Work is hard and every worker looks forward to rest. Life too is hard, especially in this fallen world, and has it trials and hardships. It is the rule of this life that we work to preserve body and soul. Works of righteousness are also costly and involve us in bearing ‘the burden and heat of the day’ (Matthew 20:12). The Christian serves the Lord willingly and in gratitude to Christ, but he does not have the strength to go on working forever. He hopes to cease from these works and enjoy the fruit of them. Just as the work of a farmer brings a reward in the form of a harvest, so the believer’s work for the Lord brings a reward, though he must always remember that it is a reward of grace. Having forfeited life and the favour of God, it is only grace that has again put him in a position where he is able to serve the Lord at all. Therefore the reward that God will give should not be considered as a strict reward as if God could ever be profited by what we do. It should be viewed as a further gift of grace in which God treats us as if we had deserved what he alone enabled us to do.
What wisdom belongs to our God, and what amazing forethought! How perfectly he understands all things from the very beginning, while ages pass before we can catch up with his understanding. The working week is a metaphor for the whole of life and the rest that comes after it, but only those having faith can enter into God’s true rest. Just as national Israel was denied entry into the figure of heaven – the promised land of Canaan – because of unbelief, so no man or woman will enter heaven without faith in Christ. But all those who enter will enjoy a reward that is utterly disproportionate to the works they have done during life in this world, and to what they have suffered here. ‘For I reckon’, says the apostle Paul, ‘that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us’ (Romans 8:18).
Some have applied this verse to Christ. Christ has ceased from works; Calvary is over. He rests now as the Father does. But this is out of context. ‘For he that is entered into his rest’ – that is the person who has faith and believes – ‘he also hath ceased from his own works.’ He doesn't trust in any obedience to the law, literally, as a means of salvation. He realises he is a sinner, and his forgiveness and his salvation and his entry into the ongoing rest, is entirely by faith.
God when he entered his rest did not cease all work, but only the work of creation. He still works in providence and the execution of the plan of redemption. The Lord’s people entering their rest will cease earthly activity but still carry on with other things. In heaven, you won’t eat, drink, sleep so as to sustain the body; the body will not need it. Works of sin will cease, and of mind: cares, griefs, worries, anxieties. You will cease from all these works and be involved in another work. On earth we have a short time to serve the Lord and then eternity.