The Rest In The World To Come

1Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. 

The writer's audience here is those Jews who are coming into the assembly of Messianic Israel, who are addressed by the writer here as representative of all Israel.  For the promise of rest was, is and remains given to all Israel, not to one group or another. Therefore, speaking to Israel as a nation, in the name of God's son, the writer says, in effect, "Let us fear lest the same thing occurs now as occurred at the first, when Israel was brought to the borders of the Land.  For they were brought there in order to enter in by faith, just as they crossed the Red Sea by faith, and therefore in doing so to enter into the rest of God.  But they did not do so. Now also it is a time when Israel can enter the rest of God through faith, according to the promise given to the nation. But if any of you seem to come short of the faith for entering in, then we should all fear, lest God determine that Israel should wander still in the wilderness of captivity.

2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.  

The Good News of God, which He told to Abraham, has from the beginning been the Good News of the Jews, the family of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  But the prophet, Yochanan, (John), the Immerser, who representatively immersed the whole people of the Jews of Jerusalem and Judea in the Jordan, (Luke 3:21), said to those who came to him, "Do not think to say, 'We have Abraham as our father!' For God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones!" Matthew 3:9.

This was the very same message as we have here in the Book of Hebrews in this place.  The Good News of God was not only the Good News of the Jews but also the Good News of the Land of Israel.  It was really the Good News of the Jews In The Land of Israel.  In order to be the Jews of God's Good News they would have to enter the Land of Israel in faith.  After the collective of the people revolted and would not believe in God to bring them into the Land which He had promised to Abraham, they wandered for forty years in the wilderness, until that whole generation died.  The immersion (baptism) of repentance prophetically brought by Yochanan testified that even then when Israel, as the next generation, crossed the Jordan, their repentance from the unbelief of their parents was not perfect.  They were not prepared then and there to meet and follow the Mashiach.  They were not prepared then and there to fulfill the testimony of the Torah together with the Mashiach.  But, so many years later, the time had now come.  Yehoshua himself was come to Yochanan to be immersed in the Jordan.  He would 'cross over the Jordan' and enter into the Land of Testimony and into the rest of God.  In the spirit of Eliyahu, (Elijah), Yochanan therefore brought the immersion of repentance to prepare the way.

And so it is now.  Since the day of Yehoshua's offering, whoever is immersed, let them be immersed in a solidarity of repentance with the Jews for the unbelief of those who went before to the borders of the Land of Promise but did not believe in God to bring them into the Land, just as He, by His Hand alone, took them out of the grip of Pharaoh and brought them up out of the Land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. For the testimony of the true God to the world, the testimony that will redeem Adam from the dead, is the testimony of Israel in the Land of Israel, not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of God, in accordance with the Scriptures, fulfilling the Messianic Covenant of God, which He promised by the Prophets.

3 For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said:  “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’ ” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 

"God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones!" Not only Mashiach himself, but also all the seed that God would count as being the nation which He promised to Abraham would come through the generation which did not believe walking for forty years of chastisement over the stones of the barren wilderness. Over the hard ground of those stones the generation would be conceived that God would count as the generation that was worthy to cross the Jordan.  And why did He count them as worthy?  Because they did not turn back and refuse in fear to go forward into the waters of the river, just as the generation before had not refused to step into the waters of the Red Sea.  However, in neither case had the faith been a perfect faith. For at the Red Sea they hesitated.  When they went forward it was because the armies of Pharaoh were at their back and the dread of 400 years of slavery laid heavy upon them.  Likewise, the children of those who wandered in the wilderness for 40 years were made worthy to enter the waters of the Jordan by having learned the lesson of chastisement with their parents.

And what if we have believed?  Is it with perfect faith? Or should we endure greater slavery and more generations of wandering in the wilderness before we will let go of what attracts us to unbelief?  We even know that the possessions and the successes of this life are an illusion.  We know full well that we are under God's sentence of death.  We know that all that we might gain in this life will soon be taken from our hand. But we are tempted to let our hearts and minds be mesmerized by the illusions of the moment, the fabrications of unbelief.  It is possible to enter right now, today, into the rest of God.  He made sure of this in His very design of Creation, from His very first act of creation.  But do we have the faith to do this?

