Hebrews 4:10

4:1-10 The privileges we have under the gospel, are greater than any had under the law of Moses, though the same gospel for substance was preached under both Testaments. There have been in all ages many unprofitable hearers; and unbelief is at the root of all unfruitfulness under the word. Faith in the hearer is the life of the word. But it is a painful consequence of partial neglect, and of a loose and wavering profession, that they often cause men to seem to come short. Let us then give diligence, that we may have a clear entrance into the kingdom of God. As God finished his work, and then rested from it, so he will cause those who believe, to finish their work, and then to enjoy their rest. It is evident, that there is a more spiritual and excellent sabbath remaining for the people of God, than that of the seventh day, or that into which Joshua led the Jews. This rest is, a rest of grace, and comfort, and holiness, in the gospel state. And a rest in glory, where the people of God shall enjoy the end of their faith, and the object of all their desires. The rest, or sabbatism, which is the subject of the apostle's reasoning, and as to which he concludes that it remains to be enjoyed, is undoubtedly the heavenly rest, which remains to the people of God, and is opposed to a state of labour and trouble in this world. It is the rest they shall obtain when the Lord Jesus shall appear from heaven.

But those who do not believe, shall never enter into this spiritual rest, either of grace here or glory hereafter. God has always declared man's rest to be in him, and his love to be the only real happiness of the soul; and faith in his promises, through his Son, to be the only way of entering that rest.

Only in such a Sabbath-rest is found the counterpart of God's rest on the seventh day. For he that is entered into his rest (ὁ γὰρ εἰσελθὼν εἱς τὴν κατάπαυσιν αὐτοῦ) Whoever has once entered. His, God's. The aorist marks the completeness of the appropriation - once and for all. He also hath ceased from his own works (καὶ αὐτος κατέπαυσεν ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων αὐτοῦ) Omit own. The statement is a general proposition: any one who has entered into God's rest has ceased from his works. As God did from his (ὤσπερ ἀπὸ τῶν ἰδίων ὁ θεός) Rend. as God (did) from his own. Ἰδίων own signifies more than mere possession. Rather, works peculiarly his own, thus hinting at the perfect nature of the original works of creation as corresponding with God's nature and bearing his impress. The blessing of the Sabbath-rest is thus put as a cessation from labors. The basis of the conception is Jewish, the rest of the Sabbath being conceived as mere abstinence from labor, and not according to Christ's conception of the Sabbath, as a season of refreshment and beneficent activity, Mark 2:27; John 5:17. Our writer's conception is not the rabbinical conception of cessation of work, but rather of the cessation of the weariness and pain which accompany human labor. Comp. Revelation 14:13; Revelation 21:4; Luke 11:7; Luke 18:5; Galatians 6:17.

Hebrews 4:10 . For that rest of which we were speaking, may properly be called a sabbatical rest, or the celebration of a sabbath; for he that hath entered into this his final and complete rest, hath ceased from his own works — From all his labours and toils; as God did from his — In that first seventh- day, which, in commemoration of it, was appointed to be kept holy in all future ages. Probably God appointed men to rest on the seventh day, not only in commemoration of his having rested on that day, but to teach them that their happiness in a future state will consist in resting from their work of trial, and in reviewing it after it is finished, as God, when he rested from the work of creation, surveyed the whole, and pronounced it good. From this account of the rest which remaineth for the people of God, namely, that they do not enter into it till their works of trial and suffering are finished, it is evident that the rest which is here said to remain to them is the rest of heaven, of which the seventh-day rest is only an imperfect emblem.

Hebrews 4:10 . Γὰρ , for ) Verse 9 is proved thus: He who has entered into the rest of God, rests from his labours; but the people of GOD do not yet rest: therefore they have not yet entered in. It remains, that they enter in.— ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων αὐτοῦ ) from his works , even from those that were good and suitable to the time of doing work. Labour precedes rest; and that would have doubtless been the case, even in paradise, Genesis 2:15 .— ὥστερ , as ) The work and rest of GOD are that archetype to which we ought to be conformed.

