Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left of entering into his rest, any one of you might seem to have failed [of it].
The letter has just given strong assurance. Now it tells its readers to fear falling short of a promise that still stands open, so everything turns on what "His rest" means and what fear the writer calls for.
Whose rest is it? Commentators point the phrase "His rest" back to God Himself.
Like Israel of old, believers today are passing on their way through a wilderness world to the rest of the coming glory. This rest is the great theme of the first eleven verses of Hebrews 4. Let us note that it is God's rest of which the writer speaks. It is called "His rest", and, in the quotations from the Old Testament, "My rest".
The same writer marks it off from three kinds of rest a Christian may already know.
This rest — the rest of God — is entirely future. It is not the present rest of conscience that faith in the Person and work of Christ gives the believer... Nor is it the rest of heart that belongs day by day to the one who walks in obedience to Christ, submitting to His will... Nor is it the temporary rest of a tired worker.
If the subject were forgiveness, the command would be the opposite.
The apostle does not speak of believing in the Lord Jesus for present rest of conscience... What are we to fear then? Not that the blood of Christ will fail, and not that we will lose the forgiveness of sins because God turns from grace at some moment. Be afraid of settling down in this world; fear falling short of the true outlook of pilgrims and strangers on the way to a better land.
Fear has no place in the gospel itself. It has a place on the road.
Not, of course, with a slave's fear, but with a son's fear. The gospel of God's grace shuts fear out — "perfect love casts out fear" — and no "if" dims its brightness... The pilgrim path is one of testing. The world is attractive, and the flesh is not only weak but treacherous. In that setting an "if" fits well, and fear becomes a necessity. Godly fear is not a blot on a Christian's character, but an adornment.
Assurance and fear look like opposites. One writer shows they come from the same source.
This "fear" and this "labour" begin when that question is settled, and settled for ever. The blessed principle brought out is that they are consequences of our having to do with God. We have full confidence in the love of God, and we value the rest of God. So we fear everything: not only the temptations and traps in the way, but every working of the flesh, and anything like it, that would come between us and God.
The wording is careful. The writer does not say that any will fail to reach the rest, only that any might seem to.
What destroys a person who has no faith still injures the believer, and can injure him to the very last degree. That is why we read of "seeming" to come short. There is no rest of God now, nor for us is it here but in heaven. Let us fear even the appearance of settling down on earth, which indeed is not our rest or hope.
The promise did not lapse when Israel forfeited it.
The promise has been left us, but the promise is to faith: any who come short of it do so only through unbelief.
That is exactly the lesson drawn from Israel's history. They left Egypt but never reached Canaan, and the reason is stated plainly by the writer of Hebrews.
They came out of Egypt. Did they go into the land? They did not. Caleb and Joshua got in. Why? Because they were men who really had faith in the Lord and in the truth of His word.
Verse 1 does not stand alone. It is the first half of a pair. The second call comes later in the chapter, where the ESV reads "strive" and older translations read "labour".
There is the danger that we may despise the rest of God that lies at the end of the journey, or grow weary of the labour of love on the way. Israel did both. Let us then beware lest any of us fall after the same example of unbelief. The two great exhortations are, "Let us fear" lest we despise the promise of the rest, and "Let us labour" on the way to the rest.
- Rest — the rest here is God's own rest, still ahead. It is not the settled conscience or quiet heart a believer already enjoys.
- Promise — Israel forfeited that rest, but the promise stayed open. God holds it out to faith, and only unbelief falls short.
- Fear — the fear here is not doubt about forgiveness. It is a son's fear of anything that would come between him and God on the road.
- Seeming — the warning covers even the look of settling down here. This world is not the promised rest.
- Labour — the chapter opens with fear and closes with effort. Value the rest enough to fear losing sight of it, and keep walking toward it.
For indeed we have had glad tidings presented to us, even as they also; but the word of the report did not profit *them*, not being mixed with faith in those who heard.
Israel stood at the edge of a promised land they never entered. The fault was not in the message they heard, but in how they heard it. This verse sets two groups side by side — them and us — and asks what makes good news do a person good.
The word translated "gospel" simply means good news, and the good news Israel received was not the message we hear today.
It would be a mistake to think that every time the word "Gospel" appears in our English Bible it means the message God proclaims today... When Hebrews 4:2 tells us that the Gospel was preached to Israel, it does not mean that today's proclamation of grace sounded in their ears. The good news announced to them pointed to the rest in Canaan at the end of their desert journey.
Caleb and Joshua carried that news to Israel. It was short, and Israel would not have it.
The good news Caleb and Joshua proclaimed was very simple: "It is an exceedingly good land." That was good news indeed. But what was working in Israel's heart? Unbelief... Unbelief always says, "We are not able."
What was announced to each group differed. What was required of each did not.
The good news preached to them was rescue from Egypt and entrance into Canaan. The good news preached to us is deliverance from sin and entrance into heavenly blessing. But in both cases the word preached does no good unless faith receives it. The gospel is wonderful medicine for the broken heart. But it comes to us in a bottle with these directions on it: to be mixed with faith in those who hear. Ignore the directions, and there is no cure, and no one reaches the rest of God.
If the message brought no benefit, that says nothing against the message.
That Word is unconquerable and eternal. The way people receive it does not affect it at all. But whoever will not receive it can get no profit from it.
The last clause can be read in two ways, and commentators differ over which is right. One reading appears in the version printed above this commentary.
They certainly heard this good news, but it was all in vain. "The message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened" (Hebrews 4:2) — this is most likely how we should read that last clause.
Others keep the older wording: the word was not mixed with faith in those who heard. Either way the outcome is the same. Israel heard, and faith never took hold.
Preaching can be pure and attractive and still leave the hearer where he was.
