelievers shall be excluded. As sure as the unbelieving Jews fell in the wilderness, and never reached the promised land, so sure it is that unbelievers shall fall into destruction, and never reach heaven. As sure as Joshua, the great captain of the Jews, could not give them possession of Canaan because of their unbelief, notwithstanding his eminent valour and conduct, so sure it is that even Jesus himself, and captain of our salvation, notwithstanding all that fulness of grace and strength that dwells in him, will not, cannot, give to final unbelievers either spiritual or eternal rest: it remains only for the people of God; others by their sin abandon themselves to eternal restlessness.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Heb_4:1-2

Let us therefore fear

Fearful of coming short

I.

WITH WHAT DOES THE FEAR ENJOINED IN THE TEXT MAINLY CONCERN ITSELF? Now, the apostle cannot mean that we are to fear lest we should come short of heaven for want of merit. There is not a man living who will not come short of heaven if he tries that road.

1. The great point is lest we come short of the heavenly rest by failing in the faith which will give us rest. Note, then, that it becomes us to be peculiarly anxious that we do not come short of fully realising the spirituality of faith. Many are content with the shells of religion, whereas it is the kernel only which can feed the soul.

2. The exhortation of our text leads us to say that we must take heed lest we fail to discern the fact that the whole way of salvation is of faith.

II. WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES MAY SUGGEST THE NECESSITY FOR THIS FEAR?

1. First, it is certain that many professors apostatise. Now, if others apostatise, may not we also?

2. Note, again, that we ourselves know others who are, we fear, much deceived, and fall short of true salvation. Though we have very much that is morally excellent, it may be that we are destitute of the real work of grace, and so come short of the rest which is given to faith,

3. Yet more, remember there are some professors who know that they are not at rest. We that bare believed do enter into rest, but you know you have no peace.

III. WHAT SOLEMN TRUTHS DEMAND THE FEAR SUGGESTED IN THE TEXT? If we should really come short of heaven we shall have lost all its bliss and glory for ever. And we shall have lost heaven with this aggravation, that we did begin to build, but were not able to finish. Oh, fear lest ye come short of it. Nay, begin sooner, fear lest ye seem to come short of it, for he that is afraid of the seeming will be delivered from the reality.

IV. HOW DOES OUR FEAR EXERCISE ITSELF? Our fear of coming short of the rest must not lead us to unbelief, because in that case it would make us come short at once. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

A check to presumption

I. The gospel is not only a revelation, but A PROMISE, and a promise exceeding great and precious. It not only holds forth to our view, but it proposes to our hope eternal life, and whatever is previously necessary to the acquisition of it. The promise was early made, and was often renewed with enlargements. Yes, in this blessed Book we have a promise left us of entering into His rest. But what is this rest? We may view it as it is begun upon earth, or completed in heaven. Even while the believer is upon earth, this rest is not only ensured, but begun.

1. View him with regard to his understanding, and you will find that he has rest.

2. View him with regard to his conscience, and you will find that he has rest. He is freed from the torment of fear and the horrors of guilt.

3. View him with regard to his passions and appetites, and you find he has rest. While pride, and envy, and malice, and avarice, and sensual affections, reigned within, often striving with each other, and always fighting against the convictions of his judgment, the mans breast was nothing but a scene of tumult; he was like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest.

4. view him once more with regard to his condition and circumstances, and you will find that he has rest. He is freed from those anxieties which devour others, who make the world their portion, and have no confidence in God. With all his advantages here, a voice perpetually cries in his ears, Arise and depart, for this is not your rest. However favourable the voyage, they are now on the treacherous ocean; and by and by they will enter the harbour--then are they glad because they are quiet; so He bringeth them unto their desired haven. At death we are told the righteous enter into rest. And this rest is pure, undisturbed, and everlasting. They shall rest from their labours. Though all activity, they shall be incapable of fatigue, for their powers will be fully equal to their work.

II. THE STATE OF MIND IN WHICH WE SHOULD REGARD IT--Let us therefore fear, &c. The fear here enjoined is not that of the sluggard dismayed by difficulties, or of the unbeliever who suspects that the promise shall not be accomplished; but a fear of caution, vigilance; a fear which leads us to examine ourselves, and allows us, in this awful concern, to be satisfied with nothing less than evidence whether we have a title to heaven and are in a fair way to obtain this blessedness.

1. To excite in you this fear, remember the possibility of your coming short. Remember that out of six hundred thousand Israelites who came out of Egypt to possess the land of Canaan, two only entered!

2. Consider the consequence of coming short. Is it not dreadful to be deprived of that fulness of joy which God hath promised to them that love Him? What would it be to lose your business, your health, your friends, compared with the loss of the soul? And remember, there is no medium between heaven and hell; if you miss the one, the other is unavoidable. And remember also the aggravations which will attend the misery of those who perish in your circumstances. There is nothing so healing, so soothing, as the expectation of hope; and of course there is nothing so tormenting as the disappointment of it, especially where the object is vastly important. Yea, remember also that you will not only be disappointed in coming short, but you will be punished for it.

(1) Let us observe, first, how thankful we should be for such a promise left us of entering into His rest! For surely we could not have reasonably expected it.

(2) Let us, secondly, see how necessary it is in religion to avoid passing from one extreme into another. The gospel encourages our hope; but then it enlightens it and guards it. Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. Be not highminded, but fear. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

(3) What are we to say of those of you who know nothing of this salutary concern? (The Congregational Pulpit.)

Necessity for religious caution

I. WE HAVE ACTUALLY A PROMISE MADE TO US OF AN ETERNAL REST. Christianity is no cunningly devised fable, but a certain offer of inconceivable felicity. It finds us wretched, and poor, and blind, and miserable. It finds us exposed to the inflictions of Divine wrath; it brings near to us the good news of pardon, grace, and mercy through the mediation of Jesus Christ. The adaptation of this rest to the weariness of man is very striking.

II. THIS REST IS PROMISED TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD, AND TO THEM ALONE. Into that world of light and of love nothing enters that defiles. No revolt, no alienation, no reluctance, no coldness towards God is felt in heaven; God is love, and all who dwell near Him dwell in love; love to Him and to each other.

III. THE POSSIBILITY OF COMING SHORT OF THE BLESSEDNESS OF HEAVEN IS AN IDEA SO TREMENDOUS, THAT IT MAY WELL AFFECT THE MIND WITH AWE. The apostle says, Let us therefore fear, &c. The apparent improbability of retrieving error after death is so plainly stated, that the supposition of carelessness in so great a matter, is a supposition fearful is the extreme. All human evils are tolerable, because they are momentary. Earthquake, shipwreck, loss of property, death of friends--these calamities are limited; but the loss of salvation is an intolerable evil, because it is an evil which seems to admit of no termination. There is no object more pitiable than that of an immortal being wasting the few precious hours of life in the frivolous occupations of pleasure, or in the severer pursuits of gain, while yet he is reckless of the pains and pleasures, the gains and losses of eternity! (G. T. Noel, M. A)

Fear and rest

The two words which claim our special consideration in this section are fear and rest.

I. We know only in part, in fragment. It is difficult for us to combine different aspects of truth. The earnest counsel of the apostle in this chapter, Let us fear, may seem to be incompatible with his emphatic teaching that we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; that he is persuaded that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus; that we are to rejoice in the Lord always. Yet a superficial glance at the Epistles, and at the Scriptures in general, will show that fear is an essential feature of the Christian. When Christ is accepted, there is peace; but is there not also fear? With Thee is forgiveness of sin, that Thou mayest be feared. Where do we see Gods holiness and the awful majesty of the law, our own sin and unworthiness, as in the atonement of the Lord Jesus? We rejoice with fear and trembling. It is because we know the Father; it is because we are redeemed by the precious blood of the Saviour; it is as the children of God that we are to pass our earthly pilgrimage in fear. This is not the fear of bondage, but the fear of adoption. Looking to God, our loving Father, our gracious Saviour, our gentle and indwelling Comforter, we have no reason to be afraid. The only fear that we can cherish is that of reverence and awe, and a dread lest we displease and wound Him who is our Lord. But when we look at ourselves, our weakness, our blindness; when we think of our path and our work, of our dangers, we may well feel that the time for repose and unmixed enjoyment has not come yet; we must dread our own sinfulness and our temptations; we must fear worldly influences.

II. BUT THE RELIEVER HAS REST NOW ON EARTH, AND HEREAFTER IN GLORY, Resting in Christ, he labours to enter into the perfect rest of eternity. But what did God mean by calling it His rest? Not they enter not into their rest, but His own. Oh, blessed distraction! God gives us Himself, and in all His gifts He gives us Himself. Does God give us righteousness? He Himself is our righteousness, Jehovan-tsidkenu. Does God give us peace? Christ is our peace. Does God give us light? He is our light. Does God give us bread? He is the bread we eat; as the Son liveth by the Father, so he that eateth Me shall live by Me (Joh_6:1-71.). God Him-elf is our strength. God is ours, and in all His gifts and blessings He gives Himself. By the Holy Ghost we are one with Christ, and Christ the Son of God is our righteousness--nay, our life. I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Or again, I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. Or as the Lord Himself, in His last prayer before His crucifixion, said to the Father, I in them, and Thou in Me. Thus God gives us His lest as our rest. Our souls long for rest. Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! Then would I fly away and be at rest! is the sigh of every soul. And this rest is only in Gods rest. Death brings no rest to our souls. It is Jesus Christ who alone can give rest to man; for only in Him we are restored and brought into communion with God. The great promise of Christ is rest. For He is the Restorer. We enjoy rest in Christ by faith. But the perfect enjoyment of rest is still ,n the future. There remaineth a sabbatism for the people of God. Believers will enter into rest after their earthly pilgrimage, labour, and conflict, and the whole creation will share in the liberty and joy of the children of God The substance and foretaste of this rest we have even now in Christ. (A. Saphir.)

Use of fear

God planted fear in the soul as truly as He planted hope or courage. Fear is a kind of bell, or gong, which rings the mind into quick life and avoidance upon the approach of danger; it is the souls signal for rallying. (H. W. Beecher.)

A promise … of entering into His rest

The promise of entering into Gods rest

Man from the first has been a restless creature. He lives by hope. His best pleasures are not in the things he actually possesses, but in the things he hopes for. He is always looking forward to to-morrow. Mans true life is the heavenly, and his earthly life is true only as it tends towards that.

I. THE REST THAT GOD HAS PROMISED TO MAN. It is the undisturbed peace, the holy joy of the Divine nature, which nothing but likeness to the Divine can bring.

II. THE POSSIBILITY OF COMING SNORT OF GODS REST.

1. A man may come short of the rest of the Sabbath.

2. Many of the Jews, to whom the rest of Canaan was promised, came short of it.

3. Man will never enter fully into the ideal life until he believes in God fully, trusts God with all his heart, ceases from his own self-will to be and do in harmony with the will Divine.

III. HOW TO GUARD AGAINST THE POSSIBILITY OF COMING SHORT OF THE DIVINE REST.

1. Guard against unbelief.

2. Guard against presumption.

3. Cling to the great hope itself, and rejoice in it evermore. Think about it often, and all other hopes will pale when placed beside this. (E. D. Solomon.)

The promised rest

I. GOD HAS LEFT US A PROMISE OF ENTERING INTO HIS REST; a promise enough to satisfy all our desires, and to engage our heartiest endeavours after it.

1. The greatness of that reward which God has promised to us in the gospel.

2. Of this rest we should most certainly be made partakers, if we live so as we ought to do.

II. IT IS AS CERTAIN THAT WE MAY BY OUR OWN FAULT COME SHOAT OF IT. For the promise of this rest is not absolute, but conditional It depends upon a covenant in which there are duties to be fulfilled on our part, as well as a reward to he made good on Gods. And if we fail in the one, there is no reason to expect that He should perform the other.

III. Let us take the advice of the text, and FEAR LEST WE SHOULD CHANCE SO TO DO. One might justly think that instead of arguing with men upon this subject, we ought rather to apologise for the absurdity of making that an exhortation which all men desire, and therefore must needs endeavour to attain unto. What is this but as if one should go about to argue with a covetous wretch not to neglect a fair opportunity of growing rich.

IV. THE BEST WHY TO SECURE TO OURSELVES THE PROMISE OF THIS REST, is to live in a continual fear of coming short of it.

1. This will be the most likely to engage our own care.

2. It will also be the best means to entitle us to Gods favour.

(1) This will above anything qualify us for the gracious assistance of His Holy Spirit, to enable us to discharge that duty which is required of us.

(2) It will the best dispose us for the pardon of those sins which, when we have done all that we can, we shall still continue more or less to commit. Because he who thus fears will either never willingly fall into any sins, and then there can be no doubt that he shall find a very ready pardon of his involuntary offences. Or if he should be at any time led away by the deceitfulness of sin, yet this fear will soon awaken him, and bring him both to a sense and a deep abhorrence of it. (Abp. Wake.)

The fear of losing the promised rest

I. THE REST WHICH IS HERE SPOKEN OF. Union with Christ.

II. THE EFFECT WHICH IT SHOULD PRODUCE UPON OUR MINDS. We must fear

1. Because we have numerous enemies who would rob us of this rest.

2. Because we have great interests at stake.

3. Because we have but a short and uncertain period to secure an interest in Christ, and be washed from the stains of sin.

III. THE DREADFUL CONSEQUENCES OF COMING SHORT OF THIS REST. TO mistake the way to heaven is to sink into hell. (Neville Jones.)

Fear of perishing

1. A race must be run ere we come to our full rest.

2. The constant runner to the end getteth rest from sin and misery, and a quiet possession of happiness at the races end.

3. The apostate, and he who by misbelief breaketh off his course, and runneth not on, as may be, cometh short, and attaineth not unto it.

4. The apostasy of some, and possibility of apostasy of mere professors, should not weaken any mans faith; but rather terrify him from misbelief.

5. There is a right kind of fear of perishing; to wit, such as hindereth not assurance of faith; but rather serveth to guard it, and spurreth on a man to perseverance.

6. We must not only fear, by misbelieving to come short; but to seem or give any appearance of coming short. (D. Dickson, M. A.)

The Christians privilege, danger and duty

I. THE CHRISTIANS PRIVILEGE: promised rest.

1. The character supposed. The promise of entering into the heavenly Canaan peculiarly belongs to those who have turned their backs on spiritual Egypt, and are journeying under Divine direction towards the better country.

2. The blessing promised: His rest. In the present we may have rest from the tyranny of sin (Rom_6:12-14); and from the distraction of anxious care, whether it precede our justification, and refer to our souls safety (see Heb_4:3), or follow it (Isa_26:3; Rom_8:38-39). Yet, however, the Christian may have rest now from the clamours of conscience, painful forebodings, &c., it is to heaven that he must look for

(1) A rest from toil.

(2) A rest from pain. Glorified bodies are safe from disease and decline.

(3) A rest from sorrow.

3. The security offered is that of Almighty God. Men may promise largely, but not be able to fulfil. He is all-sufficient.

II. THE CHRISTIANS DANGER: Lest any of you should seem to come short of it. Unbelief the principle of ruin, hence so earnest (Heb_3:11-12; Heb_3:18-19, and Heb_4:3; Heb_4:11). Nor is this without reason, for unbelief may operate destructively.

1. By means of open transgression. In these passages we are cautioned against the principle. In 1Co_10:1-12, its sad effects are exhibited.

2. By means of secret wickedness. Hence lusting after evil things is deprecated (1Co_10:6; see also Mat_5:28; Psa_66:18).

3. By means of worldly mindedness. Faith apprehends invisible realities, and influences and saves us accordingly. But unbelief is the souls blindness.

4. By means of indolence. Faith prompts us to do, and sustains us in suffering. Unbelief leads to negligence; and neglect is ruin (Heb_2:3).

III. THE CHRISTIANS DUTY: Let us therefore fear. If the apostle feared for the Hebrews, it equally became them to fear.

1. Because of the shame, the personal disgrace of coming short. Not to pursue a worthy object when it is proposed is sufficiently disgraceful. To relinquish the pursuit is doubly so. Even sinners despise such inconsistency.

2. Because of the mischief of coming short. He is like one of the unbelieving spies who tempted Israel into sin and suffering (Num_14:4; Num_14:23).

3. Because of the ruin of coming short. Apostates sin against greater advantages, have gained a greater enlargement of capacity, fall from a greater elevation; therefore their punishment will be more severe. But how? Not with a desponding paralysing fear.

(1) With a fear of caution, that properly estimates difficulty and danger, and induces circumspection (Heb_12:12-15).

(2) With a fear of vigilance; that narrowly watches first declensions, and promptly opposes the first advances of the enemy.

(3) With a provident fear; that leads to husband our resources, to avail ourselves of the assistance of our fellow Christians, and to cry to the strong for strength. And let it be an abiding fear. Blessed is the man that feareth always. Improvement:

1. God hath promised a rest.

2. In prospect of the promised rest, let saints sustain the hallowed cross: rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, &c.

3. Let us exhort one another daily; both by the example of those who have halted, and of those who inherit the promises (Heb_3:13; Heb_6:11-12). (Sketches of Sermons.)

The gospel of rest

The Christian salvation is here presented under a third aspect as a rest, a sabbatism, a participation in the rest of God; the new view, like the two preceding, in which the great salvation was identified with lordship in the world to come and with deliverance from the power of the devil and the fear of death, being taken from the beginning of human history as narrated in the early chapters of Genesis. One aim of the writer of the Epistle in this part of his work was doubtless to enunciate this thought, and so to identify the gospel of Christ with the Old Testament gospel of rest. But his aim is not purely didactic, but partly also, and even chiefly, parenetic. Doctrine rises out of and serves the purpose of exhortation. In so far as the section (verses 1-10) has a didactic drift, its object is to confirm the hope; in so far as it is hortatory, its leading purpose is to enforce the warning, let us fear. The parenetic interest predominates at the commencement (verses 1, 2), which may be thus paraphrased: Now with reference to this rest I have been speaking of (Heb_3:18-19), let us fear lest we miss it For it is in our power to gain it, seeing the promise still remains over unfulfilled or but partially fulfilled. Let us fear, I say; for if we have a share in the promise, we have also in the threat of forfeiture: it too stands over. We certainly have a share in the promise; we have been evangelised, not merely in general, but with the specific gospel of rest. But those who first heard this gospel of rest failed through unbelief. So may we: therefore let us fear. To be noted is the freedom with which, as in the case of the word apostle (Heb_3:1), the writer uses the εὐηγγελισμένοι, which might have been supposed to have borne in his time a stereotyped meaning. Any promise of God, any announcement of good tidings, is for him a gospel. Doubtless all Gods promises are associated in his mind with the great final salvation, nevertheless they are formally distinct from the historical Christian gospel. The gospel he has in view is not that which begun to be spoken by the Lord, but that spoken by the Psalmist when he said, To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts. Not less noteworthy is the way in which the abortive result of the preaching of the gospel of rest to the fathers is accounted for. The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. Is the word mixed with faith in the healer, or by faith with the hearer? and what natural analogy is suggested in either case? The one thing certain is, that he deemed faith indispensable to profitable hearing: a truth, happily, taught with equal clearness in the text, whatever reading we adopt. At verse 3 the didactic interest comes to the front. The new thought grafted into verse 1 by the parenthetical clause, a promise being still left, now becomes the leading affirmation. The assertion of verse 2, we have been evangelised, is repeated, with the emphasis this time on the we. We do enter into rest, we believers in Christ. A rest is left over for the New Testament people of God. The sequel as far as verse 10 contains the proof of this thesis. The salient points are these two:

1. God spoke of a rest to Israel by Moses, though He Himself rested from His works when the creation of the world was finished; therefore the creation-rest does not exhaust the idea and promise of rest.

2. The rest of Israel in Canaan under Joshua did not realise the Divine idea of rest, any more than did the personal rest of God at the Creation, for we find the rest spoken of again in the Psalter as still remaining to be entered upon, which implies that the Canaan-rest was an inadequate fulfilment. The former of these two points contains the substance of what is said in verses 3-5, the latter gives the gist of verses 7, 8; whereupon follows the inference in verse 9, a rest is left over. A third step in the argument by which the inference is justified is passed over in silence. It is, that neither in the

Psalmists day nor at any subsequent period in Israels history had the promise of rest been adequately fulfilled, any more than at the Creation or in the days of Joshua. Our author takes the oracle in the Psalter as the final word of the Old Testament on the subject of rest, and therefore as a word which concerns the New Testament people of God. God spake of rest through David, implying that up till that time the long promised rest had not come, at least, in satisfying measure. Therefore a rest remains for Christians. He believed that all Divine promises, that the promise of rest in particular, shall be fulfilled with ideal completeness. Some must enter in; and as none have yet entered in perfectly, this bliss must be reserved for those on whom the ends of the world are come, even those who believe in Jesus. There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God. A sabbatism our author calls the rest, so at the conclusion of his argument introducing a new name for it, after using another all through. It embodies an idea. It felicitously connects the end of the world with the beginning, the consummation of all things with the primal state of the creation. It denotes the ideal rest, and so teaches by implication that Christians not only have an interest in the gospel of rest, but for the first time enter into a rest which is worthy of the name, a rest corresponding to and fully realising the Divine idea. This final name for the rest thus supplements the defect of the preceding argument, which understates the case for Christians. It further hints, though only hints, the nature of the ideal rest. It teaches that it is not merely a rest which God gives, but the rest which God Himself enjoys. It is Gods own rest for Gods own true people, an ideal rest for an ideal community, embracing all believers, all believing Israelites of all ages, and many more; for Gods rest began long before there was an Israel, and the gospel in the early chapters of Genesis is a gospel for man. We have seen that our author borrows three distinct conceptions of the great salvation from the primitive history of man. It is reasonable to suppose that they were all connected together in his mind, and formed one picture of the highest good. They suggest the idea of paradise restored: the Divine ideal of man and the world and their mutual relations realised in perpetuity; man made veritably lord of creation, delivered from the fear of death, nay, death itself for ever left behind, and no longer subject to servile tasks, but occupied only with work worthy of a king and a son of God, and compatible with perfect repose and undisturbed enjoyment. It is an apocalyptic vision: fruition lies in the beyond. The dominion and deathlessness and sabbatism are reserved for the world to come, objects of hope for those who believe. The perfect rest will come, and a people of God will enter into it, of these things our author is well assured; but he fears lest the Hebrew Christians should forfeit their share in the felicity of that people: therefore he ends his discourse on the gospel of rest as he began, with solemn admonition. Let us fear lest we enter not in, he said at the beginning; let us give diligence to enter in, he says now at the close. Then to enforce the exhortation he appends two words of a practical character, one fitted to inspire awe, the other to cheer Christians of desponding temper. The former of these passages (verses 12, 13) describes the attributes of the Divine word, the general import of the statement being that the word of God, like God Himself, is not to be trifled with; the word referred to being, in the first place, the word of threatening which doomed unbelieving, disobedient Israelites to perish in the wilderness, and by implication, every word of God. The account given of the Divine word is impressive, almost appalling. It is endowed in succession with the qualities of the lightning, which moves with incredible swiftness like a living spirit, and hath force enough to shiver to atoms the forest trees; of a two-edged sword, whose keen, glancing blade cuts clean through everything, flesh, bone, sinew; of the sun in the firmament, from whose great piercing eye, as he circles round the globe, nothing on earth is hid. (A. B. Bruce, D. D.)

Christs legacy of rest

This promise of spiritual rest is a promise left us by the Lord Jesus Christ in His last will and testament, as a precious legacy. Our business is to see to it that we be the legatees; that we lay our claim to that rest and freedom from the dominion of sin, Satan, and the flesh by which the souls of men are kept in servitude, and deprived of the true rest of the soul, and may be also set free from the yoke of the law, and all the toilsome ceremonies and services of it, and may enjoy peace with God, in His ordinances, providences and in our own consciences, and so have the prospect and earnest of perfect and everlasting rest in heaven. (M. Henry.)

Seem to come short of it

The appearance of failure

It is a great principle under the Christian dispensation, that none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. We are members one of another, so associated by intimate and indissoluble ties, that we ought never to consider our actions as having a bearing only on ourselves; we should rather regard them as likely to affect numbers, and sure to affect some, of our fellow men, to affect them in their eternal interests, and not only in their temporal. We have again the same principle, the principle that membership should influence actions, involved in a precept of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Abstain from all appearance of evil. There is something of a fine sound in advice which is often given, Do what you know to be right, and care not what others may think; but, after all, it is not universally, nor perhaps even generally, good and Christian advice. A Christian should consider the opinion of his fellow Christians. Be not engrossed with securing your own salvation; see to it that ye be not, at the same time, endangering the salvation of others. In the chapter preceding that which is opened by our text, St. Paul had been speaking of those Israelites who, though delivered by Moses from Egypt, never reached the Promised Land, but perished, through unbelief, in the wilderness. From this the apostle took occasion to warn Christians that they might have some progress towards heaven, and still be in danger of missing its possession. And if this had been the whole tenor of our text, it would have afforded but little place for commentary, though much for private and personal meditation. But you will observe that St. Paul does not speak of coming short, but of seeming to come short. He seems to come short of the promised rest, who, in the judgment of his fellow men, is deficient in those outward evidences by which they are wont to try the genuineness of religion. But surely, all the while, he may not actually come short: human judgment is fallible, and can in no case be guided by inspecting the heart, which alone can furnish grounds for certain decision; and, doubtless, many may be found in heaven at last, of which entrance thither survivors could entertain nothing more than a charitable hope. And is it not enough, if we do not come short ? why should we further concern ourselves as to the not seeming to come short? We might answer, as we did in regard of the appearance of evil, that it is a dangerous thing to approach danger. He who seems to come short must almost necessarily be in some peril of failure; and where heaven is at stake, no wise man, if he could help it, would run the least risk. Besides, it can hardly be that he, who seems to others to come short, should possess decisive and Scriptural evidences of his acceptance With God. But whilst there may thus be many reasons given why we should fear the seeming to come short, even were our personal well-being alone to be considered, the full force of the text, as with that which enjoins abstinence from the appearance of evil, is only to be brought out through reference to our being members the one of the other. We shall, therefore, take the passage under this point of view. In other words, we will examine what there is, in an appearance of failure, to do injury to the cause of Christianity, and therefore to justify the apostle in so emphatically calling upon you to learn, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. Now as there are undoubtedly many ways in which we may actually come short, so must there be many in which we may apparently come short: who can tell up the methods in which the soul may be lost? neither can any one enumerate those in which it may seem to be lost.

1. And it must, we think, commend itself to you in the first place, that none will more seem to come short, than those whose practice is in any way inconsistent with their profession, so that lookers-on can decide that their conduct is not strictly accordant with the principles by which they declare themselves actuated. He who professes to walk in the light as God is in the light, may occasionally wander into dark paths, and yet be mercifully restored; but it can hardly fail but that the impression produced on observers, especially on men of the world, will be one as to the weakness of his principles, or a want of power in that religion which professes itself adequate to the renewing the world. And who will pretend to compute the amount of damage done to the cause of vital Christianity by the inconsistencies of those who profess themselves subjected to its laws, and animated by its hopes?

2. But there is another, if a less obvious mode of seeming to come short. It should be observed that, though the apostle, when speaking of rest, must be considered as referring mainly to that rest which is future, there is a degree of present rest which is attainable by the Christian, and which is both the type and foretaste of that which is to come. Thus St. Paul, in a verse which follows almost immediately on our text, says of Christians, We which have believed do enter into rest; and afterwards, He that is entered into His rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His, evidently making the entering into rest, a present thing, as well as a future. Our blessed Saviour bequeathed His own peace, as a legacy to His Church; and what Christ entailed on us, may surely be enjoyed by us. The religion of the Bible is a cheerful, happy-making religion: the very word gospel signifies glad tidings; and he who has received good news into his heart may justly be expected to exhibit in his demeanour, if not much of the rapture of joy, yet something of the quietness of peace. But it is in this that righteous persons are often grievously deficient. Hence, in place of struggling with doubts and endeavouring to extinguish them, they may be said actually to encourage them, as if they befitted their state, and either betokened or cherished humility. A great mistake this. There is commonly more of pride than of humility in doubts; he who is always doubting is generally searching in himself for some ground or reason of assurance; whereas, true, genuine humility, looks wholly out of self, not as forgetting the corruption which is there, but as fastening on the sufficiency which is in Christ. But, without dissecting more narrowly the character of the always doubting Christian, we cannot hesitate to say of him, that he is one of those who seem to come short. If a present, as well as a future, rest be promised to the righteous--and what else can be denoted by such words as these, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee?--certainly he, at least, seems to come short of that rest, who is continually the prey of fear and disquietude, who has never anything to express but apprehensions as to his deceiving himself, or who wears always the appearance of one ill at ease in regard of his spiritual interests. It could hardly fail to be a strong motive with religious persons to the cultivating cheerfulness of deportment, if they carefully rein inhered that others will judge religion by its apparent effects, and that, if they see it produce only sadness, they will be likely to shun it as opposed to all joy. A gloomy Christian may not be always able to help his gloom; but he should lament it, and strive with it; for what will a generous leader say of a soldier, who, commissioned to enlist others under the same banner with himself, makes his appearance in the world as a terrified and half-famished prisoner?

3. But now, having thus illustrated the text from inconsistency of conduct, and from the harbouring of doubts, either of which will cause a Christian to seem to come short, let us take one other case, one which is not perhaps indeed as much under our own power, but one against which we may be always endeavouring to provide. The great business of life, as we all confess, is preparation for death. And a Christians hope, a Christians desire, should be that he may be enabled to meet death triumphantly. It should not content him that he may pass in safety through the dark valley, though with little of that firm sense of victory which discovers itself in the exulting tone, or the burning vision. This indeed is much--oh! that we might believe that none of us would have less than this. But, in having only this, a Christian may seem to come short. And there is often a mighty discouragement from the death-beds of the righteous, when, as the darkness thickens, there is apparently but little consolation from the prospect of eternity. Even as, on the other hand, when a righteous man is enabled to meet death exultingly, as though he had to step into the car of fire, and be wafted almost visibly to the heavenly city, there is diffused over a neighbourhood a sort of animating influence; the tidings of the victory spread rapidly from house to house: the boldness of infidelity quails before them; meek piety takes new courage, and attempts new toils. And it ought not, therefore, to satisfy us that we may so die as not to come short of heaven: we ought to labour that we may so die as not even to seem to come short of it. It is doubly dying, if, in dying, we work an injury to our brethren; it is scarcely dying, if we strengthen them for their departure out of life. This is, in its measure, the doing what was done by the Redeemer Himself, who, through death, destroyed him that had the power of death: the believer, as he enters the grave, deals a blow at the tyrant, which renders him less terrible to those who have yet to meet him in the final encounter. And by continued preparation for death, by accustoming ourselves to the anticipation of death, that, through Gods help, our passage through the valley shall be rather with the tread of the conqueror, than with the painful step of the timid pilgrim. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The danger of falling short of the heavenly rest

I. THE NATURE OF THIS REST.

1. A rest from sin.

2. A rest from temptation.

3. A rest from trouble.

II. TO WHOM THE PROMISE OF IT IS MADE. It is made, it is left to us; yes, wherever the gospel is preached, this inestimable prize is offered to those who believe in its life-giving doctrines.

III. THE DANGER OF FALLING SHORT OF IT. Let me ask you, or rather ask your own consciences, Have you ever had any fears on the subject? If you have not, it can never have been an object of intense desire; it is impossible to be really in earnest about seeking the kingdom of heaven, without being anxious and fearful about it. Many who die with heaven in anticipation, it is to be feared will lift up their eyes in hell. Tremendous discovery this of their real state, when it is irretrievable, bitter knowledge of the truth, when it is too late to profit by it! I want you to fear now; now, when there is time and opportunity for repentance; now, when God waits to be gracious; now, when the atonement of Christ is available for your salvation: and mark the words of the text, for they are very explicit; like almost every thing in Scripture, they require minute inspection, in order to get their full force and meaning, Fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. You are cautioned to startle, as it were, at the very appearance of failure--to be alarmed at the least indication of it. (J. P. Wright, M. A.)

Coming short of the promised rest

I. A THREEFOLD CERTAINTY.

1. There is a rest.

(1) A rest resulting from the inward assurance of Gods pardoning love.

(2) A rest from sin as a ruling and tyrannising power.

(3) A rest of adoption.

2. There is a promise of this rest.

3. The promise is to believers.

II. AN AWFUL UNCERTAINTY. Thus though the promise is made, there is in the case of many an awful uncertainty hanging over its issue. And how so? There is no accusation against God in the economy of His spiritual government; He does not arbitrarily unfold and withhold--no, God is our Father, full of compassion and tender in mercy. The accusation is proved against man himself. He wilfully shuts the open means of grace; he is the self-excluding and self-excluded from the pale of the promise. He comes short of it--it does not come short of him. (T. J. Judkin, M. A.)

The gospel preached

The gospel preached under the Old Testament

I. 1. They had the same gospel blessings and mercies that we have. That God would be their God. This includes

(1) Regeneration, or the new heart, the heart of flesh, the writing of Gods law in the heart (Jer_31:33; Deu_30:6; Eze_36:25-27).

(2) Reconciliation and remission of sins (Isa_1:18; Je Lev_5:6; Lev_5:10).

(3) Everlasting life and salvation in heaven (Psa_17:15; Psa_73:24; Psa_16:11).

2. They had these blessings upon the same account, and in the same way, as we have them now. We receive all from the mere mercy and free grace of God in Christ; and so did they (Psa_51:1; Dan_9:8-9; Dan_9:18-19).

