In this Bible study podcast, Andy Davis goes line by line through Hebrews 4:1-11. The author of Hebrews proves that since David’s Psalm 95 was written so long after the time of Joshua, yet David spoke of “Today”, there is a continual experience of “Today” which refers to the ongoing opportunity to respond to the gospel invitation to enter God’s rest through faith in Christ. The author then uses the Israelites bad example to provoke his readers to come into the New Covenant faith in Christ.
The author of Hebrews proves that since David’s Psalm 95 was written so long after the time of Joshua, yet David spoke of “Today”, there is a continual experience of “Today” which refers to the ongoing opportunity to respond to the gospel invitation to enter God’s rest through faith in Christ. The author then uses the Israelites bad example to provoke his readers to come into the New Covenant faith in Christ.
– PODCAST TRANSCRIPT –
Joel
Hi, welcome to the Two Journeys podcast. This is episode eight in the book of Hebrews: Entering God’s Rest where Pastor Andy Davis and I, Joel Hartford, discuss Hebrews 4:1-11. Andy, we’re moving through the book of Hebrews and we just got done with a huge warning in chapter three to take heed and hear the voice of the Lord not to harden our hearts. And now the author talks about entering God’s rest. Can you give us a brief overview of this section?
Andy
Yeah, this is a very powerful section. Again, we would put it in the category of a warning because he says, “Let us fear.” So there’s a sense of warning in these verses to people who have heard the gospel but who have not come over into saving faith in Christ. That’s really what the author’s talking about. And he uses the, what I would call, the type or shadow of Sabbath rest as a picture of salvation in Christ. And the warning here is: it’s not enough to hear the gospel. It’s not enough to understand the words of the gospel. You have to combine it with faith. You have to trust in Christ and cross over from death to life. And if that hasn’t happened yet, you should be afraid. There’s a deep fear that the author is trying to put into his hearers that it’s not enough to have heard the gospel. They need to combine it with faith in Christ.
“It’s not enough to understand the words of the gospel. You have to combine it with faith. You have to trust in Christ and cross over from death to life.”
Joel
Well, for the sake of our audience, I’m going to read verses 1-11,
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, ‘As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’’ although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.’ And again in this passage he said, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’
Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formally received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, ‘Today,’ saying through David so long afterward in the words already quoted, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.’ For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
Andy, I know you already mentioned this in the preliminary comments, but what does it mean to enter his rest?
Andy
Well, that is the question here in this text. And he’s, again, continuing over chapter three and four, an extended meditation on Psalm 95, which King David wrote, I don’t know, about 1000 B.C. And he’s going to make that argument about when the promise of entering the rest fell into Jewish history. It was well after creation, of course. It was well after the Exodus. It was well after the law was given concerning the Sabbath. Long after that there’s still a Sabbath rest. And so he’s meditating on Psalm 95 and pulls out that warning, “Today, if you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts,”(Psalm 95:8) and what the author to the Hebrews wants them to hear is the promise. He wants them to hear the promise there is a Sabbath rest. Come over into that rest. And now in the new covenant, we know exactly what that means. By faith in Christ, come over into rest for your souls. I can’t help but just hear Jesus’ beautiful invitation in Matthew 11 where he says, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, my burden is light.”(Paraphrase of Matthew 11:28-30) So there’s that invitation to come into salvation, to faith in Christ. So that’s what the author wants them to do. And he wants them to hear he is using fear. The alternative is basically rest or wrath. There’s no third option here. You’re either going to come over into the rest in Christ or you’re going to experience God’s anger, his wrath.
Joel
So then to just apply that directly to us, the promise of entering his rest is still standing. It’s still open.
Andy
Sure. Yeah, I think, in that case, for we who have already believed, there’s still a rest that remains. Now, we could argue that there’s a rest that we could experience every day. And I think that’s a valid interpretation here. That we should be experiencing the peacefulness in our souls that comes from knowing that our works are completed in Christ. That we don’t have to earn anything. We can rest in our justification. We can rest in our imputed righteousness by faith in Christ. The idea here would be Romans 5:1, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” that’s rest. But you have to experience that rest. There is a peace that passes all understanding that guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 talks about that: Give all of your concerns to God in prayer and give it up to him and let him be, in the language of this chapter, your great high priest who takes your burdens. And it’s a time of need. So you can have a restfulness in your soul now. And then there’s a final eternal rest that’s still ahead of all of us, and that’s heaven. It’s basically the future, final rest of the true crossing of the Jordan, which is death and resurrection into resurrection bodies. That’s a yet future rest that still remains for the people of God.
Joel
Right. Now, he exhorts them to fear lest they seem to fail to reach it. And then he draws a connection between this audience and the disobedient generation in the wilderness. And we talked about that for the last couple of weeks. But regarding this good news, how did they both hear the good news? And what were the disastrous consequences for the people in the wilderness? And how is that a warning for us today?
