Sunday Hebrews: Explanatory Notes on Hebrews 4:1-13

4:1 Let us fear, therefore, so that--with a promise remaining to enter into His rest--someone of you should seem to be lacking.
The author is now going to draw conclusions from his comparison between the wilderness generation and the audience. God gave the wilderness generation the promise of rest in Canaan, in the promised land. God has also made a promise to the audience of Hebrews, the promise of an unshakeable kingdom that is yet to come. The audience is on a journey of faith just as those who left Egypt were. It would be horrible if they fell short before arrival.

4:2 For we also have received a promise as those also did. But the word of hearing did not profit those because they did not mix [the word] with faith among those who had heard.
The author brings out again the theme he mentioned more than once in chapter three and that he will reiterate several times more before this sermon is over. It is not enough simply to have received the word of promise. That promise must be mixed with faith, a faith that includes endurance and continuance toward the promised land. Otherwise the word of faith is ineffective.

The construction, "we have received a promise" is the perfect tense in Greek. It suggests that God made a promise that continues to stand in the present. The promise was made, completed. But it remains a promise up until the time the author of Hebrews made this statement.

The last part of the second sentence is difficult grammatically. That ancient copyists of Hebrews found it difficult as well is clear from the variation in the manuscripts that read that it is the hearing or the word that was not mixed with faith. Perhaps this was the author's intended sense. However, the most probable original reading perhaps points to it being those who heard themselves who did not mix the word of hearing with faith.

4:3 For we are entering into rest, we who have faith, just He has spoken, "As I have sworn in My anger, they will not enter into My rest"...
The present tense in Greek mostly has the sense of an ongoing action far more than meaning that something is happening now. Perhaps the first verb of this verse would be translated well as "we are in the process of entering into rest." Some holiness preachers of the past used this passage to preach entire sanctification. Perhaps the Spirit led them to do so. But the author of Hebrews was primarily thinking about the future entrance into eternal rest in the coming kingdom.

The author uses the usual perfect tense that New Testament authors use in relation to Scripture. The connotation is, again, that the text was written, completed, but it continues to stand as written today, for us and not only for the time of writing.

The author is about to engage in a typical ancient Jewish method of interpretation, gezerah shewa, in which he uses a "catchword" from one verse to link that verse with another. It is important for us to remember that originally such verses usually had nothing to do with each other. The link is being made from the outside of the text looking in at texts that are now together but were not connected originally in any way.

If we believe in the inspiration of the author of Hebrews, then the Spirit validates the reading. But the original inspiration of the texts themselves is a different inspiration and, indeed, involves different meanings. We are reminded of the verse in John that says that "the Spirit blows where He wants and you hear the sound of Him, but you do not know where He is coming from or where He is going" (John 3:8)

4:4-5 ... although [God's] works existed at the foundation of the world. For He has spoken somewhere concerning the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works," and again in this place, "They will not enter into My rest."
The author is connecting the passage that started off this section, Psalm 95, with Genesis 2:2 on the basis of the common root, "to rest." Of course these two texts were unrelated in their original meanings. Psalm 95 was originally about the wilderness generation and Genesis 2 was about the creation of the world. But using Jewish hermeneutical methods, the Holy Spirit can use both texts to shed light on each other.

The author surely knows that it is Genesis that mentions God's resting on the seventh day. To say that God or the Holy Spirit has spoken somewhere is the author's style that perhaps distances the text from its human author.

God has promised a final rest for the people of God, including the audience. What is God's rest? God rested on the seventh day after "working" the six days of creation. So what light does God's rest from the work of creation shed on the rest that God has promised His people?

4:6 Therefore, since it remains for certain individuals to enter into it [the rest] and the first ones who had received the promise [formerly] did not enter in because of disobedience,
The wilderness generation had a promise of entering into God's rest in Canaan, but they did not because of their disbelief in the promise and disobedience of God. But God wills for people to enter into His rest. He will make a way for others to enter.

Some will need to keep in mind that this is not a straightforwardly logical argument. It is much more poetic, especially since the individual texts are blurring into each other and not being read strictly in context. So we should not think the author is saying that God's original plan failed and that the new covenant is Plan B. The author will make it abundantly clear that God has always had Christ in His plan.

4:7 ... [God] is again setting aside a certain day, "Today," in David saying after so great a time, as it has been said previously, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts."
Thus another opportunity to enter God's rest has been offered, namely, today. While the author primarily has in view eventual entrance into eternal rest, the author will now begin to focus on the need, in a sense, to enter it daily. Each day that the audience does not harden its heart and continues in faith is a day that the audience does not harden its heart like the wilderness generation.

We enter into God's rest today. Tomorrow is of course another today, as is the day after that. We must therefore enter into God's rest every day so that we can be sure to enter into His ultimate rest on the Day.

