Bible Diary - Hebrews 4:1-6
June 8, 2008
I look forward to entering God’s rest. This rest, I believe, refers to my continued existence after death. The word “rest” suggests to me graduation from the life of a pilgrim in this world with its stress and pain to the joy of coming “home” to my Father.
God’s Promised Rest
4:1 Therefore we must be wary that, while the promise of entering his rest remains open, none of you may seem to have come short of it. 4:2 For we had good news proclaimed to us just as they did. But the message they heard did them no good, since they did not join in with those who heard it in faith. 4:3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my anger, ‘They will never enter my rest!’” And yet God’s works were accomplished from the foundation of the world. 4:4 For he has spoken somewhere about the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works,” 4:5 but to repeat the text cited earlier: “They will never enter my rest!” 4:6 Therefore it remains for some to enter it, yet those to whom it was previously proclaimed did not enter because of disobedience.
From this passage I learn that experiencing this rest is not necessarily certain. What am I to “be wary” of? Basically unbelief, I think. Believers will enter God’s rest. Unbelievers “will never enter my rest!” So what must I do to believe?
That is a deceptively simple question. The whole of Scripture tells me that the issue of my belief or unbelief was settled, for good or for bad, by God before I was born, so at least in one sense there is nothing that I can do to guarantee my entrance into God’s rest. The question is shrouded in mystery because for now I cannot see God. I have no choice but to work hard to, as someone has said, “work out in my life what God has worked in.” Or as the Apostle said, to “work out my salvation in fear and trembling.” Work now, rest later.
Dave
-sdg-
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