We have heard that God has given the promise of the blessing of life to overcome the curse of death to no one else than to Abraham.  And we have heard that the seed of Abraham in whom God fulfilled that promise is the Jew, Mashiach Yehoshua, and that the promise extends to all who are deemed by God as his family. We are invited, even if we are gentiles, to be counted as being adopted into that family by believing in God's blessing of Abraham and his offspring. But do we have the faith to do this? Can we let go of the whole world and travel in spirit with Abraham to a land that God will show to him, a land where he, and we, can rest with God from all our efforts to overcome all evils, to overcome sin and its consequences, to overcome the threat of death and to sustain our own life?  If, after all that has been said and done, we turn to unbelief, to science, or to the reason and wisdom that is based upon our own experience, our own eyes, but still dream that we shall somehow, someday attain the reward of bliss, we have this word of God standing against us, "I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.'"

4 For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way:  “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; 

"I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest." This verse could be placed as commentary upon that word of God to Adam: "The LORD God commanded the Adam, saying, of all the trees of the garden you may freely eat.  But of the tree that is in the center of the garden you shall not eat.  For in the day you eat from it in dying you will end in death."  When Cain was born and grew up what he saw, what clearly appeared to him, was that his parents had not ended in death on the day that they had eaten from that forbidden fruit.  He therefore thought that it was only a mistake to have eaten of the fruit and that he could repent by fixing that mistake.  He would offer the LORD God a food offering to acknowledge that He alone was the Provider of all foods.  Perhaps this would appease God and He would lift the curse of death entirely.  What Cain failed to see with the wisdom of his eyes was that while a seventh day had come and gone for his parents, they had never entered the seventh day of God.  They had not been allowed to enter into His rest.

5 and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.”

It would seem that after losing his relationship with God and bringing the world under the curse of death Adam and Eve became disoriented.  Whether or not they tried to keep the Sabbath they did not enter God's rest.  Indeed, after Cain killed Abel, it appears that they separated for several hundred years, as they had no other children until Seth was born.  They had overheard the promise that God made and gave as a prophecy against the serpent and against the seed of the serpent, but that promise was not given to them personally. Abel seems to have been the first to recognize and acknowledge with his offering that the bruising of the heel of the promised seed of the woman meant that in order for him to crush the head of the serpent, and overthrow its work of deceiving his mother into sinning, he would himself have to be subject to the sentence of death and die.  Only then would it be possible to fully keep the Sabbath of rest with God.  Abel, it seems, entered into this rest through faith.  But Cain killed him. And this has been the nature of the force of unbelief ever since, whether we find it in ourselves or in others.  The testimony of Abel is referenced here in chapter 11.

6 Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, 

Although the generation of the children who wandered in the wilderness did cross the Jordan River with Joshua and did settle the Land, they only began to settle the Land.  At no time did they or any generation that followed them in entering in to the Land and settling it ever demonstrate the faith in God that Israel demonstrated in coming out of Egypt.  In the last day, through the promise and power of Mashiach this faith will finally be demonstrated in Israel.  The covenant of HaShem, which He made with Avraham, will be completely fulfilled.  Some must enter the Land in the Spirit and Power of Hashem.

7 again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said:  “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.”

For a reflection on this verse in a Mahx Note on a study on Elijiah see here.

Some must enter the Land in the Spirit and Power of Hashem, even after such a long time.  And when that day comes, that day shall be "Today".  It shall be, as it were, the only day, the Day of Hashem.  The day shall come when Israel does not harden her heart.  The day shall come when she does hear His voice.  Already, as the writer of this book wrote, the day called, "Today", had begun to dawn.  Not all Israel had hardened its heart.  A remnant of Israel had met the Mashiach in his death and in his resurrection.  And though the light of the Day had not fully appeared, but was partially concealed for the purpose of God's grace to be revealed in Israel, still all Israel would be saved.  Therefore the writer here writes to all his Jewish brothers and sisters, laboring to teach them how to understand the mystery of Hashem's grace, how out of compassion in Egypt he did not reveal to them that they would be subject yet to other exiles in the future.  Instead, he revealed himself to be there with them in the sufferings of that exile, and that from this they could learn that he would be with them in all their sufferings until at last they, with him, would be raised from the dead.  Just so, now, today, in the generation of the writer of the Book of Hebrews, and in our day, we can believe and be saved and enter into the rest of Hashem.

8 For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. 

9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 

10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.

Enter The Rest Now

11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. 

12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 

13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must  give account.

The Eternal Human High Priest

14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Yehoshua the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 

15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 

16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.