The rest they were to enter into was God’ rest, and the Christians were exhorted to hold fast the confidence of the hope firm to the end. Israel’s failure of entering into the land of Canaan is set before them as a warning and an example, they having failed to believe the glad tidings of rest in the land of Canaan. Believers, then, are the enterers into God’s rest; but it had not been entered into yet, for He says, As I have sworn in My wrath, If they shall enter into My rest although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. God had rested in the finished work of creation; but Adam had lost the rest by his sin, and Israel failed to enter into the rest of Canaan because of unbelief; and so He says, If they shall enter into My rest; that is, God had a rest in purpose as witnessed by the seventh day, and Canaan’s rest, but man had not entered into it. Nevertheless, some must enter into it, and so He limits a day, as He said in David, Today, if ye will hear His voice harden not your hearts. Joshua had indeed led the people into the land of Canaan, but if they had entered into rest why did David speak of it as future in his day? There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God. The rest, then for the people of God is future. God ever rests in His own purpose; the works are finished, creation will have its rest, God will have the land of Israel as His portion, and Israel as the possessors of it, but man has never entered into it yet. Adam lost it. Israel has failed to enter in, and the cause was unbelief and revolt against the promises of God. But still there remains a rest for the people of God, and this remnant called out from the mass of the unbelieving nation which had rejected Messiah, and put into the Christian place, are exhorted to labor to enter into that rest, lest any fall after the same example of unbelief. The rest was future; if not, they would have ceased from their works as God did from His.
What is God’s rest then? Not paradise when God rested first, nor Joshua and Israel in the land, nor David established on the throne for the latter spoke of it as still future, at least as to entering into it; but (comp. Eph. 2:6-76And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:6‑7)) one says, “What is man that Thou art mindful of him? . . .Thou madest Him a little lower than the angels, Thou crownedest Him with glory and honor . . . Thou hast put all things under His feet.” Yes, beloved, here is the answer. Though, it is not alluded to in Hebrews 4, that Christ is to be God’s Center in heaven and earth. (see Eph 1) Creation which was lost to man by his sin, is to be redeemed, not only by blood but by power; Israel and the land likewise. We see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor. All things will be put in subjection under His feet. In the meantime God is calling out the co-heirs, bringing the many sons to glory. These are they who are exhorted to labor to enter into His rest; when they shall have entered, Christ will take His great power and reign, clear creation by judgment, destroy the enemies of Israel, and reign over the millennial earth, together with the sons of God who then shall have been brought to glory. This is God’s rest, never altered in purpose. The responsible man, Adam, and Israel lost their share in it, but all shall be made good by the Man of God’s purpose, even Christ who has purchased all by His blood, and who will yet redeem all by His power when He returns from heaven with those whom he is now leading across the wilderness on to the heavenly glory.
Two blessed helps are brought before the people of God, at the end of the chapter for their journey through the wilderness: First, the Word of God that would expose and judge everything that would hinder them entering into God’s rest; and, secondly, the Priesthood of Christ for the maintenance of their position before God, and their faith whilst passing through the trials of the path through the wilderness. The former would remove the obstacles to their entering in, the latter would hold them up on their onward path, because of their infirmities and weaknesses.
We see here then the place the Priesthood of Christ holds in the Word of God. It is not for salvation. Israel were not brought out of Egypt by Aaron the priest, but directly they had been redeemed and brought to God at Mount Sinai. Aaron was consecrated as priest to maintain their relations with Jehovah as the people of God. Likewise Christ having redeemed them from the world by His death and resurrection, has now passed into the heavens, to maintain God’s heavenly people in their relations to God, to save unto the end them that come unto God by Him, seeing that He ever liveth to make intercession for them. Thus, they are preserved through infirmities, difficulties, trials, saved through them all by this ever faithful High Priest, who has passed through the same circumstances for them, who can be touched by the feeling of their infirmities, and was in all points tempted like as we are, sin apart. Born in a holy nature, outside sin, yet really Man, He felt what it really was to be in a world of sin; in it He was tempted, and yet there was not one motion in His holy soul that answered to the temptation like with us. He shrunk from it with horror, hated the very thought and suffered from the very contact with temptation, in a deeper way than we ever can as God and yet still having a nature within us that answers to the temptation if not kept by faith in the place of death, by the power of the Holy Ghost. Thus, we have not an High priest to sympathize with the sinful nature in us (He died for this; we do not want sympathy with it, but judgment and atonement), but to sympathize with us as Christians born of God, but in conflict with sin, temptation, and the world, and to maintain us in victory above it. As Israel, under Joshua, and Amalek fought together in the wilderness, and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up the hill to maintain them in conflict; so our great High Priest has ascended up to glory, to maintain us in the fight against the flesh and sin, and to carry us through by His powerful intercession, which never fails, and makes us more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Let us then come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.