II. A second argument might be taken from an historical induction of all those former times, and the several gospel discoveries which the Lord vouchsafed to them all along from time to time.

III. Either the gospel was preached unto them of old, or else it will follow that they were all condemned, or else that they were saved without Christ; which to imagine were infinitely dishonourable to the Lord Jesus Christ Act_4:12; Rom_3:20; Gal_2:16; Heb_13:8). Objections:

1. Why do we call it the Old Testament, if it was gospel? This is only in regard of the manner of dispensation.

2. That the apostle often speaks of it as that ancient dispensation, as if it was law and not gospel. We must distinguish between the thing preached, and the manner of preaching, between the shell and the kernel, the shadow and the substance. The thing preached was the gospel, though the manner of preaching it was legal.

(1) It was dark, but the gospel is clear.

(2) It was weak, but the gospel is powerful.

(3) There was much of external splendour, but little of that power and spirituality that is in gospel worship.

(4) It was a burdensome dispensation.

(5) The manner of administration was legal, in regard of the bondage and tenor of it. Uses:

1. Encouragement to study the Old Testament, and the types and shadows of the Law.

2. Direction how to attain to the understanding of those mysteries. Study the gospel.

3. There is no part of the Scripture but is of use. We might see much of God and of the gospel in the chapters of the Levitical law, if we had the skill to search out the meaning and mystery of them.

4. Encouragement to believe and receive the gospel. (S. Mather.)

The preached gospel

I. IT IS A SIGNAL PRIVILEGE TO HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED UNTO US; TO BE EVANGELISED.

As such it is here proposed by the apostle; and it is made a foundation of inferring a necessity of all sorts of duties. This the prophet emphatically expresseth (Isa_9:1-2).

II. Barely to be evangelised, to have the gospel preached unto any, IS A PRIVILEGE OF A DUBIOUS ISSUE AND EVENT. All privileges depend as to their advantage on the use of them. If herein we fail, that which should have been for our good will be our snare.

III. THE GOSPEL IS NO NEW DOCTRINE, NO NEW LAW. It was preached unto the people of old. In the preaching of the gospel by the Lord Jesus Himself and His apostles, it was new in respect of the manner of its administration, with sundry circumstances of light, evidence, and power, wherewith it is accompanied. So it is in all ages in respect of any fresh discovery of truth from the word formally bidden or eclipsed. But as to the substance of it, the gospel is that which was from the beginning (1Jn_1:1). It is the first great original of God with sinners, from the foundation of the world.

IV. GOD HATH GRACIOUSLY ORDERED THE WORD OF THE GOSPEL TO BE PREACHED TO MEN, WHEREON DEPENDS THEIR WELFARE OR THEIR RUIN. The word is like the sun in the firmament. It hath virtually in it all spiritual light and heat. But the preaching of the word is as the motion and beams of the sun, which actually and effectually communicate to all creatures that light and heat which is virtually in the sun itself.

V. THE SOLE CAUSE OF THE PROMISE BEING INEFFECTUAL TO SALVATION IN AND TOWARDS THEM TO WHOM IT IS PREACHED, IS IN THEMSELVES AND THEIR OWN UNBELIEF.

VI. THERE IS A FAILING, TEMPORARY FAITH, WITH RESPECT TO THE PROMISES OF GOD, WHICH WILL NOT ADVANTAGE THEM IN WHOM IT IS.

VII. THE GREAT MYSTERY OF USEFUL AND PROFITABLE BELIEVING, CONSISTS IN THE MIXING OR IN CORPORATING OF TRUTH AND FAITH IN THE SOULS OR MINDS OF BELIEVERS.

1. There is a great respect, relation, and union, between the faculties of the soul, and their proper objects, as they act themselves. Thus truth, as truth, is the proper object of the understanding.

2. The truth of the gospel, of the promise now under especial consideration, is peculiar, divine, supernatural; and, therefore, for the receiving of it, God requireth in us, and bestoweth upon us a peculiar, divine, supernatural habit, by which our minds may be enabled to receive it.

This is faith, which is not of ourselves; it is the gift of God. (John Owen, D. D.)

On hearing the Word preached

Ever since these words were written the unprofitableness of preaching has been a subject of complaint to some, and of lamentation to others. On one side it has been alleged by the hearers that the word preached is unprofitable, not so much from want of faith or piety in themselves, as from want of zeal, of ability, of energy, or even of originality in the preacher. On the other hand, the person thus unsparingly assailed is led, perhaps unwillingly, to remark, that faults in hearers may be as numerous and as frequent as in him who speaks: and that the very best preaching has, in cases without number, been ineffectual through perverseness, inattention, or unbelief in the auditory.

1. A. very common impediment to edification, and one of which every Christian mind, alive to the importance of social ordinances, must be peculiarly sensible, is the practice of irregular attendance at the house of God.

2. I have already remarked upon those who have created obstacles to their religious welfare by being absent in body from the house of God, I now come to those, who, by being absent in mind and spirit, make their bodily presence of no avail.

3. I now proceed to the fault of those who are present, and who attend to the Word preached, but who attend with improper dispositions, either in regard to their minister or their fellow-hearers. With respect to their minister, they arc apt to be arbitrary and dictatorial; with respect to their fellow-hearers they are apt to be censorious in their application of the truth or duties inculcated. (J. Sinclair, M. A.)

Not being mixed with faith

Profitable mixture

I. ISRAELS HEARING OF THE GOSPEL.

1. We shall notice, first, that the good news brought to Israel was a gospel of rest for slaves, a promise of deliverance for men who cried by reason of sore bondage. This was a fit emblem of that news which comes to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

2. The good tidings to Israel was a gospel of redemption in order to their entering into the promised rest. You have heard the word of reconciliation, and you know its meaning. Have you rested in it?

3. Furthermore, it was a gospel of separation. When you read the words of the Lord to His chosen ones, you are compelled to see that He means them to be a people set apart for His own purposes. The Lord has of old separated to Himself, in His eternal purposes, a people who are His; and His they shall still be, even till that day in which He shall make up His jewels. These belong to the Lord Jesus in a special way. These have a destiny before them, even in this world, of separation from the rest of mankind; for Jesus saith, they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

4. Still further, the gospel preached to the Israelites told them of a glorious heritage which was provided for them.

5. They had also preached to them the gospel of a Divine calling; for they were informed that they were not to enter into this land to be idlers in it, but they were to be a nation of priests. This, even this, is the gospel preached unto you. Count not yourselves unworthy of this high honour.

6. Once more: they had a gospel which promised them help to obtain all this. It is a poor gospel which sets heaven before us, but does not help us to enter it. The Spirit helpeth our infirmities. God shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

II. ISRAELS FAILURE TO PROFIT BY THE GOSPEL WHICH THEY HEARD.

1. Though they heard it from many, they clung to Egypt.

2. Worse still, they provoked the Lord by their murmurings and their idolatry.

3. Moreover, they were always mistrustful.

4. They went so far as to despise the Promised Land.

5. When the time came when they might have advanced against the foe, they were afraid to go up.

6. The end of it was, they died in the wilderness. A whole nation missed the rest of God: it will not be a wonder if you and I miss it, who are but one or two, unless we take earnest heed and are filled with fear lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of us should seem to come short of it.

III. THE FATAL CAUSE OF THIS DIREFUL CALAMITY. Why was it the gospel that they heard did not profit them? Not being mixed with faith.

1. Where there is no faith, men remain slaves to the present. If they did not believe in the milk and honey of Canaan, you see why they hankered for the cucumbers of Egypt. An onion is nothing comparable to an estate beyond Jordan; yet as they think they cannot get the estate, they pine for the onions. When men do not believe in eternal life, they naturally enough cry, Give me bread and cheese. Let me have a fortune here.

2. If a man hears and has no faith, he learns nothing. What would be the use of your listening to lectures upon science if you disbelieved what the professor set forth? You are no pupil, you are a critic; and you cannot learn. Many professors have no faith, and, consequently, whoever may teach them, they will never come to a knowledge of the truth.

3. The truth did not affect the hearts of Israel, as it does not affect any mans heart till he has believed it. A mans soul touched by the finger of the gospel resounds the music of God. If the gospel is not believed, those fingers touch mute strings, and no response is heard.

4. A man that has no faith in what he hears does not appropriate it. There is gold I Eagerly one crieth, Let me go and get it. Unbelief restrains him, as it whispers, There is no gold, or it is beyond reach. He does not go to get it, for he does not believe. A hungry man passeth by where there is entertainment for needy travellers. Believing that there is food for his hunger, he tarries at the door; but if unbelief mutters, There is a bare table within, you might as soon break your neck as break your fast in that place, then the traveller hurries on. Unbelief palsies she hand, and ,t appropriates nothing. That which is not appropriated can be of no use to you.

5. Lastly, these people could not enter in, because they had no faith. They could go to the border of the land, but they must die even there. They could send their spies into the country; but they could not see the fertile valleys themselves. Without faith they could not enter Canaan. Shall it be so with us, that, for want of faith, we shall hear the gospel, know something about its power, and yet miss its glories, and never enter into possession of the life eternal which it reveals? (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Not being mixed with faith

There is always a pathetic interest, made up of sadness and hope together, in the sight of any good thing which fails of power and of its fullest life because it is a fragment, and does not meet the other part which is needed to complete the whole. A seed that lies upon the rock, and finds no ground; an instrument which stands complete in all its mechanism, but with no players hand to call its music forth; a man who might do brave and useful things under the summons of a friends enthusiasm, but goes through life alone, a nature with fine and noble qualities that need the complement of other qualities which the man lacks to make a fruitful life; a community rich in certain elements of character--as, for instance, energy, hopefulness, self-confidence, but wanting just that profound conscientiousness, that scrupulous integrity which should be the rudder to those broad and eager sails; a Church devout without thoughtfulness or liberal without deep convictions--where would the long list of illustrations end? Everywhere the most pathetic sights are these in which possibility and failure meet. Indeed, herein lies the general pathos which belongs to the great human history as a whole and to each mans single life. One of these failures is described in the text. Truth fails because it does not meet what the Scripture calls faith. This is evidently something more than mere assent that the truth is true. The essential relations between truth and the nature of man are evidently comprehended in their whole completeness. All that the hearer might have done to truth, all the welcome that he might have extended, all the cordial and manifold relationship into which he might have entered with the Word that was preached unto him--all this is in the writers mind. All this is summed up in the faith which the truth has not found. Faith is simply the full welcome which the human soul can give to anything with which it has essential and natural relationship. It will vary for everything according to that things nature, as the hand will shape itself differently according to the different shapes of things it has to grasp. Faith is simply the souls grasp, a larger or a smaller act according to the largeness or smallness of the object grasped; of one size for a fact, of another for a friend, or another for a principle: but always the souls grasp, the entrance of the soul into its true and healthy relationship to the object which is offered to it. As soon as we understand what the faith is which any object or truth must find and mix itself with before it can put on its fullest life and power, we are impressed with this: that men are always making attempts which never can succeed to give to objects and truths a value which in themselves they never can possess, which can only come to them as they are taken home by faith into the characters of men. We hear men talk about the progress of our country, and by and by we find they mean the increase of its wealth, the development of its resources, the opening of its communications, the growth of its commerce. These do not make a country great. They are powerless until they are mixed with faith; until they give themselves to the improvement of the human qualities which any real national life, like any real personal life, is made, and make the nation more generous, more upright, and more free. They may do that. It is in the power of a nation as of a man to grow greater by every added dollar of its wealth, but a dollar is powerless until it mixes itself with faith and passes into character. And so of far more spiritual things than dollars. You say: How headlong my boy is! Let me give him a wise friend, and so he shall get wisdom. You say: Here is my brother, who has been frivolous. Behold, a blessed sorrow is gathering about him, and out of the darkness he will come with a sober heart! You say: This man is coarse and brutish; let me set him among fine things, and he will become delicate and gentle. You say: This selfish creature, who has not cared for his country in what seemed her soft and easy days, let the storm come, let the war burst out, or the critical election rise up like a sudden rock out of the calm sea, and patriotism will gather at his heart and set his brain to lofty thoughts and strengthen his arm for heroic deeds. For ever the same anticipations from mere circumstances, the same trust in mere emergencies, in facts and things, and for ever the same disappointment--no crisis, eyelet, fact, person is of real value to the soul unless it really gets into that soul, compels or wins its welcome, and passes by the mixture of faith into character. So, and so only, does a wise friend make your boy wise, or sorrow make your brother noble, or fine and gentle circumstances make the coarse man fine, or the need of his country make the selfish man a patriot. Now, all this is peculiarly true with reference to religion. We put confidence in our organisations: let us plant our church in this remote village; let our beloved liturgy be heard among these unfamiliar scenes; and so men shall be saved. It is not so much that me have too much confidence, as that we have the wrong kind of confidence in the objective truth. Let this which I know is verity come to this bad mans life, and he must turn. There is all about us this faith in the efficacy of ideas over character. The orthodox man believes that if you could silence all dissent from the old venerated creed the world would shine with holiness. How like it all sounds to the cry we hear in the parable coming forth from the still unenlightened rain of a wasted life: Nay, father Abraham; but if one went unto them from the dead they will repent! Ideas are mighty. There is no real strength in the world that has not an idea at its heart. To declare true ideas, to speak the truth to men, is the noblest work that any man can covet or try to do. To attempt to gain power over men which shall not be the power of an idea is poor, ignoble work. But yet it is none the less certain that no man really does tell the truth to other men who does not always go about remembering that truth is not profitable till it is mixed with faith, that the final power of acceptance or rejection lies in the soul. But we must go farther than this. The mind of man is far too delicate and sensitive for anything unappropriated and not made a part of itself to be in it without doing it harm. The book which you have studied, but whose heart you have not taken into your heart, makes you not a wise man, but a pedant. And so it is with institutions. The government under which you live, but with whose ideas you ere not in loyal sympathy, chafes and worries you, and makes you often all the more rebellious in your heart the more punctiliously obedient you are in outward action. And so especially it is in all that pertains to religion. What is the root and source of bigotry, and of that which goes with bigotry--partisanship? Is not the real reason of these morbid substitutes for healthy belief always this--that truth has been received but not mixed with faith, not deeply taken into the very nature of the man who has received it? Take any truth the truth, for instance, of the Lords incarnation. Let it be simply a proved fact to a man, and how easily he makes it the rallying cry of a sect; how easily he comes to hate with personal hatred the men who do not hold it; how ready he is to seek out and magnify the shades of difference in the statements which men make of it who do hold the great truth along with him I But let that same truth be mixed with faith, let it enter into the depth of a mans nature where it is capable of going, let it awaken in him the deep, clear sense of the unutterable love of God, let it reveal to him his human dignity, his human responsibility, his human need, and then how impossible it will be for him to be a bigot! What the bigot needs is not to be freed from the tyranny of his belief, but to be taught what it is really to believe. The partisans partisanship is a sign, not of his faith, but of his infidelity. This is what we all need to keep always in our minds as we read religious history, or look around us at the imperfect religious life of to-day. It is possible for us to believe the same everlasting truth which the bigots and the persecutors believed and yet escape their bigotry and terrible intolerance. But we must do it not by believing less deeply, but by believing more deeply than they did. The path to charity lies not away from faith, but into the very heart of faith, for only there true, reasonable, permanent charity abides. How vast a future this idea of faith opens to humanity! We think sometimes that we have come in sight of the end of progress, that we live where we can at least foresee an enchanted world. Our ships have sailed the sphere around; our curiosity has searched to the roots of the mountains and swept the bottoms of the seas. Men have played every role before us which imagination and ambition could suggest. What can there be before the eyes that are to come when we are gone but endless reiteration of old things? Is not the interest of life almost used up? No! Thee interest of life is not in the things that happen, but in the men who see. If man be capable of perpetual renewal by ever-increasing faith, then to the ever new man the old world shall be for ever new. What a light, too, this throws upon the life which many a fellow-man is living now close by our side. How much richer than we can begin to know the world must be to our brother who has a faith which we have not The world is more to every true, unselfish man when he knows that his perception is no measure of its wealth, but that the deeper souls are all the time finding it rich beyond all that he has imagined. This same truth gives us some light upon the everlasting life, the life beyond the grave. Let us be sure that the new name in the forehead is what makes the reality of heaven far more than the gold under the feet. The new circumstances shall be much, but the new man shall be more. We can do nothing now to build the streets and gates, but by Gods grace we can do much now to begin to become the men and women to whom one day heaven shall be possible. Then heaven when it comes will not be strange. Only a deepening of the faith by which we sought it shall we receive and absorb, and grow in and by its richness for ever and for ever. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)

Cause of the unprofitable hearing of the Word

I. In vindication of the principle, that NO UNBELIEVER CAN BE PROFITED BY THE PRIVILEGE AND BLESSINGS OF THE GOSPEL, IT WILL NOT REQUIRE MUCH PAINS TO SHOW THAT SUCH AN APPOINTMENT IS PERFECTLY CONSISTENT WITH GODS FAITHFULNESS AND TRUTH. God, no doubt, promised that He would confer upon His ancient people the heritage of Canaan; but surely He is Himself the best interpreter of His own will; and if we find that many, to whom the promise was given, entered not in because of unbelief, it is only reasonable to conclude that the giving of the promise at first was not irrespective of, but dependent on, the character and conduct of those to whom it was given. Jehovah was sincere, but for that very reason He required sincerity. He was willing to fulfil the promise, but His rebellious people were unwilling to receive it. Gods promises are all sovereign. If they be laid hold of, they will and must be enjoyed. If, however, they be not laid hold of, if they be disbelieved, then they are void; for this reason, that they are revealed in such a shape that they become our property only when we believe them. The gospel will not enrich us unless we receive it with faith. The two truths, therefore, are quite compatible and harmonious, that salvation is absolutely gratuitous, while we can get it only by vigorously acting in faith upon Jesus Christ. To illustrate the matter by a comparison: When we walk, it is not the material and tangible substance of which our limbs are composed, it is not the bones and sinews which are the cause of motion. They are mere instruments or secondary agents which move only as they are impelled. Taken by themselves, or viewed in their component parts, they are mere masses of organic matter, devoid of all power or energy, and subject only to changes or motions that may be impressed on them. The real cause of motion in the limbs is the vital principle, which, unseen and incomprehensible, controls every function, effects every movement, operates every change. It is not the limbs, then, that cause the motion; they only perform the motion: the cause of the motion is the element of life, the spiritual and nervous energy which pervades the limbs and qualifies them for the task they have to perform. Now, in like manner, it is not the sinner that effects his own redemption, but the grace of God that has appeared unto us and to all men, bringing salvation. This is the sole and the omnipotent agent. No other agent could perform the work. But this agent does not work without means, and these means are just the faculties and powers of the human mind. Gods grace operates through the instrumentality of our faculties, and if we chain up these faculties in indolent inaction, we virtually resist the Spirit of God, and say we will not have the Lord to reign over us.

II. EXPLAIN AND ILLUSTRATE THE GROUNDS OF THE DOCTRINE, THAT WANT OF FAITH VITIATES AND NEUTRALISES THE EFFECT OF SPIRITUAL PRIVILEGES. Faith is, if we may so speak, the power of spiritual digestion. And as it does not discredit the excellence of wine or any other nourishing substance, that it is incapable of strengthening the sick and exhausted invalid whose constitution, is irreparably injured; so the promises of Divine grace are no way dishonoured when persons who want faith are found to derive from these promises no spiritual or solid advantage. The Word preached cannot profit when it is not mingled with faith in the hearer, for there can be no nutrition where there is no appropriation of food. There can be no vital circulation in the severed twig unless that twig be engrafted. The Word may be read, heard, studied, loved; but it is only the engrafted Word that is able to save our souls. It is only when believed that the gospel message is profitable. Faith, then, is necessary

1. Because, according to Gods own appointment, it is the preliminary step of our being received into His favour. It is the constituted deed of entitlement.

2. Faith alone can secure us victory over our spiritual enemies. Here, again, the value of faith depends on its being on Gods will and promise linked in connection with spiritual conquest. Our foes, Satan, sin, the world, and the flesh, are all mightier than our wills. But God has said this is the victory that overcometh them all, even our faith. Nothing else has such a promise.

3. Faith alone can impart peace to the soul. Such is its nature. For it is in fact just the belief that God is reconciled, attached to us, our Friend, our Father, even the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Unless we be persuaded of this we cannot love Him.

4. Lastly, faith alone can make us holy. If we believe Christ died for our sins, we shall feel the constraining influence of a motive that more than any other will excite us to obey the Divine will. And then the spirit of sanctification accompanies the exercise of faith, and purifies the soul in obeying the truth. Faith, therefore, is universally profitable. It is the harbinger of every other grace. (Alex. Nisbet.)

The mercy of the gospel

1. Its a great mercy in God to vouchsafe us the gospel, and to have it faithfully and constantly preached unto us so that we may hear it.

2. In this gospel there are precious promises, the chiefest whereof is that of entering into Gods rest.

3. Men may hear the gospel preached, and yet receive no benefit by it through their own fault.

4. Therefore it concerns us all to fear this sin of apostasy as we fear loss of heavenly rest, Gods eternal displeasure, hell, death, and eternal punishments. (G. Lawson.)

Profitless hearing

The gospel is a precious pearl, an unspeakable blessing of God, yet all that are partakers of it are not saved. Judas had the gospel, yet it profited him not. Simon Magus, Jerusalem, &e. The sun is not comfortable to all. The most delicate fare doth not make all bodies fat. The rain doth not make all grounds fruitful, neither doth the Word of God, though it be mighty in operation, profit all that partake of it (Lu Mat_8:12); nay, it is the heaping up of a greater men, sure Of condemnation to some through their own default (Joh_15:22; Joh_15:9. ult.). Why did the gospel do them no good? Because it was not mixed with faith in themthat heard it. It is a metaphor borrowed from liquid things. A physician prescribes to a man a cup of strong wine, but he wills him to mingle it with sugar, lest it fume into his brain and make him sick; if he mingle it not and temper it well with sugar, he hurts himself. So because they mingled not the wine of the Word with the sweet sugar of faith it was their destruction, it turned them over even into hell. It is faith that makes the Word profitable. For the procuring of an harvest it is not enough to have ground, and seed cast into the ground, but rain must fall from heaven and be mingled with the ground. So it is not sufficient to bring ourselves as the ground to a sermon, to have the immortal seed of the Word sown in our hearts by Gods husbandmen, but there must be the drops of faith mingled with this seed to make it fruitful. (W Jones, D. D.)

The Word preached, net profitless

There are few things more perplexing than the contrast between the vastness and variety of the means employed for the creation of religious impression, and the scantiness of the results arising from their employment. For all this there must necessarily be a cause. Does the fault lie in the instrument employed? Is the Word itself defective, either from style, topic, or tone, to meet the indifference of mans nature? Something there is in mans nature that stands out against the power of Scripture, that counteracts the medicine which would restore us to health. And this is the assertion that the apostle makes with regard to Israel. Affirming elsewhere the power of the Word, he affirms here the deficiency of mans faith.

I. GOD DID PREACH THE GOSPEL TO ISRAEL JUST AS GOD HAS PREACHED THE GOSPEL TO US. In popular thought and in popular language, it is oftentimes supposed that the gospel belongs rather to the Christian than to the Jewish dispensation. The truth is, that never was a moment in this worlds history since the fall of man in which the gospel of Jesus Christ has not been proclaimed. We grant you this, that it may have been announced sometimes with more of power, and more of expansion, and more of fulness than at other times. But no sooner did the necessity commence than the blessed remedy was proposed by God. Nay, more than this--so anxious does it appear that God was to make that instrument effective in bringing back wayward sinners to Himself, that we find God has so planned His gospel as to make it speak to the three great departments of mans nature. He has made that gospel speak, in the first place, to mans hopes; in the second place, to mans senses; and lastly, to mans understanding. So, you see, that by enlisting all these faculties of man in His service, by telling man to look hopefully, by telling man to look intelligently upon this system, the Lord has grappled with the obduracy of mans nature, as it were fulfilling in all this His own declaration, I will not let thee go until I bless thee. … And, as if to make it clear that nothing was left undone which could give Gods truth a hold, a lodgment on the human soul, our blessed Master condescended to clothe His appeals in every possible variety of form. Affectionate expostulation, calm appeal, tender invitation, stern admonition--the attraction of promises, the thunders of threats--parable,illustration, allegory--the incidental remark, the studied discourse--the historical allusion, the original thought--the informal address at the sea-side, the deliberate comment in the synagogue. And yet, though thus the gospel was preached to them as to us, the Word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

II. THE CAUSE WHICH PREVENTED ISRAEL, AND PROBABLY PREVENTS US, FROM RECEIVING THE GOSPEL. And, if we are to apprehend this point aright, we must carry our thoughts into two channels, for it is necessary to determine what is meant by the reception of the gospel before we are in a position to admit the reason why the gospel is not received. Now, in reference to the former of these points, we are bold to express our belief that there exist most imperfect views respecting the reception of the gospel. Multitudes there are who conceive that they have accepted it because they listen to its truths and assent to its propositions. But we pray you to understand this, that if that were simply all that Scripture intends by receiving the gospel of Jesus Christ, we should find that there was no work for faith whatsoever. We grant there is all the difference in the world in some respects between a man who receives the truths of the New Testament and a man who rejects those truths. You have, so far as the understanding goes, that which a man has accepted, and so far he may be admitted into the ranks of Christian discipleship. Bat, after all, what is the gospel of Jesus Christ meant for? It is not meant to be simply a system of instruction. If so it would apply itself to mans mind. It was not meant simply to be a system of illustration. If so it would apply itself simply to mans fancy. It was not intended like abstract rules in scientific matters, as in mathematics for instance, to lay down dry and abstract propositions to be taken up and to be believed by men simply because they could not gainsay the system. No, the gospel was intended for more than this. It was intended doubtless to enlighten us; doubtless to instruct us; doubtless to edify us. But the great use of our Masters gospel is this: to win the whole man--the man of understanding, the man of intelligence, the man of religion--to win the whole man into a state of subjection to Christ Jesus. If there be amongst us any whose reception of the gospel is simply of that scientific kind that I have attempted to describe, it were not too much to say that that man has never received the gospel yet. Not being mixed with faith in those that beard it. Suffer me to expostulate with you, and to ask you honestly this question, what has the gospel done in the way of profit with you? Has it come down with a power greater than mortal power to your souls, and made you feel that you were sinners? Has it made you feel your own utterly impotent powerlessness to restore yourselves back to Gods favour? Has it made you feel this, that none but Jesus can stand between you and God as the effectual Atoner and the effectual Mediator? Has it come down into your conscience, making you to writhe under the sense of transgression? Has it done more than this, altered your habits? Is it building you up into conformity with the laws that are Christ Jesus? If the gospel has been doing aught of this kind it has brought profit with it. But if it has only brought new ideas to your understanding, if it has only brought new thoughts to your intelligence, if it has qualified you, so to speak, to sit down and be catechised, then has this gospel not done Gods intention with regard to it, for it has not reclaimed the whole man and made that rebel a subject of Christ Jesus. (A. Boyd, M. A.)

Faith not to be mixed with fancies

1. Faith can stand with nothing, nor be mixed with truth but the Word; and the Word will not join, nor stand, nor mix with conceits, opinions, presumptions, but with faith; that is, it will be received, not as a conjecture, or possible truth, but for Divine and infallible truth; else it profiteth not.

2. Hearers of the Word may blame their misbelief if they get not profit.

3. Albeit a man get light by the Word, and some tasting of temporary joy and honour, and riches also, by professing or preaching of it, yet he receiveth not profit, except to get entry into Gods rest thereby; for all these turn to conviction. (D. Dickson, M. A.)

Preaching and practising

It is a popular error to mistake that length is the only dimension of a sermon. A man said to a minister, :/our sermons are too short. Said the minister, If you will practise all I preach you will find them quite long enough. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Unprofitable hearing

A person whose life was immoral urged his sister to go with him to hear his minister; but she smartly replied, Brother, what are you the better for his preaching? (Baxendales Anecdotes.)

The gospel must be believed

A lady, travelling through the Southern States of America in a private carriage, one or two years after the Proclamation of Emancipation had been issued, chanced to be detained for the night in a little country inn, which stood so far off from the usual lines of travel, that it was evident a guest was very seldom entertained there. She was shown into a room, to prepare for tea, which was as full of dust as though it had not been entered or disturbed for years. She requested some attendance, and a poor, wretched looking coloured woman was sent to her, with no apparent life or energy; nothing but utter listlessness and indifference expressed in every movement. After watching bee useless performance for a few minutes, the lady said: Auntie, I am from the North, and I am not used to having things this way at all. Now, you know, we Northerners set your people free, and I think you ought to try and make things comfortable for us when we come among you. Just see if you cannot make this room a little cleaner while I go down to tea. Saying this, the lady left the room. She returned in about an hour, and found, to her astonishment, the dusty room transformed into a picture of neatness. But more astonishing even than the transformation in the room was the transformation in the woman herself. She stood there looking inches taller. Life and energy were in every muscle and every movement. Her eyes flashed fire. She looked like a new creature. The lady began to thank her for the change she had made in the room; but the woman interrupted her with the eager question; Oh, missus, is we free? Of course you are, replied the lady. Oh, missus, is you sure? urged the woman, with intense eagerness. Certainly I am sure, answered the lady. Did you not know it? Well, said the woman, we heerd tell as how we was flee, and we asked master, and he lowed we wasnt, and so we was afraid to go. And then we heered tell again, and we went to the Cunnel, and he lowed wed better stay with ole massa. And so wes just been off and on. Sometimes wed hope we was free, and then agin wed think we wasnt. But now, missus, if you is sure we is free, wont you tell me all about it? Seeing that this was a case of real need, the lady took the pains to explain the whole thing to the poor woman--all about the war and the Proclamation of Emancipation, and the present freedom. The poor woman listened with the most intense eagerness. She heard the good news. She believed it; and when the story was ended, she walked out of the room with an air of the utmost independence, saying, as she went: Ise free! I aint a-going to stay with ole massa any longer! She had at last received her freedom, and she had received it by faith. The Government had declared her to be free long before, but this had not availed her, because she had never yet believed in the declaration. The good news had not profited her, not being mixed with faith in the one who heard it. But now she believed, and, believing, she dared to reckon herself to be free. (The Church.)

Faith increased by faith

Faith is learnt by faith; that is, it is maintained, increased, and strengthened by exercise, just as walking, speaking, writing, &e., are learnt by walking, speaking, and writing. (A. J. Begel.)

Hearing bat not profiting

Jedediah Buxton, the famous peasant, who could multiply nine figures by nine in his head, was once taken to see Garrick act. When he went back to his own village, he was asked what he thought of the great actor and his doings. Oh! he said, he did not know; he had only seen a little man strut about the stage, and repeat 7,956 words. Here was a want of the ability to appreciate what he saw, and the exercise of the reigning faculty to the exclusion of every other. Similarly, our hearers, if destitute of the spiritual powers by which the gospel is discerned, fix their thoughts on our words, tones, gestures, or countenance, and make remarks upon us which, from a spiritual point of view, are utterly absurd. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Faith, the necessary grace

There must be an union and closing with Christ by faith before there can be any communication from Him of the graces of the Spirit. There must be an ingrafting into the root before there can be a communication of sap from the root to the branches. The grace of faith enlargeth the heart to receive Christ, and after it hath received Him it retains Him. I found Him whom my soul loveth--I held Him, and would not let Him go. The grace of love entertains Him with the embracements of the will and affections. Faith, like Martha, goeth out for Him, and brings Him along with the promise to the soul. Love, like Mary, sits down at His feet, to attend what is His will, and execute His commands. Faith is the only grace whereby a soul properly receives Christ; for to receive Him and to believe in His name are equipollents. (William Colvill.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb 4:1-2. In this chapter, which is of the same nature with the foregoing, the apostle proceeds with his exhortation to the Hebrews, and all professing Christians, to faith, obedience, and perseverance; and enforces it by a most apposite and striking instance in the punishment which befel the Israelites, those ancient professors of the true religion, who were guilty of sins contrary to those duties. And the example, as has been often observed, was peculiarly suitable, taken from their own ancestors, the evil being the same, namely, unbelief; the time in both cases being just after the establishment of a new constitution, and the consequence being the same, the exclusion from rest. The superior dignity of Christ above Moses, and the superior excellence of heaven above Canaan, greatly confirm the force of the apostle’s argument. Let us — Christian Hebrews; therefore fear, lest a promise being left — A conditional promise, to be fulfilled to all obedient, persevering believers; (the pronoun us is not in the original;) of entering into his rest — The rest of glory in heaven; and, preparatory thereto, the rest of grace on earth; the peace and joy, the solid and satisfying happiness consequent on pardon and holiness, on the justification of our persons, the renovation of our nature, and that lively, well-grounded hope of eternal life, which is as an anchor of the soul sure and steadfast, and entering in within the veil, chap. Heb 6:19; any of you should seem to come short of it — Should fail of it; as your forefathers failed of entering the rest of Canaan. The fear here inculcated is not a fear of diffidence or distrust, of doubting or uncertainty, as to the event of our faith and obedience. This is enjoined to none, but is evidently a fruit of unbelief, and therefore cannot be our duty. Neither can it be a timidity or dismayedness of mind upon a prospect of difficulties and dangers in the way, for this is the sluggard’s fear who cries, There is a lion in the way, I shall be slain. Nor is it that general fear of reverence with which we ought to be possessed in all our concerns with God; for that is not particularly influenced by threatenings, and the severity of God, seeing we are bound always in that sense to fear the Lord and his goodness. But it Isaiah , 1 st, A jealous fear of ourselves, lest, having run well for a time, we should be hindered; should grow lukewarm and indolent, formal and dead, and so should fall from that state of grace in which we had once stood. 2d, A suspicious fear of our spiritual enemies, inducing us to watch and stand on our guard against them. For unto us was the gospel preached — That is, good news of entering into his rest have been brought to us; as well as unto them — The Israelites in the wilderness. The Hebrews, to whom he wrote, might be ready to say, “What have we to do with the people in the wilderness, with the promise of entering into Canaan? or with what the psalmist from thence exhorted our fathers to?” Nay, these things, saith the apostle, belong to you in an especial manner. For in the example proposed, you may evidently see what you are to expect, if you fall into the same sins. For he declares, that in the example of God’s dealing with their progenitors, there was included a threatening of similar dealing with all others, who should fall into the same sin of unbelief; that none might flatter themselves with vain hopes of any exemption in this matter; which he further confirms in these two verses, though his present exhortation be an immediate inference from what went before. But the word preached — The promise declared unto them, did not profit them — So far from it, that it increased their condemnation; not being mixed with faith in them that heard it — So firmly believed as to become a principle of obedience in them. And it is then only, when these truths are thus mixed with faith, that they exert their saving power.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

SOUL-REST

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

THIS chapter should not have been separated from the previous one, as it is a continuation of the hortatory passage. There is, however, a break in the treatment of the subject. In the clause Heb_4:1-13 the writer has in mind possible objections to his mode of treating Old Testament Scriptures. It might be said

(1) that the “rest” spoken of was merely quiet possession of an earthly inheritance, and had no deeper spiritual applications. Or it might be said

(2) that the exclusion of the Israelites from Canaan was based on their murmuring and rebellion rather than on their unbelief; and so the case did not properly sustain the writer’s exhortation. He therefore dwells more fully on the point. Really, the “rest” that was offered to believers in the olden time is the “rest” proffered to believers now; and they still may lose the rest through unbelief. The rest really offered, then and now, is spiritual; it is the “rest” of trust in and obedience to Jehovah.

