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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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Hebrews 4:6
Comments
An offer of entering in remains. Entering what? The promised land? No, entering into the spiritual rest of God. What the writer is explaining is that the promise of entering into God's rest goes on from generation to generation. It was repeated at the time of Moses; Moses preached the gospel. In Deuteronomy 29 Moses gets a vast concourse of people and he says to them, ‘I'm telling you about a covenant that isn't like the covenant that God made with us on Mount Sinai. It's richer; it's better; it's a covenant of redemption,’ – not that he used that word – ‘and it’s a covenant that touches the heart. We must not only be circumcised in the flesh, but in our hearts. This is about knowing God and being saved and ‘entering into his rest.’ That, freely paraphrased, is the gist of what Moses was explaining in Deuteronomy 29 and 30, and we must understand this. It is not as if this spiritual promise of rest was only for the first time made available by David when Psalm 95 was written. The covenant of grace had been in force since the first promise was given in Eden, and it was established formerly with Abraham. God’s rest in the spiritual sense was a blessing associated with that gracious covenant. Yes, the rest of God at creation set a pattern for all human society from the start, which was adhered to by many nations. And yes, the legal covenant on Sinai made with the nation of Israel also had a rest associated with it – the rest of the physical land – but that was only a type of the spiritual rest. The fact that human beings had entered God’s rest in these lesser senses did not mean that they had entered in the true sense. From the very first when God spoke of his rest, man was invited to enter it and enjoy it in the fullest possible way, and all those who put their trust in God and in the promised Messiah did enter that rest, but many refused to believe. For the sake of clarity Scripture, which says nothing superfluous, reiterates the offer of rest in Psalm 95 and so shows both that many in Israel had never yet truly entered in, and that the opportunity to enter it was still available. That psalm defines the ongoing situation until the end of the world for all who have not trusted in Christ.
Application
So the promise of a physical land represents, more importantly, a promise of spiritual rest: to know the Lord, to have your salvation settled, to have peace with God now and for all eternity. That promise says the writer of Hebrews was open in David’s time: Today, you must enter in; today, you must seek and find salvation, the kingdom of God, the rest of God, and it is still open in our day.
Questions
The letter to the Hebrews tells us that David wrote Psalm 95. If you were to turn to Psalm 95, you wouldn't find an ascription to David over the top of the Psalm, but it was. It was ascribed here to David and the writer of Hebrews points out that David is using the same promise.
Outline
Purpose
Introduction