Hebrews

The Meaning of Rest

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels, and Sermons

Lesson: 6-33

Genre: Lecture

Track: 06

Dictation Name: RR198C6

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us Worship God. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that I will seek after. That I will dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen Thy heart. Wait I say, on the Lord. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our god we give thanks unto Thee that day after day Thou art mindful of us when we are forgetful of Thee, that Thy love never fails, and Thy providential care undergirds us all the days of our life. Give us grace therefore to trust in Thee, to know that Thy ways are wiser than ours, and Thy plans for the future greater than ours. We come to Thee therefore knowing how great our need, and how great is Thy provision. Bless us in Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture is Hebrews 4:1-5. Our subject, the meaning of rest. Hebrews 4:1-5.

“1Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.

 2For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

 3For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

 4For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.

 5And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.”

To understand this chapter and all of Hebrews, it is necessary to know what is meant by the word rest. It is an error to assume that rest means an absence of work. To read Hebrews in this sense, is to give rest a man centered meaning. In Hebrews 4:10, it is clear that this rest is Gods rest. This is seen by some as meaning heaven, but in Genesis 2:2, we see that it means God resting from his work of creation. From making heaven and earth in 6 days. In the modern sense of the end of work, the word is meaningless. The rest of creation in Genesis 2:2 refers to a completion, to a task accomplished, so that it is a celebration and a victory. We miss the meaning of the Sabbath if we fail to understand it in this sense. It celebrates Christ’s accomplished work of atonement, and the destruction of the power of sin and death. In this sense, rest refers to salvation and victory.

In Isaiah 57:20-21 we read: “But the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no rest, no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” The rest spoken of in Hebrews is the antithesis to this. It is a moral and theological fact. This rest is broken by the fall, by sin and death. It cannot be entered into apart from Jesus Christ. The rest we gain in Jesus Christ is the rest of God after creating the world that was very good. By our regeneration, in Jesus Christ, we are now reestablish in our dominion mandate, and we are commissioned to enter into Gods rest by doing his will and bringing every area of life and thought into captivity to Jesus Christ, and all things under the government of Gods law word.

This is what Hebrews tells us, this is what the book is about. We cannot understand it apart from this meaning of the word rest.

Without that note of victory, all things brought into captivity to Christ, what we have instead is pious gush. And that, is dishonoring to Christ. The Hebrews felt that because God said he was their savior, they should have been transplanted as it were, immediately into the promised land, all the enemies collapsing before them, and everything handed to them. They did not want to exercise dominion, therefore God did not allow that generation to enter into the promised land.

Now this rest was offered to man when he was called to his task in Eden, and after the fall it was this rest that awaited Gods chosen people for their obedience. Now that word obedience is like a red flag to a lot of pietists. Their idea is that once you say yes to Jesus, everything has to be handed to you. As a result all they do is to indulge in pious gush. I have seen at testimonial meetings people get up and give an eloquent witness about how glorious their life is. And you know it is a mess, and you know that they are making it even messier. But it never occurs to them that God requires them now to exercise dominion, not only to believe but to obey him. And the faith they talk about is easy believism.

I have used this illustration before, but I think it is a very telling one, so I am going to use it again. One day, in a bitterly cold early morning of the fall when I was on the Indian reservation, one of the old men and I went on a wagon with his team of horses to go way up into the high country. Of course the valley was 5400 feet high, but we were going up to about 8-9000. And we came to the river, and he was going to go across it. I was skeptical, I knew that those waters if the ice broke would have us dead in the matter of a minute or two, they would be so cold. And He got out and looked at the ice, and he said: “It will hold us.” I could have said to the old man, “I believe you, but I am going to stay off the wagon and see if you make it across.” I didn’t dare say that to him, because I knew that he knew more than I did, so I got in the wagon. I put my life on the line, on the ice. Now that is faith. You step out, and you put your life on the line in terms of your faith.

Now the Hebrews are told in this letter that their fore-fathers did not enter into that rest because of unbelief and disobedience. Will they turn back from Christ and also perish? That is the whole point of the letter.

This rest is ordained and prepared for the people whom God has called in Christ. Those to whom it was proclaimed by Moses did not gain it because of their unbelief; like the Israelites in the wilderness the young Christian community had an opportunity to move into the promised land, or perish in the wilderness. Therefore the warning begins; let us fear therefore, verse one. The story of the Exodus was the most familiar part of Hebrew history, were the Hebrews in the church now going to repeat the sin of their forefathers? It is the seriousness of this crisis that governs Hebrews, and accounts for its collective authorship. It is a solemn warning, and an explanation of the seriousness of any turning backward. They should be afraid of repeating an ancient sin. They are on trial, not God. The apostolic company, like Moses, is summoning them back from the brink of judgement and death.

Now, the premise of the exodus remains. The promise is there. That generation perished because of unbelief, but they did not nullify the promise. They only destroyed themselves. God does not change, and the promise remains. Gods rest like all his being and work is perfect, and he summons his people into that rest. Jesus Christ now has opened that rest to his people, and He calls them to enter into his rest by fulfilling the creation mandate. The word of promise did not profit the Exodus generation, verse two tells us, because they lacked true faith. The concern of the Exodus people was man-centered. What could God do for them? No matter how many the miracles and gifts God gave them, they demanded still more. God had in their eyes a duty to answer man’s prayers and petitions on demand. But if God did not meet their demands, the Hebrews of the Exodus generation were actually ready to threaten a return to Egypt, Numbers 11:20 and 40:1-4 tell us.