Andy
Well, the good news is the promise. There is a rest available, “I’m offering you a rest.” That’s the good news. And so with that promise still there, it’s still valid. Then we have this example, in the Old Testament, of people who had a similar promise, I would use that language with the type or shadow, of the physical Promised Land being extended to them as a type or shadow of the final rest in Christ. It was offered to them. But look what they did with it. They didn’t believe it. They came right to the brink of the Jordan and when the 10 spies came back and saw that it was a good land, the land flowing with milk and honey, it’s a beautiful rest that God was giving them. They didn’t believe it. They didn’t believe that they could take it. They looked inward and tried to find the resources to conquer the Canaanites. They had walls, the Anakites, there were walls up to the skies. And so they were afraid and they did not look to God. They didn’t believe. They didn’t trust in him. And look what happened to them. God said, “Then you won’t enter it.” And he poured out his wrath on them for a generation, in a very wise way, he killed them slowly so that there could be the next generation, children raised and ready. And their children did enter. But that generation didn’t. Except for Joshua and Caleb, they all died. Their bodies were scattered in the desert. And so that’s the fear. Look what happened to them. That’s what the Psalm 95, what David’s doing, say, “Look what happened to that generation. I was angry with that generation. And I swore on oath in my anger they will never enter my rest. And they didn’t.” Well, that was just physical. This is even more, this is like a “how much more” argument the author uses. The stakes are infinitely higher now in the new covenant. The rest we’re talking about is heaven. And if we shrink back from that, if we turn back from crossing over, by faith into Christ, nothing remains, the author’s going to tell us, except basically hell. Destruction. He’s going to make that point clearly later on. So that’s the fear here. He’s trying to give them fear. It’s not okay to turn back from entering rest in Christ.
Joel
Okay, so the next part of this verse, it says, “They were not united by faith with those who listened.”(Hebrews 4:2) That’s what the ESV says. What does this mean? And do you have any insight on how we should translate this verse?
Andy
Yeah, this is actually a difficult translation issue. We are blessed, in the English language with many reputable translations. There’s a historically significant translation in the King James version. And that’s going to be with us I think as long as the English language stands, just a masterpiece of scholarship, of translation, beginning with William Tyndale, one of the greatest linguists in history. And then the Puritans came along and, in the time of King James, basically did a Puritan Bible effectively and did a phenomenal job translating. Now, there’s a couple of problems with the King James. One is that our language has changed, and so there’s some vocabulary and grammar we don’t use anymore. So it takes some learning. And also they were using newer manuscripts. And there’s a whole bunch of manuscript debates that go on with that. And I’m not getting into that here. But the King James remains a phenomenally accurate and helpful translation. But since that time, in our lifetime, there have been so many good English translations, the RSV, the NIV 84, which I use. The New American standard version or Standard Bible, NASV. ESV has come in recently. Many people are using it. And so we’re blessed. I’m just saying being in Japan, when I was a missionary there, they had two translations. One of them was done by the Catholic Church and the other one was about 150 years old. And similar to the King James, the language had changed and it’s hard for modern Japanese to read. That’s it. They had nothing else. And I don’t know if Wycliffe is planning on doing a modern Japanese translation, but when you realize that 1% evangelical, there’s just not a lot of Japanese Christians, it may not be high in their priority list. We are incredibly blessed. Every five to seven, eight years, a new translation comes out like the Holman Christian Standard Bible, some others, they just keep coming out. Well, what ends up happening is, you line up these translations side by side and they just read differently sometimes from each other. Sometimes it’s just a matter of phraseology, slightly, synonyms, that kind of thing. But sometimes they just have different meanings. And that’s what you get here. The ESV is just has a different meaning than the KJV and the NIV 84. NIV 84 and KJV and New American Standard Bible all say one thing. And the ESV and the Holman Christian standard, the CSV, say something else. So there’s two different ways of reading this. So ESV says, I’ll just read it. It says, “For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them,” why? “Because they [the people] were not united by faith with those who listened.”(Hebrews 4:2) So the idea here is that those people didn’t join the company of believers, I think, is what the ESV is effectively saying. And then that’s valid because later he is going to talk about the great cloud of witnesses. The people who were believers. The people of faith. There’s a whole chapter on that later. So that’s valid. So it didn’t benefit them because they didn’t come over and join the company of believers. But I think it’s better to look at it the way the KJV does. And the key word here is mingle. It says, combine in the NIV or mixed in the KJV. United here in the ESV. Those are all good translations. There’s a long Greek word here, which means to combine or mix or mingle two things or join them, join them together. So two things are being joined and it’s negated. So something was not joined. So the ESV and the CSV says the people were not joined with the company of believers. But the alternate translation would be, because they, the people, the ones who heard the promise, did not combine that word of promise with faith. So the chemistry of salvation here is: the word of God, the promise, plus faith equals salvation. And if you don’t add faith to the word, it will do you no good. And I think in this context, since the author goes on to talk about the word of God being living and active, his focus is on the Word. His focus is on the promise. I think it’s better to go with the KJV, NIV 84, and New American Standard. The idea is it didn’t do them any good to have that promise because they didn’t unite that promise in their hearts with faith.
Joel
Well, that’s really helpful to think about because that helps us in hearing the word of God is that I want to actively take the knowledge I’m receiving and I want to immediately unite it with faith and not be a passive hearer. Essentially, showing up does you no good if you don’t unite it with faith.
Andy
Let me say one more thing about the translations. It’s always difficult. You’ve got just skilled brothers and sisters that are excellent at translating. They just have linguistic gifts. Whenever you do a translation, you’re really doing, to some degree, an interpretation. You’re doing exegesis as you try to render decisions on these kinds of things. And usually it’s between two good things. And so we’ve got two good things going on here. But, we’re going to get to that theme later. Hey, let’s join the company of the believers. The cloud of witnesses. We’ll get there. But, here for us, the takeaway is, whenever you hear the Word, that living and active word, combine it with faith. Don’t harden your heart, but hear what the Holy Spirit is saying and trust in the promise. That’s the exhortation here.
“Whenever you hear the Word, that living and active word, combine it with faith. Don’t harden your heart, but hear what the Holy Spirit’s saying and trust in the promise.”
