4.3. For we who have believed do enter into that rest, even as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, they will not enter into my rest;” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. v.4 For he has said this somewhere about the seventh day, “God rested on the seventh day from all his works;” v.5 and in this place again, “They will not enter into my rest.”
The people of Israel failed to enter the natural rest that God had offered them, but more importantly they missed the spiritual rest that could have been theirs if they had truly put their faith and trust in God. Yet there is still a rest available to the people of God. The Israelites missed it through unbelief, but believers do not have to miss it.
In fact, the writer makes the point that God’s rest has always been available. God Himself rested at the completion of creation, and extended to man an invitation to join Him in that rest. The picture is not just of a day of rest, but of an enduring rest.
From our human perspective, we see God working constantly from the time of creation till the present: we see His judgments in the flood and at Babel; His guidance and provision for the Patriarchs; His deliverance in the Exodus; His discipline of His people in the wilderness wandering; His direction, judgment, protection and provision throughout the history of Israel; and most of all His revelation of Himself and the accomplishment of our salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. And that’s without even beginning to look at His work in individual lives!
But from the perspective of God, who is eternal – who transcends time – all of it was already accomplished from the beginning of time.
We need to understand this, because it has a great bearing on our own entering into that rest. We face the same dichotomy. From where we stand, we are very much in the midst of the battle. Our Christian “walk” often feels more like an uphill march through a bramble patch on a black, rainy night wearing a fifty kilo back pack, and with an unseen enemy shooting at us from every side.
From where God stands, “It is finished!” Everything necessary for our salvation, our total victory over satan in every area, and the establishment of the Kingdom, has already been accomplished at Calvary.
For Israel, the problem was not that God’s rest was not there – it had been available from the beginning of time. They simply lacked the faith to enter into it. In the same way, God’s rest, and His victory, is available for us. We don’t have to struggle or work for it. It is already done. We are to simply enter by faith.
God is patient beyond our understanding, but He does not hold the door open forever. For the Israelites, the day came when God said, “That’s it! The opportunity of entering My rest is now gone forever.” In saying this, God was not talking about the promised land, which the people of Israel did enter after their forty-year wandering, but about the spiritual rest that they never found. The whole message of this section of the Book of Hebrews is that we should not be like them: we must be careful not to miss the rest that God offers us.