Although God felt no fear at their threat. These arrogant unbelievers could not enter into Gods rest, verses 3 and 4 tells us, but if we are faithful the apostolic fellowship tells us, we can. God works, always, as our Lord tells us in John 5:17, so that his rest refers to the triumph of his creative work and purpose. The Hebrews to whom this general letter was addressed, were in a position to understand its warning. Certainly the promised rest had not been attained in Israel’s history. Despite brief periods of peace and prosperity, their history was marked mainly by apostasies, invasions, and captivity. They were currently under Roman rule, and many feared that an outbreak of war was near, as it was indeed. The promised rest had not come. To them now verse two tells us was the word preached, or literally, the word of hearing was preached to them.

It means that even as the exodus generation had heard the word, so to this generation, so that they are without excuse. One cannot condemn the men who left Egypt without condemning oneself. There is the same ingratitude and obtuseness to reality.

Now the Sabbath rest of God is not something handed to a people for their readiness to give merely verbal assent to God. It isn’t just a matter of saying yes to Jesus. Remember the parable of our Lord, of the two brothers. One said yes to his father and did nothing, the other said no, and later repentant, obeyed. Which one was the blessed one? Why the one who obeyed.

The Sabbath rest, is not handed to anyone just because they say yes. They must live the life of faith, they must obey God. We are recalled to Gods triumphant rest after creating all things, and reminded, you will not enter into this rest unless you believe and obey. We have a task to do under God, and we have the revelation of his justice, his Law, whereby we can overcome the powers of sin and injustice, and make this world the kingdom of God. God’s threat in verse 5 is from psalm 95:7-11, which reads:

“ 7For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice,

 8Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:

 9When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.

 10Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:

 11Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.”

God was not content with merely Verbal professions of faith, where the Exodus generation was concerned, and he has not changed since then. His rest was a triumphant one. Our rest with him requires that the sin and death brought into this world by Adams fall should be overcome by the people of the last Adam, Jesus Christ. If we neglect our calling to exercise dominion through Jesus Christ, and by means of Gods law word, we too shall perish in the wilderness.

In Hebrews 10:36-39, we are told we must do the will of God to receive his promise, to so obey God, is called living by faith. So that faith and law are not seen as separate, but as one. Moreover we are told, God has no pleasure in those who drop back from this calling. Let us pray.

Our Lord and Our God, we thank Thee for Thy word, the word of faith and of warning, of promise and of fulfillment. Give us hearing ears that we may hear and obey, and that we may at the last enter into Thy rest and know Thy rest here and now, by bringing all things into captivity to Jesus Christ. We give thanks unto Thee that we have not been called unto defeat but unto victory. How great and marvelous Thou art oh Lord, and we praise Thee, in Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

[Audience Member] Could you comment in light of our desire for Gods rest, how about modern man’s desire and hope for retirement?

[Rushdoony] A very good question. Man does want rest, it is a part of the hunger of his being, because he is God created. Well, what he does is, being fallen, to seek a false rest. And a history book could be written about the attempts to find a false rest. We are told that in the beginning God created the garden of Eden, a paradise. It’s very interesting how many, many times in history men have tried to create a paradise on earth, and somehow there to find rest. The hanging gardens of Babylon. In fact our very word paradise, comes from ancient Babylon.

One of the most interesting attempts we have in the 18th Century in England, and it was carried on into the 19th Century, when men, very wealthy men, built palaces out in the country, and surrounded them with landscaped gardens, to create a new Eden, self consciously. Now they may have had magnificent estates in London, many of them did, but somehow this was going to be their Eden, where they were going to find rest. Well, they didn’t. It was one of countless numbers of efforts of man, to create a new Garden of Eden, and find a rest in things. Now it is the retirement community, and some of them are magnificently planned. In Florida which has the highest percentage of retired people in the United States, and they are luxury areas, designed to isolate people from the outside world and to make them feel that all is marvelous. Some of them don’t like too many grandchildren visiting, it reminds them they are old. And if you see nobody but senior citizens, you are going to forget that you are 80 or 70 or whatever the case may be, because you look young perhaps to those who are 85 and 90.

So every kind of device is now used to seal off the real world, and to give the illusion of rest, of peace, of quiet. And it’s a failure.

[Audience Member] If you carry that analogy further, if you have a garden that you created as a paradise, unless you maintain it, it won’t be a paradise. It has to be maintained constantly.

[Rushdoony] A very good point, yes. You have to maintain the Garden you create, so it requires work. You have to exercise dominion over the weeds, and over the gophers, and other animals, rabbits, whatever that will come and consume your garden. So dominion becomes a continual requirement. Of course, people like the 18th century aristocrats had someone to do that, and they didn’t have to worry about it, it always looked flawless, when they saw it.

So the dream of a paradise on earth, of a rest, is a very extensive one. One of the things that has marked our time is, that fiction, written and filmed is a constant means of escaping the real world, of identifying yourself with some impossible creature, who overcomes every kind of problem. Compared to the films of 30 or 40 years ago, the heroes now are impossible creatures who can mow down an army and never get scratched. And of course for some that is paradise. They rest in the feeling of their omnipotence, they identify with the protagonist.

Any other questions or comments?

Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer. Our Lord and Our God, we give thanks unto Thee that, the rest we need is not of our making, but Thine. Make us ever mindful that we must labor in order to rest. That without suffering and trial and tribulation, there is no victory or peace. But we have been promised in Christ, the peace that passeth all understanding. We thank Thee.

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.