Hebrews 4

Hebrews 4:1

4:1 No one should think that the promise of rest is no longer valid. It has never had a complete and final fulfillment in the past; therefore the offer is still in effect. But all who profess to be believers should make sure that they do not come short of the goal. If their profession is empty, there is always the danger of turning away from Christ and embracing some religious system that is powerless to save. 4:2 We have had good news preached to usthe good news of eternal life through faith in Christ. The Israelites also had good news preached to themthe good news of rest in the land of Canaan. But they did not benefit from the gospel of rest. There are two possible explanations for their failure, depending on which manuscript reading of verse 2 we adopt. According to the NKJV, the reason for their failure was that the message was not mixed with faith in those who heard it. In other words, they did not believe it or act upon it. The other reading (NKJV margin) is that they were not united by faith with those who heeded it. The meaning here is that the majority of the Israelites were not united by faith with Caleb and Joshua, the two spies who believed the promise of God. In either case, the prominent idea is that unbelief excluded them from the rest which God had prepared for them in the land of promise. 4:3 The continuity of thought becomes difficult in this verse. There seem to be three disjointed and unrelated clauses, yet we can see that there is a common thread in each clausethe theme of God’s rest. First we learn that we who have believed are the ones who enter God’s rest. Faith is the key that opens the door. As has been pointed out already, believers today enjoy rest of conscience because they know that they will never be brought into judgment for their sins (Joh_5:24). But it is also true that those who believe are the only ones who will ever enter God’s final rest in glory. It is probably this future rest that is primarily intended here. The next clause reinforces the idea by stating it negatively: as He has said: So I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter My rest (quoted from Psa_95:11). Just as faith admits, so unbelief excludes. We who trust Christ are sure of God’s rest; the unbelieving Israelites could not be sure of it because they did not believe God’s word. The third clause presents the most difficulty: it says, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. Perhaps the simplest explanation is found by linking this with the preceding clause. There God had used the future tense in speaking of His rest: They shall not enter My rest. The future tense implies that God’s rest is still a live option, even though some forfeited it through disobedience, and this rest is still available in spite of the fact that God’s works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4:4 This verse is intended to prove from Scripture that God rested after the work of creation was completed. The author’s vagueness in identifying the passage quoted does not indicate any ignorance on his part. It is merely a literary device in quoting a verse from a book that was not at that time divided into chapters and verses. The verse is adapted from Gen_2:2 : And God rested on the seventh day from all His works.Here the past tense is used and it might seem to indicate to some that God’s rest belongs only to history and not to prophecy, that it has no relevance for us today. But that is not the case. 4:5 To reinforce the idea that the reference to God’s rest after creation does not mean that it is a closed issue, the writer again quotes with slight change from Psa_95:11, where the future tense is used, They shall not enter My rest. He is saying, in effect, In your thinking, do not confine God’s rest to what happened back in Genesis 2; remember that God later spoke about His rest as something that was still available.4:6 Up to this point in the argument we have seen that, from the creation, God has been offering rest to mankind. The admission gate has been open. The Israelites in the wilderness failed to enter because of their disobedience. But that did not mean that the promise was no longer in effect! 4:7 The next step is to show that even in the case of David, about 500 years after the Israelites were shut out from Canaan, God was still using the word Today as a day of opportunity. The writer had already quoted Psa_95:7-8 in Heb_3:7-8, Heb_3:15. He now quotes it again to prove that God’s promise of rest did not cease with the Israelites in the wilderness. In David’s time, He was still pleading with men to trust Him and not to harden their hearts. 4:8 Some Israelites did, of course, enter Canaan with Joshua. But even these did not enjoy the final rest which God has prepared for those who love Him. There was conflict in Canaan, and sin, sickness, sorrow, suffering, and death. If they had exhausted God’s promise of rest, then He would not have offered it again in the time of David. 4:9 The preceding verses have been leading up to this conclusion: There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. Here the writer uses a different Greek word for rest (sabbatismos), which is related to the word Sabbath. It refers to the eternal rest which will be enjoyed by all who have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. It is a Sabbath keeping that will never end. 4:10 Whoever enters God’s rest enjoys a cessation from labor, just as God did on the seventh day. Before we were saved, we may have tried to work for our salvation. When we realized that Christ had finished the work at Calvary, we abandoned our own worthless efforts and trusted the risen Redeemer. After salvation, we expend ourselves in loving toil for the One who loved us and gave Himself for us. Our good works are the fruit of the indwelling Holy Spirit. We are often weary in His service, though not weary of it. In God’s eternal rest, we shall cease from our labors down here. This does not mean that we will be inactive in heaven. We shall still worship and serve Him, but there will be no fatigue, distress, persecution, or affliction. 4:11 The previous verses demonstrate that God’s rest is still available. This verse says that diligence is necessary in order to enter that rest. We must be diligent to make sure that our only hope is Christ the Lord. We must diligently resist any temptation merely to profess faith in Him and then to renounce Him in the heat of suffering and persecution. The Israelites were careless. They treated God’s promises lightly. They hankered for Egypt, the land of their bondage. They were not diligent in appropriating God’s promises by faith. As a result, they never reached Canaan. We should be warned by their example. 4:12 The next two verses contain a solemn warning that unbelief never goes undetected. It is detected first by the word of God. (The term used here for word is rhe_ma not logos, the familiar word used by John in the prologue to his Gospel. This verse refers, not to the Living Word, Jesus, but to the written word, the Bible.) This word of God is: livingconstantly and actively alive. powerfulenergizing. cuttingsharper than any two-edged sword. dividingpiercing the soul and spirit, the two invisible, nonmaterial parts of man. Piercing the joints and marrow, the joints permitting the outward movements and the marrow being the hidden but vital life of the bones. discerningdiscriminating and judging with regard to the thoughts and intents of the heart. It is the word that judges us, not we who judge the word. 4:13 Second, unbelief is detected by the living Lord. Here the pronoun shifts from the impersonal to the personal: And there is no creature hidden from His sight. Nothing escapes His notice. He is absolutely omniscient. He is constantly aware of all that is going on in the universe. Of course, the important point in the context is that He knows where there is real faith and where there is only an intellectual assent to facts.

