The Seventh-day Sabbath not a type of the Christian's Rest. Heb. iv, 4, 9.
By J. H. Waggoner
WHEN God made the promise to Abraham to give the land to him and to his seed, &c., [Gen. xii, 7.] he foretold him of the bondage of his seed, and also said, that "in the fourth generation they shall come hither again," and that they should possess the land of "the Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites." Chap. xv, 7-21. After their full term of service in Egypt had expired, God made choice of Moses to go before them, and lead them out of the land of bondage. The Lord commanded Moses and the people with him thus: go up unto the land which I sware unto Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, saying, "Unto thy seed will I give it. And I will send an angel before thee, and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite." Ex. xxxiii, 1, 2. But God was wroth with the people for having made the golden calf, and refused to go with them; and Moses supplicated him, saying, "show me now thy way that I may know thee." And the Lord made answer, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." Verses 13, 14. When they came near to the river Jordan, Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh desired their portion on the east side, to which Moses assented on condition that all the men of arms should go over and help subdue the nations on the other side, "until the Lord have given rest unto your brethren, as well as unto you, and they also possess the land which the Lord your God hath given them beyond Jordan." Deut. iii, 20. After they had passed over Jordan and come in possession of the land, it is written, "And the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it and dwelt therein. 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." Josh. xxi, 43, 44. Moses, however, was not permitted to cross Jordan, and the people entered into this rest under the leading of Joshua. The apostle Paul said that "Moses was faithful in all his house [house of Israel,] as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; but Christ as a Son over his own house; [household of faith,] whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence, and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end." Heb. iii, 5, 6. In verses 7-11, he quotes Psalm xcv, 7-11, as follows: "To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness; when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart, and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest." When Moses desired to know the way of the Lord, he promised him rest; [Deut. xxxiii, 13, 14,] but they had not known his ways, and, therefore, could not enter into his rest. He then exhorts his brethren, to take heed lest there be in any of them "an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God;" for if those who fell in the wilderness entered not in because of unbelief, we should fear lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them; but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. Faith is the condition of entering into this rest. They could not enter in for want of it; but we who believe enter into the rest of God, [Macknight's Trans.] as the promise was left us of entering into his rest since the children of Israel inherited the land of Canaan.—This rest is only to be entered into by the faithful, who hold fast the confidence, and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. "He that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works;" [verse 10,] and God's "works were finished from the foundation of the world;" therefore, (although the promise of entering therein extends to the future,) his rest dates from that period. This is proved by his speaking "in a certain place [Gen. ii, 2,] of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works." Verses 3, 4. The promise that was left us is spoken of in David, [Ps. xcv,] and if Joshua had given them the rest contemplated in the promise made of God to the fathers, he would not afterward have spoken of another day. The conclusion is therefore obvious, that "there remaineth a rest to the people of God." Heb. iv, 9; Rom. iv, 13; Heb. iii, 5. This rest must bear the same relation to the land of Canaan, that the household of faith does to the house of Israel, [Chap. iii, 6,] and that Christ does to Joshua, to wit: the antitype to the type. All types are similar in their nature and objects—they are shadows. Heb. x, 1; Col. ii, 17. There is nothing in the origin or object of the Sabbath to make it an appropriate type of our future rest. Many have supposed that the Scripture under consideration, proves it to be typical, but to infer from the Apostle's argument in the iii and iv chapters of Hebrews, that God instituted a type or shadow of the believer's rest in Paradise—observed it himself—then blessed and hallowed it, and made it a sign of the sanctification of his people, is certainly stretching an assumption to its utmost limit. Gen. ii, 1-3; Ex. xx, 11; xxxi, 13, 17; Eze. xx, 12, 20; Isa. lvi, 6, 7; lviii, 13, 14. The quotation in verse 4 proves that the seventh day was God's rest day or Sabbath "from the foundation of the world;" and its observance was enforced before the law was given on Mount Sinai; [Ex. xvi;] therefore it could not be the rest given by Joshua. This, according to Josh. xxi, 43, 44; xxii, 1, consisted in the peaceable possession of the land, after their enemies had been driven from it, or destroyed from off it, as "the Lord had sworn unto their fathers." Gen. xv. Of this we cannot enjoy the antitype until "we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, may serve him without fear;" [Luke i, 74;] which will not be till we stand on the Mount Zion, singing "the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb." Then will the faithful peaceably possess the land promised to Abraham and his seed. Rom. iv, 13, 14. For this rest we hope and pray with "earnest expectation," "for we that are in this tabernacle, do groan, being burdened;" [2 Cor. v, 4;] we "which have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, namely, the redemption of the body." Rom. viii, 23. Praise be to God, the time is hastening on, when those who keep the commandments, will enter through the gates into the city; and have right to the tree of life that grows in the midst of the Paradise of God. And he shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain. "Soon shall we be from the wicked released,
Soon shall the weary for ever be blest,
Soon shall we lean upon Jesus' breast.
Then there is rest, there is rest."