Heb_4:1. Fear.—Not in the sense of “be afraid of something happening,” but meaning, “let us take care; be on the alert as those who are in the midst of dangers; act watchfully.” Left us.—Or, “since a promise still remains unrealised.” The usual sense of the word is “neglect.” Lest by neglect of the promise made to us. Stuart prefers “left behind,” “is still extant.” Then the idea is, that “the promise which was implicity made to believers among the ancient people of God is still in being, and is made to us, Christians.” His rest.—Said to enlarge our ideas of its character. It is His rest, and, like Him, it is spiritual. Come short of it.—Fail of obtaining it: see Heb_12:15; Rom_3:23; 1Co_1:7. The point here is the Christian share in the deeper meanings of the Old Testament promises of rest. To the writers of the New Testament the Old Testament glowed in the Christian light.

Heb_4:2. Gospel preached.—Not the evangelical doctrines, but the goodness of a promised rest. Not profit them.—Because the condition on their side was lacking. That condition was faith, expressed in trust and obedience.

Heb_4:3. Do enter into rest.—The clauses of the verse need rearranging. “But yet the works were finished from the foundation of the world, as He said, As I have sworn in My wrath, if they shall enter into My rest”; or, “they shall not enter.” The quotation is made for the sake of the words “My rest,” to indicate that the reference was to God’s own rest. His spiritual heavenly rest, and not merely to a material, physical, or national rest of God’s providing. God’s rest after work is the suggestion and figure of spiritual rest. “The immense stress of meaning laid on incidental Scriptural expressions, such as ‘My rest,’ and ‘to-day,’ was one of the features of Rabbinic as well as Alexandrian exegesis” (Farrar).

Heb_4:4-5.—These quotations are introduced to prove that the promise did not merely concern the Canaan rest. The passage in Genesis could not refer to Canaan, nor could the passage taken from Psalms 95, seeing that it was penned long after the Canaan rest had been won.

Heb_4:6. Some must enter.—The promise is still open. We cannot think that God makes and renews His promises in vain. Evidently a clause is omitted here, either by accident or designedly for rhetorical purposes. We may supply from Heb_4:1, “Let us fear lest we also come short.” Unbelief.—Here ἀπείθειαν, the disobedience which is the sign and expression of unbelief.

Heb_4:7.—Reference again to the quotation from the psalm, in order to show that the promise was renewed long after Canaan was gained, and that the rest could always be had “to-day.” It must therefore be a spiritual rest. The statement “in David” is equivalent to “in the book of Psalms,” which went under David’s name. But in the LXX. Version Psalms 95 is actually ascribed to David.

Heb_4:8. Jesus.—The Greek form of the Hebrew יהושע, Joshua. Compare Act_7:45, in which the Greek reads Ἰησοῦ. The name is an interesting one. At first Hoshea, it became Hoshua, or the Helper; then the Divine name was prefixed, and it became Je-hoshua, contracted Joshua, God the Helper. The R.V. gives the name in this verse as Joshua.

Heb_4:9. Remaineth.—Or the promise clearly lies open for us. “Few things are more striking in the epistle than the constant presentation of the thought that Scripture language is permanent, and at all times present. The implied promise, therefore, repeated whenever the to-day’ is heard, must have its fulfilment” (Moulton). People of God.—The spiritual Israel of every age.

Heb_4:11.—The point of this exhortation is, that we have One to deal with who will discern, and will surely punish, the most secret disobedience, the most inner apostasy. Labour.—Be zealous; give all diligence; make every due endeavour. See 2Pe_1:10-11; Php_3:14.

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Heb_4:14-16 should be regarded as a transition. The Priesthood of Christ had been referred to in chaps. Heb_2:17, Heb_3:1. In fact, all the points previously made are recalled to mind in Heb_4:14-15. The High Priest: His exaltation (chaps. Heb_1:3, Heb_4:13, Heb_2:9); His Divine Sonship (chaps. 1, Heb_3:6); His compassion (Heb_2:11-18).

Heb_4:14. Great High Priest.—At the time of the writer the term “high priest” was applied to more than one person. “Great” separates “Priest” from all others. Into the heavens.—Lit. “through the heavens” (διεληλυθότα), as the high priest of the old economy “through the vail.” In the Hebrew idiom, God dwells above the firmament, Christ is represented as passing through it.

Heb_4:15. Touched.—With the sympathy of a fellow-experience. Infirmities.—Not sufferings, not sins, but distinctly the frailties which made peril of apostasy. Tempted.—There is no sin in being subject to temptation. If Jesus could not be tempted, He was not a man; if He yielded to temptation, He could not be a Saviour Without sin.—This is not difficult to understand when we recognise that sin is a thing of the will—that is, of ourselves, of our souls.

Heb_4:16. Boldly.—Lit. “with freedom of speech.” Time of need.—Stuart, “timely assistance.” Alford, “for help in time, while yet open to us.”

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Heb_4:1-11

God’s Rest for His People in Every Age.—In this passage there is a looking back to the rest of Canaan, promised to the fathers, but missed by them through unbelief. There is a looking on to the yet unrealised rest of the heavenly, in order to gain an impulse to new zeal in Christian service. But the rest which more especially comes to view, and has present application to the people of God, is that rest of the soul which waits on steadfast faith—the true Sabbatic rest, of which the rest of Canaan was but a poor and imperfect type. That rest of soul is an unexhausted and inexhaustible good. The promise of it lies open and unfulfilled yet.

I. What is God’s rest?—Reference is made in this chapter to the Sabbatic rest of creation, regarded as God ceasing from His active labours. This may serve to illustrate the rest of God; it cannot be the very rest which He promises His people. Reference is also made to the rest which Israel found, as a nation, in the land of Canaan, after long bondage in Egypt, and long wandering in the desert of Arabia. This, too, may serve for illustration; but even for the people of Israel it was not the true rest of God. His promise to them was larger far than any bodily contentments, any easy, prosperous circumstances. Neither the Sabbath nor Canaan are more than symbols of the true rest of God. This may be said about that rest. Since God provides it for His creatures, it must be

(1) like Himself;

(2) adapted to the deepest and the best in them.

1. If God’s rest is like Himself, it must stand related to character, not to conditions, and not to attributes. The war in heaven, of which Milton sings, may not be thought of as disturbing the eternal rest of God. But the infinite peace of God should not be so described as to separate Him from human interests, and produce the impression that the varied states of His creatures never move Him to pity or sympathy or grief. God is ever at rest, because the changes of circumstance never imperil the basis principles of His character. Round about Him are ever-hanging “clouds and darkness”; laving His very footstool may be the ever-restless sea; but “justice and judgment” are the habitation of His throne. We are “restless, unquiet sprites,” as Keble calls us, not because we are in the midst of variable conditions and circumstances, or because these affect our feeling; but because these varying circumstances put in peril the principles of our character. We are not centred, settled, fixed for ever, in our trust and goodness, and so we are driven with every wind and tossed. If a Christian man comes into trouble, he begins at once to question the foundation of his hope. We may think of God as having eternal rest, because even if “the elements melted with fervent heat, and the earth, and all therein,” were burned up, God could never question the righteousness of His being, or the principles of His eternal rule. We must think thus of Him if He is the eternally Good One. Or it may be put in this way: Rest comes from the dominion of one faculty in us; under its rule all the various powers of our nature fall into order, take their place, and keep the peace. War may be a thing of the soul as well as of the circumstances; and the inward war consists in the conflict of motives. Mind and will and judgment and affections, when out of harmony, make war in the soul. Now we can conceive of nothing like that in God. He is at rest because, in His Divine nature, there is the order and harmony that follow the rule of the highest faculty—and that in God can only be love. The law works for us also. We must give the dominion to our highest faculty—and for the creature that is trust.

2. God’s rest provided for man must be adapted to man, to the deepest and best that is in him. Man, as man, is ever seeking rest. The Bible presents him to us as striving to win back a lost Paradise. Poetry rings out a melancholy wail over the “Golden Age” that is gone, and bids us gain rest in tender memories, and lofty imaginations, and beautiful thoughts, thus raising ourselves up above the stern, hard, iron age of the present. Man, as a sinner, is ever seeking rest. Who shall roll away the burden? Man, as redeemed, is still seeking rest. Rest for minds, in the great agitation of conflicting theories. Rest for wills amidst the claims of opposing duties. We differ so much from each other that what may be rest for one of us would be no rest for another. Yet for all there is the one law—rest never comes by knowing, always by trusting. God’s rest begins within us, in the faith we set on God. It spreads out through all the forces and expressions of our being, and ensures the rest of settled, established character. It reaches to our circumstances, influencing them, modifying them, bringing them into its obedience; and so it grows from being the rest of the soul to become the eternal rest of heaven.

II. Who may hope to gain this present rest of God?—As the rest of faith it must be for those who believe. But faith is not the merely intellectual acceptance of a sentence embodied in a creed. It is the spirit of trust. It is reliance, dependence. It is the yielding of the self to God. It is the staying of the heart on God. It is the personal confidence of the Father’s love. It is the heart’s grasp of the Divine righteousness and goodness, as revealed in Jesus Christ. But the believing that brings rest is not a single act, or even a state once reached. The Greek language had an advantage over ours. It could express, by the form of the verb, the idea of having begun, and continuing still. It is not “we have believed,” but “we have begun to believe, and we are keeping on the trust.” And because the trust is maintained day by day, the rest of the soul is renewed day by day.

III. How far may this “rest of God” be a present, conscious possession?—It is a mistake to assume that all the facts and processes of the religious life must come into conscious recognition. All the finest things in soul-growth elude observation. The best violets are usually hidden away under the leaves. The most delicate graces cannot bear a look or a touch. So “rest” may be the possession of a soul, and the mind may not be laying the fact before itself for consideration. And rest will never be gained by directly seeking for it. It will be gained by simply doing our duty; by keeping up that trusting which finds its best expression in obedience; by living for Christ; by growing into His likeness; by perfecting our sympathy with the great and beneficent purposes of God; by perseverance in well-doing; by “holding fast the profession of our faith without wavering.” “Be stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,” and it will be evident enough that you have reached the soul-rest of God. We must wait for the fulness of our rest; none of us need wait for the beginnings of our rest. If we cannot have the fruition, we can have the foretaste. We can receive now the “end of our faith,” even the “salvation of our souls.”

SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES

Heb_4:1. The Rest of Sonship.—Rest for any man can only come out of finding the Father in heaven. No one can find the Father until he gets the Spirit of the Son into his heart.

I. Rest for man.—There is

(1) rest from the burden of ceremonial rites;

(2) rest from the burden of the sorrows of life;

(3) rest from the burden of the slavery of sin;

(4) rest of body;

(5) rest of mind;

(6) rest of conscience;

(7) rest of death;

(8) rest of heaven. But men want rest from their troubles, and the only worthy rest is rest in our trouble. Rest from a burdened conscience men want; the higher rest of a changed and renewed nature they little value. There is a better rest possible of attainment: rest in trouble; rest in submitting; rest in the sanctified effect of the trouble. The spirit of a son, that is the secret of rest.

II. Rest for Christ and in Christ for man.—Christ had no rest from earthly troubles, but He had heart-rest in the midst of troubles. But for that inward soul-rest the human life of Christ could not have been lived through. Rest came from the willingness with which He bore the burdens that His Father laid upon Him. It was the rest of submission, of cross-bearing, of sacrifice, of meekness and lowliness of heart, of cherished obedient sonship. To find rest we are directed to Christ Himself. In Him we may find the rest of

(1) an all-satisfying love,

(2) an all-sufficient wisdom,

(3) an almighty power. When we ask how this rest of soul in Christ becomes ours amidst the duties and anxieties and sorrows of life, then we are directed to Christ’s yoke and yoke-bearing. We may gain rest by bearing the same yoke, and by bearing it in the same way. Christ bore His yoke in the spirit of a son. Let Him teach you the glory of being a child, a son. If only you were sonlike in spirit, satisfied, at home with God, loving a Father’s will, you would find that sin was gone from its power; and as the yoke of life rested on you, you would feel how true were the Saviour’s words, “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”

Heb_4:2. The Causes of Unprofitable Hearing.—The censure here passed by the apostle upon certain hearers who failed to profit by the preaching of the word refers more immediately to the Israelites under Moses in the desert. The unprofitableness of preaching has throughout Christendom been the subject of complaint to some and of lamentation to others. Hearers say the word preached is unprofitable, not from their want of faith or piety, but want of zeal, ability, discretion, energy, originality of the preacher. It may be, however, through perverseness, inattention, or unbelief in the hearers.

I. Unprofitable hearing is the result of irregular attendance at the house of God.—Frequent absence from the services of the sanctuary can never be compatible with edification. The services are frequent, regular; the invitations to hear audible and intelligible. Health, pleasures, business, study, are the excuses. The grace of God is not to be expected by the irregular worshipper.

II. Another fault in hearers: those who, by being absent in mind and spirit, make their bodily presence of no avail.—It is possible for the mind to be so entirely abstracted from any subject under discussion as scarcely to be sensible that a discourse is preached. Others intend to listen, but their attention is easily diverted to other objects. The light-minded hearers are particularly subject to this tendency; but those professing more solidity of character are often not less guilty of imperfect and wavering attention.

III. Another fault in hearers: those who attend with improper dispositions either with regard to the minister or to their fellow-hearers.—Those who criticise the preacher in an arbitrary and dictatorial manner, and to other hearers, are apt to be censorious in their application of the truth or duty inculcated. They criticise the doctrines delivered, or the arrangement of the subject, or the style of the composition. Whatever variety may be permitted in our discourses must be found only in our application of doctrine, and never in the doctrine itself. We may occasionally venture on new illustrations, but never new discoveries.

IV. Those who aim the shafts of their criticism not so much at the preacher as at their fellow-hearers.—Every practical, edifying discourse holds up vice to shame and reprobation, and commends and enforces virtue; by the threatenings of God it warns sin, unbelief, and spiritual instability, and by His promises it encourages faith, piety, and persevering holiness. The censorious hearer of these praises and denunciations applies the former to himself and the latter to his neighbour. Uncharitableness is an undoubted sign of unbelief. Let us pray for faith, that we may be willing to receive instruction without insisting arbitrarily on favourite methods of our own as indispensable to justification, and that we may be preserved from censoriousness; and that, being desirous of improvement to ourselves as well as of being charitable to others, we may, before presuming to remove the mote out of our brother’s eye, consider the beam that is in our own.—William Sinclair, D.D.

Mixed with Faith.—The attempts which are continually made to gauge the word of God by other standards than that of faith leave men in doubt as to its Divine origin. The conflict of science and revelation, how does this happen? By applying the same test to both. The astronomer and the chemist—observation by the one, laws of combination by the other.

I. Mixed with faith on account of the Divine nature of the word, yea, it might be said the Diviner nature of the word.—A piece of workmanship, when examined, will afford much information respecting the worker—wisdom, power, etc.; but the person is out of sight until you meet him. So with God; His works reveal His attributes, but not Himself—instance Job. “Oh that I knew,” etc. (Job_23:2-9). But a moment’s reflection on the method of revelation will lead to the belief that God has revealed Himself in the dream, the vision, the sacrifice, inspiration, etc. We must take these paths, we must fall into these grooves, become saturated with this spirit in order that the word may profit us. Faith, then, is that sympathy with spiritual things which enables us to distinguish between them. It is our common experience that to be in the spirit of the thing is necessary either to its discharge or enjoyment. How much more so in the higher branches of life—genius, art, æsthetics. John in the Spirit in Patmos, etc.

II. Mixed also with faith, for this is the only entrance into our inner life.—There are three classes of observations. The common, as when one’s attention is drawn to an object to observe it. The second is the looking for that object, in order to a deeper acquaintance with it. The third is the assimilation of the object and ourselves. So there are three classes of hearers—the accidental, the honest, and the earnest. In the case of the latter the dream, the vision, the sacrifice, the inspiration, become our own. See with a prophet’s eye, feel with a priest’s heart, handle with an apostle’s touch. If we take one comparison—the union of the vine and the branches—that union is Divine, mysterious, communicative, complete. The sap travels along the various ducts to every part, even the twig and the leaf. Look at this, and you will perceive that faith is the union of the soul to Christ, whereby all that He is to us as a Saviour flows into our experience. There cannot be an entrance if the door is not opened. There cannot be life unless the food is assimilated. There cannot be salvation unless the heart is in sympathy with Christ. Israelites were buried in the wilderness. Sinners die at the cross.

III. Mixed with faith also, as the stage is a preliminary one—one not of actual possession, but of trust and expectancy.—Faith is occupied with foundations, beginnings, preliminaries, plans, and materials. “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended.” The life which God prescribed—the collecting of materials for the new Jerusalem. Prophets, priests, and kings lived that life, expectancy inspiring action to prepare. The same Divine plan exists again in the life of the believer: “For we have no continuing city here, we look for one to come.” The grand time is to come. Let us look at it. Above doubt or fear, free from sin, delivered from the influences of circumstances, raised into close communion with God, and into the fellowship of His Son. In view of that period faith says, “Let us be ready.” More prayer, more trust, more of His word in the heart: “According to your faith be it unto you.”—Anon.

Promises prove larger than Performances through Man’s Weaknesses.—It sometimes seems as if God’s promises were unfulfilled; and we are even tempted to say that they were too large ever to be fulfilled. But we must beware of admitting the idea that God ever leads on His people with promises and hopes which He never intends to fulfil. The promises of God always represent what He would do if He could; but seeing God deals with moral beings, to whom He has committed the trust of effective, but limited, free wills, no promise that God ever makes can be absolute; it must be conditioned, and the condition affects man. The promise cannot be fulfilled unless man is in such a state that the promise can do for him what God intended it to do. Man alone spoils the complete fulfilment of everything God has promised.

Heb_4:4. The First Seventh-day Rest.—If God intended us to keep the Sabbath holy, why did He not from the very first give to man a more definite and emphatic command concerning it? It may be answered, that God designed keeping Sabbath to be a moral act of willinghood, loyalty, and holy imitation; it was not to be a matter of mere forced obedience. If our first parents had kept their communion with God, it would have been their joyous endeavour to be like Him in all things. Example is a higher and more universal force than commandment. Commands we give to mere children. Examples are the inspiration of men. At first God dealt with His creatures as moral beings who were made in His own image, and were capable of enjoying His fellowship. When man became deteriorated, God graciously accommodated Himself to his low, ignorant, and childish condition, and gave him commands. The example of God means that His abiding presence with us is apprehended, and is the joy and power of our lives. And all to whom that Divine presence is a reality will feel that nothing can possibly make the Sabbath so sacred to them as the example of Him who rested from His work on the seventh day, sanctified and hallowed it. God put aside His relation to material things as their Creator, and occupied Himself in the world of spirit; and that was His resting. Our putting aside our relation to common life-work, and occupation of thought and heart with spirit-things, unseen and eternal things, would be our human imitation of the Divine example, and our resting. St. Augustine says: “God rested—not as if He were wearied. No, the ‘Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not neither is weary’; but He saw what He had made was good, and contemplated His own works, and rejoiced in them; and thus commended to us the state of contemplation as higher than that of labour, and as a state to be attained by labour.”

Heb_4:7. The Present.—We do well to look back, that by seeing our past blessings we may be grateful for them; by seeing past errors we may be humbled; by observing their consequences we may be warned. We ought to look forwards to measure our own strength, refresh our spirits, and to see the light shining on the distant hills. Our true life—only life we can count upon—is now.

I. Each day has its own gifts.—All good gifts are exactly what we make of them. Pray that God will teach us rightly to use the gifts of every day.

II. Each day has also its immediate opportunities.—Slight it may be, but full of possibility of blessing. Many spend their days in doing unkindnesses, in light criticisms, jealous depreciations—women whose whole lives dwindle into some acrid rivulet of gossip, slander, and spite. How often do better spirits lose precious opportunities of pleasing God by performing nameless acts of kindness. A word spoken in due season, how good it is. “Time is money.” That is the least thing it is—for time is eternity.

III. Also its own stores of pure and innocent happiness.—To those who walk through the world with open eyes every day reveals something beautiful—in nature, in city-life, in home-life. In idle repinings, in discontented selfishness, we lose everything. Our best hopes, our richest treasures, our destiny on earth, yea heaven itself, lie not in the visionary future, but in the here and now.

IV. Every day has its duties.—Riches may fly away, fame may vanish, friends may die, but duty never ceases. Are we happy? Let us work Unhappy? Action is the best of solaces. Bitterly disappointed? If we cannot build upon the foundations, let us build upon the ruins. Is the future uncertain? Whatever it is to be, it will come. There is always something to be done. Each day has its duty. After the Resurrection the apostles found Christ in faithful work.

V. Every day has also its supreme duty—the duty of repentance, of getting nearer to God, and seeing His face.—If this duty be neglected, no other duty can be a substitute for it. There is one thing needful. We “know not what a day or an hour may bring forth.” “Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live.”

VI. Every day has its gracious help.—There is One of infinite help always at hand. God is our help and strength. He loves us, and will not forsake us. He who gave His own Son for our sins, shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Jesus our Intercessor. The Holy Spirit our Helper. The golden ladder between earth and heaven is prayer. Let us ask Jesus to take us by the hand, and then whatever the future may have in store for us we shall be able to face it with man’s inalienable dignity and unconquerable will.—F. W. Farrar, D.D.

Heb_4:7. Man’s Power over his Own Heart.—“Harden not your heart.” The counsel is worthless unless it is in the power of man to harden his heart. That he can do so receives its most striking proof and illustration from the Biblical account of Pharaoh Menephthah. Calamities which do not subdue the heart harden it. The hardening itself is judicial and just, when it is a consequence of previously formed habits.

I. Man has power over his heart through his intellect.—He can reject—refuse to receive or believe—the things which would act persuasively on his heart.

II. Man has power over his heart through his will.—He can refuse to let the heart yield to softening and subduing influences.

III. Man has power over his heart through his self-interests.—He can make them crush the tenderest susceptibilities.

IV. Man has power over his heart through his habits.—He can make them effect a life-bondage which the intensest emotions will be powerless to break. So a man can harden his own heart.

Heb_4:8. An Outward and Temporary Mission.—Joshua is especially interesting when viewed from one point. His mission was not, in the usually accepted sense, religious. It was national; it concerned external relations and material things. And that was for Joshua religion, his religious mission. We are constantly erring by making unnecessary distinctions between the secular and the sacred, and putting superior honour on life-missions which we class as sacred. But if a man works for God his work ceases to be secular; it becomes sacred. The division is altogether lost. Joshua’s material and outward work of war, settling, organising, dividing, was every whit as sacred as Moses’ work in revelation and religion. What makes a life-mission sacred is the cherished spirit and purpose of the man who carries it out. And the spirit which ennobled and sanctified Joshua’s outward and temporary mission is fully revealed in his declaration, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Heb_4:9. Soul-rest for To-day.—The word “therefore” introduces the conclusion and application of an argument. This conclusion throws light on the Old Testament revelation, and gives us the right to use the old promises for our strengthening and comforting. God’s promises are never given as mere accidents; they come on special occasions, but they rest upon Divine reasonings and judgments; they may precisely fit one particular circumstance, but the circumstance is illustrative of other circumstances, and the promise is found to fit the ever-recurring similar need. Human experiences are strangely repeated through the ages; and moral and spiritual experiences are also strangely alike. The promises of God are adapted to the ordinary outworking of natural, social, intellectual, moral laws—laws which are permanently, unchangeably, and irresistibly working. The promises of God translate themselves afresh for application to each new generation, the old words ever taking on a new and living meaning. The promise made to Abraham—“In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed”—was a special promise to him and to his particular race. But it stands true to-day; for all the families of the earth are blessed in the witness of every man who lives such a life of faith as Abraham lived. The men of faith are to-day the saviours of society. No material promise that God has ever made can be exhausted in any providential circumstances. Each one of them has its spiritual counterpart, which carries its continuous applications. God has promised “rest” to His people. At first it meant the rest of a settled, cultivated land, after long years of weary wilderness-wandering. But it could not exhaust itself with that. The promise is not outworn. God has fulfilled it, in various senses, over and over again. But it keeps still its old freshness and its old fulness, and it is rich with meanings and applications for us all to-day. There “remaineth” a rest. It is still the Divine provision. It is always available, always just before us, the inspiration of all true workers. There is indeed a sense in which that rest may be and is reached even now. “We which have believed do enter into rest.” There is a sense in which that rest is always held just before us, just out of grasp, the cheer and inspiration of every endeavour. God’s promise to His people in every age will go into one word—“rest.” But we must put more and better meaning into the term than mere lying down in weariness and idleness. That is but the rest which frail and feeble bodies may need. For souls attainment is rest, the completion of labour is rest, the contemplation of the results of anxious and arduous endeavour is rest. The schoolboy gains rest when he rises above the anxious strain of dealing with first principles and difficulties. It is rest to be able to do one’s work easily. The man in middle age gains rest as he finds business established, income regular and steady, and a good sum put by against the “rainy day.” The old man finds rest in the Land of Beulah, where he may sit awhile, and gratefully think over a useful, earnest, and devoted life, in all whose scenes the grace of God has been abundantly magnified. Rest—the true rest—it is not sleep; that is but an image of it, and an image of only one feature of it. It is not death; we only call that rest when our sufferer has so intensely suffered, and the strain on the dying and on the watchers has been so great, that death is welcome as a release from well-nigh unbearable agony and distress. It is not heaven, unless we are able to think of heaven as a state rather than a place, and can enter into the spiritual things materially figured for us in pearly gates, and golden streets, and many mansions. Rest is a soul-condition, which makes its own surroundings. Heaven is around us when heavenliness is within us. “Heavenly-mindedness” is the “rest that remaineth for the people of God,” and we can have it and keep it now. To dwell on this more fully in detail, we may see that the fulfilment of God’s promise of rest is—

I. Adapted to conditions.—Look out over life, and see how various are the ideas of rest that are entertained under pressure of the various circumstances of the life. Take a single life, and notice how changeful are the ideas of rest men have at different times, and when overmastered by varying cares. The traveller longs for the rest of home; the student longs for the rest of attainment. The critical-minded man longs for the rest of simple faith. The tempted long for the rest of security. The over-worked worker longs for the rest of limitation. The feeble long for the rest of health. The sufferer longs for the rest of sleep. The old man, left alone in the midst of the graves of his beloved, oftentimes sighs for rest, and finds his soul bursting forth and saying, “Oh that I had wings like a dove! then would I flee away, and be at rest.” It is curious to note how conceptions of heaven match condition. It is carried indeed too far by those who make heaven the spiritual counterpart of the earthly, and then say that whatsoever a man desires most here, and cannot attain here, he shall have fully supplied there. The Old Testament promise of rest was partly fulfilled in the provision of the Sabbath rest—that weekly putting aside of the toils and cares of ordinary life which has been the beatitude of all the generations, the weekly foretaste and suggestion of heaven. For the Jewish people it was fulfilled when Joshua divided among them the fields and cities of the conquered Canaanites, and the weary wilderness wanderers settled down in homes of their own. It was fulfilled for the Jewish nation when they came out of the struggle and strain of a formative time into the rest and peace of the Davidic rule. In a way it was fulfilled for David himself when, with great rejoicings of heart, he succeeded in bringing the sacred Ark to Zion. In a small sense it was fulfilled when that little band of returning exiles entered the city of their fathers, though the city was but a ruin, the Temple destroyed, the walls broken down, and the gates burned. They tried to think it was home and rest—it was poor home and no rest. “There remaineth a rest.” It is for the people of God to-day. But it is dependent on their condition; it varies to them according to their varying condition. Are we carnally-minded? Our heaven will match our condition. Are we spiritually-minded? Our heaven will match our condition. Are we young, and looking out on life with large eyes of hope? Then our heaven, our thought of rest, will match our condition. Are we old, is life almost all behind us, and are our beloved only just over there, on the further shore? Then our heaven will match our condition. Are we poor, struggling almost in vain to keep a place and win daily bread? Then rest and heaven will be fashioned for us by our daily struggles. Are we rich, so that the needs of the hour are fully met? Then our heaven will take shape from our condition, and seem to be a continuity and permanence of present privileges. But is it not full of comfort to be assured, that the promise of God can come into such direct adaptation to each one of us, and be the satisfaction of the deepest and best in every individual? God’s rest is to us as we are to it. Improve our moral and spiritual condition, and the rest grows nobler, fills with richer meaning, and gains more inspiring force. It loses its material envelope, and appears as what it is—the soul’s rest in God, which includes everything. Faber expresses the soul’s eternal rest in God in poetical and mystical language, when he says,—

“Prostrate before Thy throne to lie,

And ever gaze on Thee.”

II. The fulfilment of God’s promise of rest depends on our preparations.—Why is the fulfilment often so disappointing? Because the rest has merely been longed for; it has not been prepared for. Many a man leaves business—retires, as it is called—and expects to enjoy a few years of delightful rest, and he is wofully disappointed. He cannot rest: he is bored to death with the dulness of having nothing to do; he frets daily with wishing that he could put the harness on again. The fact is that, though he wanted the rest, he never thought of preparing himself for it. And a man can no more enjoy the time of retirement without preparation for it, than a man can win the power to retire, through efficiency in business, without an apprenticeship of preparation. God did not let Israel enter its land of rest until after long discipline in Egypt and long testings in the wilderness. Think of the heavenly rest remaining for the people of God, and we may be reminded that all life, in the Divine leading, is preparation for it. What we fear concerning ourselves and concerning others is, that the daily life we are living is no fitting or adequate preparation. Not for one moment would we suggest that the preparation for heaven is something different from, or distinct from, the preparation for life, daily life. Heaven is established righteousness; but then it is precisely that righteousness which gets established here—that righteousness which we who bear Christ’s name should be at work to culture every day. Prepare to live—in so doing you prepare to die, and in so doing you prepare for heaven. Heaven is life fruitened. Think of the rest sought by the people of God as heart-rest from care—the rest which comes now, and which a man keeps in the very midst of his troubles and distresses. “We have all heard the experience of long-continued sufferers from bodily pain. They have told us how they chafed and fretted to be free, when first the yoke of life-long helplessness and anguish was laid upon them; they wore their hearts sore against the yoke. But they learned of Christ to submit, not to chafe and fret, to bear—as Keble so exquisitely expresses it, ‘Wishing, no longer struggling to be free.’ And in their calm faces and deep thoughtful eyes you may read their heart-rest—‘the rest that remaineth for the people of God.’ ” But the realisation of that heart-rest depends on culture and preparation—preparation oftentimes in the providential discipline of God, responded to by the heart-culture of him who longs to enter into this present rest. God cannot give some of us present rest, because we have not got ourselves ready for it. God has to keep some of us a long time in the shadows of the earthly, because we do not get on with our preparations for the heavenly.

III. The fulfilment of any one of God’s promises of rest opens the way to new longings for rest.—For no rest God gives must ever be confounded with satisfaction, with the end of enterprise and hope. If so, we may as well cease to be creatures, moral beings which should have a boundless possibility in them. Attainment opens up the prospect of attainment. The mountain-climber reaches one peak only to see the peaks rising high above him. It is thus with “learning,” and it is thus with “art.” Robert Buchanan cries out thus to his poet-friend in heaven, David Gray,—

“Must it last for ever,

The passionate endeavour,

Ay, have you, there in heaven, hearts to throb and still aspire?

In the life you know now,

Render’d white as snow now,

Doth a fresh mountain-range arise, and beckon higher—higher?

Are you dreaming, dreaming,

Is your soul still roaming,

Still gazing upward as we gazed, of old, in the autumn gloaming?”

