p. 606 | In the Question Chair

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 17, 1901

In the Question Chair.

[Designed for the consideration of such questions as will be of interest and profit to the general reader. All correspondents should give their names and correct post-office address, that queries not replied to here may be answered by mail.]

827.—Joshua’s Rest.—Another Day.

Will you please give me some light on Heb. 4: 8–10? First, “For if Jesus had given them rest, then would He not afterward have spoken of another day.” Do the words “another day” refer to the Sabbath, and mean that the Sabbath would have been changed?

Secondly, “If Jesus had given them rest.” What is meant here by the term “rest”?

Thirdly, “He that is entered into His rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His.” Does this mean that in keeping the Sabbath we cease from our own works, as God did from His? Miss E. C. M., Madena, Iowa.

Answer.—In Heb. 4: 8–10 Paul refers to the time when the Hebrews were passing through the wilderness, journeying from the bondage of Egypt to the freedom of Canaan. The “rest” they were striving for was primarily the condition they were to enjoy when they had reached Canaan, and triumphed over all their enemies. It was embraced in the old covenant, which the Lord made with them when He took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt. Ex. 19: 4–6; Heb. 8: 9. It was a matter of promise, and was set before the people as an object of hope. Deut. 7: 21–24: “Thou shalt not be affrighted at them [the inhabitants of Canaan]; for the Lord thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible. And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed. And He shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them.”

Joshua gave them this kind of rest by establishing them in Canaan, as he plainly testifies in Joshua 21: 44: “And the Lord gave them rest round about, according to all that He sware unto their fathers: and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand.” Chap. 22: 4: “And now the Lord your God hath given rest unto your brethren, as He promised them.”

But from an expression found in David, Paul argues that the rest in Canaan was not the ultimate real and permanent rest which God contemplated in His promise. See Heb. 3: 8–11. What was that rest? God calls it His rest: “They shall not enter into My rest.” And to show what He meant by His rest, He refers to the seventh day, when He rested from the work of creation, contemplated with infinite delight the work of His hands, and pronounced it all very good. “For if Jesus [the Greek form of the name Joshua, as given in the margin] had given them rest, then would He not [that is, God would not] afterward have spoken of another day.” But He did afterward speak of “another day,” not any particular day of the week, but an indefinite period of time during which the promise of entering into His rest should still be extended to that people who had failed to accept the first invitation. “Again, He limiteth [or sets apart] a certain day [or period], saying in David, To-day, after so long a time [after the people had so long a time failed to comprehend the true nature of that rest into which they had been invited to enter]; as it is said, To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts” (Heb. 3: 8), “as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness.” So God gave them a further chance, and limited, or set apart, another period, including the whole so-called gospel dispensation, during which men would still have an opportunity to seek to enter into God’s rest. In the rest enjoyed in Canaan was fulfilled the letter of the old covenant. The spiritual and eternal elements of the new covenant are to be sought in the day set apart in David, of which the Saviour speaks when He says, using the word “day” in the same sense, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.” John 8: 56. The full entrance into this rest includes the blessings and privileges of the eternal state. Heb. 8: 10–13.

Wherein did ancient Israel fail? The record says that “the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” Heb. 4: 2. Their faith did not grasp the promise in its spiritual conditions and eternal realities. The expression is parallel with that of 2 Cor. 3: 13, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. They rested down in the literal and temporal, and failed to comprehend the spiritual and eternal; so much so, that they came to regard the ceremonial law as an end, and not a means, and capable of imparting righteousness, and competent to procure salvation, superseding the necessity of Christ. Paul had to battle against this error, as he does in the book of Galatians, to set the Jewish people right. Acts 15: 1. They could not see that when the Seed should come, as the Seed did come when Christ appeared (Acts 13: 22, 23), circumcision and the whole ceremonial law would disappear, as the stars fade away before the sun. So of the rest which God had granted them in Canaan, they saw that which was immediately tangible, present, and temporary, and overlooked that of which Canaan was a type, the earth made new, when in Abraham and his Seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.

God’s rest dates from the foundation of the world; for then the works were finished. It seems that God purposed that His people should finally enter into just such a rest as He then enjoyed. But by the entrance of sin and the fall of man, the work was interrupted; but at length, in the days of Moses, and the wonderful deliverance from Egypt, the time seemed ripe for God to enter upon His plan. But right there the fathers tempted God, proved Him, and saw His works forty years. “Wherefore,” says the Lord, “I was grieved [or indignant] with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.”

