Matteo 11:28

"At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father." What feelings at such a time! Oh, for grace so to bow and bless God, even when our little travail seems in vain! ... We seem completely borne away from the ordinary level of our gospel to the higher region of the disciple whom Jesus loved. We are, in fact, in the presence of that which John so loves to dwell on — Jesus viewed not merely as Son of David or Abraham, or Seed of the woman, but as the Father's Son, the Son as the Father gave, sent, appreciated, and loved Him. So, when more is added, He says, "All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

These are not the words of a mere man, but rather of One, Who, however lowly, always spoke as befitted Him, Who is both God and man. They are in short the words of a divine Person speaking with divine authority. There are no words like them save His own, search where we will in the records of antiquity.

Remark that we have not here so much the divine Mediator. Indeed that all-important function of the Lord Jesus, so infinitely august, and the basis of all, is not the special point; but our Lord bids the weary and heavy-laden to come to Himself. "Come unto Me." For to come to Him was to come to God. The whole meaning is there.

Never was there a prophet that did so, least of all did John the Baptist, the greatest of all; for he called the people of God to own their sins; it was no question of calling them to himself, but of pointing them from everything done to Jesus ... But our Lord could say to the most heavily laden one, "Come unto me," and this too when His work seemed to have been in vain, Himself rejected, despised, about to be slain and crucified.

The moment was not yet arrived for publishing the glad tidings to every creature: His rejection must take its course up to death, yea, death of the cross, wherein sin was to be borne and God glorified about it. But the Lord anticipatively opens the way to every weary and burdened soul, to Gentiles as freely as to Jews. To the rejected Messiah all things were delivered by His Father. And if He thus had universal title (to be enforced in the day of glory), He would use it now in indiscriminate grace.

The "labour" and "heavy laden" correspond to the "yoke" and the "burden." Animals draw, in places, with the yoke, but a burden is carried on the back. We must connect this with what precedes. If the Lord here is rejected as the King by the people among which He had been pleased to dwell, yet is there blessing for an even wider circle than Israel — "Come unto me all ye that labour," etc. He has rest, blessed be His name, for any who will but come to Him. "I will give you rest." It is all of grace.

Only source of blessing and revealer of the Father, He calls all those who are weary and heavy laden. Perhaps they did not know the spring of all misery, namely, separation from God, sin. He knew, and He alone could heal them. If it was the sense of sin which burdened them, so much the better. Every way the world no longer satisfied their hearts; they were miserable, and therefore the objects of the heart of Jesus.

Moreover He would give them rest; He does not here explain by what means; He simply announces the fact. The love of the Father, which in grace, in the Person of the Son, sought out the wretched, would bestow rest (not merely alleviation or sympathy, but rest) on every one that came to Jesus. It was the perfect revelation of the Father's name to the heart of those that needed it; and that by the Son; — peace, peace with God. They had but to come to Christ: He undertook all and gave rest.

He was come not merely to help, sympathise, or teach, but to save the lost, to give rest where rest was unknown and could not else be. He does not here say how, but declares emphatically that He would give rest, after inviting the most needy to come, and all of them. It could not be without all cost to Himself, or without revealing the Father to them. But He was come to die for their sins and to make known the God of love.

And so He goes on, "And I will give you rest." There is a special emphasis on the "I," impossible so to give in English save by the living voice, but which by a simple device of language, familiar to every scholar, is apparent in the Greek original.

A three-fold view stands out here which leads from the position of the Lord at that moment down to the fulness of His eternal glory. First the Messiah Son of David Whose royal rights were then refused, then the Son of Man at the centre of all things: the Centre of the vast creation of God. Greatest of all and from which all springs, He is the Son in all the intimacies of love and joy that is proper to Godhead in the relations of Deity.

And at that moment there comes into view a new generation which becomes the vessel in which is deposited this revelation of the riches of the grace that are in the SON. "Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." To Himself the despised and rejected He calls us that He might make known to us the Father. This surely is rest; the rest of a relationship outside of Israel nationally and outside of all that is of nature as in Adam. Nor is it something only for the advanced for He speaks of it as the first thing needed.

To us, coming as we are, "He gives" rest: He undertakes all, and gives rest of His own grace: all we have to do is to come to Him. But when come, He calls us thenceforward to take on us that yoke to which He Himself bowed with unswerving meekness and humility before His Father. To this He calls us now. Thus only do we "find rest" for our souls in His righteous government. Obedience and submission in the path of Christ is the sole way of rest for the Christian's heart, whatever His grace to the troubled sinner, and it is sovereign.

But there is a second element in rest. There is more than peace through the knowledge of the Father in Jesus. And more than that is needed; for, even when the soul is perfectly at peace with God, this world presents many causes of trouble to the heart. In these cases it is a question of submission or of self-will. ... "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me," that is to say, the yoke of entire submission to His Father's will, learning of Him how to meet the troubles of life; for He was "meek and lowly in heart," content to be in the lowest place at the will of His God. In fact nothing can overthrow one who is there. It is the place of perfect rest to the heart.

The "rest" of chap. 11:28 is gratuitous and free, then follows the "rest" to be found. There is a great distinction between "finding" his yoke-rest, and getting the rest that He "gives."