¹¹ “As I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”

Rest is a major theme of the book of Hebrews. Without understanding this concept, the book remains overly mysterious and obtuse. Christians need to understand this “rest” of God. There different ways to interpret this. The first is that “rest” means salvation, in the sense that a person rests from human efforts to attain salvation, and a right relationship with God. Another interpretation is that Christians who are already saved need to enter the rest of God, and not continue living by the law. Since the law did not save them and left them always running with uncertainty to Him, then the law cannot provide that certainty now that a person already is a Christian. A third interpretation has to do with a Christian needing to continue faithfully to enter the rest of God lest he lose his salvation and fall short of the rest.

This is the continuing debate among Christians and affects the “so-called” difficult passages that deal with whether a Christian can lose his salvation by falling away from the faith (see the next verse Heb 3:12 or 6:1-8, Heb 10:26, etc.). Such has resulted in the book of Hebrews being one of the more difficult and contentious portions of Scripture to understand.

Keep in mind the writer of Hebrews is continuing on with his reference to Psalm 95, particularly verse 11. God had redeemed His people from bondage in Egypt and their complaining and rebellion took place in the wilderness wanderings, which included even rebelling against entering the land. As a community they did not “enter My rest,” with the rest referring to entry into the Promise Land of Canaan. Ultimately, though to the exclusion of everyone else, two of them, Joshua and Caleb, did in fact enter the land, and therefore the rest of God.

The analogy we take from this in Hebrews is that the community of Christians here is in mind, who have been redeemed from slavery in the world of sin. Just like in Israel, not everyone in the community was genuinely saved. And the writer often speaks rhetorically to the whole group as to individuals. “If the shoe fits, wear it.”

But the sober warning remains. All who read this passage must give serious consideration to whether or not they have entered the rest of God. To the non-believers, have they entered salvation? To the believers, have they stopped wrestling with uncertainty about the “elementary things” of faith and moved on to the greater things (cf. Heb 6:1). To all of us, have we truly rested from our works in Christ?