There remains then a sabbatism to the people of God.
God's rest is the goal this letter sets before its readers. Israel lost that promise in the desert, but the writer says it is still open. One question drives the chapter: do believers have that rest now, or is it still ahead?
The word for "rest" in this verse is unusual. Older translations simply say "rest," while the ESV brings out its sense as "Sabbath rest."
The Sabbath was a picture. It pointed forward to the rest of God, and Hebrews 4 says He will bring us into that rest at last. When we read, "There remains therefore a rest to the people of God" (Heb. 4:9), the margin tells us that the word for "rest" literally means "a keeping of a sabbath." Scripture uses that word nowhere else.
The word "remains" carries the argument, and the argument turns on dates. Joshua did bring Israel into Canaan. So why did God speak of His rest again, long afterwards, through David?
The Israelites had indeed fallen in the wilderness, but Joshua had brought the people into Canaan, which the unbelievers never reached... The answer is clear. Long after this, God said through David, "I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.'" If Joshua had given rest to Israel, David could not have spoken later of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. It is yet to come, and God's word guarantees it.
The chapter calls it "My rest" and "His rest." That ownership shapes what the rest must be.
Notice here above all that the verse speaks of God's own rest. That lets us understand the happiness and perfection of the rest. God must rest in what satisfies His heart. This was true even in creation — everything was very good. And now, toward us, nothing less than a perfect blessing can satisfy that perfect love. We will have a heavenly portion in His own presence, in perfect holiness and perfect light.
If God's rest were open in this world, we would find God resting in it now. Instead, He works.
Blessed be His Name, He had not come into this world to rest. How could He rest — how could He keep a sabbath — surrounded by human need and misery?... And how could divine love rest while things were in such a state? Completely impossible. Love can only be a worker in a scene of sin and sorrow. From the moment of man's fall, the Father had been working. Then the Son appeared to carry on the work. And now the Holy Spirit is working. Work, and not rest, is the divine order in a world like this.
Commentators differ: is this rest present or future? One writer names the disagreement.
Calvin held that this is a question of the present rest which belongs to believers in Jesus. That seems to me completely contrary to the scope of the chapter. We are called to fear and to labour now; we are still in the wilderness, and are only on our way to the rest of God... It is not yet time for the believer to rest from his works. It is time to use diligence to enter that blessed rest. That rest has not arrived; it remains for the people of God.
That does not deny the peace a believer already has. It says the subject here is larger.
We must always insist that the believer has a present rest, both of conscience and of heart. But the rest spoken of here goes further. It points to the end and outcome of all God's purposes for His redeemed.
So what will believers rest from? Not what most people assume.
It is not rest from sin, but rest from labour. And not rest from labour because the labourer is tired, but rest because his work is done.
The verse names no location, and that silence is deliberate.
The great thought of the passage is that a rest remains. That is, the believer is not to expect it here. But the passage does not say where it is. It does not describe the rest in detail either, because that leaves the door open for an earthly rest for the earthly people, on the ground of the promises. Yet for Christians, who share in the heavenly calling, God's rest is plainly a heavenly one.
- Rest begun. God rests only in what satisfies His heart. In creation everything was very good, and the Sabbath is a picture of that rest.
- Rest broken. Sin made rest impossible for a God of love. So the Father works, the Son worked, and the Spirit works still.
- Rest promised. Canaan under Joshua did not fulfil it. Long afterwards David spoke of another day, so the promise still stands open.
- Rest remaining. It is God's own rest, and it lies at the end of the road, not along it. The peace of a cleared conscience is real, but it is not this.
- Rest finished. We will stop working as God did — not because we are tired, but because the work is done. Until then the order is diligence, not settling down.
For he that has entered into his rest, he also has rested from his works, as God did from his own.
This verse explains why a rest still remains for God's people. The one who enters it stops working, just as God stopped after creation. Three questions follow. Whose rest is it? When does it come? Which works are the ones that cease?
The verse calls it "God's rest." Commentators trace that rest through Israel's history and show that it still lay ahead.
The rest held out to Israel in that Psalm was not the rest they had under Joshua. The Psalm came centuries after they entered the land, and it spoke of the rest as still future. Nothing between David's day and the writing of this Letter could count as the fulfilment of the Psalm, and nothing since then either. So the rest of God that it speaks of must still be future. Whose rest is it? We think "His rest" here, as elsewhere, means God's own rest, which He holds out to us as a prospect.
A common reading treats this verse as the sinner giving up self-effort and finding peace. The writers say that peace is real, but it is not what this verse describes.
"Whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works" — and not only from sin. When God ceased, it was not from sin, but from labour. Godly works are not rest. God rests in Christ. I have ceased from my works as far as my conscience goes, because I have ceased from works for justification. I have not ceased from godly works — that rest has not come yet.
The verse measures our rest by God's rest, and that settles the argument. God had no evil works to stop from.
This verse states a general principle through the case it puts: we cannot be working and resting in the same things and in the same sense. When one has entered into his rest, he has also rested from his works. This is not the common idea of resting from bad works when a man gets peace with God. That may be true in itself, but it has nothing to do with what this verse says… God's works were never bad. They were always perfectly good. Yet He will rest even from the activity of His love, to enjoy the glorious results.
The rest belongs to God, so God decides what it is like. It also decides how much ends — not just sin, but the whole strain of the Christian life.
