by Phillip Smyer

Created on: October 06, 2008

Many people have different ideas of what rest is like, for some people rest is reading a good book, for others it is watching a football game on Sunday afternoons, for others it is sleeping in on Saturday mornings. The author of Hebrews devotes a solid portion of his epistle to the idea of rest and how it relates to believing in Christ. In chapter four verses twelve-eighteen, the author talks about the peril of unbelief and how the Jews who disbelieved were not allowed to enter his rest and then in chapter four he expounds on this idea of rest and how it relates to the believer in Christ. Before talking about any of the implications of rest or why the author includes it in his epistle, we should first define what is meant by rest. According to John MacArthur there are many nuances to the word "rest" or in the Greek "katapausis". It can mean rest from anxiety and worry, rest from work, rest can mean to be secure in a single belief, rest in the sufficiency of Christ and more.[1]

There is an implication in the language of Hebrews that the rest of God will not remain available forever, that at some point it will no longer be offered. Chapter 4:1 states, "while a promise remains of entering His rest" This shows that eventually the offer of rest will run out as it did for the disbelieving Jews referenced in 3:16-19. God did not swear that they would not enter His rest after their first offense, but rather after repeated instances of their disbelief and disobedience did He say that they would not enter the Promised Land. This idea goes back to the quotation of Psalm 95 where the author warns against hardening their hearts. A hardening of your heart does not occur immediately, but rather after repeatedly disobeying God. There is great hope in this though, for if the letter we call Hebrews was truly written with a specific Jewish audience in mind, then we see that it is still not too late for the Jewish people to believe in Christ for their salvation, even after everything that they have done to disobey God, God still holds to His covenant made with Abraham. What hope that can be found in this, that no matter how often the people of God disobey, He still holds to what He has promised.

We not only see that rest has a limited availability, but also that this rest can only be obtained by faith. Oftentimes Christians will quote Ephesians 2:8-9 as proof that salvation comes from faith alone, but another example of this truth is found in Hebrews 4:2. In Romans, Paul asks

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