Hebrews: The Daily Discipline of a Devoted Lifeنموونە

It’s difficult to find rest, isn’t it? We live such busy lives with work demands and taxiing our children to sports teams and music lessons, and then we want to be faithful at church. How can we find rest in such a hectic world? 

Well, this passage talks about God taking a rest from all his creation work on the seventh day. And the seventh day then becomes a glorious metaphor of how we can enter God’s rest. The call to come to Christ is pictured as entering God’s rest.

First, the Old Testament hero switches from being Moses to Joshua, who was Israel’s military general in their conquest of Canaan. During that conquest God kept promising his people ‘rest’, which in that context meant rest from war and enemies, to take up their inheritance in the Promised Land. 

Then the metaphor grows bigger, extending from the seventh day of Genesis 2, through Joshua’s military rest, right into the ministry of Christ, where he invites people to ‘enter that rest’ (v. 11). Our good works cannot make us right with God, and Christ’s invitation is to stop trying to earn favour with God; instead rest on the finished work of Christ at the cross, which provides forgiveness and peace with the Father, ‘for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his’ (v. 10). 

Ironically the writer tells his readers to ‘strive’ (v. 11, ESV) or ‘make every effort to enter that rest’ (v. 11, NIV). The Christian life is a combination of resting in the finished work of Christ, and striving to serve and please God before we take up our ultimate ‘rest’ in a new heavens and new earth. The writer was warning these Hebrews that they had not really entered God’s rest if they were not striving to please Jesus. 

Salvation is a ‘now, but not yet’ reality. We experience God’s rest in part in this life, believing in Christ for forgiveness of our sins. But we await our final, ultimate rest, where we will not need to struggle to please God – it will come naturally as glorified saints – and we will take up the inheritance God has promised for us, one that ‘can never perish, spoil or fade’ (1 Pet. 1:4). 

So don’t be worried if the spiritual ‘rest’ you enjoy today doesn’t feel very restful! Your sins are forgiven; you have peace with God – if you are trusting in Christ. But the battle with the sinful nature will continue in this life until you enter the glory prepared for you since before the world began. In that battle, you need to take up God’s Word daily, which is ‘living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword …’ (v. 12). The Word is like a scalpel, painfully opening up dark desires and sins you did not know you had. But his Word will weed out the corrupt to make way for the fruit of the Spirit!

Reflection

Are you trusting in Christ’s finished work, or are you still trying to earn favour with God?