In keeping with the author's style, he says "in David" rather than "David says," again perhaps distancing the text from its human author. This differs of course from Paul's style, as we see in Romans 4:6 where Paul straightforwardly states, "David says."

4:8 For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken about another day after these things.
The author now plays on the timing of Psalm 95. Assuming David as the timing of the psalm, we can see that the Holy Spirit speaks of a rest to the audience of the psalm after the days of Joshua. Therefore, the rest of Canaan must not be the rest Psalm 95 anticipates. There must still remain another rest for the people of God after Moses and Joshua, the one that stands available for the audience of Hebrews.

4:9-10 Therefore, a sabbath rest is left for the people of God. For the one who has entered into His rest has also himself rested from his works just as God [rested] from His own works.
The author now ties the Genesis and Psalm text together. The rest of God in Psalm 95 is like the "sabbath rest" of Genesis 2. The timing of this verse--and what it means to rest from one's own works--is ambiguous to us, although perhaps it was not to the original audience. The author has been speaking of entering into rest "today," so perhaps the immediate context tips the scales slightly toward this sabbath rest having to do with something the audience is to do today.

But what does it mean to rest from one's own works, as God did? It is certainly not a reference to keeping the Sabbath, since that topic has not come up anywhere here. It is difficult to see it as stopping to sin, since it would be hard to suggest that God rested from sinning on the seventh day. The faith versus works issue is not anything of which Hebrews reflects any interest and, in any case, the usual interpretation of Paul himself is already somewhat skewed on this topic.

However, if we try not to let post-Reformation debates about faith versus works cloud our minds, it is possible that the author is alluding to the worries and efforts of the audience relative to their atonement. If Hebrews is meant to assure the audience that Christ is the final answer to their salvation, then to cease from their works could be an invitation on the part of the author for them not to worry about those things that are currently troubling their faith. They can trust and rest in God's promise, for He has already finished the work in Christ.

4:11 Therefore, let us be diligent to enter into that rest, so that no one falls by way of the same example of disobedience.
The author now returns to the image of future entrance into God's final rest. Like the wilderness generation, the audience is to continue striving toward that rest. We will see these concepts again. Hebrews 6:6 will warn the audience again about the finality of falling away. Esau in Hebrews 12:16-17 will give yet another bad example to be avoided of someone who began as a firstborn son with an inheritance. But later he did not receive the blessing and even could not find a place of repentance, even though he sought one "with tears."

4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than every two-edged sword and penetrates to divide soul and spirit, both bone and marrow, and is discerning of the thoughts and intents of the heart...
Certainly it would be anachronistic to think the word of God here as the Bible. Not only was the Bible as we know it not yet collected into a single volume, but Hebrews has repeatedly referred to God's speaking in a way that reflects a sense of God's word as something that includes Scripture but is much bigger than it. "God spoke in these last days through a Son" (Heb. 1:2), for example, is a comment that almost certainly does not refer to the words written down in any of the literary gospels. The Bible is part of the word of God, but it does not come close to exhausting that word.

Hebrews has not given us reason to consider the word of God here to be Christ, as in John 1. For example, Hebrews 2:3 speaks of God beginning to speak salvation through the Lord and alludes to its continued speaking through the apostles. Hebrews has a sense of God's word, God's logos, but it does not explicitly--or clearly implicitly--equate it strictly with Jesus.

Certainly the idea of the word of God had a history prior to Christianity, primarily in Jewish "philosophical" thinking. The Wisdom of Solomon and the writings of Philo both extensively operate with a sense of God's word as God's will in action. Indeed, Wisdom 18:15-16 speaks of God's word using a sword during the exodus to judge the Egyptians.

Since the author of Hebrews apparently knew the book of Wisdom (see comment on 1:3), it is not impossible that the author had this text in mind here as well. That would especially fit since these verses close a section that remembers the example of the children of Israel who left Egypt.

The "cutting word," a concept we also find in Philo, is able to discern the various parts of the creation. Philo did see a distinction between soul and spirit. The spirit was the soul's soul for him, and the soul as a whole more our animal side that involved our senses.

Yet the spirit was part of the soul, and some believe that to say the word can separate the two implies an ability to separate the inseparable. So the marrow is the heart of the bone, and perhaps intent is the heart of thought. On the other hand, perhaps this is to read too much into the picture.

4:13 And the creation is not invisible before [the word], but all things are naked and exposed to His eyes, whose word is for us.
This statement seems to blur God's word and God Himself. Clearly the statement means that God knows and sees us. We remember the context in which these last two verses appear. They are closing a section that reminds the audience of God's judgment on the wilderness generation. These verses are thus meant to remind the audience of the judgment of God's word that will find them if they disobey and disbelieve. God/His word see.

The last line is ambiguous, "toward whom the word is to us." Some translations take it as a statement of the necessity for us to give account to God. Whatever the precise grammatical sense, the idea of being accountable to God's word is surely the basic sense of the statement.