Notice here that it is the rest of God. This helps us understand how happy and perfect that rest is. God must rest in what satisfies His heart. That was true even in creation — all was very good… So all these will cease: the hard work of faith, the exercise of faith in the wilderness, the warfare (though there are many joys), the good works done there — labour of every kind. We shall not only be set free from the power of indwelling sin. All the efforts and all the troubles of the new man will cease… We shall rest from our works — and not from evil ones. The subject here is the Christian's rest from all his works.
Stopping because you are worn out is not the same as stopping because the job is done. The verse points to the second.
The great mark of this rest will be that toil stops, for "whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works." This settles a great truth. Whether it is God's heavenly rest for a heavenly people, or God's earthly rest for an earthly people, the rest is still future. It is a rest towards which faith is pressing on. Also, it is not rest from sin but rest from labour. The worker does not stop because he is tired. He stops because his work is finished.
The practical edge of the verse is the opposite of what people expect. Because rest is future, the present is for labour.
The bright day when we shall rest has not yet arrived. He therefore urges the saints to diligence in the meantime. Now is the time for work. Everyone who has the love of Christ must feel this in a world like ours, for the simple reason that sin and misery cover the world. Divine love, whether in God or in His people, refuses to rest in evil or in misery.
- Whose — the rest is God's own rest, held out to His people as a prospect, not something already reached.
- Which works — the pattern is God ceasing from works that were "very good," so the works that end are good ones, not sins.
- Not conscience — for the believer, rest from works for justification is already settled. This verse points to something still ahead.
- Why He stops — the labourer stops not from exhaustion but because the work is finished.
- So, now — while sin and misery remain, love cannot sit still; the present is for diligent work, and the rest comes after.
Let us therefore use diligence to enter into that rest, that no one may fall after the same example of not hearkening to the word.
This verse closes a long argument that started with Israel in the wilderness. God's rest is still ahead, and two questions press in at once: why work for a rest that God gives, and why warn believers about falling?
(Note: the ESV says "disobedience" where older translations say "unbelief." The quotes below use the older wording.)
The word here is not about earning. One writer points to how it reads elsewhere in the New Testament:
"Let us labour, therefore" (v. 11). The idea of working to earn the rest does not enter into this expression. The word in the original is not the usual word for "labour." Elsewhere the same word appears as "be diligent" (Titus 3:12) and "endeavouring" (Eph. 4:3). The force of the expression is, "Let us be diligent therefore to enter into that rest." No moral quality is worth more than diligence. Remember this: bringing human effort into salvation spoils the grace of God. But using the teachings of grace as an excuse for lazy Christians is just as harmful, in the opposite direction.
Many people read this verse as being about peace of conscience instead. One writer answers that reading head on:
In this Epistle the Spirit of God presses the need to go forward to the rest of God. I hold this to be the only genuine meaning. People often apply the words to rest of soul instead, and that use tends to weaken or destroy that rest. Verse 11 shows that rest of soul is not what the passage is about: "Let us labour (or, use diligence) therefore to enter into that rest." What kind of gospel would it be to tell people they must do that to get a clear conscience? Clearly it would upset the grace of God, because that is nothing other than salvation by works.
"That rest" is not Canaan, and it is not behind us. Israel's own history rules out the obvious answer:
In due time the people under Joshua entered the land. They rested after the long wilderness journey and after their wars in Canaan. In a measure that was rest for the nation (Deut. 12:9), but it is not the rest held out to us. It is just as clear that this is not the rest held out to Israel in that Psalm. That Psalm came centuries after they entered the land, and it still spoke of the rest as future. Nothing since David's day had fulfilled the Psalm when this Epistle appeared, and nothing has fulfilled it since. So the rest of God it speaks of must still be future.
If the rest is ahead, then the present is for effort, and the pull toward settling down is real:
Let us then be diligent to enter into that rest, refusing every other. Israel is the great example of falling through not listening to the Lord. This is the fatal disobedience spoken of here. They stumbled at the word, being disobedient. And such is the danger of all Christians now, as well as of those directly addressed. We stop short, grow weary, and make difficulties. We get preoccupied, distracted from God's objects, and drawn to things that are seen and temporal. We are called now to the work of faith and labour of love, while we patiently wait for rest in glory at Christ's coming.
The writer names who is in danger, and what pulls at them:
This is not labor for the rest. It means: be in earnest, be zealous, be sincere, "to enter into that rest." The warning reaches any of you who profess Christianity — especially those among the Hebrew professing Christians, whose constant temptation was to turn back to an earthly religion and to worldly ceremonies. The point is that none of you should "fall after the same example of unbelief."
The writer's own pronouns are the key to how the warning works:
Look at the forms of exhortation in this passage. They throw no doubt on the future of believers, even though they urge the readers in the strongest way to rouse themselves. When he warns the saints not to stop short, he says "you" (3:12, 4:1). When he urges them to press forward he says "us" (3:14, 4:14), and puts himself with them. He could not read their hearts. But each one, like him, should know whether he was really converted.
So who actually falls? One writer answers plainly:
Grace will prevent such a result. But the flesh — the working of man's will — must bring the unrenewed professor to exactly that.
- Diligence, not wages. The word behind "strive" means "be diligent." The effort follows salvation; it never buys it.
- Diligence toward what. The rest is God's own rest, not Canaan and not a quiet conscience. The Psalm still called it future long after Joshua.
- Diligence against what. We stop short, grow weary, get preoccupied, and drift toward what is seen and temporal.
- Diligence versus a pattern. Israel stumbled at the word. The danger now is turning back to an earthly religion after professing Christ.
- Diligence without dread. He says "us" when he urges them forward and "you" when he warns. Grace holds the believer; the warning exposes the professor.