Joel
Now, what about this phrase, “Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world,”(Hebrews 4:3) how does this fit into the author’s train of thought? Because he says, “‘They shall not unto my rest,’ although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.”(Hebrews 4:3)
Andy
It’s a challenging concept here. The idea is what is the rest that David was writing about? That’s what the author’s meditating on. So David is dropped into redemptive history, 1000 B.C., and he’s writing this psalm and uses the word “Today.” This is half a millennium later than the Ten Commandments. This is obviously much after God created the world. And so there’s a sense in which there is a completion, by God, on the seventh day of physical creation. And so “God finished all that he had made and he saw that it was very good. And he declared that it was very good. And he set apart that seventh day and called it holy.”(Paraphrase of Genesis 2:2-3) That was his Sabbath rest. And it’s a sense of him almost not resting out of exertion like he was tired. God never gets tired. But a sense that he was satisfied with his work. It was perfect for what he was trying to achieve. He knew there was yet more to come. He knew there would be a new heaven, new earth. He knew there would be a new Jerusalem. He knew all that was coming. But at that moment, what he was trying to do was completed. It was perfect. His works were finished from that time. And so that’s what the author is saying, that God was satisfied and he was complete with his work. God’s works have been finished since that point, but that doesn’t mean there’s not yet more work to come.
Joel
Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Now, as we go verse by verse, we want to try to understand the careful contours of the author’s argument. He then says, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.”(Hebrews 4:4) And then he repeats it, “And again in this passage he said, ‘They shall not unto my rest.’”(Hebrews 4:5) And then he makes an argument, “Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formally received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, ‘today.’”(Hebrews 4:6-7) And then he quotes David again. So what is the author’s train of thought here and how does this really crescendo into this huge warning about the Sabbath rest?
Andy
Sure. The author is really doing very careful exegesis on Psalm 95. And he’s saying, “Look, logically there has to be some Sabbath rest yet to come.” And it can’t refer to the original physical creation because David wrote that long after that was done.
Joel
So the timeline matters.
Andy
The timeline matters, and it can’t refer to the command, the fourth commandment, which is, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”(Exodus 20:8) It’s not talking about the Sabbath rest that the Jews followed under the Law of Moses because that was 500, 400, 500 years ago. So he is speaking about something that still remains. And the author says it twice in this section. There still remains, remains. It’s not there yet. So what he’s saying is, because he’s talking to Jews, to Jewish people, he said, “You all know about the Sabbath. We do it every week. There is a yet future Sabbath that we haven’t entered yet. Now what could that be? David is alluding to it because he wrote after Moses, long after Moses. What is the Sabbath rest that still remains?” And so he’s going line by line, for he says again in the passage, “They shall not enter my rest.”(Psalm 95:11) And David thinks that’s a valid thing. They’ve already crossed the Jordan. They’re living in the promised land. There’s still a rest that remains. They observe the Sabbath every day. Back in the days of King David, there’s still a Sabbath rest that remains. What is it? It’s Jesus, it’s salvation. That’s what the author’s doing here. So he says, there remains this thing. So, since the promise remains for some to enter it, “Since therefore it remains for some to enter that rest, and those who formally received the good news didn’t enter through disobedience.”(Paraphrase of Hebrews 4:6) There’s the warning. “There’s still a rest ahead of us, Jewish brothers and sisters,” he’s saying, the author of Hebrews. We’re still in danger actually. And this is even bigger than that ever was. We need to learn the lessons of our Jewish forebears who didn’t enter the promised land and we need to fear. The whole thing’s about fear here. Let us fear that we don’t enter the rest. But, he has to prove that there’s still a Sabbath rest remaining and he does it by a chronology. When David wrote Psalm 95, he was talking about, in his day, a yet future Sabbath rest, was yet to come. And he said, “Let’s not be like they did, who heard and did not believe.”
Joel
Right. So to make your point, the next verse, verse 8 says, “If Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.”(Hebrews 4:8) So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. So the rest Joshua brought them into, it was really only a type and shadow. It wasn’t the real deal.
Andy
And you’re using the language of type and shadow. And I mentioned that at the beginning of our podcast today. That language is going to come in hugely later in chapter nine of this book, of the book of Hebrews. And type and shadow means something that God set up in history, in Jewish history, that in some way acts out physically of the future spiritual reality of the gospel in Christ and heaven and other aspects. So there’s heavenly realities or future realities and then there’s something physical right now, at least back then, right now, that you can act out and be part of, that gives us a physical symbol of something yet to come. So the tabernacle/temple was a type and a shadow. The animal sacrificial system was a type and a shadow of Christ. The tabernacle, a type and shadow of the heavenly tabernacle or holy of holies in the heavenly realms the author’s going to give us. And then the Promised Land itself, the land flowing with milk and honey is a type and shadow of heaven. Crossing the Jordan is a type and shadow of coming into faith in Christ or dying and being resurrected in a resurrection body, either way, because there are two stages that we’re looking at there. But, to cross over into the promised land, to enter into the physical rest that Joshua led them in, that was just a type or shadow. Something acted out in history. That it gives us a symbol of the future spiritual reality. Let me just link that to spiritual verses in the New Testament. Very clearly, when Jesus says in John 5:24, “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me.” So there it is. It’s not enough to hear. Got to combine it with faith, “Whoever hears my word plus believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”(Paraphrase of John 5:24) That’s Jordan-
Joel
Crossed over.
Andy
Crossed over. That’s Jordan River language. You’ve crossed over into the rest there is and that is forgiveness of sins.
Joel
That’s really helpful in just reading the Old Testament, understanding what the purpose of God acting out redemptive history for us is really to point to our future salvation.