A pure gospel may be preached. The grace of God may be declared in all its attractiveness. Someone might speak of Christ in a way we would think must draw the heart and mind to Him. But more is needed. It has to be mixed with faith in those who hear. Unless there is true faith, unless faith lays hold of the Word, it has no effect. A person may make an outward profession, but that counts for nothing without a living, God-given, genuine faith mixed with the Word... A man may say he is too great a sinner, and so he cannot be saved. He may say he is unworthy, and so he dare not trust God. But only one thing can keep a person out of God's rest: the sin of unbelief.
Israel saw wonders and heard God's voice, and still fell. We have no such sights, and faith is still what is required.
The Christian Jew was in no way behind his fathers. If the elders had good news, those who hold to Christ in heaven had even more. But if the word is not mixed with faith, it can no more profit the hearer now than it did long ago. The fathers saw wonders and heard the Voice, more terrifying than thunder or earthquake; yet they fell through unbelief, and through the disobedience it produced. So now, when sight and sound are not the question, the word must still be mixed with faith for those who hear. Otherwise the ruin is even harder to undo than falling in the wilderness.
- Heard. "Gospel" here means good news. Israel's news was a good land ahead. Ours is deliverance from sin and heavenly blessing. Different messages, the same offer of God's rest.
- Unmixed. The word must be mixed with faith in the hearer. It works like a medicine bottle: skip the directions and no cure follows.
- Unblamed. The word itself is unconquerable and untouched by how people receive it. The loss falls on the one who will not receive it.
- Unbelief. Not unworthiness, not the size of one's sin — only unbelief shuts a person out of God's rest.
- Unprofited. Israel heard, did not believe, and gained nothing. Hear that word now without faith, and the ruin is even harder to repair.
For we enter into the rest who have believed; as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, If they shall enter into my rest; although the works had been completed from [the] foundation of [the] world.
Hebrews 4:3 follows a warning drawn from Israel's failure in the desert: some heard God's good news and never arrived. This verse names what marks out the people who do enter, and it reaches back to Genesis to show how old and how great that rest is.
The verse does not describe people who might believe one day. The grammar marks out a definite group, and the oath that follows — worded in older versions as "If they shall enter into my rest" — shuts everyone else out.
Believers are the ones who enter the rest of glory: not all people, and not all Israel, but "we who have believed." The past tense makes the group accepted for the blessing more definite. It does not mean people who believe as if they might do so later, or whenever they pleased... The "if" sounds the death sentence of unbelievers... "If they shall enter into my rest" means, for anyone who knows what unbelief is, that they shall not.
The same verse holds a promise and a threat side by side, and the difference between them is faith:
Notice that with "we who have believed" there is absolute affirmation, for the promise is absolute... The believer's position is therefore completely secure, resting on the truth of God's Word; but the unbeliever has the oath of God against him. The blessing depends on God's work, and its value is available to everyone by faith. Unbelief is a shameful refusal of the blessing, because it refuses God's Word.
The present tense here has caused confusion. Commentators read it as a journey in progress, not a destination reached.
That is, we are on the road. He does not say that we have entered, and he does not mean anything of the sort. Such a reading runs flat against the argument and aim of the passage... We are entering into the rest. We have it in front of us, and we are moving toward it; but we are not yet there.
Being on the road takes nothing away from the certainty of arrival:
There is no uncertainty about arriving, but we are not yet in it. We might compare it to people invited to a feast in a splendid upper room, climbing the stairs to it: they are entering in.
The rest belongs to God before it belongs to us, and that settles what kind of rest it is.
But what is this rest? He will explain. It is God's rest, as the Psalm declares. "My rest." It cannot, then, be rest of conscience. Who could associate that with God? True, the sinner needs rest of conscience, and Christ gives that to the weary and heavy-laden who come to Him. Nor is it rest of heart along the way... But God's rest is rest from all toil and labour.
The verse's closing clause is strange. God finished His works long ago, yet He shut a whole generation out. Genesis shows a rest that once existed and no longer stands.
How could He rest here? Not till He sees all those He loves perfectly happy. How can He rest where sin is? Holiness cannot rest where sin is. Love cannot rest where sorrow is. He rested from His works in the first creation, because it was all very good; but when sin came in, His rest was broken.
A finished creation, then, is not the ground on which anyone gets in:
Sin came into the world, and man rejected Jesus, who had come into its sorrow. So there could be no rest for creation in connection with the first Adam. Hence the words, "They shall not enter my rest," although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. Grace, power, and redemption must be the basis of rest and blessing.
Some read this verse as a promise of rest available right now in daily life. Commentators push back.
People have built a whole system of mistaken doctrine on the words, "For we who have believed enter that rest" — a system its supporters often call "the rest of faith"... No one questions that there are boundless resources in Christ for the believer in his daily path. It is our failure that we know so little how to draw on them. But the present question is whether this is the meaning of our passage.
The chapter's own conclusion decides it:
"So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God." That is, it is still future. It is the sabbath rest of eternity, God's own rest, and He in His grace proposes, as He always has proposed, to bring His people into it.
- Believing — faith marks the group that enters: not all people, not all Israel. The verse's "if" is aimed at those who question God's word.
- Entering — the present tense means on the road, not arrived. The destination is certain; we are still on the stairs.
- His rest — the rest is God's own, so it is not a quiet conscience or a calm heart. Christ gives those too; God's rest is rest from all toil and labour.
- Broken — sin shattered the rest God took in a finished creation. Holiness cannot rest where sin is; love cannot rest where sorrow is.
- Remaining — since that first rest broke, grace and redemption lay the new foundation. The sabbath rest of eternity lies ahead, and believers are walking toward it.