Thus that generation failed. Joshua did not give them the rest contemplated, although he himself testified that not one thing had failed of all that the Lord had promised to the house of Israel up to that time. Joshua 21: 45. But they did not mix faith with the word when it was preached unto them, and so failed to realize the extent of the promise, and glorify God by proper action with reference to it. But by what means God would have completely fulfilled the promise to the people then and there, as some think He would have done if they had rightly related themselves to Him, giving them immortality and the eternal inheritance, it is not for us to try to say. But they failed by erring in their hearts, and not knowing His ways. Yet a long time afterward, God saw fit to extend the time, and renew the promise, saying in David, “To-day, after so long a time, . . . if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” This brings the promise down to us, to whom, Paul says, the gospel has been preached, as well as it was unto them.

And how are we to seek to enter into His rest?

The apostle gives direction: “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” Heb. 4: 1. The children of Israel hardened their hearts,—though they saw His works,—and tempted Him, and He was grieved, or indignant, with them, and declared that they should not enter into His rest. They entered not in because of unbelief; and we are cautioned not to fall after the same example. Heb. 4: 11. By faith and obedience we are to enter in. This is stated in verse 3, where, by an unfortunate translation, the believing is made a past act, and the entering in, a present act. Thus, “We which have believed do enter into rest;” whereas this is one of those instances where the past tense is used with reference to future action or condition,—literally, “We, having believed, enter into rest.” The believing must be done before we enter the rest. It is the same as if the apostle worded it thus, They failed and entered not in through unbelief, but we may enter in, and are to enter in, by doing just the opposite of what they did; namely, by believing. “Having believed, we enter, or are to enter, into the rest.”

To the great mass of believers, that rest is all yet future. No one has entered into it, but Enoch, Moses, Elijah, and the multitude of captives whom Christ led with Him when He ascended from this earth (Eph. 4: 8, margin), a company subsequently brought to view in the Scriptures as the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders around the throne in heaven. Rev. 5: 8–10. How, then, can it be said that “we which have believed do enter into rest,” or, “having believed, we enter into rest,” as if it was in the present tense? Answer: By that wonderful medium called Faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for; and as soon as we form a connection with Christ, by faith, by faith we enter into His rest. Just as it is with eternal life. John says, “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” 1 John 5: 11. God hath given it to us; and it is ours, but we have it not yet in possession; we have it now by faith only. So the record (verse 12) continues: “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” But we have the Son, only so long as we maintain a connection with Him by faith. And losing that connection, our relation to the life is changed.

Faith gives us ample ground for present enjoyment of these blessings. Thus when we have by faith that eternal life which God has given us in His Son, we are just as much subject to physical death as before; but we have that spiritual life which is hid with Christ in God, and there it remains, even though we go into the grave, to be given to us again, carrying with it the physical, when He who is our Life shall appear, in the resurrection, when we are endowed with real and absolute eternal life. So when by faith we enter into God’s rest, we have all the rest that comes through faith in Christ. “Come unto me,” He says, “and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11: 28), spiritual rest—rest from sin and condemnation—rest from anxiety and trouble. “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.” John 14: 1. But the true rest is yet to come.

And how may we know that we have not entered into that rest already?—Because we shall then have ceased from our own works, as God did from His. When we have entered into God’s rest in its full, antitypical sense, we shall be able to contemplate a completed work, as God did. We shall be immortal. We shall be above and beyond the reach of all opposing powers, as God was. Our foes will all be subdued, as were the foes of Israel in Canaan. But we see how far short Joshua came of giving them the true rest. So another day of opportunity was set apart; for some “must enter therein.” Heb. 4: 6. God wills that His kingdom shall be supplied with proper subjects (Isa. 45: 18), as it will be when the overcomers are all gathered home, when all have reached the real, the promised rest of God.

So Paul says, “Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest.” This shows that it has no reference to the Sabbath; for Paul was already keeping the Sabbath, as good and spiritual a Sabbath-keeper as can be found on the earth to-day. Yet his admonition is, Labor to enter into that rest. How labor?—Just as he did. He says, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” 2 Tim. 4: 7. Again he says, “But I keep under my body [literally, I smite it in the face, as a pugilist], and bring it into subjection: lest . . . I myself should be a castaway.” 1 Cor. 9: 27. “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God” (Heb. 4: 9), called “the keeping of a Sabbath,” as in the margin, because the Sabbath as originally kept by God, on the seventh day, is taken to illustrate what God calls “His rest,” the rest promised to His people; and the condition promised is well represented here by the Sabbath, when truly kept by faith in Christ.

“Breast the wave, Christian, when it is strongest; Watch for day, Christian, when night is longest; Onward and upward still be thine endeavor; The rest that remaineth shall be forever.” —Hymn 617.