Andy
It is. And I think there’s just so much more we could say about this. The physical promised land is a type and shadow of a physical future promised land. We’re going to be in a physical world. It’s not just metaphysical. We’re actually going to have new earth ground under our resurrection feet. And so they lived in a land. They actually ate food from the promised land. And so that’s a type and shadow of a yet physical future reality we’re going to have. But here’s the point. Joshua didn’t finish the job. I mean he did what he needed to do, but there is a yet future Sabbath rest that’s far more significant than that one ever was.
Joel
Do you think it’s appropriate to connect this to Matthew 5 where Jesus is preaching and he says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,”(Matthew 5:5) this Sabbath rest and this land that you’ve been talking about?
Andy
I had not been thinking about that, but yeah, I love it. That’s the future rest we’re going to come into. Now let me say one thing about the Sabbath itself. We’re not going to get into Sabbatarianism or Sabbath observances. The theological heritage that I’ve followed the most, the reformed theological heritage, the Puritans following John Calvin, were very strong Sabbatarians really. And they believe that the Sabbath, the one day in seven set apart completely under God for his service and his worship in a special way was one of the 10 commandments and therefore clearly a lasting binding regulation on the hearts of Christians. It’s moved over from the seventh day to the first day. Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon entitled: “The Perpetuity and Change of the Sabbath Regulation.” And so there’s a permanent aspect and then there’s a change aspect. There is way too much for us to talk about here because Jesus did a whole bunch of things on the Sabbath that he was not supposed to do and the Sabbath is not made for man, but man was not made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath for man. And there’s all kinds of things we can say. What I want to say is this, whatever you believe, and I’m going to use the language, frankly, of Romans 14, whatever you believe about one day in seven, because he was writing to Roman Christians who some of them were Jews and some were Gentiles and some of them had a pattern of a one day in seven and the pagans that were converted didn’t. I think he basically says, “Look, whatever you believe about this, do it by faith.” Keep between yourself and God, as Romans 14. We could go on and on about it. What I would say is this: it is practically helpful to have that one day in seven. It is actually vital for our faith to unite with other Christians and God has providentially given us this Sunday where we get to meet in a local church, and I would strongly urge that but without a legalistic tint to it so that if you don’t do it, you know you’re not a Christian, that just goes over into legalism that I think is very unhelpful. But there is a flowering of the Sabbath rest for us in Christ that this chapter points to. The real Sabbath rest is not what you do on Sunday, it’s your personal faith in Christ and the peace you have with God through faith in Christ. And there’s a future to it. And that’s resurrection in the new heaven, new earth. That’s the final Sabbath rest for all of us.
Joel
Okay, so you’re talking about what the Sabbath rest means for us. Verse 10 says, “For whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”(Hebrews 4:10) What does it mean that he has rested from his works as God did from his?
Andy
Well, it’s a challenge to try to understand this because he’s going to say in verse 11, “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest.”(Hebrews 4:11)
Joel
Work to rest.
Andy
Yeah, work to rest. So I think that, again, so many times we come again and again to the relationship between justification and sanctification. So in justification, by faith in Christ, we rest from all of our labors. In terms of trying to earn forgiveness, trying to earn the pleasure of God. You have as much pleasure, positionally, pleasure from God as you can ever have. God is as pleased with you as he ever could be because you are in Christ. And so in that sense, we have ceased from our labors. We have entered perfection, “By one sacrifice, God has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”(Hebrews 10:14) Isn’t that interesting? So that’s justification language. We are perfect forever. But, we are also being sanctified gradually. And so there’s the striving. Later, the author is going to give us the image of running a race, “Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that’s so easily entangles and let us run with endurance the race marked out before us.”(Paraphrase of Hebrews 12:1) “Let us strive to be holy. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.”(Paraphrase of Hebrews 12:14) There is still a striving in the Christian life. There’s an effort. And he’s going to say that in verse 11, “Let us strive therefore,”(Paraphrase of Hebrews 4:11) but there is, the whole time you’re striving, you’re at rest. You know can’t improve your position. You can’t be any more forgiven than you are. You can’t be any more righteous, positionally, than you are. You can’t be any more adopted than you are. You can’t be any more secure than you are. None of your works improve any of those things. Your position is perfect. So you have entered into God’s perfect rest by faith in Christ. So there’s that combination. There is you have entered and you are perfect in justification, so now strive to be perfect in your everyday life through holiness.
Joel
And all this language of rest and ceasing from works, it’s bringing my mind back to Genesis where part of the curse was you’re going to toil all the days of your life. Essentially, rest was yanked from them.
Andy
For sure.
Joel
And now Christ is restoring it.
“Even while we’re working out our salvation with fear and trembling, we still can be at peace knowing that God is at peace with us.”
Andy
Yeah, it’s a curse. Basically, you’re going to strive and wrestle with the earth and you’re going to lose. You’re going to wrestle your whole life and in the end you’re going to end up in the grave. So that is a curse. Jesus has taken the stinger out of that. Now instead, our striving for holiness is going to be consummated in perfect holiness. So any effort you made toward growing in holiness will be rewarded on judgment day and consummated in heaven. So the striving now is not futile. It is actually the very thing the Holy Spirit’s doing in us, striving for our holiness. But here’s the thing. There is a peace that we should realize we have all the time. Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then as I mentioned a few minutes ago, there also should be a peacefulness in our hearts. Like God is characterized by peace. God’s not a roiling, challenged, divided being who’s up there wringing his hands and not knowing what to do, he’s just completely at peace with himself. He is harmonious with himself. I’m going to start sounding like I’m eastern mystic here, but God is absolutely at peace within himself all the time. And we can enter into that aspect of God. We can be at peace in ourselves. Even while we’re working out our salvation with fear and trembling, we still can be at peace knowing that God is at peace with us.
Joel
Amen. That is beautiful. I’m going to strive to enter that rest.
Andy
Me too.