10. For—justifying and explaining the word "rest," or "Sabbatism," just used (see on [2549]Heb 4:9). he that is entered—whosoever once enters. his rest—God's rest: the rest prepared by God for His people [Estius]. Rather, "His rest": the man's rest: that assigned to him by God as his. The Greek is the same as that for "his own" immediately after. hath ceased—The Greek aorist is used of indefinite time, "is wont to cease," or rather, "rest": rests. The past tense implies at the same time the certainty of it, as also that in this life a kind of foretaste in Christ is already given [Grotius] (Jer 6:16; Mt 11:28, 29). Our highest happiness shall, according to this verse, consist in our being united in one with God, and moulded into conformity with Him as our archetype [Calvin]. from his own works—even from those that were good and suitable to the time of doing work. Labor was followed by rest even in Paradise (Ge 2:3, 15). The work and subsequent rest of God are the archetype to which we should be conformed. The argument is: He who once enters rest, rests from labors; but God's people have not yet rested from them, therefore they have not yet entered the rest, and so it must be still future.

Alford translates, "He that entered into his (or else God's, but rather 'his'; Isa 11:10, 'His rest': 'the joy of the Lord,' Mt 25:21, 23) rest (namely, Jesus, our Forerunner, Heb 4:14; 6:20, 'The Son of God that is passed through the heavens': in contrast to Joshua the type, who did not bring God's people into the heavenly rest), he himself (emphatical) rested from his works (Heb 4:4), as God (did) from His own" (so the Greek, "works"). The argument, though generally applying to anyone who has entered his rest, probably alludes to Jesus in particular, the antitypical Joshua, who, having entered His rest at the Ascension, has ceased or rested from His work of the new creation, as God on the seventh day rested from the work of physical creation. Not that He has ceased to carry on the work of redemption, nay, He upholds it by His mediation; but He has ceased from those portions of the work which constitute the foundation; the sacrifice has been once for all accomplished. Compare as to God's creation rest, once for all completed, and rested from, but now still upheld (see on [2550]Heb 4:4).

(10) Into his rest. —That is, into God’s rest. Hath ceased.—Rather, hath rested from his works as God did from His own (works). This verse is added to explain and justify the reference to a “sabbath” in Hebrews 4:9. Man’s sabbath-rest begins when he enters into God’s rest (Genesis 2:2); as that was the goal of the creative work, so to the people of God this rest is the goal of their life of “works.” As the whole argument is reviewed, the question may naturally be asked, To what extent is this wide meaning present in the Psalm itself? Where must the line be drawn between the direct teaching of the words and the application here made? The apparent expansion of the meaning of the Psalm relates to Hebrews 4:11 alone. There, in the first instance, an historical fact is mentioned—the exclusion of the rebels from the promised land. But though the mention of the oath of God is derived from Numbers 14:28-30, the language of the historian is significantly changed; for “ye shall not come into the land,” we read, “they shall not enter into My rest.” True, the land could be spoken of as their “rest and inheritance” (Deuteronomy 12:9); but the language which the Psalmist chooses is at all events susceptible of a much higher and wider meaning, and (as some of the passages quoted in the Note on Hebrews 3:11 serve to prove) may have been used in this extended sense long before the Psalmist’s age.

That Hebrews 4:8, when placed by the side of Hebrews 4:11, shows the higher meaning of the words to have been in the Psalmist’s thought, and implies that the offer of admission to the rest of God was still made, it seems unreasonable to doubt. As the people learnt through ages of experience and training (see Hebrews 1:5) to discern the deeper and more spiritual meaning that lay in the promises of the King and the Son of David, so was it with other promises which at first might seem to have no more than a temporal significance. If these considerations are well founded, it follows that we have no right to look on the argument of this section as an “accommodation” or a mere application of Scripture: the Christian preacher does but fill up the outline which the prophet had drawn.

This proveth the foregoing consequence of a rest remaining, from the nature of a true rest, which is a resting from all labours, which the Israelites did not in Canaan, therefore it is yet to come. For every true believer who hath full possession of God’s rest, where God is satisfying of them in bliss, they rest in his loves, of which the sabbath and Canaan were but types. He also hath ceased from his own works; such true Christians have ceased and rested from all their sinful works and labours, as works of callings, miseries, anxieties, and sufferings of any kind, resting from them perfectly and perpetually, having finished all his work of evangelical obedience through them. As God did from his; they have rested not in a parity of rest, or work in kind, but as God from his own in likeness of order, his work going before rest, and of rest fitted for believers by him conformable to his own. Some refer these words and the relative he to our Lord Jesus Christ, as Head of his body, the church of true believers; and that the parallel runs between God the Father and him in the works of the old and new creation, which works were good and complete in their different kinds, in their cessation from them, and their rest in their respective sabbaths, both days being founded thereon; and that believers shall be conformable to their Head, treading in his steps in doing and suffering, and then in rest.