Hebrews 4:14

II. CHRIST SUPERIOR IN HIS PRIESTHOOD (4:14-10:18) A. Christ’s High Priesthood Superior to Aaron’s (4:14-7:28) 4:14 These verses take up again the strong current of the writer’s thought which he had introduced in 3:1Christ as the great High Priest of His people. They present Him as the great resource of His needy people, able to keep them from falling. Also they change the emphasis from the word as scrutinizer to the Lord as Sympathizer. When the word has thoroughly exposed us (vv. 12, 13), we can go to Him for mercy and grace. Notice the excellencies of our wonderful Lord:

1. He is a great High Priest. There were many high priests under the Mosaic economy, but none was ever called great.
2. He has passed through the atmospheric heaven and the stellar heaven to the third heaven, the dwelling place of God. This speaks, of course, of His ascension and glorification at the Father’s right hand.
3. He is human. Jesus was the name given to Him at His birth and it is the name that is particularly linked with His humanity.
4. He is divine. The Son of God, when used of Christ, speaks of His absolute equality with God the Father. His humanity qualified Him from our viewpoint; His deity, from God’s viewpoint. No wonder He is called a great High Priest. 4:15 Then too we must consider His experience. No one can truly sympathize with someone else unless he has been through a similar experience himself. As Man our Lord has shared our experiences and can therefore understand the testings which we endure. (He cannot sympathize with our wrongdoing because He never experienced it.) In every pang that rends the heart, The Man of Sorrows has a part. He was tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sin. The Scriptures guard the sinless perfection of the Lord Jesus with jealous care, and we should too. He knew no sin (2Co_5:21), He committed no sin (1Pe_2:22), and there is no sin in Him (1Jo_3:5). It was impossible for Him to sin, either as God or as Man. As the perfect Man, He could do nothing of His own accord; He was absolutely obedient to the Father (Joh_5:19), and certainly the Father would never lead Him to sin. To argue that His temptation was not meaningful if He could not sin is fallacious. One purpose of the temptation was to demonstrate conclusively that He could not sin. If you put gold to the test, the test is not less valid because the gold is pure. If there were impurity, the test would show it up. Similarly it is wrong to argue that if He could not sin, He was not perfectly human. Sin is not an essential element in humanity; rather it is a foreign intruder. Our humanity has been marred by sin; His is perfect humanity. If Jesus could have sinned as a Man on earth, what is to prevent His sinning as a Man in heaven? He did not leave His humanity behind when He ascended to the Father’s right hand. He was impeccable on earth and He is impeccable in heaven. 4:16 Now the gracious invitation is extended: draw near with confidence to the throne of grace. Our confidence is based on the knowledge that He died to save us and that He lives to keep us. We are assured of a hearty welcome because He has told us to come. The people in OT days could not draw near to Him. Only the high priest could approach Him, and then only on one day of the year. We can go into His presence at any time of the day or night and obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. His mercy covers the things we should not have done, and His grace empowers us to do what we should do but do not have the power to do. Morgan writes helpfully: I am never tired of pointing out that the Greek phrase translated in time of need is a colloquialism of which in the nick of time is the exact equivalent. That we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the nick of timegrace just when and where I need it. You are attacked by temptation. At the moment of assault, you look to Him, and the grace is there to help in the nick of time. There is no postponement of your petition until the evening hour of prayer. But there in the city street with the flaming temptation in front of you, turn to Christ with a cry for help, and the grace will be there in the nick of time. Up to this point, Jesus has been shown to be superior to the prophets, the angels, and Moses. We now turn to the important theme of priesthood to see that Christ’s high priesthood is of a superior order to Aaron’s. When God gave the law to Moses on Mount Sinai, He instituted a human priesthood by which the people might draw near to Him. He decreed that the priests must be descended from the tribe of Levi and from the family of Aaron. This order is known as the Levitical or Aaronic priesthood. Another divinely ordained priesthood is mentioned in the OT, that of the patriarch Melchizedek. This man lived in the days of Abraham, long before the law was given, and served both as a king and a priest. In the passage before us the author will show that the Lord Jesus Christ is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, and that this order is superior to the Aaronic priesthood. In the first four verses we have a description of the Aaronic priest. Then in verses 5-10 Christ’s fitness as a priest is detailed, mostly by way of contrast.