Joel
Well, that was episode eight in the book of Hebrews. Please join us next time and we’ll talk about possibly one of the most famous verses in the whole Bible that talks about, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.”(Hebrews 4:12) Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast and God bless you all.
The author of Hebrews proves that since David’s Psalm 95 was written so long after the time of Joshua, yet David spoke of “Today”, there is a continual experience of “Today” which refers to the ongoing opportunity to respond to the gospel invitation to enter God’s rest through faith in Christ. The author then uses the Israelites bad example to provoke his readers to come into the New Covenant faith in Christ.
– PODCAST TRANSCRIPT –
Joel
Hi, welcome to the Two Journeys podcast. This is episode eight in the book of Hebrews: Entering God’s Rest where Pastor Andy Davis and I, Joel Hartford, discuss Hebrews 4:1-11. Andy, we’re moving through the book of Hebrews and we just got done with a huge warning in chapter three to take heed and hear the voice of the Lord not to harden our hearts. And now the author talks about entering God’s rest. Can you give us a brief overview of this section?
Andy
Yeah, this is a very powerful section. Again, we would put it in the category of a warning because he says, “Let us fear.” So there’s a sense of warning in these verses to people who have heard the gospel but who have not come over into saving faith in Christ. That’s really what the author’s talking about. And he uses the, what I would call, the type or shadow of Sabbath rest as a picture of salvation in Christ. And the warning here is: it’s not enough to hear the gospel. It’s not enough to understand the words of the gospel. You have to combine it with faith. You have to trust in Christ and cross over from death to life. And if that hasn’t happened yet, you should be afraid. There’s a deep fear that the author is trying to put into his hearers that it’s not enough to have heard the gospel. They need to combine it with faith in Christ.
“It’s not enough to understand the words of the gospel. You have to combine it with faith. You have to trust in Christ and cross over from death to life.”
Joel
Well, for the sake of our audience, I’m going to read verses 1-11,
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, ‘As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’’ although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.’ And again in this passage he said, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’
Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formally received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, ‘Today,’ saying through David so long afterward in the words already quoted, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.’ For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
Andy, I know you already mentioned this in the preliminary comments, but what does it mean to enter his rest?
Andy
Well, that is the question here in this text. And he’s, again, continuing over chapter three and four, an extended meditation on Psalm 95, which King David wrote, I don’t know, about 1000 B.C. And he’s going to make that argument about when the promise of entering the rest fell into Jewish history. It was well after creation, of course. It was well after the Exodus. It was well after the law was given concerning the Sabbath. Long after that there’s still a Sabbath rest. And so he’s meditating on Psalm 95 and pulls out that warning, “Today, if you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts,”(Psalm 95:8) and what the author to the Hebrews wants them to hear is the promise. He wants them to hear the promise there is a Sabbath rest. Come over into that rest. And now in the new covenant, we know exactly what that means. By faith in Christ, come over into rest for your souls. I can’t help but just hear Jesus’ beautiful invitation in Matthew 11 where he says, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, my burden is light.”(Paraphrase of Matthew 11:28-30) So there’s that invitation to come into salvation, to faith in Christ. So that’s what the author wants them to do. And he wants them to hear he is using fear. The alternative is basically rest or wrath. There’s no third option here. You’re either going to come over into the rest in Christ or you’re going to experience God’s anger, his wrath.
Joel
So then to just apply that directly to us, the promise of entering his rest is still standing. It’s still open.
Andy
Sure. Yeah, I think, in that case, for we who have already believed, there’s still a rest that remains. Now, we could argue that there’s a rest that we could experience every day. And I think that’s a valid interpretation here. That we should be experiencing the peacefulness in our souls that comes from knowing that our works are completed in Christ. That we don’t have to earn anything. We can rest in our justification. We can rest in our imputed righteousness by faith in Christ. The idea here would be Romans 5:1, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” that’s rest. But you have to experience that rest. There is a peace that passes all understanding that guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 talks about that: Give all of your concerns to God in prayer and give it up to him and let him be, in the language of this chapter, your great high priest who takes your burdens. And it’s a time of need. So you can have a restfulness in your soul now. And then there’s a final eternal rest that’s still ahead of all of us, and that’s heaven. It’s basically the future, final rest of the true crossing of the Jordan, which is death and resurrection into resurrection bodies. That’s a yet future rest that still remains for the people of God.
Joel
Right. Now, he exhorts them to fear lest they seem to fail to reach it. And then he draws a connection between this audience and the disobedient generation in the wilderness. And we talked about that for the last couple of weeks. But regarding this good news, how did they both hear the good news? And what were the disastrous consequences for the people in the wilderness? And how is that a warning for us today?
Andy
Well, the good news is the promise. There is a rest available, “I’m offering you a rest.” That’s the good news. And so with that promise still there, it’s still valid. Then we have this example, in the Old Testament, of people who had a similar promise, I would use that language with the type or shadow, of the physical Promised Land being extended to them as a type or shadow of the final rest in Christ. It was offered to them. But look what they did with it. They didn’t believe it. They came right to the brink of the Jordan and when the 10 spies came back and saw that it was a good land, the land flowing with milk and honey, it’s a beautiful rest that God was giving them. They didn’t believe it. They didn’t believe that they could take it. They looked inward and tried to find the resources to conquer the Canaanites. They had walls, the Anakites, there were walls up to the skies. And so they were afraid and they did not look to God. They didn’t believe. They didn’t trust in him. And look what happened to them. God said, “Then you won’t enter it.” And he poured out his wrath on them for a generation, in a very wise way, he killed them slowly so that there could be the next generation, children raised and ready. And their children did enter. But that generation didn’t. Except for Joshua and Caleb, they all died. Their bodies were scattered in the desert. And so that’s the fear. Look what happened to them. That’s what the Psalm 95, what David’s doing, say, “Look what happened to that generation. I was angry with that generation. And I swore on oath in my anger they will never enter my rest. And they didn’t.” Well, that was just physical. This is even more, this is like a “how much more” argument the author uses. The stakes are infinitely higher now in the new covenant. The rest we’re talking about is heaven. And if we shrink back from that, if we turn back from crossing over, by faith into Christ, nothing remains, the author’s going to tell us, except basically hell. Destruction. He’s going to make that point clearly later on. So that’s the fear here. He’s trying to give them fear. It’s not okay to turn back from entering rest in Christ.
