Hebrews 4:1 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Hebrews 4:1

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‘Let us fear therefore’ In the light of the solemn warning of chapter 3:12 – ‘Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God’ and what follows. There is evidently a considerable problem in the mind of Israelites who have been converted, and even more in the minds of those who are merely nominal believers, and the writer addresses that problem in this chapter.When did God rest, and how do we enter into his rest? Genesis 2:2 records that at the end of the six days of creation ‘God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made (Genesis 2:2). God’s rest was the basis of the sabbath commandment, inaugurated at the creation of the world, and later included as the fourth Commandments. Consequently, Jewish people would say, ‘We have the rest. We are partakers of the rest of God. He has brought us as a people as a nation into rest: that is the Sabbath day.’ This passage – among other things – is going to say, ‘No, that was a token; that was a only a symbol. Yes, it was a law in Israel, and it should be obeyed, and it had numerous benefits, but it was really a symbol of something much greater, described by this word ‘rest’. The fact that you've got the symbol, doesn't mean you have entered into God’s rest. But there was something else which the Jews of old thought was the rest. They put it historically: ‘The land of Canaan was the place of rest. That was the great reward promised to the nation (Joshua 1:13, 15; 22:4; 1 Chronicles 22:18), and we entered in, and it's ours, and we occupy it: God has given us rest in the land.’ So they would say to the preaching of Christ and the gospel, ‘What is this strange terminology? You say that there is a rest to be entered into, but we have the sabbath; we have the land. What more is there? We are the nation, given rest by God.’ That second interpretation that they had of the rest of God is also answered and set aside in this chapter. So, if the chapter answers these two points which troubled Jewish minds, what does it have to say to Gentiles? It has much to say, because the sabbath day and the land were in turn pictures of a far greater rest, an eternal rest; a rest which belongs to every believer, both and Jew and Gentile. The chapter has much to say about the preaching of the gospel and the nature and reward of faith. The land of Canaan was a symbol of rest, but by no means the complete fulfilment, for the believer’s reward is in heaven, not on this earth which is under the curse. There was a very real danger that some should come short of entering into God’s rest, even though they had kept the sabbath and lived in the land of Canaan all their lives.

Application

Imagine in ancient times that the patriarchal head of the family directs the labours of his sons and staff. At the end of the day when the labourers are dismissed and the sons come back to the home, the father is now with his family and he devotes himself to them, and he is at their disposal. So the notion of rest is when everyone is home, after the day’s labours; it was the time when the extended family were all-together. On the seventh day God rested from his labours of creation, and for all time and eternity God, who is all in all, is available to his people. So the ‘rest’ of God is the kingdom of God, where we have fellowship with the Father and we relate to him through the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. The blessing is not all future. Even now, when we are converted, we come into God's kingdom as a rest. The Father is now devoted to his people, and he is giving us his attention, and we may call upon him and fellowship with him.

If you're in the rest of God, the kingdom of God, then you're under his rule, you're under his government. Is that true of you? You say I am a believer, I'm a Christian, and I’ve come into the kingdom of God. Yes, but are you under his rule? Under his government? Under his direction? Does his word govern your life? Does the preacher plead in vain when he urges you to come to more services and to Bible studies and even to prayer meetings, and to be involved in the life and service of the Lord? Is that nothing to you, because you are not really under his government? Then how can you be in his rest? How can you be somebody who is familiar with God and walking with him and going to be with him in eternity?

God’s New Testament people also have a promise of entering a land, not however a physical land on this present earth, but heaven itself. This too is conditional on faith, and what the writer to the Hebrews has just taught about ancient Israel applies by analogy to the people of God today. In the case of this largely unregenerate people, they must believe that God could do what he had said and provide them with a physical earthly land. They must believe that he would support them in the wilderness and lead them through it, and that he would drive out the Canaanites from the land. But they failed to exercise faith at even this basic level, and therefore their unbelief meant that the wilderness generation could not enter into the land; they could not enjoy even the typical blessings.

The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints teaches that God’s people are secure, but not without the use of means. Complacency regarding our future inheritance, regardless of how we live, of whether we exercise faith or not, is extremely dangerous. One of the means that God uses to preserve his people is to put in them a fear of coming short, and this fear is real and is a motivating factor in the hearts of the elect. It is not a fear that their state is intrinsically unstable or that God is unable to keep them reliably, but it is a fear of overconfidence and of relying on natural means instead of the Lord. It is a fear of abusing God’s grace and making the fatal mistake of thinking that he is indifferent to our trust in him or lack of trust. Let us therefore fear, not because God is unable to keep us, but because we still have a sinful nature which can produce the fruit of unbelief, and because we need to make our calling and election sure. If we are indeed chosen by God in Christ, then election cannot be any surer than it already is, but we are in a battle for our own souls, and our enemy, the devil, is full of deceit, and it is essential that none of us deceive ourselves about our true state. There are those who fall away, who once thought that they belonged to Christ. In truth, they never really repented or believed, nor were they born again, but they behaved outwardly like believers for a time and deceived both themselves and others. The remedy to this is to fear lest any should seem to come short of the promise.

You can't be half a Christian. ‘Oh but I’m a seeker, does that make me saved?’ No, if you die as a seeker, you are eternally lost. There is no such thing as a half believer, being half saved. If you haven't really yielded up your life, repented of your sin and trusted in what Christ did on Calvary's cross as the only hope for you, then none of your own works can save you. Do not stop seeking until you are sure you are in Christ’s kingdom.

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Hebrews 4:1 Commentary and Bible Study