Wednesday, January 26
Read Hebrews 3:11 and Hebrews 4:1, 3, 5, 10. How does God characterize the rest He invites us to enter?
Both the Sabbath commandment in Exodus 20:8-11 and Moses’ restatement of it in Deuteronomy 5:12-15 invite us to remember what God has done for us. As we have seen, what God wrote on tablets of stone point us to the finishing of His work of Creation (Exodus 31:18; 34:28). In Deuteronomy Israel is commanded to keep the Sabbath in view of God’s finished work of deliverance, from Egyptian bondage. The Exodus from Egypt pointed forward to the ultimate work of deliverance from sin that Christ would accomplish on the cross when He said, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). So the Sabbath is doubly blessed and, in fact, is especially meaningful for Christians.
Read Hebrews 4:9-11, 16. What are we called to do?
The Sabbath rest celebrates the fact that God ended, or finished, His work of Creation (Genesis 2:1-3, Exodus 20:8-11) or redemption (Deuteronomy 5:12-15). Similarly, Jesus’ enthronement in the heavenly temple celebrates that He finished offering a perfect sacrifice for our salvation (Hebrews 10:12-14).
Notice, God rests only when He has secured our well-being. At Creation, God rested when He had finished the creation of the world. Later on, God rested in the temple only after the conquest of the land He had promised Abraham was completed through the victories of David, and “Judah and Israel dwelt safely” (1 Kings 4:21-25; compare with Exodus 15:18-21, Deuteronomy 11:24, 2 Samuel 8:1-14). God had a house built for Himself only after Israel and the king had houses for themselves.
How can we enter into His rest even now? That is, how can we, by faith, rest in the assurance of the salvation that we have in Christ, and not in ourselves?