Joel
Okay, so the next part of this verse, it says, “They were not united by faith with those who listened.”(Hebrews 4:2) That’s what the ESV says. What does this mean? And do you have any insight on how we should translate this verse?
Andy
Yeah, this is actually a difficult translation issue. We are blessed, in the English language with many reputable translations. There’s a historically significant translation in the King James version. And that’s going to be with us I think as long as the English language stands, just a masterpiece of scholarship, of translation, beginning with William Tyndale, one of the greatest linguists in history. And then the Puritans came along and, in the time of King James, basically did a Puritan Bible effectively and did a phenomenal job translating. Now, there’s a couple of problems with the King James. One is that our language has changed, and so there’s some vocabulary and grammar we don’t use anymore. So it takes some learning. And also they were using newer manuscripts. And there’s a whole bunch of manuscript debates that go on with that. And I’m not getting into that here. But the King James remains a phenomenally accurate and helpful translation. But since that time, in our lifetime, there have been so many good English translations, the RSV, the NIV 84, which I use. The New American standard version or Standard Bible, NASV. ESV has come in recently. Many people are using it. And so we’re blessed. I’m just saying being in Japan, when I was a missionary there, they had two translations. One of them was done by the Catholic Church and the other one was about 150 years old. And similar to the King James, the language had changed and it’s hard for modern Japanese to read. That’s it. They had nothing else. And I don’t know if Wycliffe is planning on doing a modern Japanese translation, but when you realize that 1% evangelical, there’s just not a lot of Japanese Christians, it may not be high in their priority list. We are incredibly blessed. Every five to seven, eight years, a new translation comes out like the Holman Christian Standard Bible, some others, they just keep coming out. Well, what ends up happening is, you line up these translations side by side and they just read differently sometimes from each other. Sometimes it’s just a matter of phraseology, slightly, synonyms, that kind of thing. But sometimes they just have different meanings. And that’s what you get here. The ESV is just has a different meaning than the KJV and the NIV 84. NIV 84 and KJV and New American Standard Bible all say one thing. And the ESV and the Holman Christian standard, the CSV, say something else. So there’s two different ways of reading this. So ESV says, I’ll just read it. It says, “For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them,” why? “Because they [the people] were not united by faith with those who listened.”(Hebrews 4:2) So the idea here is that those people didn’t join the company of believers, I think, is what the ESV is effectively saying. And then that’s valid because later he is going to talk about the great cloud of witnesses. The people who were believers. The people of faith. There’s a whole chapter on that later. So that’s valid. So it didn’t benefit them because they didn’t come over and join the company of believers. But I think it’s better to look at it the way the KJV does. And the key word here is mingle. It says, combine in the NIV or mixed in the KJV. United here in the ESV. Those are all good translations. There’s a long Greek word here, which means to combine or mix or mingle two things or join them, join them together. So two things are being joined and it’s negated. So something was not joined. So the ESV and the CSV says the people were not joined with the company of believers. But the alternate translation would be, because they, the people, the ones who heard the promise, did not combine that word of promise with faith. So the chemistry of salvation here is: the word of God, the promise, plus faith equals salvation. And if you don’t add faith to the word, it will do you no good. And I think in this context, since the author goes on to talk about the word of God being living and active, his focus is on the Word. His focus is on the promise. I think it’s better to go with the KJV, NIV 84, and New American Standard. The idea is it didn’t do them any good to have that promise because they didn’t unite that promise in their hearts with faith.
Joel
Well, that’s really helpful to think about because that helps us in hearing the word of God is that I want to actively take the knowledge I’m receiving and I want to immediately unite it with faith and not be a passive hearer. Essentially, showing up does you no good if you don’t unite it with faith.
Andy
Let me say one more thing about the translations. It’s always difficult. You’ve got just skilled brothers and sisters that are excellent at translating. They just have linguistic gifts. Whenever you do a translation, you’re really doing, to some degree, an interpretation. You’re doing exegesis as you try to render decisions on these kinds of things. And usually it’s between two good things. And so we’ve got two good things going on here. But, we’re going to get to that theme later. Hey, let’s join the company of the believers. The cloud of witnesses. We’ll get there. But, here for us, the takeaway is, whenever you hear the Word, that living and active word, combine it with faith. Don’t harden your heart, but hear what the Holy Spirit is saying and trust in the promise. That’s the exhortation here.
“Whenever you hear the Word, that living and active word, combine it with faith. Don’t harden your heart, but hear what the Holy Spirit’s saying and trust in the promise.”