All earthly resting-places are but arbours in the “Hill Difficulty,” that rises steeply, up and up, to the everlasting gates. Into the arbours God lets us pass for a while; but there is no making tent or tabernacle, and abiding there. Onward, upward; ever onward, ever upward, until the white cloud wraps us round, and we too are away with God. The seeking soul may enter into the rest of the full surrender. And such a soul never forgets the Divine peace that comes when the last self-hold is loosened, the eye is fixed on the crucified and risen One, and the love goes wholly forth in one sublime self-yielding and sacrifice. The sincere and earnest soul longs to gain the arbour of the full and entire trust. He would have the first passionate act of first love pass into the restful habit of reliance, that keeps the soul in peace. The great impulse sometimes comes upon us, and we long for the rest of holiness—the rest of an abiding, easy mastery of sinful inclination. And then the soul is set upon longing for the rest of heaven; which is but this—holiness set in holy surroundings. The rest of heaven is the rest that an earnest, spiritually-minded Christian wants; it is the rest of unhindered goodness, the “crown of righteousness.” Our life goes by stages. Attainment is rest and a stage. The material is ever leading on to the spiritual, and the spiritual is ever opening into the heavenly. Our present limit of conception is the heavenly rest; but that can only be some new kind of toil; and away, in advance of it, must be the inspiration of some yet higher rest for the toilers then, as this heaven is the rest for the toilers now. This we may say for the assuring of our hearts—He who so anxiously provides rest for the weary surely provides grace for the toiler; and life now is the rest of His service. And this we may say—the secret of all rest is rest of heart. And that we may all have now. It is the rest of faith. We—yes, we—the sons of toil and care and fear, who are often so weary of earth’s worries and weaknesses and misunderstandings that we can wail with Marianna of the Moated Grange, and say,—

“I’m aweary, I’m aweary;

Would God that I were dead!”—

we—even we—may enter now, and possess now, the “rest that remaineth for the people of God.”

Two Words for Rest.—In Heb_4:8 “rest” signifies rest from weariness. The “rest” in Heb_4:9 is another word—nobler, and more exalted. It signifies the rest of a soul made perfect. It is the inward peace of the Sabbath. It is not the rest of insensibility, the rest of the sleeper, unconscious of the presence of good or evil agencies around him. The rest of God is not the rest of inactivity. The things of God come to perfection. Perfection means fruit-bearing, and fruit-bearing means work. There is no idleness even in heaven. God’s rest is perfect, nothing can disturb it. Years ago our fleet was shattered by a violent gale. It was found, however, that some ships were unaffected by its violence. They were in what mariners call “the eye of the storm.” While all around was desolation, they were safe. So Jehovah’s children find that amid the turbulent billows of life’s tempest “there remaineth a rest for the people of God.” Why cannot we have perfect rest on earth? You lack knowledge. There is nothing more terrible than suspense. You are waiting for information—you cannot rest. Not only knowledge is imperfect here, everything is imperfect. Therefore we cannot rest. Selfishness produces restlessness. Fear is a great cause of it. “Perfect love casteth out fear.” When you know, as St. John knew, that you have found the bosom of God, and that He has all power in heaven and earth, you are at rest.—Hawthorn Homilies.

God’s Rest.—

And I smiled to think God’s greatness flowed around our incompleteness,

Round our restlessness His rest.

E. B. Browning.

Heb_4:9-10. Entrance into God’s Rest.—The truth taught here is that Faith, and not Death, is the gate to participation in Christ’s rest—that the rest remained over after Moses and Judaism, but came into possession under and by Christ. The old system had in it, for its very heart, a promise of rest; but it had only a promise. It could not give the thing that it held forth. It could not, by the nature of the system. The psalmist represents the entrance into that rest as a privilege not yet realised, but waiting to be grasped by the men of his day whose hearts were softened to hear God’s voice. That rest was only a fair vision, and this writer says it remains unpossessed as yet, but to be possessed. God’s word has been pledged. The Divine mercy will not be baulked of its purposes by the unbelief of the Jews: the rest remains for all who believe to partake of. The position that the rest promised to the Jew remains to be inherited by the Christian is established on a second ground. Christ our Lord has entered into His rest—parallel with the Divine tranquillity after creation. And seeing that He possesses it, certainly we shall possess It if only we hold fast by Him.

I. This Divine rest, God’s and Christ’s.—The writer is drawing a parallel between God’s ceasing from His creative work and entering into that Sabbath rest when He “saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good,” and Christ’s ceasing from the work of redemption and passing into the skies to the Sabbath of His everlasting repose. The “rest of God” is difficult to understand. It belongs necessarily to the Divine nature. It is the deep tranquillity of a nature self-sufficing in its infinite beauty, calm in its everlasting strength, placid in its deepest joy, still in its mightiest energy; loving without passion, willing without decision or change, acting without effort; quiet, and moving everything; making all things new, and itself everlasting; creating, and knowing no diminution by the act; annihilating, and knowing no loss though the universe were barren and unpeopled. God is, God is everywhere, God is everywhere the same, God is everywhere the same infinite love, and the same infinite self-sufficiency; therefore His very being is rest. The rest of Christ is like the rest of God, even in respect of this Divine and infinite nature. Besides this repose that belongs to the Divine nature, there is the rest which is God’s tranquil ceasing from His work, because God has perfected His work. God does not rest as weary, but as having done what He meant to do. The rest of God is the expression of the perfect Divine complacency in the perfect Divine work. And so Christ is said to rest when His redemption work was completed. Further, the Divine tranquillity is a rest that is full of work. “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” And Christ’s work of redemption, finished upon the cross, is perpetually going on. Christ’s glorious repose is full of energy for His people. He intercedes above. He works on them; He works through them; He works for them. The rest of God, the Divine tranquillity, is full of work.

II. The rest of God and of Christ is the pattern of what our earthly life may become.—We can come to be like Him—like Him in the substance of our souls; like Him—copy of His perfections; like Him—shadow and resemblance of some of His attributes. And here lies the foundation for the belief that we can “enter into His rest.” Faith, which is the means of entering into rest, will make life no unworthy resemblance of His who, triumphant above, works for us, and, working for us, rests from all His toil. Trust Christ! and a great benediction of tranquil repose comes down upon the calm mind and settled heart.

III. This Divine rest is a prophecy of what our heavenly life shall surely be.—Heaven is the earthly life of a believer glorified and perfected. If here we by faith enter into the beginning of rest yonder, through death with faith we shall enter into the perfection of it.—A. Maclaren, D.D.

Heb_4:11. The Heavenly Rest.—These words illustrate the truth that the whole history of the Jewish Church was one long prophecy and type of the Christian Church in every age. The rest of Canaan typified the higher and nobler “rest of heaven,” and we are warned in the text that unbelief will surely exclude from that rest.

I. The gospel revelation meets all the deepest needs of man.—It holds out to him, weary with the conflict of life, the hope of an eternal life. In the fulness of early vigour the promise of rest may be passed by as a thing little cared for; but as the years go by we welcome the thought of perfect rest, as the weary traveller welcomes the sight of home.

II. The gospel revelation promises a “rest” compatible with the noblest and highest activity of all the powers man possesses.—After a time of perfect rest, our natures would begin to yearn for a “renewal of youth,” for fresh endeavours and attainments. The hope is held out to us of exchanging a frail body for one “raised in glory” and “in power,” with capacities of exertion and endurance unimaginable here; and the soul, for ever freed from its limitations of knowledge and from its sin, shall rise to unknown heights of intellectual and spiritual elevation. To be possessors of “eternal life,” when all the powers of our nature are being exerted to their full capacity of energy in achievement and service, and yet to have all the peace and repose that “rest” means, this is a heaven which alone fully satisfies man, and this is the future the gospel reveals. Heaven is often carnalised into a place of sensuous ease and selfish enjoyment; but the gospel is not responsible for our perversions of its revelation.

III. Faith is the necessary condition of this spiritual life.—Life in God on this side of the grave is the condition of life in God on the other. That life is “hid with Christ in God,” and we can only live it as we live “by faith, not by sight.” The warning from the exclusion of Israel from the land of promise through unbelief comes to us: “Let us labour to enter into rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.”—G. S. Barrett, B.A., D.D.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4

Heb_4:1. Spiritual Shipwreck.—A few years since a noble ship left the shores of England for a distant colony. She had a valuable freight of emigrants, forced from their fatherland by the decrees of a bitter fate—brides whose bosoms glowed with the glorious enthusiasm of youthful love—children also returning to the bosom of fond parents, whom long years had separated. The ship sailed majestically along, and methinks I hear now the music and the dancing on the decks during the calm moonlit evenings. At length, “Land ahead!” is shouted from a hundred lips. Their adopted country looms in the distance. They hasten to prepare for the landing. Only another night need be passed on the sea, but it is their last in this world. The thick darkness gathers around them like a funeral pall, the winds rise as if to sing their dying requiem, and in one fatal moment that noble vessel splits on the rocks! And now wild shrieks of despair struggle with the howl of the tempest, and soon all is over, as the whole of that ship’s company, save one, sink into a watery grave. The ship becomes a wreck in sight of port! A man may go very far towards religion and yet be lost.—Henry Gill.

Heb_4:3. The Rest of Trusting the Living Christ.—An aged Christian, when spoken to about his hope, was accustomed at once to advert to the date of his conversion, and only showed anxiety to be sure that his first act of faith was a saving one. He went to visit a young Christian woman who lay dying of consumption. Her faculties were all clear, and her heart was full of the “rest of God,” the rest of simple trust. That aged Christian feared for her, because she showed no anxiety about her first act of faith. In answer to him she said, “Why should I trouble about such things? Does it not say, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin’? It is not only ‘has cleansed’; it is this, ‘is cleansing’ me every day. I am in the hands of the Lord Jesus, and surely I may leave that altogether with Him.”

True Rest.—

Rest is not quitting the busy career;

Rest is the fitting of self to the sphere;

’Tis the brook’s motion, clear without strife.

Fleeing to ocean, after its life.

Deeper devotion nowhere hath knelt,

Fuller emotion heart never felt;

’Tis loving and serving the highest and best,

’Tis onwards, unswerving, and that is true rest.

T. Sullivan Dwight.

Rest after Toil.—

Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas,

Ease after war, death after life, does greatly please.—Spenser’s “Faerie Queen.”

Heb_4:7. Procrastination.—Few examples can be found in history which more strikingly illustrate the danger of procrastination than that of the “tragedy of Glencoe”; and though at this day nearly two centuries have elapsed since the dreadful tale first struck terror upon the minds of those who heard it, even yet it speaks to us with a voice of warning. The early part of the reign of King William III. was much disturbed by discontent and rebellion among the turbulent tribes in the north of Scotland. Proud and fierce they were by nature, and their habits of life, which were not unlike those of some of the Bedouin tribes of Arabia (for their chief subsistence was by plunder and theft), made them peculiarly untractable when King William attempted to place them under the wholesome laws to which their more peaceable neighbours in the south were already subject. Various means were tried to conciliate them, and large sums of money offered as compensation for any loss which they might sustain by the new rule, but without effect, and it was found necessary to appeal to the strong arm of the law. William, therefore, issued a proclamation, which he had duly circulated amongst the rebel chiefs, that all were to repair to a given spot on or before December 31st, and there sign a declaration, and take oath of allegiance to the king. All who neglected to comply with this command by the time given were to be treated as outlaws, and be liable to death as traitors to the Crown. It was, of course, useless for any of these rebel chiefs, with their handful of followers, or, indeed, for them all combined, to have attempted resistance to William’s well-trained and powerful army. So that one might have reasonably supposed that all the chiefs would have immediately hastened to comply with the command; but it was a severe blow to their pride, and for a long time many of them refused to sign. At length, as the time drew near, one by one they gave way, and by December 31st all had affixed their names to the paper, and had taken the oaths, excepting one chief. Mac Ian was the leader of the smallest but haughtiest of the tribes, and it was no light source of gratification to him to see one and another of his more powerful neighbours submit to the king, while he alone held aloof. Not that he intended, for a moment, to finally resist; he knew that with the small force at his command (not above two hundred souls in all) this was impossible, but he did hope to be the last of the Scottish chiefs to submit, and thus be accounted most brave of them all. A day or two before the 31st he set out for Dunbar, but a heavy fall of snow had rendered the roads almost impassable, and so impeded his progress that though he made most desperate efforts he did not arrive till nearly a week after the time, when he found the king’s messenger had left for London, and without his signature. It happened that the three men in whose hands it lay to execute the king’s threat of vengeance on those who neglected to comply with his command were deadly enemies of Mac Ian’s, and only rejoiced to see that his foolish delay had placed him in a position where he was liable to be treated as a traitor, and on the arrival of the messenger in London hastened to execute judgment on the offender. A band of soldiers was at once raised and commissioned to hasten to Glencoe, the little valley where Mac Ian and his followers dwelt, to surround every outlet by which they might escape, and put all to the sword. On a given night the onslaught was made, and Mac Ian and many of his followers fell victims to the soldiery, who spared neither old man nor maiden, but slaughtered all who came in the way. Many, indeed, escaped by hiding in the rocks, though of these not a few perished with cold, and exposure to the frost, and by hunger. There was doubtless much cruelty in so rigorously carrying out the king’s command, especially as the chief had been willing to submit; but the lesson most forcibly taught is, “Put not off till to-morrow what should be done to-day.” How many a foolish one throughout this land now hazards his soul as Mac Ian hazarded his life, by delaying to make his peace with the great King of kings! who now proffers mercy to all who will repent, and submit to His gracious rule, but who will one day close the book, and then all whose names are not inscribed within its blessed pages will be for ever exposed to His just wrath and indignation.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

III

The promise of entering into the rest of God not only still remains in force, but applies specially to us Christians

Heb_4:1-10

1Let us therefore fear, lest [perchance], a promise being left us [there remaining a promise] of entering into his rest, any [one] of you should [may] seem to [have] come short of it. 2For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them [For we have had the glad announcement just as did also they]: but the word preached [the word of their hearing] did not profit them, not being mixed1 with faith in them3 [not having united itself by faith with them] that heard it. For we which [who] believe do enter2 into rest [according] as he [hath] said, As I have sworn [swore ὤμοσα] in my wrath, if they shall [they shall not] enter into my rest: although the 4 [his] works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spake [hath] spoken] in a certain place [somewhere, πού] of the seventh day on this wise [thus], And God did rest [on] the seventh day from all his works. 5And in this place again, If they shall [They shall not] enter into my rest. 6Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must [for some to] enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached [who formerly received the glad promise] entered not in because of unbelief [disobedience]; 7 Again he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To-day, after so long a time; as it is said, To-day [he again fixeth a certain day, To-day, saying, through David so long a time afterward (as hath been said before),3 To-day] if ye will [om. will] hear his voice, harden not your hearts. 8For if Jesus [Joshua] had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken [be speaking] of another day. 9There remaineth therefore a rest [a Sabbath rest] for the people of God. 10For he that is [om. is] entered into his rest, hath [also himself] ceased [rested] from his own [om. own works] [just] as God did from his [own, ἰδίων].

[Heb_4:1.—φιβηθῶμεν οὖν, Aor. Pass., in middle sense. Let us fear, therefore,—μή ποτε, lest perchance, test haply,—καταλειπ. ἐπαγ, there remaining a promise, not ἀπολειπ, “there remaining as a logical consequence,” but “there remaining being left, as a historical fact, the promise riot having been exhausted with the ancients—as the author proceeds to develop from the Psalm.

Heb_4:2.—καὶ γὰρ ἐσμεν εὐ., the emphasis rests on the verb, not, as in Eng. ver., on the pronoun. For we have had the glad tidings, etc. The rendering, “unto us was the Gospel preached,” is unfortunate, marring, and even obscuring the thought.—καθάπερ κάκεῖνοι, just according as also they.—ὁ λόγος τῆς ἀκοῆς, the word of their hearing=the word which they heard.—μὴ συγκεκ, not having mixed itself, i.e., united itself.

Heb_4:3.—καθὼς εἴρηκεν, according as he hath said,—εἰ ἐλεύσονται, should be rendered, as Heb_3:11, “they shall not enter,” a familiar Hebraism=if they shall enter then my word will fall to the ground, or some such suppressed clause.—καί τοι τῶν ἔργων γεν.—gen. absolute, and that you see his [viz., God’s] works being accomplished=although his works were accomplished, and thus his rest established.

Heb_4:6.—οἰ πρότερον εὐαγγελισθ. they who formerly received the glad tidings, viz., the promise of the rest.—ἀπείθειαν, disobedience, not unbelief (ἀπιστίαν).

Heb_4:7.—πάλιν ὁρίζει, dependent on ἐπεί, since it remains, etc., he again fixes, appoints, not as Eng. ver. beginning a new sentence—λέγων μετὰ τόν χρονον=saying so long a time after—καθὼς προείρηται, as has been said before, viz., in the former chapter.

Heb_4:8.—Ιησοῦς, Joshua (not Jesus),—οὐκ ἄν—ἐλάλει, he would not be speaking, not, “he would not have spoken.”

Heb_4:9.—σαββατισμός, not merely a rest (as Eng. ver.), but with reference to the rest of God on the seventh day, at the close of creation, a Sabbath rest, a Sabbatism.—K.].

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Heb_4:1. Let us fear, therefore—come short of it.—The chapter—not entirely clear in its exact line of thought—opens with a passage whose import has been matter of much controversy. Expositors, however, are now nearly unanimous in holding that the Gen. καταλειπ. ἐπαγ., cannot, in the absence of the article, depend on ὑστερηκέναι (Cramer, Ernesti), and also that καταλείπειν, while sometimes, indeed, signifying neglect, disregard (Act_6:2; Bar_4:1), yet here, as shown partly by the absence of the article, partly by the passive form of the Participle, but chiefly by the usage of Heb_4:6; Heb_4:9, cannot be so rendered, but only, to be remaining. And we can hardly fail to perceive that this expression points back, on the one hand indeed, to the definite promise, but on the other, still by the absence of the article, indicates a designed indefiniteness, or a very general mode of conceiving it. This view is confirmed by the fact that the author subsequently understands the expression, τακάπανσίς μον. (Heb_3:11), here αὐτοῦ,—not, in the sense of the Psalm, of the rest which God has promised and designs to give, but of the rest which belongs properly to God. This rest into which believers are destined to enter, is thus still to be distinguished from the rest which God has actually given to His people by the possession of the Promised Land (Deu_12:9). Since this idea of the expression in question is not the original sense of the passage in the Psalm, but only the author’s own interpretation of it, he proceeds to give a proof of the substantial correctness of his explanation. This, therefore, is not, as yet, at this passage, to be presupposed with the readers of the Epistle. In fact, also, the author deduces from the fate of the Israelites in the desert, not that which many interpreters introduce into it, viz., that the Divine promise, because it remains unfulfilled, is yet existing. For it might have been objected, that the promise was in fact subsequently fulfilled to the descendants of those who perished in the wilderness when they entered Canaan under Joshua. The inference from that is rather that we have need to fear; to this he exhorts us, for he has shown that the reverse side of the Divine promise, the no less positively uttered and oath-sanctioned threat of God, that His people, of that time, should not enter into His rest, was fulfilled in all of them, and that in consequence of unbelief. Hic nobis commendatur timor non qui fidei certitudinem excutiat, sed tantam incutiat solicitudinem ne securi torpeamus (Calvin).

Against what, therefore, are we now to be on our guard? What are we to fear? and to what are we, in true fear, to direct our anxious care, in order that that which we fear may be averted and not come upon us? We are to beware of resembling the Israelites by our unbelief in the Word of God, which is proclaimed to us. We are to fear the wrath of God, which within the sphere of even the chosen people has still displayed its judicial terrors upon all unbelievers. And our common fear should direct itself to the point (φοβηθῶμεν οὗν) that, while there exists a promise of entering into His rest, no individual one among you may be found to have come too late (μήποτε δοκῇ τις ἐξ ὑμῶν ὑστερηκέναι). Δοκῇ is so conspicuous in its position, that it cannot possibly be regarded as superfluous, (Mich., Carpz., Abresch), and the gravity and earnestness of the connection, which presently calls out the most solemn exhortations, and startling pictures of the fate of apostates, demands a very cautious admission of the view which resolves it into the softening videatur (=may seem) of elegant discourse (Oec., Theoph., Thol., Lün.). 4 On the other hand, we can scarcely regard it as of intensifying import=lest there be even an appearance that this or that one has remained behind (Pareus, regarded approvingly by Del.). We must regard it as expressing the appearance of an actual condition, as it presents itself to the opinion and estimate of others, and must conceive the condition as that of that substantial lingering behind, which results in inevitable exclusion. It is doubtless grammatically possible to take δοκῇ as the leading term, expressing the individual’s personal opinion, and ὑστερηκέναι as denoting a too late arrival in respect of time, the whole then=may think he has arrived too late—(Schöttg., Baumg., Schultz, Wahl, Bretschn., Steng., Paul., Ebrard). But with this accords neither the moral condition of the readers, nor the connection of the passage, which, attached by φοβηθῶμεν οὖν to the preceding chapter, cannot possibly be introducing a consolatory address to persons troubled by an extraordinary illusion regarding their salvation, or a warning against their indulgence of this illusion, (as if we had the comforting words μή οὖν φοβηθῶμεν, let us not then fear, instead of the words of warning, let us therefore fear lest). The passage rather opens with the admonition and summons, based on the preceding glance at the fate of ancient Israel, that they should resolutely and earnestly avoid the threatening danger that any member of the church—while God’s invitation, full of gracious promises, is addressed to him—should by guilty delay, springing from unbelief in the word of invitation, make it necessary that he be regarded as having been left behind on his way to the promised goal. The rendering of Grotius, ne cui vestrum libeat (that it may not seem best to any one, may not be the pleasure of any one of you), is inconsistent with the Inf. Perf., and with the construction, which would have required the Dat.

Heb_4:2. For we have had the joyful message—in them that heard it. Καθάπερ (precisely according as) found elsewhere in the New Testament only with Paul, denotes, in its classical use, relations of entire equality. Εὐαγγελίζεσθαι is also used, Luk_7:22; Luk_16:16, passively, as here, of those to whom glad tidings are announced. The Subst. εὐαγγέλιον is not found in our epistle, and with Luke only Act_15:7; Act_20:24. The λόγος τῆς ἀκοῆς, which at Sir_41:23, denotes what is received by tradition, and at 1Th_2:3, is applied to the New Testament preached word, is very significant for the Word of God made known by proclamation to the people of God of all times, Exo_19:5; Isa_28:9; Jer_49:14, and corresponds particularly to the Heb. שְׁמוָּעה Isa_52:7; Isa_53:1 (Rom_10:14-17)=that which is announced, news, tidings, connected sometimes with the Gen. of the subject matter, 2Sa_4:4, sometines with that of the bearer of the tidings, Isa_53:1, The Dat. τοῖς ἀκούσασιν is expressly employed to indicate that the πίστις indispensable to the right and efficient influence of the word was wanting to them that had heard the word, and that for this reason it had not united itself with those for whom it was otherwise adapted, and for whom it was destined of God. This Dat. would be with the very old and well attested reading of the Acc. Plur. of συγκεκ., totally unintelligible. For to put upon ἀκούειν the sense of obey is a purely desperate make-shift, and the rendering “because they did not associate themselves by faith with those who obeyed,” viz: Joshua and Caleb (Œc., Phot., Hammond, Cram., etc.), is totally alien from the use made of this history in the previous chapter. Bleek, therefore, reads ἀκοὑσμασιν after Theodoret, with whom, however, ἀκουσθεῖασιν is probably to be read, as conjectured by his teacher Theodore of Mops., on the authority of the Vulg.=“since they did not unite themselves by faith with the words which they had heard.” The Nom., as indicated by the Peshito—the oldest version of the New Testament—is thus to be preferred with Erasm., Böhme, De W., Thol., Lun., Del. The opinion of Ebr., however, which I followed in my comment., that the passage contains no repetition of the truth previously dwelt upon, viz., that the word was proclaimed in vain to the Jews on account of their subjective unbelief, but presents rather the reverse side of the truth, viz: the impotence of the Old Testament word itself, and thus shows the word proclaimed by Moses as declaring the promise, indeed, along with the conditions of its fulfilment, yet possessing no power, like the word of the New Testament (Heb_4:12) to penetrate into the marrow and core of the inner life, and by such admixture identify itself thoroughly with the hearer—this assumption, I say, anticipates the following discussion, introduces a meaning into the words outside of their obvious and natural import, and depends also on Ebrard’s false interpretation of Heb_4:1. If we construct τῇ πίστει with the nom. συγκεκραμένος, mixed with faith, then it were better to regard τοῖς ἀκούσασιν as Dat. of reference=in respect to, as often in cases where the Gen. would be liable to misconception (Win., Lun.), than with De Wette, as Dativus commodi, or as the Dat. of the agent for ὑπό with Gen. (as by Luther until 1527)=“not being blended with faith by them (=ὑπὸ τῶν) that heard it.” It accords better, however, with the actual relations of faith alike to the word and to the hearers to connect τοῖς ἀκούσασιν closely with συγκεκρ. and take τῇ πίστει as Dat. of means (Schlicht., Thol.,) etc.

Heb_4:3. For we are entering into rest as they that have believed, etc.—The γάρ for stands in logical connection, not with a part, but with the entire statements of the preceding verse. It is best explained by taking εἰσερχόμεθα, not as present for a somewhat general and indeterminate future”=“we are to enter,” (Bl., De W., Thol.); or as marking that which we may with certainty anticipate (Lun.), and the Aor. Part. οἱ πιστεύσαντες (with the majority) of those who have established the genuineness of their faith; but rather by explaining the Part of those simply who have believed, who have exercised faith, and of course have thus far attested it, Act_4:32; Act_11:21; Act_19:2; Rom_13:11, and the verb εἰσερ. therefore, in its proper present sense of those who are actually entering into rest, (Del). We, the church of the believers, the author would say, are as such travelling on the way to the rest which God has established since the foundation of the world, but which the Israelites did not attain. Ebrard erroneously takes the ἔργα “works finished” of Heb_4:3, as contrasted with faith, and as denoting human performances, the works of the law, in contrast with which the true way of salvation, that of faith, was to be revealed. But the term can refer only to the works of God (Heb_4:4; Heb_4:10), which stand as accomplished since the foundation of the world, and since which, therefore, there is existing a Rest of God. Although (καίτοι) this is the case, still, according to the declaration of God, Psa_95:11, the Israelites who were called thereto, did not enter into it. Luther, following the erroneous rendering of the Vulgate et quidem (and indeed), connected the clause commencing with καίτοι with the following εἴρηκεν, leaving the γάρ after εἴρηκεν wholly, unregarded. Schlicht., Carpz., etc., make the Gen. also depend on κατάπαυσιν=the rest of works which were accomplished, etc., a construction which would require τῶν repeated after ἔργων (τῶν ἔργων τῶν ἀπό, etc.). And Calv., Bez., Limb., Cram., Böhm., Bisp., explain thus; “namely,” (or perhaps although) into a rest which followed upon the completion of the works of creation: a thought that would certainly have been expressed in different phraseology.

Heb_4:4. For he hath said in a certain place.—And in this place again.—We are not to supply, as subject of εἴρηκεν, ἡ γραφή (Böhm., Bisp., etc.), notwithstanding that in the citation itself God is spoken of in the third person. For the same subject must be supplied to both citations, and in the latter (Heb_4:5) the μου shows that God must be regarded as the subject. Here also it again becomes evident that God is He who is conceived as the one who speaks in Scripture. [I doubt if Moll’s reason for rejecting ἡ γραφή as subject of εἴρηκεν, drawn from the citation Heb_4:4, or the implied one for making God the subject, as drawn from the citation of Heb_4:5, is, either of them, decisive. They are both given as simple citations, and would both, therefore, naturally stand in precisely their present form, whether we were to conceive “The Scripture,” or “God” speaking in the Scripture, as the subject of the verb. And the application of the passage to the author’s purpose would, I conceive, be equally answered, whichever subject we assume. Still, with Moll, I prefer ὁ θεός as subject.—K.].—Since the passage, Gen_2:2, is so entirely familiar, που cannot possibly imply any uncertainty on the part of the author regarding the source of the citation; and from this we may draw a certain inference regarding the που in Heb_2:6. The two passages of Scripture thus quoted in connection, bring out the idea that there is from the commencement of things a Rest of God, into which men could and were to enter, but into which the Israelites have not entered; yet that by this the entrance into the Rest of God cannot be sealed and made impossible for all times and all men, since the exclusion of the Israelites was but a manifestation of the wrath of God upon the unbelieving.

Heb_4:6. Since, therefore, it remains open that some are to enter in, etc.—The comparison of the two passages leads to the conclusion, not precisely, that the entrance is still remaining and reserved for some persons—which would have demanded καταλείπεται—but that such an entrance is left free, left over, remains open (ἀπολείπεται, Heb_10:26), [“not having been previously exhausted.” Alf.], and that, on account of this state of the case, God in His grace and faithfulness, after the well-known falling away of those who were called in the time of Moses, again characteristically fixes (ὁρίζει) a day, ‘to-day,’ in which, after the lapse of so long a period, He, through David, repeats the summons of invitation, which had formerly been proclaimed by Moses. As the Sept. ascribes the Psalm in question to David, and here we have not ἑν τῷ Δαυίδ, but ἐν Δαυίδ (taking David personally), we are not here, although the Book of Psalms may, as a whole, be regarded as belonging to David (Act_4:25), to take the words as applying to the book. For ἐν Δαυίδ would properly, in referring to a passage of Holy Scripture, mean “in the passage of Scripture that treats of David,” as ἐν. Ἠλίᾳ, Rom_11:2.—Schlicht., Stengel, etc., connect the first σήμερον with λέγων. Others, more recently Lün. and Del., regard it as a part of the quotation, which, commencing emphatically, for this reason, after an interposed clause, repeats the same word. The majority, with Calv., Bez., Grot., take it as in apposition with ἡμέραν.5

Heb_4:8. For if Joshua had brought them to their rest, etc.—The μετά ταῦτα, corresponding to μετὰ τοσοῦτον χρόνον of the preceding verse, belongs to ἐλάλει scil. ὁ θεός. But the Imperf. with ἄν is not to be rendered, “He would have spoken” (Luth., Bez.), which would have required ἐλάλησεν ἄν, but “he would be speaking.” The fact that God, after the introduction of the people into the Promised Land, speaks of a day in which His voice summons to an entrance into His rest, proves not only that the Rest of God, which has existed since the creation, is not identical with the rest proclaimed to the people by Moses, and secured for them under Joshua, but that this entire proceeding with the Israelites is simply to be regarded as figurative, and as having its fulfilment through Christ in the New Testament economy. In the later books of Scripture, Ezra, Nehem., Chron., Joshua, instead of the earlier וְהוֹשׁוּעַ, is named יֵשׁוּעַ whence the writing Ἰησοῦς of the Sept., of Joseph., and the Act_7:45.—Καταπαύειν here in its classical transitive sense to cause to rest, to bring to rest, as Exo_33:14; Deu_3:20; Deu_5:33; Psa_85:3; Act_14:18.

Heb_4:9. There remaineth therefore a Sabbath rest, etc.—The particle ἅρα (rarely commencing a, sentence in prose), now introduces the conclusion to which the preceding statements have led the way; not only is there a Rest of God existing from the close of the creation, and reaching on to eternity, and not only is a participation in this rest appointed to the people of God, but the entrance into it is actually secured to the people of God. This rest is a σαββατισμός=α Sabbath festal celebration (from σαββατίζειν, Exo_16:30, as ἑορτασμός from ἑορτάζειν). The term (found also in Plut. de superstitione, 3) is all the more natural, inasmuch as already at Heb_4:4, reference is made to that rest of God after the creation of the world, which lay at the basis of the institution of the Sabbath, as the rest of humanity, and in that, apart from any Rabbinical explanations, even at 2Ma_15:1, the Sabbath is called ἡ τῆς καταπαύσεως ἡμέρα. The ὁ εἰσελθών, he who entered in, is certainly not the people (Schultz), but either Christ, as indicated by the Aor., κατέπαυσευ, rested (Alting, Starck. Owen, Valck., Ebr., Alf.), or (with the majority of expositors, among them Bleek, Lün., Del.), inasmuch as nothing in the context points immediately and personally to Christ, the person, whoever he may be, that has reached the goal. It thus assigns the reason why the rest in question is called a Sabbatism. The Aor. is then explained as a reminiscence from the citation in Heb_4:4. [The question is a difficult one to settle. On the one hand, the historical κατέπαυσεν, rested, more naturally points back to some single historical event, as the entrance of Christ into His rest, and the emphatic καὶ αὐτός, also he himself, giving, as Alford remarks, dignity to the subject which we should scarcely expect if it refer to any individual man, would suggest the same idea, while it is certainly pertinent to introduce Christ as the great Leader and Institutor of the rest of the New Testament people of God, by finishing and resting from His own works. But, on the other hand, there does not seem, as supposed by Alford, any antithesis in this passage between Christ and Joshua; the specific object of the verse seems to be simply to explain why the writer has changed the term κατάπαυσις into σαββατισμός, and the καὶ αὐτός, therefore seems entirely natural as explaining why the rest of the people of God is like the rest of God Himself, a Sabbatism; and the reference also of the subsequent ἐκείνη ἡ κατάπαυσις, that rest, is entirely pertinent, in view of the author’s declaration that a Sabbatic rest awaits the people of God, and equally so in whichever way we understand the present verse. And as a positive argument against Alford’s interpretation, we may urge Moll’s suggestion, that nothing in the context points directly to Christ. The passage seems simply thrown in to account for the substitution of the term σαββατισμός for κατάπαυσις; for this there is no need of any reference to Christ, and had the author intended it, it would seem almost certain that he would have made his intention more obvious. I incline to the opinion of the majority, which refers it to individual members of the Church. The Part. εἰσελθών, is then used like ἀποθανών, Rom_6:7, although for the fin. verb we should certainly here, as there, prefer the Perf. But the Aor. may be explained partly as by De Wette, as a reminiscence from Heb_4:4, partly, perhaps, from the preference of the Greeks for the form of the Aor., whenever they could use it, to the clumsier and less euphonious Perfect.—K.].

