Sabbath Part 2
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· 3 viewsThe final rest of Hebrews 4
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Context of Hebrews 3-4
Context of Hebrews 3-4
unknown author, pastor writing to a dispera messianic Jews (greek speaking)
Don’t abandon their confidence in Jesus
1-2 above divine council
3-4 above Moses and Joshua
5 - above Aaron and priesthood and more
The author connects three different “rests” in the Bible.
Creation rest, Genesis 2, God rests on the 7th day
Promised land rest, Joshua, Israel enters the land
Final rest, Hebrews 4, God’s ultimate rest for his people
Neither Genesis nor Joshua exhausted God’s promise of rest.
New American Standard Bible (1995) Chapter 3
He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as
What is the building that we are talking about?
We are the house (in Christ)
What about Moses?
7 “Not so, with My servant Moses,
He is faithful in all My household;
Israel is a household as well that God made
so Moses was faithful in the house of LORD
Who was the builder?
Jesus builds (verse 6)
God is the builder of all
Therefore Jesus is taking God’s role here (aka God)
Moses was awesome (this isn’t degrading Moses) if this is awesome than how much more is Jesus?
New American Standard Bible (1995) Chapter 3
“TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE,
8 DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME,
AS IN THE DAY OF TRIAL IN THE WILDERNESS,
9 WHERE YOUR FATHERS TRIED Me BY TESTING Me,
AND SAW MY WORKS FOR FORTY YEARS.
10 “THEREFORE I WAS ANGRY WITH THIS GENERATION,
AND SAID, ‘THEY ALWAYS GO ASTRAY IN THEIR HEART,
AND THEY DID NOT KNOW MY WAYS’;
11 AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH,
‘THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.
7 For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you would hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
9 “When your fathers tested Me,
They tried Me, though they had seen My work.
Referencing the later half of the Psalm (but should know the whole Psalm)
The later half of the Psalm is referencing a contention against Moses in Ex. 17
the rest is the promised land
Why Psalm 95 instead of the wilderness narratives?
rock of rescue (salvation, a fresh word to think in a new way)
Above the divine council
The three-tier creation belong to him
He made all of creation and He made this people? when did God make a flock of His people? The Exodus
1 Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin, according to the command of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink.
2 Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water that we may drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?”
3 But the people thirsted there for water; and they grumbled against Moses and said, “Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”
4 So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “What shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me.”
5 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.
6 “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
7 He named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us, or not?”
rock of our salvation (Ex. 17) - Moses strikes the rock
“I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock…”
YHWH stands on the rock - Deut. 32:15 (Moses recalls this story and uses for the first time as identification of God — Rock) and provides rescue (life water pouring out that rescues the people)
15 “But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—
You are grown fat, thick, and sleek—
Then he forsook God who made him,
And scorned the Rock of his salvation.
10 “For forty years I loathed that generation,
And said they are a people who err in their heart,
And they do not know My ways.
Numbers 11 and on there are 7 rebellions after Mt. Sinai (chiasm) (number 4 is the spy rebellion- the pivot which is referred to in Psalm 91)
1 Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying,
2 “Send out for yourself men so that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give to the sons of Israel; you shall send a man from each of their fathers’ tribes, every one a leader among them.”…
32 So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size.
33 “There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
The sixth one is speak to the rock and Moses is angry and strikes the rock (that was a lack of faith and Moses failure)
8 “Take the rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock and let the congregation and their beasts drink.”
9 So Moses took the rod from before the Lord, just as He had commanded him;
10 and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. And he said to them, “Listen now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?”
11 Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank.
12 But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”
13 Those were the waters of Meribah, because the sons of Israel contended with the Lord, and He proved Himself holy among them.
These 7 stories are what excludes them from the 7th day rest (the promise land)
11 “Therefore I swore in My anger,
Truly they shall not enter into My rest.”
Why Psalms 95? It is referring to not only the story before Mt. Sinai but also the failures after
The logic of Hebrews:
Exodus generation: Heard God’s voice: They hardened hearts: Did not enter rest
Psalm 95: Says rest is still available
Therefore: The promise still stands.
Hebrews concludes: The rest promise is still open today.
New American Standard Bible (1995) Chapter 3
12 Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.
13 But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end,
15 while it is said,
“TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE,
DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS, AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME.”
16 For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?
17 And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient?
19 So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.
This reference to Psalm 95 isn’t just for the wilderness Israel but every generation of Israel afterwards who have not arrived at the 7th day rest
“Today” of the Psalm is any day not the final 7th day rest
This was a shadow and a warning for Christians and Israel
The arrival of the promise land is a promise of the future rest
There is no rest in the promise land physically they are an image of the future hope
(God is renewing the call of Psalm 95)
New American Standard Bible (1995) Chapter 4
For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said,
“AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH,
THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST,”
although His works were finished from the foundation of the world.
4 For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: “AND GOD RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORKS”;
5 and again in this passage, “THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.”
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts.
2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
Did God rest in the past or in the future?
Author treats God’s rest as still ongoing
God’s sabbath never ended. Humanity is invited into God’s ongoing rest
Or do you enter it in the present?
The author of Hebrews would say yes to the past, present and future.
What shall we say? Life is still difficult, how are we at Mt. Zion (Heb. 12:22-24 - kind of motivation and speaking of worship at the gathering) therefore when the church comes together to worship God they are bringing a little bit of heaven down)
New American Standard Bible (1995) Chapter 4
Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience,
There is still a rest that still has to be entered into.
“It is something that God did in the past, something we can enter in the present and something that is yet to be fulfilled in the future”
New American Standard Bible (1995) Chapter 4
He again fixes a certain day, “Today,” saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before,
This is just one long disobedient Israel
“that in the history of Sabbath practice, one of the main things is by inconveniencing my life
one day, in a weekly rhythm, it reminds me that my time is not my own, but it's subject to the rule and reign of God. That's awesome.”
New American Standard Bible (1995) Chapter 4
For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that.
In Greek the name is “Jesus” if the previous Jesus has given them rest than there shouldn’t be another day talked about.
Because it says “today” that means Joshua never fulfilled the promise fully.
New American Standard Bible (1995) Chapter 4
So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.
So the “new Jesus” the better Jesus is where the rest comes from
Notice paradox- strive to enter the rest (avoid disobedience)
Don’t repeat the wilderness rebellion (faithful perseverance)
“The christian life is a wilderness journey toward God’s rest
12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
Suddenly the author talks about the Word of God. “The word of God is living and active.”
Why bring this up here?
Because Psalm 95 said: “Today if you hear his voice…”
God is still speaking through Scripture. And that word exposes the heart.
Sword: penetrates motives
Dividing soul/spirit: exposes inner self
Nothing hidden: God sees everything
The warning: You can’t fake faith before God.
Sabbath rest is entering into God’s own rest—where His work is complete, His people dwell with Him, and they live in trust rather than striving.