Joel
Now, what about this phrase, “Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world,”(Hebrews 4:3) how does this fit into the author’s train of thought? Because he says, “‘They shall not unto my rest,’ although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.”(Hebrews 4:3)
Andy
It’s a challenging concept here. The idea is what is the rest that David was writing about? That’s what the author’s meditating on. So David is dropped into redemptive history, 1000 B.C., and he’s writing this psalm and uses the word “Today.” This is half a millennium later than the Ten Commandments. This is obviously much after God created the world. And so there’s a sense in which there is a completion, by God, on the seventh day of physical creation. And so “God finished all that he had made and he saw that it was very good. And he declared that it was very good. And he set apart that seventh day and called it holy.”(Paraphrase of Genesis 2:2-3) That was his Sabbath rest. And it’s a sense of him almost not resting out of exertion like he was tired. God never gets tired. But a sense that he was satisfied with his work. It was perfect for what he was trying to achieve. He knew there was yet more to come. He knew there would be a new heaven, new earth. He knew there would be a new Jerusalem. He knew all that was coming. But at that moment, what he was trying to do was completed. It was perfect. His works were finished from that time. And so that’s what the author is saying, that God was satisfied and he was complete with his work. God’s works have been finished since that point, but that doesn’t mean there’s not yet more work to come.
Joel
Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Now, as we go verse by verse, we want to try to understand the careful contours of the author’s argument. He then says, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.”(Hebrews 4:4) And then he repeats it, “And again in this passage he said, ‘They shall not unto my rest.’”(Hebrews 4:5) And then he makes an argument, “Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formally received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, ‘today.’”(Hebrews 4:6-7) And then he quotes David again. So what is the author’s train of thought here and how does this really crescendo into this huge warning about the Sabbath rest?
Andy
Sure. The author is really doing very careful exegesis on Psalm 95. And he’s saying, “Look, logically there has to be some Sabbath rest yet to come.” And it can’t refer to the original physical creation because David wrote that long after that was done.
Joel
So the timeline matters.
Andy
The timeline matters, and it can’t refer to the command, the fourth commandment, which is, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”(Exodus 20:8) It’s not talking about the Sabbath rest that the Jews followed under the Law of Moses because that was 500, 400, 500 years ago. So he is speaking about something that still remains. And the author says it twice in this section. There still remains, remains. It’s not there yet. So what he’s saying is, because he’s talking to Jews, to Jewish people, he said, “You all know about the Sabbath. We do it every week. There is a yet future Sabbath that we haven’t entered yet. Now what could that be? David is alluding to it because he wrote after Moses, long after Moses. What is the Sabbath rest that still remains?” And so he’s going line by line, for he says again in the passage, “They shall not enter my rest.”(Psalm 95:11) And David thinks that’s a valid thing. They’ve already crossed the Jordan. They’re living in the promised land. There’s still a rest that remains. They observe the Sabbath every day. Back in the days of King David, there’s still a Sabbath rest that remains. What is it? It’s Jesus, it’s salvation. That’s what the author’s doing here. So he says, there remains this thing. So, since the promise remains for some to enter it, “Since therefore it remains for some to enter that rest, and those who formally received the good news didn’t enter through disobedience.”(Paraphrase of Hebrews 4:6) There’s the warning. “There’s still a rest ahead of us, Jewish brothers and sisters,” he’s saying, the author of Hebrews. We’re still in danger actually. And this is even bigger than that ever was. We need to learn the lessons of our Jewish forebears who didn’t enter the promised land and we need to fear. The whole thing’s about fear here. Let us fear that we don’t enter the rest. But, he has to prove that there’s still a Sabbath rest remaining and he does it by a chronology. When David wrote Psalm 95, he was talking about, in his day, a yet future Sabbath rest, was yet to come. And he said, “Let’s not be like they did, who heard and did not believe.”
Joel
Right. So to make your point, the next verse, verse 8 says, “If Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.”(Hebrews 4:8) So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. So the rest Joshua brought them into, it was really only a type and shadow. It wasn’t the real deal.
Andy
And you’re using the language of type and shadow. And I mentioned that at the beginning of our podcast today. That language is going to come in hugely later in chapter nine of this book, of the book of Hebrews. And type and shadow means something that God set up in history, in Jewish history, that in some way acts out physically of the future spiritual reality of the gospel in Christ and heaven and other aspects. So there’s heavenly realities or future realities and then there’s something physical right now, at least back then, right now, that you can act out and be part of, that gives us a physical symbol of something yet to come. So the tabernacle/temple was a type and a shadow. The animal sacrificial system was a type and a shadow of Christ. The tabernacle, a type and shadow of the heavenly tabernacle or holy of holies in the heavenly realms the author’s going to give us. And then the Promised Land itself, the land flowing with milk and honey is a type and shadow of heaven. Crossing the Jordan is a type and shadow of coming into faith in Christ or dying and being resurrected in a resurrection body, either way, because there are two stages that we’re looking at there. But, to cross over into the promised land, to enter into the physical rest that Joshua led them in, that was just a type or shadow. Something acted out in history. That it gives us a symbol of the future spiritual reality. Let me just link that to spiritual verses in the New Testament. Very clearly, when Jesus says in John 5:24, “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me.” So there it is. It’s not enough to hear. Got to combine it with faith, “Whoever hears my word plus believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”(Paraphrase of John 5:24) That’s Jordan-
Joel
Crossed over.
Andy
Crossed over. That’s Jordan River language. You’ve crossed over into the rest there is and that is forgiveness of sins.
Joel
That’s really helpful in just reading the Old Testament, understanding what the purpose of God acting out redemptive history for us is really to point to our future salvation.
Andy
It is. And I think there’s just so much more we could say about this. The physical promised land is a type and shadow of a physical future promised land. We’re going to be in a physical world. It’s not just metaphysical. We’re actually going to have new earth ground under our resurrection feet. And so they lived in a land. They actually ate food from the promised land. And so that’s a type and shadow of a yet physical future reality we’re going to have. But here’s the point. Joshua didn’t finish the job. I mean he did what he needed to do, but there is a yet future Sabbath rest that’s far more significant than that one ever was.