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. In the Holy Scripture we hear the voice of God and the language of the Holy Spirit, so that we are to gain by this, not an external knowledge of natural things and historical events, but a spiritual understanding of them, in order to a right estimate of their relation to the kingdom of God. Precisely for this reason we must acquaint ourselves rightly with the Holy Scriptures, that we may be able correctly to understand their language, to give heed to their intimations, to make use of their hints, and to make the fitting application of their statements and explanations. For the sacred Scripture not merely throws upon all things and relations the light of revelation, but also in that light interprets itself, and thus becomes profitable for the things mentioned 2Ti_3:16-17.

2. The Rest which God promises and gives to His people, is no other than the rest which God Himself has and enjoys. The creation and destination of man to be the image of God, contains the ground of the fact, that man can find rest only in God, and the grace of God renders possible even to fallen man the fulfilment of his destination. But the condition of entering into the rest of God, is faith; and this condition is the same for the different degrees of man’s participation in that rest which God, since the creation of the world, until the completion of the world’s history, repeatedly proffers to man, and holds open for his entrance.

3. “At every stage of the revelation of His grace to sinners, God proffers to them His whole salvation. Under every veil which He has thrown over His truth in the years of childhood, it lay entire, and even at that time believers could receive every thing from God. But since God does not perfect individuals apart from the whole, the general unbelief of those to whom He had proffered His salvation (notwithstanding that some few believed) at every successive stage, held back perfection. But no rejection of Divine grace, on the part of men, can hinder or restrain its ever increasingly glorious unfolding; but rather, as the sun from the bosom of night, so from the unbelief of men does it shine forth all the more clearly to the honor and praise of God. Thus also, of necessity, their spurning of the true rest of God, which had been proffered to the Israelites, led to the fact that they, under Joshua in Canaan, only entered into an earthly rest, in every respect unsatisfactory, perpetually interrupted, by which their longing after the true rest was rather awakened than satisfied. And thus the entrance into the rest of God, still awaits the people of the Lord; the celebration of the eternal Sabbath, after the second creation, of which that of the earthly Sabbath is but the type.” Von Gerlach.

4. The labor from which the believer is yet to rest cannot, on account of the constitution of the world, and on account of the nature of actual human life, be separated from the idea of the pain and toil of our earthly pilgrimage; yet it is by no means to be limited to this. We must rather extend our thought to the labor of the Christian vocation, since this is designated in the text as that which is peculiar to Him, standing in the relation of an image and copy to the creative activity of God. “The struggle against sin, the pursuit of holiness, the striving after perfection (τελειότης), constancy in sufferings, all vigorous endeavor in holding fast to faith and hope, even under the most adverse circumstances; all the toilsome activity of self-denying, self-sacrificing love; all the labors, connected not unfrequently with great disquiet and anxiety, for the spiritual welfare of the entire Church and of its individual members; all these are the ‘works’ (ἔργα) of believers, from which they are yet to rest in the heavenly city of God” (Riehm).

5. As an eternal and blessed Sabbath celebration, this rest cannot be a cessation of all activity. This would correspond neither to the idea involved in the rest of God, nor to the promise of a personal progressive life of the children of the resurrection in the kingdom of glory. Moreover, the perfect consciousness of blessedness in the certainty of personal perfection in no way excludes an active attestation of this consciousness. The same holds true of the participation of the blessed in the approval and pleasure with which God looks upon the world of perfection as brought into a state of perfect conformity to His will. At all events, there is such an activity of the perfected in eternity as that which Thom. Aquinas designates as videre, amare et laudare, and August. (de Civit. Dei, 20, 30) thus describes: “Ipse (Deus) finis erit desideriorum nostrorum qui sine fine videbitur, sine fastidio amabitur, sine defatigatione laudabitur.” But is God to be the sole object of this activity? and is this activity itself to be regarded as susceptible of no development and advancement for the reason that it is an activity of those who are perfected? This would by no means essentially follow from Augustine’s answer to the question, What the blessed will do in their eternal life: In sæcula sæculorum laudabunt te (in Psalms 83). For praise, if it is not to be a mere empty sound, must consist in real acts of praise, with a definite meaning and substance. But this concrete substance, if it is not to degenerate into tautology and battology, must be susceptible of a development, and appear as the product of an activity of definite persons, whose inward feelings, experiences and thoughts it expresses. And in the case of these persons, again, we can conceive of the removal neither of that creaturely element by which they stand distinguished from God, nor of that special human quality that distinguishes them from angels; nor any more of that individuality which produces those special characteristics in the actual personal life of the perfected which involve alike the continuity of consciousness, the identity of the person that had died with the person that has risen; the possibility of reunion, and the possibility of retribution. On this double foundation of the permanent creatureliness, and of the individual personality of the glorified and perfected, we may base a well-founded conviction that there is in the life of the blessed an infinitude of relations and points of contact, which, in ceaseless and reciprocal influence, enlarge and enrich their common bliss and perfection. For we may with just as little propriety assume, on the part of the glorified, an activity without result, as a round of empty and unsubstantial adoration, or a mere idle and fruitless contemplation of God. Also, Rothe, in his Ethics (II. § 474) has admirably shown how we may conceive of work without the attendant idea of labor, i.e, work accompanied by strenuous exertion; and Tholuck, in some weighty and suggestive intimations, has shown the mixture of truth and falsehood in the declaration of Lessing: “If the eternal Father held Truth in His right hand, and the search for it in His left, and I were required to choose, I would clasp His knee and say: Father, the left!” Inasmuch, however, as we have on this point no positive statements of Scripture, and are liable to transfer our human conceptions to the scenes and relations of the future world, it will be well to heed the warning of Stier (1, 85): “If thus deeply looking into eternity, we are blinded by the overpowering splendor, and turn back again to the thought that such Sabbath rest is surely not to be conceived as devoid of working and activity, we are undoubtedly right to this extent, that the rest of God is indeed at the same time an eternal life of infinite power. But we must still be on our guard against allowing our weakness to mingle the earthly with the heavenly, and even in the attained city of God itself, to open a long-extended chaussee-prospect of ‘infinite perfection;’ rather will we strive with all the power of the spirit for a presentiment of that true rest, of that perfected satisfaction and completeness which has inherited all in God, and for which nothing more remains to be attained in eternity.” This is all the more advisable as the feeling of a real satisfaction in our true rest in God must exist in the most diverse stages of creaturely development. Only we must not, with the earlier ecclesiastical teachers (e. g., John Gerhard, Loci Theol., T. XX., p. 408), allow ourselves to infer from this that that deficiency in extent of the saints’ knowledge of God, which, along with its perfection in quality, the very finiteness of their nature imposes upon the blessed, will, by the final judgment, be fixed and bound down to a definite limit, which will forever preclude all further development. For the unbounded and unrestricted activity of a creature within the limits that belong to and determine its peculiar organization—an activity that can never be conceived as without result—is something entirely different from a striving and aspiring beyond these limits. This, Dante himself, in the words cited by Tholuck (Paradiso, 3, 73 ff.), has not sufficiently regarded:

“For if we yielded to our higher wish,

Then should we come in conflict with that will

Which destined us to this our lower sphere.”

6. It is a confused and perplexing use of language that speaks of gradations of blessedness. The idea of blessedness excludes distinctions of degree and relations of quantity. But doubtless there are degrees of participation in the rest of God. For, first, there is the peace, which the believer, as being justified, on the ground of his reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ possesses and tastes (Rom_5:1), and which includes a devotion—constant and unvexed by the vicissitudes of life—to the will of God in His dispensations, and a confident hope of future blessedness and glory. Then, from this, we are to distinguish the rest of those who, as having fallen asleep in Christ, freed from the toils and sorrows of this earthly life (Rev_14:13; Rev_21:4), are with Christ (Php_1:23); and from this again we distinguish that Sabbatic rest which commences only at the second coming of Christ, and the accompanying renovation of the world, and which is realized only when the whole people of God have entered into eternal rest in and with God, and in which all the ransomed are at home forever-more (1Th_4:17). Within each of these three grades, however, is preserved inviolate not merely the specific quality of humanity as such, in contradistinction from the angelic nature and relation, but also the concrete individuality, previously referred to, of each person. This has been sometimes erroneously conceived as forming an intrinsic distinction in the degree of blessedness itself. The opinion of Swedenborg, that men may once have been angels, has no where the slightest support.

7. From the nature of the rest of God it follows that for the people of God, so long as they are still on their pilgrimage to the final goal, it must of necessity be in the future; for he who has entered into this, rests from his works in like manner as God did from His. In behalf of the view that a day which is entirely Sabbath will close the world’s work, Del. adduces from Sanhedrin 97 a, the following passage: “As the seventh year furnishes a festal time of a year’s duration for a period of seven years, so the world enjoys, for a period of seven thousand years, a festal season of a thousand years;” but remarks, then, that, as shown by Rev_20:7 ff., this final temporal millennium is not as yet the final Sabbath, although it has become customary in the Church to regard this temporal season of triumph and rest to the Church as ἡ ἑβδόμη (the seventh day), and the blessed eternity as ἡ ὀγδόη (the eighth); that this octave of the blissful eternity is nothing else than the eternal duration of the final Sabbath, which realizes itself only at the point where the history of time is merged into a blissful eternity. Similarly it is said in a Rabb. treatise on Psa_92:1 (Elijahu Rabba, c. 2): “We mean the Sabbath which puts a stop to the sin reigning in the world—the seventh day of the world, upon which, as post-Sabbatic, follows the future world, in which forever and ever there is no more death, no more sin, and no more punishment of sin; but pure delight in the wisdom and knowledge of God.”

8. Into this future Sabbath rest, however, they alone enter who believe in the word of invitation which has reached them, and livingly unite themselves with this, by faith. “Faith is, as it were, the dynamical medium by which objective truth assimilates itself to the believing man” (Thol.). “As food it must nourish, must go into the blood and unite itself with the body. If the word is to benefit, it must, like the nutritive element of food, be transformed by faith, into the spirit, sense and will of man, that the whole man may become as the word is, and requires, i.e, holy, upright, chaste and pious” (Hedinger, Ed. of the N. Test., with explanatory remarks, 1704).—“There are two sorts of words in the Scripture; the one affects me not, concerns me not; the other concerns me; and upon that which appertains to me I can boldly venture, and plant myself upon it, as on a solid rock.—Of this none may be in doubt, that to him also the Gospel is preached. Thus, then, I believe the word, i.e, that it concerns me also—that I also have a share in the Gospel, and in the New Testament, and I venture my all upon the word, even though it were to cost a hundred thousand lives” (Luther’s Sermons on the First Book of Moses, Walch, Part 3, p. 9).

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The salutary fear of believers: 1, to what it refers; 2, whence it comes; 3, what it produces. In the souls of believers, fear and hope dwell in inseparable connection; for, 1, they trust implicitly to the word of God, as well in His threatenings as in His promises; 2, they have, perpetually before their eyes the blissful goal of their calling, and the examples of those who have fallen on the way; 3, they have a living consciousness of their own frailty, and of the Divine faithfulness.—Wherein consists the blessing of true and living faith? 1, It brings us into union with the word of God; 2, it protects us from the wrath of God; 3. it leads us into the rest of God.—At what does the preaching of the wrath of God aim? It aims, 1, to awaken the secure; 2, to warn the light-minded; 3, to urge on the sluggish.—The entrance into the rest of God may be neglected, inasmuch as, 1, God earnestly invites, indeed, to this entrance, but He compels no man to walk upon the right path; 2, the entrance stands for a long time open, but the period of grace comes finally to an end; 3, the entrance is sure to the people of God, but unbelief separates again many from the people of God.—What is the best consolation amidst the troubles of our earthly pilgrimage? 1, The encouragement of the word of God; 2, the fellowship of the people of God; 3, the prospect of the rest of God.—The fault lies not in God if any one attains not an entrance into the rest of God; inasmuch as, 1, God has established such a rest since the completion of the creation of the world; 2, God has, by the word of the Gospel, given to us all a sure promise and invitation; 3, God has prepared for us, in Jesus, the reliable leader for our entrance into this rest.—To what are we laid under obligation by God’s proffers of His grace? 1, to the heeding of a season of grace; 2, to a use of the means of grace.—The faith which we profess, we have also to live: 1, what binds us to this duty? 2, what hinders us in it? 3, what aids us to victory?—How do we stand with respect to the rest of the seventh day? 1. Do we respect it as a holy ordinance? 2. Do we understand it in its salutary import? 3. Do we use it according to the Divine will and purpose?—How we must surely overcome the disquiet and danger of the world; 1, by confidence in the promises; 2, by obedience to the ordinances; 3, by submission to the leadings of God.—The right union of labor, rest, and festal gladness in the life of the Christian.

Luther (Pref. to John Spangenberg’s coll. of Sermons, Walch XI 4:376):—In truth thou canst not read the Scripture too much: and what thou readest, thou canst not read too well; and what thou readest well, thou canst not too well understand; and what thou understandest well, thou canst not too well teach; and what thou teachest well, thou canst not too well live (Domestic Sermons, Walch XIII. 1336).—The preaching of faith is such a preaching as demands ever to be exercised and put in practice.—That I may come to the point of rising above every thing, of contemning sin and death, and of gladly venturing myself in all confidence upon the promise of God, I must have the Spirit and power of God, as also perpetual exercise and experience.

Starke:—Away slavish fear! but filial fear must be present, that we walk therein, and so work out our salvation (Php_2:12).—Not only must none remain behind for himself, but each one must also see to it, so far as the grace of God shall render it possible for him, that if others remain behind, he, by hearty exhortation, and his own good example, incite them to the course, and thus take them along with him.—Pilgrim, it is high time, if thou wouldst yet enter into the rest of God. Therefore hasten, and see to it, that thou do not come short of this blessedness.—Were there on the part of God an unconditional decree of human salvation, and were men, by virtue of this decree, unable to fall from the state of grace, and incur the loss of salvation, the holy men of God would not have been so zealous to warn believers against backsliding, and to exhort them to perseverance (2Pe_3:17).—What avails it to listen to so many hundred sermons when we believe not, and receive no benefit? Mark! the word of God which thou hearest must flow into thine inmost soul, and must there give thee the full sap and nourishment of life, if it is to avail to thee for salvation (1Th_2:13).—The promises of God avail nothing to unbelievers. These must die without consolation, and perish eternally (Isa_40:1).—The Gospel is, indeed, the power of God unto salvation, but it compels none to believe; but man retains his free-will to give place or not to the grace which knocks at the door of his heart.—Thou thinkest that it is very easy to come into heaven; but believe me, nothing common or unclean can enter thither. Unless thou art cleansed by faith, and art become a new creature, thou wilt not enter therein.—The repose of believers consists in this, 1, that we find all the works of God good, and are satisfied with these in the kingdom of nature and of grace; 2, that to that which God has devoted to us for our salvation, we desire to add nothing of our own, neither works of sin, nor even works of the law.—O how often are the first last, and the last first! Lord, Thy judgments are incomprehensible, and unsearchable Thy ways.—How highly should we respect the Psalms of David, since the Spirit of God has spoken by him!—To-day, since we hear the voice of Christ, let us obediently follow it; else we deserve that He withdraw from us His grace (Joh_12:35).—God would at all times, have all men enter into His rest.—Nothing of all which the holy men of God have written is in vain; what we do not understand, testifies of our weakness and imperfection.—Beloved, let us not be impatient over the turmoil of sin, the assaults of the devil, the pains of our vocation, and our other burdens. For such is the character of our present life. In heaven we shall have peace from all these (Psa_90:10; Rev_14:13).—O how deep is our concern, not only in the eternal rest itself, but also in that constant faith and obedience, without which that rest can never be attained.

Berlenburger Bible:—Promise is God’s passport, which He gives us for our journey. He who throws away the promise, robs himself of aid.—We would fain be saved without employing the means.—The seed of all errors lies by nature in every one.—Because thou doest nothing, thou doest abundance of evil, and failest to accomplish thy duty.—The word in itself depends, indeed, in its power not upon my acceptance, since it is still powerful, but outside of me it avails me nothing.—All the works of God tend toward rest. But the time which is previously to elapse must not appear too long to us; but we must be assured that as God has brought us upon this way, He will also aid us to the end.—The work of creation is an image and foreshadowing of all the ways of God, clear to the end. The long extended time shows the long-suffering of God, and is given by God that we may recognize His goodness; but men readily abuse it to the indulgence of their sloth.—If God works in thee, thou art in rest; but if thou workest thyself, and in selfishness, thou hast nothing but disquietude.

Laurentius:—The life of believers is nothing but a journey into eternal rest.—We may hear much of eternal life, and still be excluded from it.—The rest of believers in this life is imperfect.—To the times which are noted in the sacred Scripture we must give special heed.

Rambach:—Each person of the sacred Trinity has, as it were, his special Sabbath and day of rest. The Father rested on the seventh day from the work of creation. The Son rested in the sepulchre from the work of redemption. The Holy Spirit will rest at last from the work of sanctification, viz., then, when He shall have no more sin to do away.

Steinhofer:—Glory is reserved for us until our entrance into His eternal kingdom. It beams upon us from His throne, and will become manifest to us in His coming. In the meantime if we yield ourselves to His guidance, and hasten to the goal, He will infallibly bring us thither. We look merely to His heart and His hand; we remain tranquil; we let our Leader care for us, and willingly follow Him, upon that way in which He has not only preceded us and opened the path, but on which He is now also leading us, from step to step, by His power and grace, and will continue to lead us, until, at the last step, attaining complete deliverance and salvation, we also pass into the same glory, where we shall behold the brightness of God in the face of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and be invested with this glory.

Rieger:—Every one should stand in fear and just distrust of his own heart, in order that to him the visible and eternal may not speedily sink into insignificance, the way that leads to it become disagreeable, his striving after the treasure be enfeebled, and he be tempted to turn back into Egypt. That must be and become true in my heart, which is true, and as it is true in the Word of God.—The promise on the part of God is so sincere, the faith which trusts to it is something so tenacious, that we may with these venture boldly forth for an entrance into rest.—Who is there whom God cannot, by a thousand means, make to feel that he has been driven from the place of rest?—Who is there who has yielded to the heavenly calling, that does not find himself, after his abandonment of the world, in a wilderness of temptation? In whom arises not the sigh: Lord Jesus may I soon inquire for my rest?—No man’s progress is stopped by a previously formed decree of God; but it was the unbelief that showed itself on the way, that woke the wrath of God, and led Him to swear that they should not enter into His rest.—The purpose of God extends far. All ages, all nations that are successively born, are comprehended in it. Thus it bears with patience many a generation, and lo, that which was not accomplished in the fathers is to be attained in the children. God has prepared nothing in vain. It is His will that His house be full. No period of the world but contributes to the assemblage of His elect.

Von Bogatzky:—Labor, works and suffering belong to the divine arrangement, or to the way upon which we enter into rest. But it is faith alone, which lays hold of Christ, and in Him already here, and thus also yonder, finds eternal rest. Although eternal rest and blessedness are a gift of grace, they still demand all industry and diligence, power and strength, in order to our attaining them, because there are many enemies that would circumvent us of this rest, and hinder our entrance into it.—We evince our industry in entering into His rest, 1, if we studiously hear His voice, and are obedient to Him; 2, if we accompany the word with prayer; 3, if we actively prove our faith by love; 4, if we rightly employ the present time of grace, nay, the present day, the present hour; 6, if in all struggle, strife, conflict and suffering, we are always watchful and on our guard against our enemies, crucify the wicked flesh, as our most immediate enemy, and when heavier sufferings and assaults press in, do not yield to despair.

Stier:—As the promise stands remaining to us, so also stands good for us, in the strictest sense, the warning against wrath.—The to-day which is appointed to faith as an accepted time and day of salvation, after all the ways of Israel, which ended at last in the blinding and hardening of the majority of the people, at last clearly manifests itself as the gracious season of the New Covenant, in which the voice of God may be heard as never before.—The word of the Sabbatic rest! an inexhaustible consolation, with which ah! how many weary pilgrims, fainting combatants, sluggish laborers, have again and again armed themselves anew with strength and courage! A word of the Spirit which breathes upon the inner man, and refreshes with the powers of the world to come! A brightly glittering star of hope, guiding out of all darkness, back upon the right path!—By how much greater and more glorious the work of the redemption and restoration of fallen man, in whose fall the world is destroyed, than the work of the first creation, by so much more glorious is the second Sabbath of God in Christ, than the first Sabbath of Paradise.

Von Gerlach:—In the oath that unbelievers shall not enter in is involved for believers the promise that they by faith shall enter in.

Hedinger:—Hearing must be accompanied by faith; faith must be accompanied by perseverance.

Heubner:—The unconverted will doubtless wish, immediately after death, even then speedily to procure for themselves an entrance into bliss, but too late; late-comers are not waited for.—The threat as well as the promise is conditional. All earthly rest is imperfect; the true rest comes afterward.—For him who seeks his rest here, the future world will bring unrest.—The rest of God promised to the Christian consists—1, in perfect freedom from all that disturbs, oppresses, obstructs, weakens, and pains the Christian here below: a. from outward disquiet of the world, of the body, and of evil men: b. from internal disquiet on account of his corruption and weakness; 2, in the blissful and undisturbed enjoyment of the grace and love of God; his soul then rests in God, after whom it was pining; he is then united with God through Christ in vision, enjoyment and feeling; 3, in the possession and blessed enjoyment of the good which his struggles have achieved, and in the perfectly free, never wearying, never exhausting prosecution of the new work that is assigned to us.—The Rest of God, the heavenly Sabbath, is to us a pattern and a goal; reminding us that, in the week of our present life, we accomplish our daily work, in order hereafter to attain to the heavenly Sabbath.

Fricke:—Every Sabbath is a beckoning to the Rest of God, and an attestation of it.

[Owen:—The failing of men through their unbelief doth no way cause the promises of God to fail or cease.—Men by their unbelief may disappoint themselves of their expectation, but cannot bereave God of His faithfulness.—The promise made unto Abraham did contain the substance of the Gospel.—The Gospel is no new doctrine, no new law; it was preached unto the people of old.—The Gospel is that which was from the beginning (1Jn_1:1). It is the first great original transaction of God with sinners from the foundation of the world.—God hath not appointed to save men whether they will or no; nor is the word of promise a means suited unto any such end or purpose.—The great mystery of useful and profitable believing consists in the mixing or incorporating of truth and faith in the souls or minds of believers.—It is the proper description of an unbeliever, that “he doth not receive the things of the Spirit of God,” 1Co_2:14—Faith makes the soul in love with spiritual things: love engages all their affections into their proper exercise about them, and fills the mind continually with thoughtfulness about them, and desires after them; and this mightily helps on the spiritual mixture of faith and the word.—The people of God as such have work to do, and labor incumbent on them.—Rest and labor are correlates; the one supposeth the other. Many important truths lie deep and secret in the Scripture, and stand in need of a very diligent search and hard digging in their investigation and for their finding out.—There is no true rest for the souls of men, but only in Jesus Christ by the Gospel].

Footnotes:

[1]Heb_4:2.—Instead of the Nom. Sing., συγκεκραμένος which is found in 5 minusc. 17, 31, 37, 41,114, the Acc, Plur., in the form συγκεκρασμένους, is found in A. B. C. D.* M. 23, 25, and in the form συγκεκεραμένους (also with double μ), in D*** E. I, K. 4, 6, 10. Moreover the Copt., Æth., Arm., and most of the versions have the Acc. But it scarcely yields any sense. The Nom. has the authority of the Peshito, Vulg., Ital., and of the Cod. Sin. in the form συγκεκερασμένος.

[2]Heb_4:3.—Instead of εἰσερχώμεθα οὖν we are to read with Sin. A. C. εἰσερχόμέθα γάρ. The following οἱπιστεύσαντες is also inconsistent with the hortatory subjunctive.

[3]Heb_4:3.—Instead of εἴρηται, read with Sin. A. C. D.* E.,* 17, 23, 31, προείρηται.

[4][With a writer of a different description, Moll’s objection to this interpretation might have more weight: in the case of our author it seems to be of very questionable validity. It should be borne in mind that the very characteristic and distinguishing feature of our epistle is the utmost possible cogency of reasoning, and stern and terrible force of appeal, couched in, (we might almost say), the utmost possible smoothness and flowing grace of diction. An earnestness of thought and sentiment that never for a moment relaxes itself, moves on pari passu with a majestic stateliness, and a classic grace of style, that never for a moment forgets its urbanity, and never allows its even repose to break forth into passionate vehemence of expression. In such a style the occurrence of an elegant and even softening term like δοκῆ in the sense here given to it, could scarcely be matter of surprise or objection.—K.].

[5][To see the difference between the two explanations, the reader must first correct the English version, which is here exceedingly unfortunate. First, Heb_4:6-7 must be closely united, not more than a comma being placed after unbelief. Then the comma must be struck out after again, Heb_4:7, and this word connected closely with ὁρίζει he again limits or fixes. Again the phrase “as it is said,” must be corrected first by a right translation of the Perf. has been said, and then by substituting the proper critical reading, προείρηται, has been said before (referring to the previous citation, Hebrews 3 Heb_4:7-15); and finally the phrase “after so long a time” must be put in its proper construction with “saying” (λέγων). We then render either thus: “Since, then, it still remains that some, etc.—on account of disobedience, he again fixes a certain day (viz.) ‘to-day,’ saying in David so long a time after” (i.e., so long a time after the original promise=the long interval between Moses and David) “to-day if ye hear His voice.” etc., or thus: he again fixes a certain day: “to-day”—saying in David so long a time afterward—“to-day if ye hear,” etc. In the former case “to-day” is taken in apposition with ἡμέραν, “a certain day, viz., to-day.” and so Calvin, Beza, Grotius, Bleek, De Wette, Moll, Bib. Union. In the latter “to-day” emphatically and somewhat abruptly commences the quotation, and then, after an intervening clause, is emphatically repeated. So Lünemann, Delitzsch, and decidedly Alford. The order of the words σήμερον ἐν Λαυεὶδ λέγων I think is in favor of the latter view. With the former the author would, I think, have more naturally written λέγων ἑν Λαυείδ.—K.].

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER 4

1. What the rest of God is (Heb 4:1-11)

2. The power of the Word of God (Heb 4:12-13)

Heb 4:1-11

“Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left of entering into His rest, any one of you might seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” These words of exhortation belong properly to the preceding chapter.

What is the rest of which these verses speak? It is generally explained as the rest which the true believer finds and has in the Lord Jesus Christ in believing; that his conscience has rest. It is frequently identified with Mat 11:28-29. While it is blessedly true that all who come to the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour find rest in Him from the curse of the law and the burden of sin, while it is equally true that those who follow Him in obedience and learn of Him find rest day by day for their souls, yet it is not this present rest which is before us in these verses. The rest which is meant is called by God “My rest”; it is the rest of God and is future, the rest in coming glory, an eternal rest. It is God’s rest, because He made it Himself and He will enjoy it in glory with those who have believed in Christ, in whose perfect work God has His rest, because it satisfies His holiness and His love. Into this rest the believer enters at His coming. Then work will be over and all burdens cease. Righteousness reigns and groaning creation is delivered and all the promised glory will be accomplished. God rests then in His love and rejoices (Zep 3:17). Till that day God works, for sin and the curse is unremoved, but all will be changed when His Son appears in glory and all things are put in subjection under Him. The perfect, complete rest of God is in the new heaven and earth, when God dwells among men and sin and death are forever gone. He then is all in all. This is the rest which remains for the people of God.

“God must rest in that which satisfies His heart. This was the case even in creation--all was very good. And now it must be in a perfect blessing that perfect love can be satisfied with, with regard to us, who will possess a heavenly portion in the blessing which we shall have in His own presence, in perfect holiness and perfect light. Accordingly all the toilsome work of faith, the exercise of faith in the wilderness, the warfare (although there are many joys), the good works practised there, labour of every kind will cease. It is not only that we shall be delivered from the power of indwelling sin; all the efforts and all the troubles of the new man will cease. We are already set free from the law of sin; then our spiritual exercise for God will cease. We shall rest from our works--not evil ones. We have already rested from our works with regard to justification, and therefore in that sense we have now rest in our consciences, but that is not the subject here--it is the Christian’s rest from all his works. God rested from His works--assuredly good ones--and so shall we also then with Him.

“We are now in the wilderness; we also wrestle with wicked spirits in heavenly places. A blessed rest remains for us in which our hearts will repose in the presence of God, where nothing will trouble the perfection of our rest, where God will rest in the perfection of the blessing He has bestowed on His people.

“The great thought of the passage is, that there remains a rest (that is to say, that the believer is not to expect it here) without saying where it is. And it does not speak in detail of the character of the rest, because it leaves the door open to an earthly rest for the earthly people on the ground of the promises, although to Christian partakers of the heavenly calling God’s rest is evidently a heavenly one” (Synopsis of the Bible).

The argument and exhortation of Heb 4:3-11 is therefore easily understood. God had rested in creation on the seventh day from all His work. But that rest was broken and is also the type of another rest of God to come. Those who believe not cannot enter into that coming rest and it is shown that Joshua (Heb 4:8, not Jesus, but Joshua) and the rest in Canaan is not the true rest of God, for if it had been why would David, long after Joshua, have spoken of it again? Nor has this rest come now for the people of God; it is still in the future. A Sabbath-keeping remaineth for the people of God. We are on the road toward it, beset by dangers and difficulties as Israel was when passing through the wilderness. And therefore the exhortation to be diligent to enter into that rest and not to be unbelieving and disobedient. Entrance into the rest is by faith. We who have believed do enter into rest. While the believer is assured of this future entrance into the rest of God, he also uses diligence and earnestness while on the way, watching and praying. True faith is evidenced by such a walk.

Heb 4:12-13

The Word of God and its divine living power is here introduced by the Holy Spirit. It is the method of God, to use His Word, to bring to light and judge the unbelief and workings of the heart. It judges everything in the heart which is not of Him. Its use, its constant use, is the supreme necessity of those who believe and are on the way to the rest of God, for it is His divine Word which brings us into God’s presence. It is a searching Word and under its power the conscience becomes aroused and the blessed and needed work of self-judgment begins. Life, power and omniscience, three great attributes of God, are here given to His Word. The Word also gives power and spiritual energy.

(“Soul and spirit” as thus named together can only be the two parts of the immaterial nature of man; which Scripture, in spite of what many think, everywhere clearly distinguishes from one another. The soul is the lower, sensitive, instinctive, emotional part, which, where not, as in man, penetrated with the light of the spirit, is simply animal; and which also, where man is not in the power of the Spirit of God, will still gravitate towards this. The spirit is intelligent and moral, that which knows human things (1Co 2:11). In the “natural man,” which is really the psychic man, the man soulled (1Co 2:14), conscience, with its recognition of God, is in abeyance, and the mind itself becomes earthly. Important enough it is, therefore, to divide between “soul and spirit.” “Joints and marrow” convey to us the difference between the external and the internal, the outward form and the essence hidden in it” Numerical Bible.)

III. CHRIST AS PRIEST IN THE HEAVENLY SANCTUARY

CHAPTERS 4:14-10

The Great High-Priest (4:14-16)

With this statement the main section of the Epistle begins, and the great theme, the priesthood of Christ, is introduced. This section covers six chapters, ending with the tenth. Here we learn that Christ, the true priest, has passed through the heavens and is now in a heavenly sanctuary, the way into which His own work has blessedly opened. The different contrasts with the priests and sacrifices of Judaism, the old covenant and the new, are made in these chapters. The concluding verses of the fourth chapter one might say, contain all the truth of His priesthood which the succeeding chapters develop and expand.

He is the great high priest who is passed through the heavens. He has entered heaven itself, the third heaven, the holiest. The earthly tabernacle in which Aaron and his successors ministered had three parts. Through these Aaron passed as he entered into the holiest and these parts are typical of the heavenly things. Christ also passed through, but not through the places made by hands--He passed through the heavens and into the holiest. “Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figure of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (9:24). And He who passed through the heavens is Jesus, the Son of God; He who was made a little lower than the angels and after His sacrificial death arose, is now clothed with a glorified human body in the presence of God. His priestly ministry there is in behalf of His people. He is, as high priest, touched with the feeling of our infirmities; He was in all points tempted as we are, apart from sin. (“Yet without sin” is an incorrect translation and is responsible for the very erroneous teaching that our Lord, while He did not sin, might have sinned. It was absolutely impossible for Him to sin, for He is the Son of God and God cannot sin.) He lived on earth and passed through life; He suffered and was tempted; He experienced all the trials His people have to pass through in their lives and infinitely more than His saints can ever suffer, and therefore He sympathizes with all our infirmities. In all the difficulties, perplexities, trials and sorrows, the saint of God finds perfect sympathy in Him as priest. His heart filled with that love which passeth knowledge, is touched, beyond our finite comprehension, with the feeling of our infirmities.