Joel
Do you think it’s appropriate to connect this to Matthew 5 where Jesus is preaching and he says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,”(Matthew 5:5) this Sabbath rest and this land that you’ve been talking about?
Andy
I had not been thinking about that, but yeah, I love it. That’s the future rest we’re going to come into. Now let me say one thing about the Sabbath itself. We’re not going to get into Sabbatarianism or Sabbath observances. The theological heritage that I’ve followed the most, the reformed theological heritage, the Puritans following John Calvin, were very strong Sabbatarians really. And they believe that the Sabbath, the one day in seven set apart completely under God for his service and his worship in a special way was one of the 10 commandments and therefore clearly a lasting binding regulation on the hearts of Christians. It’s moved over from the seventh day to the first day. Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon entitled: “The Perpetuity and Change of the Sabbath Regulation.” And so there’s a permanent aspect and then there’s a change aspect. There is way too much for us to talk about here because Jesus did a whole bunch of things on the Sabbath that he was not supposed to do and the Sabbath is not made for man, but man was not made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath for man. And there’s all kinds of things we can say. What I want to say is this, whatever you believe, and I’m going to use the language, frankly, of Romans 14, whatever you believe about one day in seven, because he was writing to Roman Christians who some of them were Jews and some were Gentiles and some of them had a pattern of a one day in seven and the pagans that were converted didn’t. I think he basically says, “Look, whatever you believe about this, do it by faith.” Keep between yourself and God, as Romans 14. We could go on and on about it. What I would say is this: it is practically helpful to have that one day in seven. It is actually vital for our faith to unite with other Christians and God has providentially given us this Sunday where we get to meet in a local church, and I would strongly urge that but without a legalistic tint to it so that if you don’t do it, you know you’re not a Christian, that just goes over into legalism that I think is very unhelpful. But there is a flowering of the Sabbath rest for us in Christ that this chapter points to. The real Sabbath rest is not what you do on Sunday, it’s your personal faith in Christ and the peace you have with God through faith in Christ. And there’s a future to it. And that’s resurrection in the new heaven, new earth. That’s the final Sabbath rest for all of us.
Joel
Okay, so you’re talking about what the Sabbath rest means for us. Verse 10 says, “For whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”(Hebrews 4:10) What does it mean that he has rested from his works as God did from his?
Andy
Well, it’s a challenge to try to understand this because he’s going to say in verse 11, “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest.”(Hebrews 4:11)
Joel
Work to rest.
Andy
Yeah, work to rest. So I think that, again, so many times we come again and again to the relationship between justification and sanctification. So in justification, by faith in Christ, we rest from all of our labors. In terms of trying to earn forgiveness, trying to earn the pleasure of God. You have as much pleasure, positionally, pleasure from God as you can ever have. God is as pleased with you as he ever could be because you are in Christ. And so in that sense, we have ceased from our labors. We have entered perfection, “By one sacrifice, God has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”(Hebrews 10:14) Isn’t that interesting? So that’s justification language. We are perfect forever. But, we are also being sanctified gradually. And so there’s the striving. Later, the author is going to give us the image of running a race, “Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that’s so easily entangles and let us run with endurance the race marked out before us.”(Paraphrase of Hebrews 12:1) “Let us strive to be holy. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.”(Paraphrase of Hebrews 12:14) There is still a striving in the Christian life. There’s an effort. And he’s going to say that in verse 11, “Let us strive therefore,”(Paraphrase of Hebrews 4:11) but there is, the whole time you’re striving, you’re at rest. You know can’t improve your position. You can’t be any more forgiven than you are. You can’t be any more righteous, positionally, than you are. You can’t be any more adopted than you are. You can’t be any more secure than you are. None of your works improve any of those things. Your position is perfect. So you have entered into God’s perfect rest by faith in Christ. So there’s that combination. There is you have entered and you are perfect in justification, so now strive to be perfect in your everyday life through holiness.
Joel
And all this language of rest and ceasing from works, it’s bringing my mind back to Genesis where part of the curse was you’re going to toil all the days of your life. Essentially, rest was yanked from them.
Andy
For sure.
Joel
And now Christ is restoring it.
“Even while we’re working out our salvation with fear and trembling, we still can be at peace knowing that God is at peace with us.”
Andy
Yeah, it’s a curse. Basically, you’re going to strive and wrestle with the earth and you’re going to lose. You’re going to wrestle your whole life and in the end you’re going to end up in the grave. So that is a curse. Jesus has taken the stinger out of that. Now instead, our striving for holiness is going to be consummated in perfect holiness. So any effort you made toward growing in holiness will be rewarded on judgment day and consummated in heaven. So the striving now is not futile. It is actually the very thing the Holy Spirit’s doing in us, striving for our holiness. But here’s the thing. There is a peace that we should realize we have all the time. Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then as I mentioned a few minutes ago, there also should be a peacefulness in our hearts. Like God is characterized by peace. God’s not a roiling, challenged, divided being who’s up there wringing his hands and not knowing what to do, he’s just completely at peace with himself. He is harmonious with himself. I’m going to start sounding like I’m eastern mystic here, but God is absolutely at peace within himself all the time. And we can enter into that aspect of God. We can be at peace in ourselves. Even while we’re working out our salvation with fear and trembling, we still can be at peace knowing that God is at peace with us.
Joel
Amen. That is beautiful. I’m going to strive to enter that rest.
Andy
Me too.
Joel
Well, that was episode eight in the book of Hebrews. Please join us next time and we’ll talk about possibly one of the most famous verses in the whole Bible that talks about, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.”(Hebrews 4:12) Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast and God bless you all.