As to sin, temptation from within, the lust of an evil heart, He knew absolutely nothing. He knew no sin. He was tempted in all things, apart from sin. Sin, therefore, is excluded. Nor does a child of God desire sympathy with indwelling sin. It must be judged, put into the place of death, and not sympathized with. And this fact that He is the great High Priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities, our weaknesses and our trials; the knowledge that He, who is exalted in glory, concerns Himself about us and our trials down here, gives encouragement to hold fast our confession. He will not leave, nor forsake, nor fail His saints.

We have evil temptations from within; Christ had none. Temptation from sin was absolutely incompatible with His holy person. By a miracle he was even as to humanity exempt from the taint of evil. It is of holy temptations this Epistle treats, not of our unholy ones. The Epistle of James distinguishes them very definitely in Chapter 1. Compare Jas 1:2, Jas 1:12, on the one hand, and Jas 1:13-15 on the other. We know the latter too well. Jesus knew. But He knew the former as no other before or since. He was in all things tempted according to likeness, i.e. with us, with this infinite difference ‘apart from sin.’ He knew no sin. He is therefore the more-- not the less--able to sympathize with us. For sin within, even if not yielded to, blinds the eye, and dulls the heart, and hinders from unreserved occupation with the trials of others” (J.N. Darby.)

And while we are not told to go to this great High Priest (He is constantly occupying Himself about us) we are told to come boldly to the throne of grace. We look to the Lord Jesus Christ, trust His love and sympathy, and knowing that He is there we can go with boldness to the throne of grace. And there we find all we need.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb 4:1-11

Fear and Rest.

I. The worldly man neither fears nor loves God. He sometimes imagines he loves God, because he is not afraid, because he is not awed by the holy majesty of God, and does not tremble at the righteous condemnation of the law. The soul which is roused and convinced of sin fears God. This fear, created by the Spirit, has in it already, though concealed and feeble, elements of trust and affection. There is in it, as there is in repentance, a longing after the peace of God, a desire to be brought into harmony and fellowship with Him. There is in this fear, although dread and anxiety about self may predominate, reverence, conviction of sin, sorrow, prayer.

II. It is because we know the Father, it is because we are redeemed by the precious blood of the Saviour, it is as the children of God and as the saints of Christ, that we are to pass our earthly pilgrimage in fear. This is not the fear of bondage, but the fear of adoption; not the fear which dreads condemnation, but the fear of those who are saved, and whom Christ hath made free.

III. The believer has rest, now on earth, and afterwards in glory. Resting in Christ, he labours to enter into the perfect rest of eternity. We enjoy rest in Christ by faith. But the perfect enjoyment of rest is still in the future. There remaineth a sabbatism for the people of God. Believers will enter into rest after their earthly pilgrimage, labour, and conflict, and the whole creation will share in the liberty and joy of the children of God. The substance and foretaste of this rest we have even now in Christ. But as Christ has entered into glory, so we are to be glorified together with Him at His coming. Then will be perfectly satisfied the great and deep-seated longing of our hearts for rest.

A. Saphir, Expository Lectures on the Hebrews, vol. i., p. 209.

References: Heb 4:1-13.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 315; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 459. Heb 4:2.—Expositor, 1st series, vol. vii., p. 205; Bishop Jackson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 497. Heb 4:3.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv., No. 866; Homilist, 1st series, vol. v., p. 38. Heb 4:5.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 112.

Heb 4:9

The Earthly Sabbath: a Type of the Heavenly.

I. The heavenly blessedness is Sabbath blessedness, because it includes rest. The fundamental idea of the Sabbath is rest; and this is the idea which the Apostle makes most prominent in this place, because he uses Sabbatism, interchangeably with the word which signifies cessation or repose. But it can never be granted that mere physical or animal rest was the sole or even chief thing enjoined by the Sabbath law under any dispensation. It was the rest of man in God, a rest like that of God, a rest which in man’s unfallen state was enjoyed by his working on the same plan and resting in the same spirit with God, and in his fallen state could only be recovered by his return in his whole being to harmony with God, and rest in Him. There is rest (1) from sin; (2) from sorrow and pain; (3) from labour and fatigue.

II. The heavenly blessedness is Sabbath blessedness, because it includes commemoration. From the beginning the Sabbath had a memorial character. Heaven will not be a mere repetition of the creation Sabbath, nor of the creation enlarged and endeared by such a providential sign or memorial of deliverance as made up the Exodus or Canaan Sabbath of the Old Testament. Nor will it be a mere repetition or prolongation of the resurrection Sabbath of the Christian Church. It will stand in the same relation with that Sabbath of the new creation, in which the Exodus Sabbath did to that of the old as from the first; this wonderful ordinance finds room for the oldest memories and for the most recent. Like some great pillar carved with successive inscriptions, or shield quartered with various arms, the Sabbath adds on, and yet loses nothing, so that the heavenly sabbatism enriches itself with all the spoils of the past.

III. The heavenly blessedness will be Sabbath blessedness, because it includes worship. The worship of the heavenly Sabbath will be distinguished (1) by gratitude; (2) by sympathy; (3) by consecration.

J. Cairns, Christ the Morning Star, p. 325.

References: Heb 4:9.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii., No. 133; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 18; A. Barry, Cheltenham College Sermons, p. 74; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons to English Congregations in India, p. 168; Bishop Barry, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 321; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 77.

Heb 4:9-10

Entrance into God’s Rest.

We have here:—

I. The Divine rest: "He hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His." (1) Rest belongs necessarily to the Divine nature. It is the deep tranquillity of a nature self-sufficing in its infinite beauty, calm in its everlasting strength, placid in its deepest joy, still in its mightiest energy; loving without passion, willing without decision or change, acting without effort, quiet and moving everything; making all things new, and itself everlasting; creating and knowing no diminution by the act; annihilating and knowing no loss, though the universe were barren and unpeopled. The great ocean of Divine nature which knows no storm nor billow is yet not a tideless and stagnant sea. God is changeless and ever tranquil, and yet He lives, wills, and acts. (2) There is the thought here of God’s tranquil ceasing from His work, because He has perfected it. (3) This Divine tranquillity is a rest that is full of work. Preservation is a continued creation.

II. The rest of God and Christ is the pattern of what our earthly life may become. Faith, which is the means of entering into rest, will, if only you cherish it, make your life no unworthy resemblance of His who, triumphant above, works for us, and, working for us, rests from all His toil.

III. This Divine rest is a prophecy of what our heavenly life shall surely be. The heaven of all spiritual natures is not idleness. Man’s delight is activity. The loving heart’s delight is obedience; the saved heart’s delight is grateful service. Heaven is the earthly life of a believer glorified and perfected. If here we by faith enter into the beginning of rest, yonder through death with faith, we shall enter into the perfection of it.

A. Maclaren, Sermons in Manchester, vol. i., p. 291.

References: Heb 4:11.—E. Cooper, Practical Sermons, vol. ii., p. 301; Homilist, 2nd series, vol. iv., p. 211; Homiletic Magazine vol. xiii., p. 111; E. Paxton Hood, Dark Sayings on a Harp, p. 369.

Heb 4:12-13

Life a Dialogue.

There is a Word of God to us; there is also a word of ours to God. The Divine word and the human. The word which speaks, and the word which answers and makes reply.

I. The Word of God. There are many such words. There is a word of God in nature. There is a word of God in providence. There is not sound only, but a voice in both of these; a voice implying a personality, and a voice presupposing an auditor. If the definition of "word" is intelligence communicating itself, here twice over is a word of God, and here is an ear to which it makes appeal. The word was a voice before it was a book. The living life wrote itself upon other lives; they, in turn, wrote it upon others, ere yet a page of gospel Scripture was written, on purpose that the distinction between letter and spirit might be kept ever fresh and vital; on purpose that the characteristic of the new revelation might never fade or be lost sight of, how that it is God speaking in His Son—God speaking, and God bidding man to make reply.

II. There is also a word of ours to God. The particular point in the view of the holy writer was that of accountability. God speaks in judgment, and we speak to give account. "With Him" directly and personally "we have to do." The two words of which the text speaks are not independent words. This conversation is not between two equals, either of whom must contribute his share to the instruction and the enjoyment of the meeting. The incommensurableness, in nature and dignity, of the two speakers, while it forbids not freedom in the inferior, forbids presumption, nay, precludes it as a tone and a feeling which it would jar upon, and jangle out of tune the very melody and harmony of the converse. The word of the man meets the word of his God on the strength of the Word made flesh, which is the reconciler and the harmoniser of the two. "I looked, and behold, a door opened in heaven, and a voice saying to me, Come up hither!"

C. J. Vaughan, University Sermons, p. 546.

Heb 4:12-16

I. The Word of God judges the Christian below. We are familiar with the Word of God. Like Israel, we possess the treasure in our country, in our families. Do we know that in possessing, reading, and knowing the Scriptures we are under a mighty, solemn and decisive influence, and that this Word judges us now, and will judge us at the last day? The Word is (1) living. It is the seed which appears insignificant, but which, if received in good ground, shows its vitality. Hence it is that by this Word souls are born again into eternal life. (2) The living Word is powerful and energetic. It springs up and grows while men are unconscious of its operation. It grows and energises in our thoughts and motives; it brings forth fruit in our words and actions; it impels to exertion, it sustains in trial. (3) The Word cannot be living and energetic without being also a sword, dividing and separating, with piercing and often painful sharpness, that which in our natural state lies together mixed and confused. Without a solemn awe and trembling at the Word of God, there is no true rest in Christ.

II. The Word judges us on earth, and we are humbled; the Lord Jesus represents us in heaven. He intercedes for us, He sympathises with us. We look from earth and self to the sanctuary above, and find there nothing but love, grace, sympathy, and fulness of blessings. He is our great High Priest. In the sanctuary of blessedness and glory Jesus, who was tempted in all things as we are, apart from sin, is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He remembers His earthly experience; He knows our frailty, the painfulness of the conflict, the weakness of the flesh. We are upheld according to His lovingkindness, according to the multitude of His tender mercies. Justified by His blood, we are now much more abundantly saved by His life. Our great High Priest in the highest glory is our righteousness and strength; He loves, He watches, He prays, He holds us fast, and we shall never perish.

A. Saphir, Expository Lectures on the Hebrews, vol. i., p. 232.

References: Heb 4:14.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiii., p. 229; Ibid., vol. xxx., p. 65; Ibid., Sermons, vol. ii., p. 89; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons and Addresses in Marlborough College, p. 115; W. Cunningham, Sermons, p. 284.

Heb 4:15

The Sympathy of Christ.

I. Few persons are aware of the extent to which the mind is influenced by sympathy. It may be doubted whether there was ever anything done in the world, greatly bad or greatly good, which did not owe itself, in part, to sympathy. When the ignorant multitude led in the meek and lowly man of Nazareth through the waving palms, with their unwearied "Hosannas!" till the excitement spread from street to street, and even children to the temple’s gate cried back, "Hosanna!" no person can question but that the popular fervour owed its rise, in a great measure, to no higher principle than sympathy. And when, four days afterwards, the very same voices, with rival fury, shouted, "Crucify Him!" it was little else than the same principle in another dress. And we all know, in the smallest circle, if you took away sympathy how little would be the sum of joy or sorrow that would remain; while, if but two kindred minds are left to act and re-act upon each other, there is scarcely the height of moral happiness, or the depth of moral suffering, to which both will not unconsciously arrive. On all sides there is nothing insulated in man. Now the gospel comes in to take hold of this deep and all-pervading principle of our nature, and to give it a higher and nobler reach.

II. When our blessed Lord, in His sojourn here, had gathered round His own heart all the trials, and all the infirmities, and all the tendernesses of man, then did He ascend into heaven, that He might carry them with Him to the throne of God. His ascension severed none of His sympathies. Every cord of brotherhood remained perfect between the Church and Christ.

III. It is not without a particular emphasis that, in immediate connection with this mention of Christ in His sympathy as the High Priest of His people, it is added that He was "yet without sin." Two thoughts lie in these words. The one is the qualification for sympathy. And here we would observe, that sympathy can never be separated from virtue. So that for the perfect sympathy there must be entire innocence. But in the mention that our sympathising Saviour was "without sin," we are taught that there is not only a qualification, but also a limit to His sympathy. It is evident that in the highest sense of the word we can sympathise only in that of which we have had experience. Christ in the flesh had experience of the consequence of sin, but not of the acts of sin: He bore an imputed guilt, but a real punishment.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 1874, p. 63.

The Sympathy of Christ.

Christ’s sympathy with penitents is perfect, because He is sinless; its perfection is the consequence of His perfect holiness. And for these reasons:—

I. First, because we find, even among men, that sympathy is more or less perfect, as the holiness of the person is more or less so. There is no real sympathy in men of a sensual, worldly, unspiritual life, unless we are to call that inferior fellow-feeling which ranks with our natural instincts, and is to be found also in the lower animals, by the name of sympathy. Sin is essentially a selfish thing. We may almost measure our advance in the life of God by the tenderness of our feeling towards sinners. And if we may venture to dwell on thoughts beyond our probation, may we not believe that this law prevails to perfect the mutual sympathy of those who are in the higher state of separation from this evil world? Of all the members of Christ’s mystical body, they must mutually sympathise most perfectly who are most free from the taint of evil.

II. And from this our thoughts ascend to Him who is all-perfect; who, being from everlasting very God, was for our sakes made very man, that He might unite us wholly to Himself. Above and beyond all sympathy is that of our High Priest. It stands alone in its incommunicable perfection. Let us see how we may draw comfort from this thought. Those who have sinned may go to Him in a perfect confidence that He is able to be touched with a feeling of their infirmities. We have something in Him to which we may appeal. (1) We may plead with Him on His own experience of the weakness of our humanity. (2) We may appeal to His experience of the sorrow and shame which come by sin upon mankind.

III. Lastly, let us so live as not to forfeit His sympathy. It is ours only so long as we strive and pray to be made like Him. Love of the world casts out the love of Christ.

H. E. Manning, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 179

Heb 4:15

I. The soul of man in this passage through the years of time, which is the preface, the ante-chamber, the school, the exercise-ground of an eternal existence, has to go through temptation. Man comes into life fitted and equipped to meet his trial, to meet temptation, as he comes fitted and equipped to provide for his bodily wants, to subdue the earth, to live in society, to develop and improve the marvellous endowments of his nature. The soul comes with reason, with conscience, with knowledge, with will, with grace; and as the day goes on the question is ever presenting itself, How shall it use that great gift of will? The beginning of the history of the first man, the prelude and figure of what was to follow, was the history of a trial, a temptation, a defeat. The first scene in the victory of the Second Man was a temptation, a victory, the type and firstfruit of what man might hope for. The Bible opens with man ensnared and vanquished; it closes with the great sevenfold promise to him that overcometh, and with the vision of the glory of those who overcame. And what is all that is written in it, between the first page and the last, but the record of how, to men and to nations, there came the day of opportunity, the day of visitation, the day of proof, and how that day was met, and how they bore themselves in it, and what were its issues?

II. What we see in the great lives in the Bible finds place in the most commonplace of our modern lives. He was "in all points tempted like as we are." We may turn the words round, and say with all reverence that like as He was tempted, so are we, even the humblest among us, tempted, tried, according to the measure of what we can bear, but as truly and with all depending on the issue. The hour is coming which must soon decide it—betray, make manifest, what has been going on, not only in the great storms of adversity and passion, those great critical decisions of will for or against what is right, to which we often confine the name of temptations, but in those secret, undisclosed, prolonged workings of choice, of effort, of self-surrender, which prepare men for what they do in public, and which are as real and serious as what they do in public. We rise in the morning, and the day will try us, show what we are, touch some spring, some dormant motive deep down in our nature which reveals the truth about it to one who sees us; and as we go through each day’s proof and trial, we are fitting ourselves for the event of the trial of tomorrow, and the current of our life and character is set by unperceived and insensible influences either towards that eternal life which God has prepared for man, or towards that eternal death from which, for the soul, there is no rising.

R. W. Church, Penny Pulpit, new series, No. 704.

References: Heb 4:15.—S. Martin, Sermons, p. 157; J. R. Macduff, Communion Memories, p. 194; C. Stanford, Central Truths, p. 122; S. Rawson, Church of England Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 192; Ibid., vol. x., p. 409; W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 321; Ibid., vol. iv., p. 312; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. xii., p. 88; Ibid., vol. xiv., p. 77; Ibid., vol. xv., p. 67; Ibid., vol. xxviii., p. 422; J. B. Heard, Ibid., vol. xx., p. 120.

Heb 4:15-16

The Sympathetic Saviour.

We have her—

I. Christ’s power of sympathy asserted. Sympathy was the heritage which earth gave Him to enrich His heavenly state.

II. The conditions guaranteeing the power. (1) His exposure to temptation. Just as the light becomes tinged with the hues of the glass it passes through, so the unfathomable love of the Son of God becomes sympathetic towards men as it passes to them through the human heart, steeped in sorrow and agonised by the sufferings of the Son of man. Christ’s exposure to temptations gave His love the quality of sympathy. (2) The other condition of His power of sympathy was His freedom from sin, notwithstanding His exposure to its temptations. The temptations of our Saviour were no shams. He was tempted like as we are. His temptations were as real to Him as ours are to us. Temptations to sin are of two kinds, direct and indirect; the first being solicitations, and the second provocations to sin. Christ endured both kinds. It is a belief with the people of the district that the River Dee passes through the whole length of Bala Lake without mingling with its waters. Its current, they affirm, can be clearly traced, marked off by its clearer, brighter waters. So Christ’s life, passing through the lake, so to speak of earthly existence, is clearly defined. It is one bright, holy, spotless stream from beginning to end—a life without sin. The dark waters of temptation and sin pressed round Him; but such was the force of will and power of holiness by which He was characterised, that not a drop was permitted to mingle with the pure stream of His life. He passed through unsullied.

III. Christ’s power of sympathy used as an encouragement to seek the blessings provided for us. The writer notifies (1) the blessings we are urged to seek—"mercy and grace in every time of need." (2) The place whence they are dispensed—"the throne of grace." (3) The spirit of confidence in which, in view of the assurance furnished to us of Christ’s power of sympathy, these blessings should be sought. The boldness is the confidence inspired by a living, all-absorbing conviction of the deep and yearning sympathy of Him who occupies the throne. With such an assurance, surely any shrinking hesitancy to come and seek is unreasonable and sinful. The word rendered boldly here may, with equal propriety, be rendered joyfully. So, then, we are right to seek mercy and grace with joy. The Christian man should come with joy to draw the grace which is to quench his soul-consuming thirst, and sustain the Divine life quickened by the Divine mercy in his soul.

A. J. Parry, Phases of Christian Truth, p. 233.

Heb 4:16

I. We have here the idea of majesty. God is seated upon a throne. His estate is royal. To Him belongs kingly authority. He is to be approached as a monarch, with reverence and worship. The royal majesty of Jehovah rests not only on His power, but still more on His perfection, especially His moral perfection.

II. We have here the idea of sovereignty. The sovereign occupant of a throne acts not of constraint, nor merely as limited by law or promise, nor always as his subjects may desire or request; but in proportion as he is a sovereign he acts according to his own conclusions as to what is wise, and right, and befitting. Absolute sovereignty cannot safely be trusted to a creature. But to God absolute sovereignty belongs. In coming to God, then, we must bear in mind that we are coming to a sovereign.

III. We have here the idea of wealth or abundance. Plenty beseems the royal estate. Wealth properly surrounds a throne. Riches and honour are the fit appurtenance of a crown. In this respect the throne of God has its due accompaniment. To Him belongs the wealth of the universe. His kingdom ruleth over all. It is the privilege of the believer to remember this when he approaches God in prayer.

IV. We have here the idea of liberality or bountifulness. Great wealth does not necessarily imply great beneficence. It is only where the possessor is of a kind and generous spirit that his wealth becomes a blessing to others. Now in this respect God commends Himself to our admiring and grateful confidence. His generosity is as boundless as His wealth. Let us cultivate just views of God as at once a King and a Father—a King almighty and glorious, and a Father full of compassion and tenderness.

W. Lindsay Alexander, Sermons, p. 287.

References: Heb 4:16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 1024; R. Glover, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 88; H. W. Beecher, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 143; Homiletic Magazine, vol. ix., p. 329. Heb 5:1, Heb 5:2.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiii., p. 229.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4:1-2 The author transitions to the promise that the faithful will enter God’s rest and exhorts his listeners to take this promise seriously. Hearing is not enough: It must be combined with faith.

4:1 To fear God means to experience an appropriate reverence, even awe, for God and his will. It would be the worst of tragedies to fail to experience what God has promised.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Heb 4:1. Φοβηθῶμεν, let us fear) Since many have fallen, there is cause for fear.—καταλειπομένης ἐπαγγελίας) Since a promise has been left and reserved for us, after the others have neglected it. The same word is found, in the same sense, Rom 11:4. A kindred verb is ἀπολείπεται, is left, remains, Heb 4:6; Heb 4:9, ch. Heb 10:26. This expression, interwoven with the exhortation, is a proposition which is proved, Heb 4:3. The verb ἐπαγγέλλομαι, I promise, is very often found in this epistle, as well as the noun, ἐπαγγελία, a promise. In this chapter the apostle is speaking of the rest of eternal life; for to-day still continues, when (since) there remains the danger of falling, if we give way to hardness of heart. To-day, well improved, terminates in rest. Rest is that which, once obtained, is not again lost. We now (comp. ch. Heb 2:5, note) are urged to look still further. Foretaste in this life is not denied: full rest is. All foretastes of rest are evidently small, when compared with things above.—δοκῇ τις, any one should seem) Euphemism. Every man should so run, that it may be said of him, without any appearance of the contrary, This man runs. Δοκεῖν, in this passage, ὑπόδειγμα, an example, Heb 4:11, and ἐνδείκνυσθαι, to show, ch. Heb 6:11, are conjugates: δείκω, pret. mid. δέδοκα, thence δοκέω, and the ideas agree; for he who shows a desire does not seem to remain; he who seems to remain is an example of obstinacy.—ὑστερηκέναι, to have failed) to have come short. The same word occurs, Heb 12:15. The examples, Heb 12:17; Num 14:40; Luk 13:25: ὑστερεῖν ποιῆσαι τὸ πάσχα, to fail to keep the passover, Num 9:13. Ὑστερεῖν, with Plato, at the beginning of the Gorgias, is to come after the festival is ended.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb_4:1. Exhortation to the readers, deduced from the historic fact, Heb_3:15-19, and softened by the form of community with the readers adopted by the author, which, however, is involuntarily abandoned again at the close of the verse.

Φοβηθῶμεν οὖν] Let us therefore be apprehensive.

Indication not of the mere being afraid, but of the earnest endeavour, based upon the fear of coming short of the proposed goal. Calvin: Hic nobis commendatur timor, non qui fidei certitudinem excutiat, sed tantam incutiat sollicitudinem, ne securi torpeamus. Metuendum ergo, non quia trepidare aut diffidere nos oporteat quasi incertos de exitu, sed ne Dei gratiae desimus.

καταλειπομένης … αὐτοῦ] is made by Cramer and Ernesti dependent on ὑστερηκέναι, against which, however, the anarthrous participle in itself suffices to decide. It is parenthetical, and καταλειπομένης with emphasis preposed: while there yet remains promise of entering into His rest. But a promise remains so long as it has not yet received its fulfilment. For with its fulfilment it ceases to be a promise, loses its existenceinasmuch as the character of the future essential to it has then become present. Erroneously do Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Beza, Strigel, Hyperius, Estius, Schlichting, S. Schmidt, Limborch, Braun, Semler, Carpzov, al., explain: by neglect or non-observance of the promise. For, although καταλείπειν can signify that (comp. Act_6:2; Bar_4:1), yet in that case the article τῆς could not have been wanting before ἐπαγγελίας and certainly also an active (καταλείψας τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν) would have been chosen in place of the passive participle. Finally, against the latter explanation, and in favour of that above given, pleads the ἀπολείπεται, Heb_4:6; Heb_4:9.

αὐτοῦ] not of Christ (Rambach, Chr. F. Schmid), but of God. This is required by the connection, alike with that which precedes (Heb_3:11; Heb_3:18) as with that which follows (Heb_4:3-5; Heb_4:10).

ἡ κατάπανσις] the repose and blessedness which belong to God Himself, and which shall become the portion of believing Christians in the epoch of consummation beginning with the coming again of Christ.

δοκῇ ὑστερηκέναι] should appear [be seen] to have come short, i.e. to have failed of attaining to the κατάπαυσις. The infinitive perfect characterizes that which, with the dawn of the Parousia, has become an historically completed, definite fact. δοκῇ ὑστερηκέναι, however, does not stand pleonastically in place of the bare ὑστερῇ or ὑστερήσῃ (Michaelis, Carpzov, Abresch, al.), nor is it placed because, in connection with the question whether and where the ὑστερηκέναι, exists as a concluded, and therefore irreparable, fact, the human perception does not extend beyond a mere videtur (Kurtz); for it is not here a case of a question to be decided by men still living upon earth. It serves rather, as the videatur often added in Latin, to give a more refined and delicate expression to the discourse. Comp. 1Co_11:16. Erroneously, however, Delitzsch, that in δοκῇ there is contained not only a softening, but, at the same time, also an accentuation of the expression; the sense being: they are to take earnest heed, lest haply it should even seem that this or the other has fallen short. For the augmenting even is only arbitrarily imported.

Grotius explains δοκῇ by: ne cui vestrum libeat, for which, however, the construction with the dative (δοκῶ μοι) would have been required, and to which, moreover, the infinitive perfect does not lend itself. Schöttgen finally, Baumgarten, Schulz, Paulus, Stengel, Ebrard, and Hofmann take δοκῇ in the sense of opinetur. The author is thus supposed to be warning the readers against the delusion that they were too late, i.e. that they lived at a time when all the promises had long been fulfilled, and no further means of salvation was to be expected. But the linguistic expression in itself is decisive against this interpretation. The author could not then have put φοβηθώμεν οὖν, μήποτε, but must have written μὴ οὖν φοβηθῶμεν ὑστερηκέναι, or something similar. Moreover, the whole historic situation of the readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews is out of keeping with this view. It was not therein a question of consoling and calming those who still despaired of being able at all to attain to salvation, but of the warning correction of those who were wanting in the assurance of conviction that faith in Christ is the sufficient and only way to salvation. Only a warning to the readers, not by their own behaviour, like the fathers, to incur the loss of salvation, can therefore be contained in Heb_4:1.

Heb_4:1-13. Thus, then, the promise of entering into Gods rest is still unfulfilled. The promise yet avails for the Christians. Let, therefore, the readers be careful, lest they, too, by disobedience and unbelief forfeit the proffered salvation.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb 4:1 . φοβηθῶμεν οὖν , “let us then fear,” the writer speaks in the name of the living generation, “lest haply, there being left behind and still remaining a promise to enter [ ἐπαγγελίας εἰσελθεῖν ; cf. ὥρα ἀπιέναι , Plato, Apol. , p. 42] into His ( i.e. , God’s) rest, any of you (not ἡμῶν ) should fancy that he has come too late for it; δοκῇ ὑστερηκέναι . Of these words there are three linguistically possible translations.

1. Should seem to have fallen short.

2. Should be judged to have fallen short.

3. Should think that he has fallen short or come too late.

The argument of the passage favours the third reading, for it aims at strengthening the belief that the promise does remain and that the readers are not born too late to enjoy it. “Gloomy imaginations of failure were rife among the Hebrews” (Rendall). These persecuted Christians who had expected to find the fulfilment of all promise in Christ, found it hard to believe that “rest” was attainable in Him. The writer proceeds therefore to prove that this promise is left and is still open. καὶγάρ ἐσμεν εὐηγγελισμένοι .… “For indeed we, even as also they, have had a gospel preached to us.” We should have expected an expressed ἡμεῖς , but its suppression shows us that the writer wishes to emphasise εὐηγγελ . To us as to them it is a gospel that is preached; and the καθάπερ κἀκεῖνοι , “even as they also had,” brings out the fact that under the promise of a land in which to rest, the Israelites who came out of Egypt were brought in contact with the redeeming grace and favour of God. The expression reflects significant light on the inner meaning of all God’s guidance of Israel’s history. They received this rich promise laden with God’s intention to bless them, “but the word which they heard did them no good, because in those who heard, it was not mixed with faith”. [For συγκεκ . see the Phaedo , p. 95A. The accusative is best attested (see critical note), but the sense “not mixed by faith with those who heard,” i.e. , Caleb and Joshua, is most improbable.] Belief, then, is everything. In proof of which our own experience may be cited: “For we are entering into the rest, we who have believed”. This clause confirms both the statements of the previous verse: “we have the promise as well as they,” for we are entering into the rest [note the emphatic position of εἰσερχόμεθα ]; and “the word failed them because of their lack of faith,” for it is our faith [ οἱ πιστεύσαντες ] which is carrying us into the rest. This fact that we are entering in by faith is in accordance with the utterance quoted already in Heb 3:11 , καθὼς εἴρηκεν , Ὡς ὤμοσα … “I sware in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world”. This quotation confirms the first clause of the verse, because it proves two things: first, that God had a rest, and second, that He intended that man should rest with Him, because it was “in His wrath,” justly excited against the unbelieving ( cf. Heb 3:9-10 ), that He sware they should not enter in. Had it not been God’s original purpose and desire that men should enter into His rest, it could not be said that “in wrath” He excluded some. Their failure to secure rest was not due to the non-existence of any rest, for God’s works were finished when the world was founded. This again is confirmed by Scripture, εἴρηκεν γάρ που , viz. , in Gen 2:2 ( cf. Exo 20:11 ; Exo 31:17 ), where it is said that after the six days of creation God rested on the seventh day from all His works. That God has a rest is also stated in the ninety-fifth Psalm, for these words “they shall not enter into my rest” prove that God had a rest. The emphasis in this second quotation (Heb 4:5 ) is on the word μοι .

Heb 3:1 to Heb 4:13 . Chapters 3 and 4 as far as Heb 3:13 , form one paragraph. The purpose of the writer in this passage, as in the whole Epistle, is to encourage his readers in their allegiance to Christ and to save them from apostacy by exhibiting Christ as the final mediator. This purpose he has in the first two chapters sought to achieve by comparing Christ with those who previously mediated between God and man, the prophets who spoke to the fathers, and the angels who mediated the law and were supposed even to regulate nature. He now proceeds to compare Jesus with him round whose name gathered all that revelation and legislation in which the Jew trusted. Moses was the ideal mediator, faithful in all God’s house. Underlying even the priesthood of Aaron was the word of God to Moses. And yet, free channel of God’s will as Moses had been, he was but a servant and in the nature of things could not so perfectly sympathise with and interpret the will of Him whose house and affairs he administered as the Son who Himself was lord of the house.

He therefore bids his readers encourage themselves by the consideration of His trustworthiness, His competence to accomplish all God’s will with them and bring them to their appointed rest. But this suggests to him the memorable breakdown of faith in the wilderness generation of Israelites. And he forthwith strengthens his admonition to trust Christ by adding the warning which was so legibly written in the fate of those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses, but whose faith failed through the greatness of the way. It was not owing to any incompetence or faithlessness in Moses that they died in the wilderness and failed to reach the promised land. It was “because of their unbelief” (Heb 3:19 ). Moses was faithful in all God’s house, in everything required for the guidance and government of God’s people and for the fulfilment of all God’s purpose with them: but even with the most trustworthy leader much depends on the follower, and entrance to the fulness of God’s blessing may be barred by the unbelief of those who have heard the promise. The promise was not mixed with faith in them to whom it came. But what of those who were led in by Joshua? Even they did not enter into God’s rest. That is certain, for long after Joshua’s time God renewed His promise, saying “To-day if ye hear His voice, harden not your hearts”. Entrance into the land, then, did not exhaust the promise of God; there remains over and above that entrance, a rest for the people of God, for “without us,” i.e. , without the revelation of Christ the fathers were not perfect, their best blessings, such as their land, being but types of better things to come. Therefore let us give diligence to enter into that rest, for the word of God’s promise is searching; and, by offering us the best things in fellowship with God, it discloses our real disposition and affinities.

The passage falls into two parts, the former (Heb 3:1-6 ) exhibiting the trustworthiness of Christ, the latter (Heb 3:7 to Heb 4:13 ) emphasising the unbelief and doom of the wilderness generation.

Διὸ , “wherefore,” since it is only by holding fast our confidence to the end, that we continue to be the house of Christ and enjoy His faithful oversight, cf. Heb 3:14 . Διὸ was probably intended to be immediately followed by βλέπετε (Heb 3:12 ) “wherefore take heed,” but a quotation is introduced from Psa 95 which powerfully enforces the βλέπετε . Or it may be that διὸ connects with μὴ σκληρύνητε , but the judicious bracketing of the quotation by the A.V. is to be preferred. The quotation is introduced by words which lend weight to it, καθὼς λέγει τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον , a form of citation not found elsewhere in exactly the same terms, but in Heb 10:15 we find the similar form μαρτυρεῖ δὲ ἡμῖν τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγ . Cf. also Heb 9:8 . Agabus uses it of his own words (Act 21:11 ). In 1Ti 4:1 we have τὸ δὲ Πνεῦμα ῥητῶς λέγει cf. Revelation 2-3. “It is a characteristic of the Epistle that the words of Holy Scripture are referred to the Divine Author, not to the human instrument” (Westcott). The Psalm (95) is ascribed to David in Heb 4:7 as in the LXX it is called αἶνος ᾠδῆς τῷ Δαυίδ , although in the Hebrew it is not so ascribed. The quotation contains Heb 3:7-11 .

Σήμερον , “to-day” is in the first instance, the “to-day” present to the writer of the psalm, and expresses the thought that God’s offers had not been withdrawn although rejected by those to whom they had long ago been made. But Delitzsch adduces passages which show that σήμερον in this psalm was understood by the synagogue to refer to the second great day of redemption. “The history of redemption knows but of two great turning points, that of the first covenant and that of the new” (Davidson). And what the writer to the Hebrews fears is that the second announcement of promise may be disregarded as the first. Force is lent to his fears by the fact that the forty years of the Messiah’s waiting from 30 70 A.D., when Jerusalem was to be destroyed, were fast running out. The fate of the exasperating Israelites in the wilderness received an ominous significance in presence of the obduracy of the generation which had heard the voice of Christ Himself.

ἐὰν τῆς φωνῆς αὐτοῦ ἀκούσητε , “if ye shall hear His voice” (R.V., Vaughan); not “if ye will hearken to His voice.” The sense is, “If God should be pleased, after so much inattention on our part, to speak again, see that ye give heed to Him”.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chap.

4:1-13.] In the Son, Israel enters into the true rest of God. On the mingling of the hortatory form with the progress of the argument, see the summary at ch. 3:1.

1.] Let us fear therefore (Bleek remarks that the words φοβεῖσθαι μή, commonly used,—see Act 27:29: 2Co 11:3; 2Co 12:20: Gal 4:11,—of fear of something happening, here include also the desire to avoid that contingency. It might have been σπουδάσωμεν, as ver. 11, or βλέπωμεν μήποτε, as ch. 3:12, or ἐπισκοπῶμεν, as 12:15. But the word seems purposely chosen to express the fear and trembling, Php 2:12, with which every servant of God, however free from slavish terror and anxiety, ought to work out his salvation) lest (on μήποτε as only indefinite, not expressing, ‘lest at any time,’ see above on ch. 3:12), a promise being still left us (notice the present—not καταλειφθείσης. On the force of this present, very much of the argument rests. Many Commentators, as Erasm., Luther, Calv., Est., Schlichting, Limborch, al., have mistaken this participle to mean “derelicta seu neglecta per infidelitatem ac diffidentiam pollicitatione divina” (Est.). The term καταλείπειν ἐπαγγελίαν might perhaps bear this meaning, which however is not substantiated as to the verb by Act 6:2, nor as to the object of the verb by Baruch 4:1. But it is decisive against this interpretation, 1. that the participle is present, not past, which it certainly in that case must have been: 2. that ἀπολείπεται in vv. 6, 9 takes up again this word: 3. that the article would be wanted before καταλειπ., or it would stand τῆς ἐπαγ. τῆς κατ. The meaning given above, ‘to leave behind for others,’ so that καταλείπεσθαι = ‘superesse,’ is common enough. Bleek gives many examples: e. g. Xen. Cyr. iii. 1. 6, καλὸν … κ. αὐτὸν ἐλεύθερον εἶναι, κ. παισὶν ἐλευθερίαν καταλιπεῖν: and often in Polybius, καταλείπεται ἐλπίς: and οὐ μὴν κακῶν αἱρέσεως καταλειπομένης: see Raphel.

Again, as to construction, some, as Cramer and Ernesti, make this genitive governed by the verb ὑστερηκέναι. But against this the want of the article is, if not decisive, a very strong presumption. Our Writer would certainly have expressed this τῆς ἐπ. τῆς κατ. It remains then to take it as a gen. absolute, representing the present matter of fact) of entering (compare ἐξουσίαν περιάγειν, 1Co 9:5: ὁρμὴ ὑβρίσαι, Act 14:5: and such expressions as ὥρα ἀπιέναι, κωλύματα μὴ αὐξηθῆναι. The more usual construction would be ἐπαγγελία τοῦ εἰσελθ. See Winer, in reff.) into His rest (it is to be observed, that in the argument in this chapter, the Writer departs from the primary sense of the words κατάπαυσίν μου in the Psalm, and lays stress on αὐτοῦ, making it God’s rest, the rest into which God has entered: see below on ver. 10. And this is very important as to the nature of the rest in question. So Estius: “Hic per requiem promissam non intelligit terram Chanaan de qua secundum literam Psalmus locutus est, sed patriam cœlestem, quam illa terrena quies mystice significavit.” Of course all references of the rest spoken of to the period after the destruction of Jerusalem, as Hammond (see Whitby’s note against him), or to the cessation of Levitical ordinances, as Michaelis (on Peirce: he does not however repeat it in his other works), are inadequate and out of the question), any one of you (although the communicative form has been used before in φοβηθῶμεν, the second person is here returned to; and of purpose. A similar change is found in ch. 10:24, 25: and in Rom 14:13. The reading ἡμῶν (mss. 5. 56 vulg.-sixt. Thdrt.) is too obvious an alteration to what might be expected, to come into the text except on overwhelming authority, which it has not) appear (see below) to have fallen short of it (i. e. be found, when the great trial of all shall take place, to have failed of, = to have no part in,—the promise. So δοκῇ is, as so many both of ancients and moderns have taken it, a mild term, conveying indeed a sterner intimation behind it. The Latin will bear the same idiom—“ne quis videatur non assecutus esse”—expressed without the softening word, “ne quis evadat non assecutus.” So, but not exactly, Thl.: ἱλαρώτερον δὲ καὶ ἀνεπαχθέστερον τὸν λόγον ποιῶν οὐκ εἶπε· μὴ ὑστερήσῃ, ἀλλά· μὴ δοκῇ ὑστερηκέναι. I say, not exactly; for I should rather say that δοκῇ ὑστερηκέναι is used, not for ὑστερήσῃ, which would rather require the present, δοκῇ ὑστερεῖν, but for ἐλεγχθῇ, or φανερωθῇ, ὑστερηκώς. We thus fully account for the perfect, which almost all the Commentators who take δοκῇ as pleonastic or as softening, have not attempted, or have failed to do. Another and wholly different interpretation of δοκῇ (and indeed of ὑστερηκέναι) has been given by Schöttgen, Baumgarten, Schulz, Wahl, Bretschneider (both under ὑστερέω), Paulus, and recently taken up and defended with much spirit, and, as is his wont, with no little confidence, by Ebrard: “lest any of you think that he has come too late for it”—i. e. should suppose that, all the promises having been now fulfilled, he has been born too late to have any share in this one. As far as mere usage of individual words is concerned, this interpretation might stand: for δοκεῖν has often, and in our Epistle, this meaning, e. g. ch. 10:29, πόσῳ δοκεῖτε κ.τ.λ. And ὑστερεῖν has this meaning—ὑστερήσαντες τῆς μάχης, Polyb.; ὑστεροῦν τῆς βοηθείας, Diod. Sic. p. 391 c; ὑστερεῖν τῆς πατρίδος, Xen. Ages. ii. 1. And this view also seems favoured by the perfect ὑστερηκέναι. As indeed against the general idea of the pleonastic δοκῇ, the perfect would be a strong argument for it. But it is very difficult to persuade oneself that it suits either the mode of expression, or the context. For if this were the object of the caution, why put so prominent a solemn φοβηθῶμεν? would not the exhortation rather have been expressed in a reassuring form, μὴ οὖν τις ᾖ (or ἔστω) φόβος, or μὴ οὖν φοβηθῶμεν, or μὴ δοκῶμεν, or the like? Again, what end would so solemn a caution serve, if merely to explain to the Hebrew converts the fact that the promise had yet a fulfilment waiting for them? This fact indeed the Writer does prove in the subsequent verses; but it is introduced with a καὶ γάρ, and only subserves the purpose already enounced in this verse, that of awakening in them a fear lest their unbelief should be found in the end to have excluded them from the participation of that promise.

The meaning here assigned to ὑστερέω, that of falling short of, is quite borne out: cf. Thucyd. iii. 31, ὁ δʼ οὐδὲ ταῦτα ἐνεδέχετο, ἀλλὰ τὸ πλεῖστον τῆς γνώμης εἶχεν, ἐπειδὴ τῆς Μιτυλήνης ὑστερήκει (since he had failed of Mitylene), ὅτι τάχιστα τῇ Πελοποννήσῳ πάλιν προσμιξαι: Jos. Antt. ii. 2. 1, οὐδενὸς ὅλως ὑστερεῖν. For the usage of δοκέω, the Commentators quote Jos. Antt. ii. 6.9, οὐδʼ ὧν εἰς ἐμὲ δοκεῖτε ἁμαρτάνειν, ἔτι μνημονεύω: which is a fair instance, notwithstanding Ebrard’s nur auf eine stelle des schmülstigen Josephus: and in Latin, Cic. de Off. iii. 2. 6, “ut tute tibi defuisse videare.” The usage in Gal 2:9, though not identical, is not very dissimilar, carrying the force of softening the verb to which it is attached).

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER IV.

As the Christian rest is to be obtained by faith, we should

beware of unbelief lest we lose it, as the Hebrews did theirs,

1.

The reason why they were not brought into the rest promised to

them, 2.

The rest promised to the Hebrews was a type of that promised to

Christians, 3-10.

Into this rest we should earnestly labour to enter, 11.

A description of the word of God, 12, 13.

Jesus is our sympathetic High Priest, 15.

Through him we have confidence to come to God, 16.

NOTES ON CHAP. IV.

Verse 1. Let us therefore fear] Seeing the Israelites lost the rest of Canaan, through obstinacy and unbelief, let us be afraid lest we come short of the heavenly rest, through the same cause.

Should seem to come short of it.] Lest any of us should actually come short of it; i.e. miss it. See the note on the verb δοκειν, to seem, Lu 8:18. What the apostle had said before, relative to the rest, might be considered as an allegory; here he explains and applies that allegory, showing that Canaan was a type of the grand privileges of the Gospel of Christ, and of the glorious eternity to which they lead.

Come short] The verb υστερειν is applied here metaphorically; it is an allusion, of which there are many in this epistle, to the races in the Grecian games: he that came short was he who was any distance, no matter how small, behind the winner. Will it avail any of us how near we get to heaven, if the door be shut before we arrive? How dreadful the thought, to have only missed being eternally saved! To run well, and yet to permit the devil, the world, or the flesh, to hinder in the few last steps! Reader, watch and be sober.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1. Let us therefore fear, etc. He concludes that there was reason to fear lest the Jews to whom he was writing should be deprived of the blessing offered to them; and then he says, lest anyone, intimating that it was his anxious desire to lead them, one and all, to God; for it is the duty of a good shepherd, in watching over the whole flock so to care for every sheep that no one may be lost; nay, we ought also so to feel for one another that every one should fear for his neighbors as well as for himself

But the fear which is here recommended is not that which shakes the confidence of faith but such as fills us with such concern that we grow not torpid with indifference. Let us then fear, not that we ought to tremble or to entertain distrust as though uncertain as to the issue, but lest we be unfaithful to God’s grace.

By saying Lest we be disappointed of the promise left us, he intimates that no one comes short of it except he who by rejecting grace has first renounced the promise; for God is so far from repenting to do us good that he ceases not to bestow his gifts except when we despise his calling. The illative therefore, or then means that by the fall of others we are taught humility and watchfulness according to what Paul also says,

“These through unbelief have fallen; be not thou then high-minded, but fear.” (Romans 11:20.)

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(1) Let us therefore fear.—The emphasis rests upon “fear,” not upon “us.” It is noteworthy that the writer begins with “Let us,” though about to write “lest any of you;” he will have gained his object if he brings his readers to share his fear.

Lest, a promise being left us.—Rather, lest haply, a promise being (still) left. No word must be inserted here that can diminish the generality of the words; in the sequel the statement will be repeated with all possible clearness. Here it is simply said that such a promise remains unexhausted, waiting for complete fulfilment. No Hebrew Christian would doubt this. As in Hebrews 1, the writer’s aim is not to establish a truth absolutely new, but to show that in this and in that Scripture a received truth lies contained. Most of our earlier versions (following Luther and Erasmus) give to this clause a different turn, which cannot be correct: “Lest any of you by forsaking the promise of entering in His rest.”

Any of you should seem to come short of it.—Rather, any one of you should be accounted to have come short of it. The difficulty here lies in the words rendered “seem” or “be accounted.” It appears impossible that the meaning can be “should even seem,” or “should think himself,” or “should show himself,” to have failed. It may be that the writer avoids positive and direct language in speaking of what lies beyond mortal ken, and therefore reverently says “should seem to have come short of it.” It is more probable that he is influenced by the figure contained in the next word, the falling short of a mark; and is thus led to refer to the judge who witnesses and declares the failure,—“Lest any one . . . be held (or, be adjudged) to have come short of” the promise.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1. Let us therefore fear] The fear to which we are exhorted is not any uncertainty of hope, but solicitude against careless indifference. It is a wholesome fear taught by wisdom (Php_2:12).

lest] Lit. lest haply.

being left us] It is better to omit the word “us,” It means “since a promise still remains unrealised.” The promise has not been exhausted by any previous fulfilment.

any] Rather, “any one.” See note on Heb_3:12.

of you] He cannot say “of us,” because he proceeds to describe the case of hardened and defiant apostates.

should seem to come short of it] Rather, “should seem to have failed in attaining it.” The Greek might also mean “should think that he has come too late for it;” but the writer’s object is to stimulate the negligent, not to encourage the despondent. The word “seem” is an instance of the figure called litotes, in which a milder term is designedly used to express one which is much stronger. The author of this Epistle, abounding as he does in passages of uncompromising sternness, would not be likely to use any merely euphuistic phrase. The dignity of his expressions adds to their intensity. For a similar delicate yet forcible use of “seem” see 1Co_11:16. The verb “to fail” or “come short” occurs in Heb_12:15, together with a terrible example of the thing itself in Heb_12:17.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Let us therefore fear,.... Not with a fear of wrath and damnation; nor with a fear of diffidence and distrust of the power, grace, and goodness of God; but with a cautious fear, a godly jealousy, a careful circumspection, and watchfulness:

lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest; not the land of Canaan, the type of heaven, but rather heaven itself, the ultimate glory: there is a rest of the body in the grave, from work, service, and labour, and from distempers and diseases, where it rests under the guardianship of the Spirit, until the resurrection morn; and there is a rest of the soul before the resurrection, in the arms of Christ, with whom it immediately is, upon its departure from the body; and there is a rest both of soul and body after the resurrection, from sin, from afflictions, from Satan's temptations, from unbelief, doubts, and fears, and from all enemies: and this may be called the rest of God, because he is the author and giver of it; and it will lie much in communion with him; and besides, heaven is the place of God's rest, Isa 66:1 and the possession and enjoyment of the heavenly glory is often signified by an entering into it: and there is a promise of this, which is left in Christ's hands, and shall never fail; though some who have hoped for it may come short of it, or at least seem to do so: but rather a rest under the Gospel dispensation is here intended, since it is a rest believers enter into now, Heb 4:3 and since the Gospel church is represented as a state of peace and rest, Isa 11:6 and which lies in a more clear and comfortable application of the blood and righteousness of Christ to the saints; in a freedom from a spirit of bondage to fear, and from the yoke of carnal ordinances, and in the enjoyment of Gospel privileges and ordinances; and this is God's rest, which he has provided for New Testament saints, and into which they enter by faith, and a profession of it; and the Gospel is the promise or declaration which was left among these Hebrews, and in the world, to encourage them so to do: lest

any of you should seem to come short of it; either of the promise, or the rest promised; which if understood of the heavenly glory, the sense is, that though true believers shall not come short of that, yet they may "seem" to others to do so; and therefore should be careful of their lives and conversations, that they might not seem to come short; and this they should do, for the glory of God, the honour of Christ and his Gospel, and the good of others; but if the rest, and the promise of it, intend the Gospel and its dispensation, the meaning is, that saints should be concerned so to behave, that they might not seem to fail of the doctrine of the grace of God, and to be disappointed of that rest and peace promised in it. One of Stephens's copies read, lest "any of us"; which seems most agreeable both to what goes before, and follows.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1 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.

Ver. 1. Let us fear] With a fear not of diffidence, but of diligence. {See Trapp on "Php 2:12"} {See Trapp on "1Co 10:12"}

Lest a promise] Some render it thus, Lest we should seem to fall short of the promise that is left us, &c. But where is that promise left us, may some say? It is closely couched in the former commination, Heb 3:18. God sware that unbelievers should not enter, and therefore intimates a promise that believers shall enter. A bee can suck sweet honey out of bitter thyme, so cannot a fly do.

To come short of it] To come lag and late, υστερηκεναι, when the gate is shut, the drawbridge taken up, as those foolish virgins, or as lazy race runners, or as those that come a day after the fair, an hour after the feast, and so are frustrated.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Let us therefore fear - Let us be apprehensive that we may possibly fall of that rest. The kind of “fear” which is recommended here is what leads to caution and care. A man who is in danger of losing his life or health should be watchful; a seaman that is in danger of running on a lee-shore should be on his guard. So we who have the offer of heaven, and who yet are in danger of losing it, should take all possible precautions lest we fail of it.

Lest a promise being left us - Paul assumes here that there is such a promise. In the subsequent part of the chapter, he goes more into the subject, and proves from the Old Testament that there is such a promise made to us. It is to be remembered that Paul had not the New Testament then to appeal to, as we have, which is perfectly clear on the subject, but that he was obliged to appeal to the Old Testament. This he did not only because the New Testament was not then written, but because he was reasoning with those who had been Hebrews, and who regarded the authority of the Old Testament as decisive. If his reasoning to us appears somewhat obscure, we should put ourselves in his place, and should remember that the converts then had not the full light which we have now in the New Testament.

Of entering into his rest - The rest of God - the rest of the world where he dwells. It is called “his” rest, because it is what he enjoys, and which he alone can confer. There can be no doubt that Paul refers here to heaven, and means to say that there is a promise left to Christians of being admitted to the enjoyment of that blessed world where God dwells.

Any of you should seem to come short of it - The word “seem” here is used as a form of gentle and mild address, implying the possibility of thus coming short. The word here - δοκέω dokeō - is often used so as to appear to give no essential addition to the sense of a passage, though it is probable that it always gave a shading to the meaning. Thus, the phrase “esse videatur” is often used by Cicero at the end of a period, to denote merely that a thing “was” - though he expressed it as though it merely “seemed” to be. Such language is often used in argument or in conversation as a “modest” expression, as when we say a thing “seems” to be so and so, instead of saying “it is.” In some such sense Paul probably used the phrase here - perhaps as expressing what we would by this language - “lest it should appear at last that any of you had come short of it.” The phrase “come short of it” is probably used with reference to the journey to the promised land, where they who came out of Egypt “came short” of that land, and fell in the wilderness. They did not reach it. This verse teaches the important truth that, though heaven is offered to us, and that a “rest” is promised to us if we seek it, yet that there is reason to think that many may fail of reaching it who had expected to obtain it. Among those will be the following classes:

Those who are professors of religion but who have never known anything of true piety.

(2)Those who are expecting to be saved by their own works, and are looking forward to a world of rest on the ground of what their own hands can do.

(3)Those who defer attention to the subject from time to time until it becomes too late. They expect to reach heaven, but they are not ready to give their hearts to God “now,” and the subject is deferred from one period to another, until death arrests them unprepared.

(4)Those who have been awakened to see their guilt and danger, and who have been almost but not quite ready to give up their hearts to God. Such were Agrippa, Felix, the young ruler Mar 10:21, and such are all those who are “almost” but not “quite” prepared to give up the world and to devote themselves to the Redeemer. To all these the promise of “rest” is made, if they will accept of salvation as it is offered in the gospel; all of them cherish a hope that they will be saved; and all of them are destined alike to be disappointed. With what earnestness, therefore, should we strive that we may not fail of the grace of God!

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Let us, therefore, fear, &c. St. Paul continues his exhortation to them, not to be like the incredulous Jews, and so to be excluded from the place of eternal rest. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Let us therefore fear: the Spirit draws this counsel from the former sad event of unbelief in the progenitors of these Hebrews, who were shut out of an earthly Canaan by it, which was promised to them: hereon he adviseth them to avoid that sin which will have now as fearful a punishment, viz. the shutting them out of the heavenly Canaan, tendered and promised to believers in thee gospel. Fear is that affection of the soul, by which it avoideth and shunneth what is hurtful to it, and here carrieth it in a gracious and child-like care and jealousy of slighting the Father’s promise, and coming short of heaven; it is a fear issuing from faith, Phi 2:12.

Lest, a promise being left us; lest the promise of God to men, who sware some should not enter, but promised others should, as Num 14:23,24,30,31; a promise of the most excellent, glorious, and heavenly rest made to believers, Isa 11:10. This was graciously left or made to them by God; but καταλειπομενης here is an act of sin, lest we by sin should leave or reject God’s promise of the better, as the Hebrews did of the literal, rest, by their unbelief and disobedience to God’s law; and so is the proper object of fear, and therefore ought to have been read, lest the promise being left behind.

Of entering into his rest; of a free entrance into heaven, and enjoying a glorious rest with God there.

Any of you should seem to come short of it: he would have it the fear of all, that not one soul tnight be endangered by it; so as not in any measure to slight such a promise, nor as much as to seem so, flying from the very appearance of evil, 1Th 5:22; υστερηκεναι, a metaphor taken from racers, where any are outrun and left behind; noting the miserable state of such Christians who profess to run to heaven, but never do so as to obtain it, 1Co 9:24-26. Alas, he that falleth short of heaven, reacheth home to hell!

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Jesus Christ, Giver or the Promised Rest, and High Priest to being Men to God

1-13. Israel through unbelief failed to enter into the promised rest. The rest, therefore, remains open and a promise of entrance is made to us. Let us not make the same mistake and fail to enter in because of unbelief. For by no possibility can the most secret unbelief escape the searching eye of the living God.

1. Being left] God's promise of rest cannot fail. Israel having failed to enter into it, the promise remains unfulfilled, and therefore it is open for us to enter in, if we keep the faith. Should seem] either a milder form of expression, or, as the words may be rendered, 'should be found to have come short,' when the time comes. The latter is the more forcible interpretation.

2. The gospel] RV 'Good tidings,' i.e. a promise of the rest of God. Not being mixed with faith] RV adopts AVmg. 'because they were not united by faith with them that heard,' which is the rendering of a well-attested various reading. This makes a distinction between 'those who heard' (i.e. believed and obeyed), who must be Joshua and Caleb, and those who believed not. But in Heb_3:16 it is assumed that all believed not. The rendering of AV gives good sense. Faith is the means whereby the word that is heard is vitally appropriated and realised in action.

3. The promise of rest applies to us who are Christians, seeing that those to whom the promise was made failed to attain to it. And their failure was not due to the fact that the rest was not prepared, because it existed since the day that God finished His work of creation. This is proved by the words 'and God rested' in one place, and the words 'my rest' in another. God's rest is therefore a fact, and it is clearly His purpose that some shall enter into it.

7. After so long a time] i.e. the time between Moses and David. In David's time the rest continued open, and therefore it is concluded that it is open still.

8. Jesus] RV, rightly, 'Joshua.' The Gk. for both names is the same. If the entry into Canaan under Joshua bad been the fulfilment of the divine promise of rest, there would have been no mention centuries later in the Psalm of a rest still remaining; hence, 'there remaineth a rest for the people of God.'

9. A rest] RV' a sabbath rest.' The rest that remaineth is also of a different character from the rest of Canaan. It is God's rest, a holy and eternal satisfaction.

10. His rest] i.e. God's rest: 12. Quick, and powerful] RV 'living, and active.' It does not die when uttered, but continues vital and operative, and, like a sharp sword, penetrates to the inmost recesses of the heart and life. A discerner] RV 'quick to discern,' lit. 'critical,' i.e. able to judge.

14-16. A summary of what has been said, forming a transition to the treatment of Christ's supremacy as High Priest, which takes up the main body of the Epistle.

14. Seeing then] The connexion is with Heb_2:17; Heb_3:1. Into the heavens] RV 'through the heavens.' In Jewish theology there were several heavens: cp. 2Co_12:2. Jesus has passed through all the outer courts into the Holy of Holies: cp. Heb_9:24. He occupies the highest place in heaven (Heb_1:3).

15. However highly Christ is exalted He sympathises with us, having experienced the trials and temptations of humanity. This combination in Him of suffering and sinlessness is the ground of our confidence in Him: cp. Heb_7:26. Yet without sin] i.e. His trials and temptations never resulted in sin.

16. Come boldly] RV 'draw near.' This privilege of access is one of many points of superiority in the new dispensation as compared with the old: cp. Heb_10:19-22; Heb_12:18-24; Eph_2:13, Eph_2:18.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1. Therefore—In view of the fearful examples of apostasy in last chapter.

Let us fear—Implying a belief in its practical possibility and an earnest desire to avoid it.

Seem—Should appear.

To come short—Past tense; to have come short; namely, after the end of Heb_3:14, and at the judgment day. Hence the seem, or appear, is not a false seeming, but an appearance of a dread reality to the eye of God and in the light of the final judgment. A direful result is this for us to fear; lest, after once being pardoned and sanctified, we at last are seen to have fallen and become lost.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

A REST STILL OFFERED TO CHRISTIANS.

Let us fear, therefore, lest, a promise being still left of entering into his rest, any one of you should seem to have come short. This verse is a renewed warning against remissness, based (as is shown by the connecting oun) on the preceding argument, but introducing also, by means of the clause, kataleipomenhv , etc., a new thought, the elucidation of which is the subject of what follows. The new thought is that the true "rest of God," typified only by the rest of Canaan, remains still for the attainment of Christians. That this is the ease has not yet been shown; and hence the clause, "a promise being still left." etc., does not point to a conclusion already arrived at, but to what is coming. The new thought is taken up in ver. 2, and what has been thus intimated in ver. 1 is asserted as a conclusion after proof in ver. 9. ara apoleipetai , etc. A different view of the drift of the warning in this verse, main-rained very decidedly by Ebrard, demands attention. It rests on the interpretation of dokh usterhkenai , which is taken to mean "should think that he has come too late," i.e. for the promise of the rest, under the idea that its meaning had been exhausted in the rest of Canaan. It may be said in support of this view that such is the most obvious meaning of the phrase; that dokein in the New Testament most commonly means "think" or "suppose;" that the primary sense of usterein is that of being behindhand, either in place or in time; and that the perfect usterhkenai is thus accounted for, whereas, according to the usual interpretation, the whole phrase is unsuitable: why was not usterhsh written, if a mere warning against remissness was intended? Further, it may be said that what immediately follows is in favor of this view of the purport of the caution in ver. 1, being an evident carrying out of its idea. Thus the verse is supposed to be not at all a continuation of the previous hortatory section, but rather serving as the thesis of the coming argumentative section, though put in the form of a caution because imperfect appreciation of the view to be now established was at the root of the danger of the Hebrew Christians. Some of them at least did not fully grasp the true character of the gospel as being the fulfill-merit of the old dispensation, the realization of its types and promises. They were inclined to rest in the Law as a revelation to which the gospel was only supplementary, and hence to regard the promised land, the offer of which was before their time, as the only rest intended; and therefore the writer, after adducing the example of the Israelites under Moses as a warning against remissness, prefaces his exposition. of the true rest of God by a warning against misapprehending it. But against this view of the.meaning of dokh usterhkenai there are the following reasons:

(1) The word fobhywmen suggests rather (like blepete) a warning against conduct that might lead to forfeiture than a correction of an inadequate conception; and oun connects the warning with what has gone before, in which the view of what the true rest is has not entered.

(2) Though dokein is most frequently used in the New Testament in its sense of "thinking," seeming to one"s self," yet it has there, as in Greek generally, the sense also of "appearing," "seeming to others;" dud certainly, as far as the word itself is concerned, may have this sense here. Also the verb usterein , though its primary idea (as of usterov) is that of "coming after," is nevertheless invariably used in the New Testament to express "deficiency," or "falling short": (cf. especially in this Epistle, Heb_12:15) it is never elsewhere (though capable of the meaning) used to express lateness in time.

(3) The phrase, dokh usterhkenai , in the sense of seem to have fallen short" (rather than usterhsh) is capable of being accounted for. One explanation of it, adopted by Alford, is indeed hardly tenable. He accounts for the past tense by supposing reference to the final judgment; taking it to mean, lest any one of you should then appear i.e. be found to have fallen short." But the word dokein , which, however used, refers, not to what is made evident, but to what is thought or seems, refuses to be thus misinterpreted. It is better to take it as a softening expression. We may suppose that the writer (with a delicacy that reminds us of St. Paul) was unwilling to imply his own expectation of any failure; and so he only bids his readers beware of so living as even to present the appearance of it or suggest the thought of it to others. According to this view, the tense of usterhkenai is intelligible, the supposed deficiency spoken of being previous to its being perceived or suspected. It is not necessary to supply an understood genitive, such as "the promise," or "the rest," after usterhkenai . It may be used (as elsewhere) absolutely, to express deficiency or failure; i.e. in the conditions required for attainment. One view of its meaning is that it has reference to the idea of being behindhand in a race: but there is nothing in the context to suggest this figure.

(4) It is not necessary that ver. 1 should express only the idea of the following argument; it does sufficiently express it in the clause, kataleipomemhv , etc.; and it is in the style of this Epistle to connect new trains of argument by a continuous chain of thought with what has gone before. (cf. the beginning of Heb 2 and Heb 3) Though there is uncertainty as to the sequence of thought in the several clauses of the following argument (vers. 2-11), its general drift is clear. Its leading ideas are these: The invitation to enter God"s rest contained in the psalm shows that the rest of Canaan, which, though forfeited under Moses, had long been actually attained under Joshua, was not the final rest intended. What, then, is meant by this remarkable term, "my rest," i.e. God"s own rest? Our thoughts go back to the beginning of the Bible, where a rest of God himself is spoken of; where he is said to have rested on the seventh day from all his works. Participation, then, in that heavenly rest a true sabbath rest with God is what the term implies. Though this rest began "from the foundation of the world," man"s destined share in if, however long delayed, was intimated by the typical history of the Israelites under Moses, and by the warning and renewed invitation of the psalm. This renewed invitation makes it plain that it is still attainable by God"s people. It has at last been made attainable by Christ. who, as our great High Priest, has himself entered it, and leads us into it if we are but faithful.

Vers. 1-11. The gospel rest.

In this passage the writer explains what is to be understood by the rest" to which God had invited his ancient people, and urges the Hebrews of his own day to strive to attain it as the most Divine of all blessings.

I THE REST OF GOD. "His rest" (ver. 1); "my rest" (vers. 3, 5). Rest belongs essentially to God, for he is all-perfect and self-harmonious. Being infinite in purity and love, in knowledge and power, he is the God of peace, and dwells in undisturbed repose. The rest of God is mirrored in the institution of the sabbath (ver. 4), which commemorates his satisfaction at the close of his world-making, when he saw that his works "answered his great idea," and were very good." God"s own sabbath rest "is the substratum and basis of all peace and rest the pledge of an ultimate and satisfactory purpose in creation" (Dr. Saphir).

II THE REST OF GOD PROMISED TO MAN. This "promise" (ver. 1) is the result of God"s fatherly love. For man, although he has fallen from his rest, is still the child of God, beloved in spite of his sad apostasy, and pitied on account of his weary moiling in the pursuits of sin. The sabbath instituted at the creation was not this rest (vers. 3-5), but only a sign and seal of it. Neither did the possession of the promised land involve the realization of the promised rest (vers. 6-9); for Israel had never for any time a restful life in Canaan, and King David, nearly five hundred years after the Hebrew occupation, speaks of entrance into God"s rest as a blessing which was still future (vers. 7, 8). However, the settlement of Israel in the land flowing with milk and honey was an adumbration of the gospel rest. And thus God himself said of Zion, "This is my rest for ever.

III THE REST OF GOD REALIZED IN CHRIST. The Lord Jesus is the Joshua of our confession. He was indeed the Hope of the Jewish Church also in the time of the first Joshua, whether the people realized him to be such or not. If we follow him as our "Leader and Commander," our hearts, even in this weary, changeful world, will enter into true spiritual rest (ver. 3). Christ brings us rest from guilt, rest from self-righteous striving, rest from wants, rest from fears, rest amidst life"s burdens. In his "obedience unto death" he labored and was heavy laden that he might give us rest. If we stay our minds on him, we shall be "kept in perfect peace;" if we trust in him, we shall learn to rejoice that "the lines are fallen unto us in pleasant places, and that we have a goodly heritage.

IV THE REST OF GOD CONSUMMATED IN HEAVEN. Although God has provided for us even in this world perfect rest in Christ, the limitation of our nature prevents us meanwhile from fully enjoying it; and our besetting sins may continue until the end to disturb our tranquility. But in the heavenly world the saints shall be set free forever from sin and temptation, from anxiety and sorrow. They shall enter there into the perfect sabbath-rest of God, and shall dwell in it throughout eternity (ver. 9). His love shall abide upon his people, and their perfected love to him shall spring up within them unto everlasting life.

In conclusion, if we would acquire and possess this inheritance, we must:

1. Cherish godly "fear" (ver. 1).

2. Cultivate faith in Christ (ver. 3).

3. Be "united by faith with them that hear" (ver. 2) the Calebs and the Joshuas.

4. "Give diligence to enter into" the eternal rest (ver. 11) by "following the Lord fully.

HOMILIES BY W. JONES. Ver. 1. Fear of failing to realize the promised rest.

"Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left, etc. Let us notice

I THE GREAT PROMISE. "A promise being left of entering into his rest." Later in the chapter (vers. 6-9) the writer shows from the Old Testament that such a promise was left to Christians. The rest promised is God"s rest rest;" because:

1. It corresponds with his.

(1) It is not the rest of inactivity, but of harmonious activities. "My Father," said Christ, "worketh hitherto, and I work." The highest rest is not in quiescence, but in unwearying and joyful endeavors; and it is illustrated, not by the stillness and silence of the sepulcher, but by the swift and serene movements of the planets. Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distrest. (Cowper.)

Robertson well says, "In creation the rest of God is exhibited as a sense of power which nothing wearies.

(2) It is not material, but spiritual; not of the senses, but of the soul. He who has this rest will have peace in his spirit even when sorely pained in his body. Like St. Paul, he may be enabled even to glory in physical "infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon" him.

(3) It is not in circumstances, but in the being. Circumstances are variable, uncertain, unreliable; no real and abiding rest can spring from them or depend upon them. But the rest which is promised in the sacred Word is not dependent upon circumstances or upon any outward things. It is a deep inward rest even amidst outward conflict. "And central peace subsisting at the heart Of endless agitation. (Wordsworth.)

"These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye may have peace. In the world ye have tribulation," etc.

2. It is conferred by him. God is the Giver of this rest. He bestows it

(1) through the mediation of his Son Jesus Christ. Through him he removes the hindrances to this rest; e.g. guilt, servile fear, distrust of God, etc. And he inspires the spiritual conditions and constituents of this rest; e.g. the assurance of pardon, the possession of peace, the exercise of confidence in God, etc. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," etc.; "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you," etc. God bestows this rest

(2) by the agency of his Holy Spirit. He brings the redemptive powers of the gospel into relation with the hearts of men. "He shall take of mine," said our Lord, "and shall declare it unto you." How great and gracious is this promise!

II THE GRAVE POSSIBILITY. "Lest any one of you should seem to have come short of it." The grave possibility is that when the great testing-time shall come any one should be found without a personal participation in the promised rest. The word "seem" does not indicate the apparent as distinguished from the real; but is, as Alford says, "a mild term, conveying indeed a sterner intimation behind it." But how should any one come short of the promised rest? Clearly by unbelief, even as the Israelites who left Egypt came short of the rest of Canaan. To these Hebrew Christians there was more than a possibility of the failure of their faith in Jesus Christ. His system had no imposing ceremonial, no pomp or pageantry to commend it, as Judaism had. He himself was despised and rejected by the conventionally and officially great and noble, and was condemned and crucified. The claims of Christianity upon the acceptance of men were spiritual, and could only be spiritually discerned. Hence the danger of those to whom the text was primarily addressed. And still men are in danger of coming short of the attainment of the great promise. This peril arises from the temptation to seek satisfaction in visible and material things rather than in invisible and spiritual things; or to seek for ease and happiness rather than for peace and rest; or to seek for rest in the creature rather than in the Creator. Or the danger may arise from the temptation to absorption in present pursuits without due consideration of their relation to the future and the eternal.

III THE SOLEMN EXHORTATION. "Let us therefore fear," etc. This fear is not synonymous with dread or terror; but it indicates a humble, reverent, watchful, prayerful spirit. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," etc. How would this fear guard one against coming short of the promised rest?

1. This fear is the antithesis and corrective of self-will and presumption.

In humility there is security. "Gird yourselves with humility; for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.

2. This fear will lead to wariness and watchfulness. It will incite to the exercise of caution and care.

3. This fear will lead to distrust of self and confidence in God. "In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence; and his children shall have a place of refuge." And he who puts his trust in God shall not fail to attain unto the promised rest. "Let us therefore fear, lest," etc. W.J.

HOMILIES BY C. NEW Vers. 1-11. The more terrible result of apostasy from Christ seen in the better rest to which Christ leads.

Still dealing with the superiority of Christ to Moses. Having shown the possibility of departing from Christ as they did from Moses, he goes on to show that, since Christ was greater than Moses, the evil of departing from him was so much more terrible. There is a Divine promise of rest unexhausted in Old Testament times, and only fulfilled through faith in Christ. "Let us fear therefore, lest a promise being left of entering into his rest, any one of you should seem to come short of it. For, indeed, we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they. But the Word of hearing did not profit them, because it was not united by faith with them that heard. For we which have believed do enter into that rest." This is proved (as usual) from their own Scriptures. "Even as he hath said, As I sware in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world." That is, the promised share in God"s rest cannot be that after his creative work, for it had not been enjoyed two thousand years after the creation; nor could it be the rest of Canaan, for long after the entrance into Canaan, David, in the ninety-fifth psalm, speaks o! it as still unpessessed. "He again defineth," etc. What then? "There remaineth therefore a rest," etc.

I THE CERTAINTY OF DIVINE REST TO THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. This is rest on earth, for "we who have believed do," etc. This is also rest in heaven, for "let us labor therefore," etc. But these two are one. Yet so much better is the latter, the believer being ever able to say, "There remaineth a rest," etc., that we refer this mainly to the rest of the eternal world. And this is certain:

1. Because God continues his work till it is perfected. "God did rest the seventh day from all his works," because they were complete. It reminds us that God always perfects what he begins that is a necessity of his nature. Now he has begun his work wherever "repentance toward God, and faith toward," etc., are; then he will perfect it. That makes our future rest certain, for perfection brings rest. Our sabbath must follow our perfection.

2. Because the promised rest has not yet been reached. The argument applies to us as to the Hebrews. We may have been persuaded into the Christian life by "Come unto me, and I will give you rest," but our experience is far below what is thus assured to the believer. Where we have most it falls short of the promise. Then the promise has yet to be fulfilled.

3. Because Christ rests after his redemptive work. "For he that has entered into his rest i.e. Christ "he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his." As the Father rested after his creative work, so did the Son after his work of redemption, and for the same reason. It was because he could say, "It is finished," that "he sat down at," etc. If, then, Christ only rested because he had made our perfect redemption secure, we know we shall enter into rest. The vision of the Redeemer resting from his work conveys the utmost assurance that to his people the blessings of redemption, in their height, and depth, and length, and breadth, are as sure as though they possessed them.

II THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE DIVINE REST WHICH APPERTAINS TO THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. The English word "rest" occurs nine times in the context, but in the ninth verse a different Greek word is used, which (as it is said to occur nowhere else in Greek literature except in one passage of Plutarch) may be said to have been coined for the occasion sabbatismos, a sabbath-keeping. No word could convey a deeper sense of rest to the Hebrews; for they had a seventh-day sabbath, and every seventh year a sabbath year, and every seventh seven years of sabbaths the year of jubilee. See here the kind or" rest to which Jesus leads his people.

1. It will be rest in finished labor. Whatever inward rest his people have now, they have also much outer weariness weariness of labor, sorrow, conflict, advanced age. Christ leads to rest from this. Rest for the weary brain, the aching heart, the tired feet, the tempted spirit, the weight of years; the world"s sounds all hushed, and the world"s work laid aside; Sunday morning after the week"s toil a sabbath-keeping.

2. It will be rest in Divine fellowship. Rest with God. Not simply life"s business suspended and its shops closed, but the multitude gathered in the place of prayer to keep holy day in communion with God. "If they shall enter into my rest." In Christ, God and his people find a common rest. That Divine fellowship will be the true sabbath-keeping.

3. It will be rest in holy service. Sabbath days to his people are days of sacred work. So in heaven "they serve him day and night." One kind of work over, but another taken up, and only in this work will our spirit rest.

Doing nothing rests the body, but the heart and mind only rest when their faculties are in full employ. There, lessons to learn, mysteries to comprehend, service to render, attainments to pursue, gifts to receive, talents to expend, and all absorbed in the spirit of worship. God first, last, midst, and without end. What rest that will be work which never becomes toil, nor seeks repose it That will be sabbath-keeping.

III THE FEAR OF LOSING THIS DIVINE REST WHICH SHOULD ANIMATE THE CHURCH. That the burden of the passage. Its first word, "Let us fear, lest," etc., and its last, "Let us labor;" etc. This fear not inconsistent with the certainty of rest to Christ"s people, because it is a question whether we have a right to the assurance of his people. Therefore "fear.

1. The fact of Israel failing to enter Canaan is held up to the Church as a warning. Even those who had received all the mercies given to ancient Israel could die as outcasts in the wilderness.

2. The means by which alone that rest can be obtained are clearly defined.

Faith; but faith manifests itself by obedience (ver. 6). See Revised Version. "Faith" and "Obedience" are here used almost interchangeably, as though they were the same. The existence of faith is proved by consecrated life. If the way to rest were manifold, we need not so much fear, but it is one, only one which worketh.

3. The blessedness of the promised rest makes failure to reach it the more terrible. If it were sad to lose the rest of Canaan, what to lose the rest of heaven! What to be for evermore a companion of "sabbathless Satan"! C.N.

HOMILIES BY J.S. BRIGHT Vers. 1, 2. Believers in Israel and in Christ.

I THE RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THE PROMISE AND PROSPECT OF ANCIENT ISRAEL AND BELIEVERS IN CHRIST, The Hebrew people had a promise which was given to Abraham as trustee for his descendants, which was that after many years of suffering in Egypt they should be released from slavery and oppression, and. be led to the rest and enjoyment of Canaan. It was a promise which signifies the spontaneous declaration of the kindness and mercy of Jehovah, and flowed from his love toward Israel. It is a beam from the "Father of lights," who prevents us with the blessings of goodness, and meets us with the offers of grace and loving-kindness. This thought pervades the gospel, which is the free and unsolicited gift of God to the world; for there was no cry of spiritual distress and no agony of remorse which prompted men to desire salvation. The whole of the Christian system is suffused with the light and beauty of the promises of him who cannot lie." This required on the part of Israel suitable and becoming exertion. They were to set forth from Egypt, and then listen to his Law at Sinai, and march under the Divine guidance, that God might bring upon them all that he had spoken. Similarly believers in our Lord are to "work out their salvation with fear and trembling," and are to leave the things that are behind and reach forth to those that are before. Israel had one thing to do; and those who believe in Christ are to seek the end of their faith in their admittance into the Father"s house, where, instead of perishable tent and frequent change, there are many mansions of stability and eternal peace. It is a promise of rest. The Hebrews felt that in Egypt they did not belong to the nation in whose country they dwelt. They had no thought of permanence, no civil freedom, no security of person, and no fruit from their exacted labors. It may be believed that the promise and prospect of Canaan silently influenced their hearts and quickened desires for emancipation. The prospect of rest began to be very precious as suffering abounded; and at the appointed time they rose to commence the journey to the Promised Land. Those who believe in the Captain of salvation have a Diviner hope, and are taught to look for a Divine and eternal rest, which shall embrace more blessedness than we can at present imagine. It stands in happy contrast to the toil of daily life and the sight of imperfection in ourselves and others. It signifies rest from the stern duties of the mortification and crucifixion of the flesh. It is freedom from the changeableness of our present life, in which there is nothing stable in our emotions, our relationships, and the society of which we form a part. It is a blessed contrast to the mixed condition of the present state in which there are evil men and frequent doubts. Believers often look towards this divinely promised rest to encourage patience amidst the pressure of sickness and the force and frequency of temptation. It is, therefore, no wonder that Richard Baxter, who was burdened with frequent sickness, and tried by the controversies and troubles of his day, should find relief in writing his "Saint"s Rest," which was at once the fruit of his painful experience and his spiritual desire for the rest of heaven.

II THE CAUTION GIVEN TO CHRISTIANS LEST THEY RESEMBLE ANCIENT ISRAEL IN THEIR FAILURE TO GAIN THEIR REST. The prospect of Canaan was a gospel, or good tidings, to the Hebrews, since it assured them of a happy change in their condition. It brought before them the hope of freedom and the possession of a land, which had a fertile soil and a genial climate. It promised them the blessing of the Divine protection, ordinances of worship, and life closed in peace and hope of the future. This was good tidings to them. Good tidings of great joy are made known to us. They were announced by our Lord, who came to seek and save that which was lost, and to offer the blessings of salvation from sin now, and the perfection of our nature in the life and immortality which he has brought to light. He offers us pardon, justification, and the indwelling of the Spirit, who becomes the earnest of the purchased possession. Many of the people who started from Egypt never reached Canaan; and Moses saw that many year after year died and were buried in the wilderness, and exclaimed, "We are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled." They failed in faith, and doubted the promises of the God of their fathers. Had they believed their faith would have been turned into sight, and their hope into happy fruition. The Word did not profit them, for they came short of the rest and blessedness of Canaan. The warning which was given to Jewish believers, and is conveyed through them to others of succeeding ages, reminds us of the vast and fatal effects of unbelief. The truth which they heard was not felt and held as a Divine utterance. It teaches us that the gospel should be so admitted to influence and govern us, that it should be a part of our nature, as food received and digested becomes a part of our living structure. It is faith which gives it a presence and power in the vital forces of our souls. It unites the truth to our spiritual nature with a close and blessed association; and verifies the word of St. James, who describes it as "the engrafted Word, which is able to save our souls." The importance of faith is to be seen in our Lord"s constant requirement of its presence for the attainment of salvation. The apostles follow in his hallowed footsteps, and urge believers to cherish this Divine grace lest their career should end in disappointment and failure. To come short of Canaan was a calamity, because there was a loss of good, and life was closed under the gloomy sense of transgression; but to lose the glorious inheritance of eternal life is more affecting as the awful future outweighs the small and fading interests of the life that now is. The possibility of such a loss is sufficient to awaken fear. B.

HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG Ver. 1. The two gospels.

I THE FIRST GOSPEL. That which was proclaimed to Abraham, repeated, enforced to his posterity, standing before them in the way of duty and of hope, even in the darkest days of Egyptian bondage. It was a gospel that proclaimed rest, settlement, worship, and service in the land of Canaan. And though special attention is called here to the great Abrahamic and Mosaic promise to Israel, yet be it also noted that God is ever a Being sending forth gospels when there is need of them and ground to show that there will be anything substantial in them. Never did an aggelov go forth without an euaggelion of some sort. It is we that turn gospels into the worst of news, because in benefiting others they may make it needful for us to suffer. And yet what seems bad news on the first look of it may turn out in the end to have been the best of news. The good news which Moses brought to Israel of the impending deliverance from servitude may fairly be called, in common parlance, bad news for Pharaoh and the Egyptians, seeing it meant national humiliation, the loss of so much useful labor. Yet who can doubt that even for Egypt, after all the calamities of the plagues, there was a great good in that which brought good to Israel? A gospel prominently set forth for some is really a gospel for all.

II THE SECOND GOSPEL. A second, and yet in truth it was nothing but the fullness of the first. Liberty for the enslaved, rest for the weary, a secure and fruitful inheritance for the true children of Abraham, those of like faith with him, these are the promises of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so this gospel, an everlasting gospel, remains uttered forth, wherever the need of man presses. This is one of the great uses of preaching, that by it gospel promises, possibilities, and invitations are forever sounding forth in the ears of men. The complaint is that preachers are ever saying the same old thing; yet that is to a certain extent their virtue and their value. The ear that heard yesterday belonged to a man who rather preferred to hear the gospel coming from worldly wisdom; but today he has found that gospel to be no gospel, and the true heavenly message not heard at all, or only half heard, is received in all its pertinency, its sweetness, its fullness. The throng of men abounds every day in what conventionally is called bad news, news of money losses, shattered health, ruined reputation, relatives and friends passed away. Over against these how supremely important to feel that there is always good news in this, that "God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life"! V

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

A Further Warning against Unbelief.

The promise still in force:

v. 1. Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any one of you should seem to come short of it.

v. 2. For unto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them; but the Word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

v. 3. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as He said, As I have sworn in My wrath, if they shall enter into My rest; although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

The inspired writer here continues his warning based upon the incidents of the journey in the wilderness: Let us, then, fear, lest perchance, there still remaining a promise of entering into His rest, one of you may seem to have come short of it. To work out their own salvation with fear and trembling is a duty incumbent upon all Christians, Php 2:12. The life of the believers may not be spent in a carnal, false security, with the idea that they can live and act as they please, still cherishing their pet sins. The situation is rather this, that the believers are assured in the Gospel, by the promise of God, that there is a rest remaining for them. This is extending the promise of mere temporal blessings, such as the peace in the Land of Promise here on earth, to include the eternal rest with the Lord in heaven above. God wants all men to enter into the salvation prepared for His own in the mansions above, and His particularly urgent plea goes out to those that have accepted the hope and guarantee of the life to come by faith. Every believer, therefore, will take heed for himself, and the entire congregation of believers will watch carefully, lest by some temptation of Satan one of them should be in danger of losing the coveted prize, or should believe himself to be too late for its attainment.

We should not resemble the Israelites in their unbelief in the Word of God, as the writer wishes to emphasize: For indeed we, as also they, have had a Gospel preached to us, but the Word of their hearing did not profit them, because it was not thoroughly mixed with faith in those that heard it. The promise of God even to the children of Israel did not merely embrace the promise of the possession of Canaan, but also that of the blessings of the Messiah. The redeeming grace and favor of God had been proclaimed to them at various times; the promise given to Abraham that in him and in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed was their precious heritage, whose significance was also understood by their teachers. But all this glorious proclamation did them no good. They heard it, indeed, it was passed on from father to son, but it was not mixed with faith in their hearts, they did not place their hope of salvation in its gracious promises, and so it really profited them nothing. The fault thus lay not with God, for He had provided for the proclamation of the Gospel-message, but with themselves; they lost the blessings of the promise by their unbelief, Hos 13:9.

This warning example the believers of all times should therefore keep in mind, that they may become and remain partakers of the blessing: For we do enter into the rest, we that have believed, as He says, As I swore in My anger, they shall never enter into My rest; although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. The solemn oath of God by which He denied certain people entrance into His rest was directed against the unbelievers. So far as the believers are concerned, if they but remain true to their faith and confidence in the promises of the Gospel, they do enter, they are continually entering into the eternal rest above. One by one, as the Lord calls them home, they leave the scenes of their earthly pilgrimage and are received into the rest, into the peace of heaven. Note: Had it not been God’s gracious will and earnest desire to have all men saved, to have them all enter into His rest, it could not be said that He afterward, in wrath over the defection of some, had excluded them from the blessings intended also for them. Thus the failure of the unbelievers to obtain the blessings of the eternal rest was not due to the fact that the rest did not yet exist, for all of God’s works were finished when the world was founded. God had planned and provided for the eternal rest of His own when the foundations of the world were laid, and He wanted all men to enjoy the beauties and glories of this rest. This fact is of immeasurable comfort to the believers, since it gives them the assurance that God has the earnest, sincere desire and will to have all men saved. This is substantiated still more fully in the next paragraph.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

As if the apostle had said, "Seeing you have so dreadful an example of God’s wrath executed upon your fathers in the wilderness for their unbelief, take heed of their sins, lest ye suffer the like punishment."

Here note, 1. the manner of the exhortation, and how the apostle includes himself in the admonition, Let us fear: it is wise and safe for the ministers of God to include themselves in the exhortations and admonitions which they give to others: for they need excitement, and the means of establishment, as well as others.

Note, 2. The affection of fear which our apostle recommends for their preservation from falling; by which he means a fear of care, diligence, and circumspection. Let us fear lest we come short and fail. Fear is a good monitor, and the best preservative from sin.

Note, 3. The duty exhorted to, lest a promise of rest being made, we should fall short of attaining it, as the Israelites did that fell in the wilderness.

Learn hence, 1. That it is matter of great and tremendous consequence to have the promises of God propounded to us; they are either a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death; one of these two will certainly be the consequent of their proposal. God will demand a strict account of the sons of men, of the entertainment given to his promises and threatenings.

Learn, 2. That they which mix not the promises of God with faith, shall utterly come short of entering into God’s rest.

Learn, 3. That the failing of men through unbelief, doth no way cause the promises of God to fail or cease; the veracity of God is engaged for the stability of the promise; so that though men by their unbelief may disappoint themselves of their expectation, yet they cannot bereave God of his faithfulness.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Hebrews Chapter 4

The apostle goes on to apply this part of Israel’s history to those whom he was addressing, laying stress on two points: 1st, That Israel had failed of entering into rest, through unbelief; 2nd, That the rest was yet to come, and that believers (those who were not seeking rest here, but who accepted the wilderness for the time being) should enter into it.

He begins by saying, “Let us fear lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any should seem to come short of it,” not attain to it. For we have been the objects of the proclamation of glad tidings, as they were in times past. But the word addressed to them remained fruitless, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it: for we which have believed do enter into rest. The rest itself is yet to come, and it is believers who enter into it. For a rest of God there is, and there are some who enter into it: inasmuch as it is written, “They,” that is, those (pointing out a certain class who are to be excluded) “shall not enter into my rest.”

God had wrought in creation, and then rested from His works when He had finished them. Thus, from the foundation of the world, He has shewn that He had a rest, as in the passage already quoted, “If they shall enter into my rest;” but this, shewing that the entering in was yet in question, shewed that into God’s rest in the first creation man had not entered. Two things then are evident-some were to enter in, and the Israel to whom it was first proposed did not enter in because of their unbelief. Therefore He again fixes a day, saying, in David, long after the entrance into Canaan, “Today-as it is written-today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

Here a natural objection occurs to which the passage gives a complete answer, without speaking of the objection itself. The Israelites had indeed fallen in the wilderness, but Joshua had brought the people into Canaan which the unbelievers never reached; the Jews were there, so that they did enter into the rest as to which the others failed. The answer is evident. It was long after this that God said by David, I sware in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest.” If Joshua had given rest to Israel, David could not afterwards have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. It is yet to come; but it is assured by the word of God-a truth, the bearing of which is immediately seen with regard to the connection of the believing Jews with the nation, in the midst of which they were tempted to seek a rest that, for the moment, faith did not afford them, and being enfeebled saw but dimly before it. To have God’s rest was still to be waited for. Faith alone acknowledged this, and sought for none in the wilderness, trusting to the promise. God still said “Today.”

The state of the people was worse than the rest that Joshua gave them; which, as their own Psalms prove, was no rest at all.

As to the order of the verses, the exhortation in verse 11 depends on the whole course of what precedes, the argument having been completed by the testimony of David coming after Joshua. After the creation God indeed rested; but He said after that, “If they shall enter into my rest,” so that men had not entered into that rest. Joshua entered into the land; but the word by David, coming long after, proves that the rest of God was not yet attained. Nevertheless this same testimony, which forbade the entrance into rest because of unbelief, shewed that some are to enter in: otherwise there was no need of declaring the exclusion of others for an especial cause, nor warning men that they might escape what hindered their entering in. No parenthesis is needed.

Now, as long as any one had not ceased from his works, he had not entered into rest; he who has entered into it has ceased from work, even as God ceased from His own works when He entered into His rest. “Let us therefore use all diligence” is the exhortation of the faithful witness of God, “that we may enter into that rest”-the rest of God-in order that we may not fall after the same example of unbelief.

We should especially observe here, that it is the rest of God which is spoken of. This enables us to understand the happiness and perfection of the rest. God must rest in that which satisfies His heart. This was the case even in creation-all was very good. And now it must be in a perfect blessing that perfect love can be satisfied with, with regard to us, who will possess a heavenly portion in the blessing which we shall have in His own presence, in perfect holiness and perfect light. Accordingly all the toilsome work of faith, the exercise of faith in the wilderness, the warfare (although there are many joys), the good works practiced there, labour of every kind will cease. It is not only that we shall be delivered from the power of indwelling sin; all the efforts and all the troubles of the new man will cease. We are already set free from the law of sin; then our spiritual exercise for God will cease. We have already rested from our works with regard to justification,and therefore in that sense we have now rest in our consciences, but that is not the subject here-it is the Christian’s rest from all his works. God rested from His works-assuredly good ones-and so shall we also then with Him.

We are now in the wilderness; we also wrestle with wicked spirits in heavenly places. A blessed rest remains for us, in which our hearts will repose in the presence of God, where nothing will trouble the perfection of our rest, where God will rest in the perfection of the blessing He has bestowed on His people.

The great thought of the passage is, that there remains a rest (that is to say, that the believer is not to expect it here) without saying where it is. And it does not speak in detail of the character of the rest, because it leaves the door open to an earthly rest for the earthly people on the ground of the promises, although to Christian partakers of the heavenly calling God’s rest is evidently a heavenly one.

The apostle then sets before us the instrument which God employs to judge the unbelief and all the workings of the heart which tend, as we have seen, to lead the believer into departure from the position of faith, and to hide God from him by inducing him to satisfy his flesh and to seek for rest in the wilderness.

To the believer who is upright in heart this judgment is of great value, as that which enables him to discern all that has a tendency to hinder his progress or make him slacken his steps. It is the word of God, which-being the revelation of God, the expression of what He is, and of all that surrounds Him, and of what His will is in all the circumstances that surround us-judges everything in the heart which is not of Him. It is more penetrating than a two-edged sword. Living and energetic, it separates all that is most intimately linked together in our hearts and minds. Whenever nature-the “soul” and its feelings-mingles with that which is spiritual, it brings the edge of the sword of the living truth of God between the two, and judges the hidden movements of the heart respecting them. It discerns all the thoughts and intentions of the heart. But it has another character, coming from God (being, as it were, His eye upon the conscience), it brings us into His presence; and all that it forces us to discover, it sets in our conscience before the eye of God Himself. Nothing is hidden, all is naked and manifested to the eye of Him with whom we have to do. [11] Such is the true help, the mighty instrument of God to judge everything in us that would hinder us from pursuing our course through the wilderness with joy, and with a buoyant heart strengthened by faith and confidence in Him. Precious instrument of a faithful God, solemn and serious in its operation; but of priceless and infinite blessing in its effects, in its consequences.

It is an instrument which, in its operations, does not allow “the desires of the flesh and of the mind” liberty to act; which does not permit the heart to deceive itself; but which procures us strength, and places us without any consciousness of evil in the presence of God, to pursue our course with joy and spiritual energy. Here the exhortation, founded on the power of the word concludes.

But there is another succour, one of a different character, to aid us in our passage through the wilderness; and that is priesthood-a subject which the epistle here begins and carries on through several chapters.

We have a High Priest who has passed through the heavens-as Aaron through the successive parts of the tabernacle-Jesus, the Son of David.

He has, in all things, been tempted like ourselves, sin apart; so that He can sympathize with our infirmities. The word brings to light the intents of the heart, judges the will, and all that has not God for its object and its source. Then, as far as weakness is concerned, we have His sympathy. Christ of course had no evil desires: he was tempted in every way, apart from sin. Sin had no part in it at all. But I do not wish for sympathy with the sin that is in me; I detest it, I wish it to be mortified-judged unsparingly. This the word does. For my weakness and my difficulties I seek sympathy; and I find it in the priesthood of Jesus. It is not necessary, in order to sympathize with me, that a person should feel at the same moment that which I am feeling-rather the contrary. If I am suffering pain, I am not in a condition to think as much of another’s pain. But in order to sympathize with him I must have a nature capable of appreciating his pain.

Thus it is with Jesus, when exercising His priesthood. He is in every sense beyond the reach of pain and trial, but He is man; and not only has He the human nature which in time suffered grief, but He experienced the trials a saint has to go through more fully than any of ourselves; and His heart, free and full of love, can entirely sympathize with us, according to His experience of ill, and according to the glorious liberty which He now has, to provide and care for it. This encourages us to hold fast our profession in spite of the difficulties that beset our path; for Jesus concerns Himself about them, according to His own knowledge and experience of what they are, and according to the power of His grace.

Therefore, our High Priest being there, we can go with all boldness to the throne of grace, to find mercy and the grace suited to us in all times of need: mercy, because we are weak and wavering; needful grace, because we are engaged in a warfare which God owns.

Observe, it is not that we go to the High Priest. It is often done, and God may have compassion; but it is a proof that we do not fully understand grace. The Priest, the Lord Jesus, occupies Himself about us-sympathises with us, on the one hand; and on the other, we go directly to the throne of grace.

The Spirit does not here speak positively of falls; we find that in 1Jn 2:1-29. There also it is in connection with communion with His Father, here with access to God. His purpose here is to strengthen us, to encourage us to persevere in the way, conscious of the sympathies which we possess in heaven, and that the throne is always open to us.

Footnotes for Hebrews Chapter 4

11: The connection between the word addressed to man and God Himself is very remarkable here.

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1–3. Let us therefore fear. God's promises are conditional. A rest is promised, but we must take heed that we do not come short of it by failing to keep the conditions.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

Chapter 4 continues the warning to believers starting in Hebrews 3:7. God, through the writer, gives believers a rest of which God's rest in the creation of the world is a picture.

Therefore

"Because what I have just said is true" or "Since God will certainly punish those who do not obey" (Hebrews 3:19)

none of you might seem to have failed to reach the promise left behind for you to enter God's rest

God's promise is spoken of as if it were a gift that God left behind when he visited the people. AT: "none of you fail to enter into God's rest, which he promised to us" or "God will allow you all to enter into his rest as he promised us" (See: Metaphor)

to enter God's rest

The peace and security provided by God are spoken of as if they were rest that he can give, and as if they were a place to which people could go. AT: "to enter the place of rest" or "to experience God's blessings of rest" (See: Metaphor)

For we were told the good news just as they were

This can be stated in active form. AT: "For we heard the good news just as they did" (See: Active or Passive)

as they were

Here "they" refers to the Hebrews' ancestors who were alive during the time of Moses.

But that message did not benefit those who did not unite in faith with those who obeyed

"But that message did not benefit those who did not join with the people who believed and obeyed." The author is talking about two groups of people, those who received God's covenant with faith, and those who heard it but did not believe. This can be stated in positive form. AT: "But that message benefited only those who believed and obeyed it" (See: Double Negatives)

translationWords

promise

God

rest

good news

faith

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

CH. 4. CONTINUED EXHORTATION TO EMBRACE THE YET OPEN OFFER OF GOD’S REST (1–13). EXHORTATION FOUNDED ON THE HIGH PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST (14–16)

1–13. CONTINUED EXHORTATION TO EMBRACE THE YET OPEN OFFER OF GOD’S REST

1. Φοβηβῶμεν. The fear to which we are exhorted is not any uncertainty of hope, but solicitude against careless indifference. It is a wholesome fear taught by wisdom (Php 2:12). We have the same use of φοβοῦμαι μὴ to express spiritual anxiety about the state of a Christian community in 2Co 11:3; 2Co 12:20; Gal 4:11.

μήποτε, lest haply.

καταλειπομένης. It is better to omit the “us” of the A. V. It means “since a promise still remains unrealised.” The promise has not been exhausted by any previous fulfilment.

τις, “any one.” See note on Heb 3:12.

ἐξ ὑμῶν. He cannot say “of us,” because he proceeds to describe the case of hardened and defiant apostates.

δοκῇ … ὑστερηκέναι, “should seem to have failed in attaining it.” The Greek might also mean “should imagine that he has failed of (lit., come too late for) it”; but the writer’s object is to stimulate the negligent, not to encourage the despondent. The word δοκῇ is an instance of the figure called litotes, in which a milder term is designedly used to express one which is much stronger. The author of this Epistle, abounding as he does in passages of uncompromising sternness, would not be likely to use any merely euphuistic phrase. The dignity of his expressions adds to their intensity. For a similar delicate yet forcible use of δοκεῖν see 1Co 11:16. The verb ὑστερεῖν “come short” occurs in Heb 12:15, together with a terrible example of the thing itself in Heb 12:17.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Being left [καταλειπομενης] . Still remaining : not being neglected. It is not a reason for fearing that is given, but a circumstance connected with the thing to be avoided. As there is now left a promise, let us fear. Being left announces the thought which is afterward emphasized, and on which the whole treatment of the subject turns - that God 's original promise of rest remains unchanged, and still holds good. Such being the case, he who doubts the promise itself, or thinks that it is too late for him to enjoy its fulfillment, runs a risk.

Should seem to come short [δοκη υστερηκεναι] . According to this rendering, the meaning is that one must avoid the appearance of having failed to enter into the rest; the perfect tense [υστερηκεναι] placing the reader at the parousia, when judgment will be pronounced. This is forced, tame, and irrelevant to the previous discussion. Rend. lest any one of you think he has come too late for it. This accords with the previous admonitions against unbelief. For one to think that he has come too late to inherit the promise is to disbelieve an immutable promise of God. Hence the writer may well say, "Since this promise remains, let us fear to distrust it." JUsterein is to be behind; to come late; to come short; hence, to suffer need, as Phi 4:12; of material deficiency, Luk 14:14; Joh 2:3; of moral and spiritual shortcoming, Rom 3:23; 1Co 8:8; Heb 12:15.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

more comprehensive in warning. It suggests that the mere appearance or suspicion of failure, even though it may not be fally justified, for man’s judgment is necessarily fallible, is a thing to be earnestly dreaded. Other rendorings, ‘lost any should be shown to...’ or ‘be judged to...,’ or ‘think that ho has...,’ arc lees natural and leas forcible.

vorepnxevar] to have come short, Vulg. deesse, to have failed to attain the promised rest in spiritual possession. Tho tonac marks not only a present (Rom. ili. 23 ὑστεροῦνται) or past defeat (2 Cor. xii. 11 ὑστέρησα) buf an abiding failure.

Brooke Foss Westcott (1825–1901), The Epistle to the Hebrews (1889) and The Epistles of St John (1883) — public domain (pre-1929). Text recovered from Internet Archive / Google Books OCR scans. Westcott’s Gospel of John commentary is not included (its OCR lost the chapter running-heads required for reliable verse-keying). Some Greek quoted in the Hebrews volume is imperfectly rendered by the OCR.