Hebrews 3:15-4:3 “Entering God’s Rest”

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 21 Oct. 2018

Introduction

• A Christian friend that I made while we were both attending a good, Christian college went on to a secular university to get a doctoral degree. The psychological pressure of so many Athiests in his graduate program there was too much for him, and he later wrote me that he could no longer believe the Bible. He was a smart guy; he knew good theology, but he did not fear apostacy enough to take the precautions he needed to take in order to sustain Christian faith.

• I’ve mentioned before some statistics I heard from Dr. Voddie Baucham from his research on faith-retention among college students from church-going families. He surveyed thousands of college students who had grown up in church and found that most of them – three-quarters of them – abandoned the faith while in college.

• That is terrifying for me as a church-going parent – and as a pastor! Does that mean that Christianity is just a phase in Western Civilization, and that smarter people are moving past all those ancient stories about the supernatural? That’s what the Progressive intellectuals would have our children – and you – believe, but it’s not true. The truth is rather the opposite: that Secular Atheism is rapidly declining worldwide, and belief in the supernatural – and in Christianity in particular – is on the rise. The Gospel, however, doesn’t get highlighted much in the media today because it doesn’t fit the meta-narrative of Secular Humanism, which is the religious worldview preached by the majority of Western journalists. But until the truth can’t be ignored any more, how many more church kids – and adults – will cave in to the pressure of these influences and apostatize? Can anything be done to stem the tide?

• The much-neglected ending of Psalm 95 holds the answer, and the author of Hebrews brings it to our attention through his painstaking meditation. And, as they say, the biggest part of the solution is knowing what the problem is, and the scripture boils the problem down to a very simple and personal problem, the presence or absence of faith in God. This may seem like a tautology at first: “kids lose the faith because they lost faith,” but one thing it tells us is that the problem is not the structures of society or the methods of education or nutrition or the presence of godparents or full-time pastors or what-have you; the problem is a personal one in each individual’s heart, and so that is where we have to start cultivating trust in God and turning away from distrust in God.

Vs.15-16 With regard to what was said, “Today if y’all happen to hear His voice, don’t start to harden your hearts as in the manner of the embitterment,” although it was not all of the ones who went out from Egypt through the agency of Moses, even so, certain ones acted bitterly after hearing.

• This is still remembering the history of the Exodus of the Hebrew people out of Egypt under Moses.

• The original Greek text used a word which could make this verse either a question or a statement.

  • The traditional text used by Greek-speaking Christians was followed by the KJV and myself,

  • whereas most modern English versions frame it as a question,

  • but it does not make much of a difference except for the fact that if you frame it as a question, you have to understand that “all” does not mean “all without any exceptions.” In this case, of course, Joshua and Caleb survived and led the second-generation Hebrews into the Promised Land, but the rest of the Hebrews who left Egypt died in the wilderness because they were so rebellious and provoking towards God, even after they had heard God’s voice thunder from Mt. Sinai, revealing Himself and His values and His plan of salvation and fellowship with people. Most of the Hebrews wanted none of that.

• Psalm 78:5-22 And he raised up a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, to make it known to their children… That they should not be as their fathers, a perverse and provoking generation; a generation which set not its heart aright, and its spirit was not steadfast with God… 17 And they sinned yet more against him; they provoked the Most High in the wilderness. And they tempted God in their hearts, in asking meat for the desire of their souls. They spoke also against God, and said, ‘Will God be able to prepare a table in the wilderness? Forasmuch as he smote the rock, and the waters flowed, and the torrents ran abundantly; will he be able also to give bread, or prepare a table for his people?’ Therefore the Lord heard, and was provoked: and fire was kindled in Jacob, and wrath went up against Israel. Because they believed not in God, and trusted not in his salvation. (Brenton)¹

• Our author follows up this historical reference with a couple of questions leading to his main point:

V.17 And then with which ones was He disgusted for forty years²? Wasn’t it with the ones who had sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness?

• This is a clear reference to Numbers 14, which states three times that their “carcasses” would “fall/be destroyed” “in the desert.” The meaning is literal: they were in a desert; they were struck dead, and their dead bodies slumped to the surface of the ground, never to be buried, but disintegrating over time.

• Numbers 14:2-37 “And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron; and all the congregation said to them, ‘Would we had died in the land of Egypt! or in this wilderness, would we had died! and why does the Lord bring us into this land to fall in war? our wives and our children shall be for a prey: now then it is better to return into Egypt…’ 26 And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, ‘How long shall I endure this wicked congregation? I have heard their murmurings against me, even the murmuring of the children of Israel, which they have murmured concerning you. Say to them, “As I live, saith the Lord: surely as ye spoke into my ears, so will I do to you. Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness… from twenty years old and upward, all that murmured against me, ye shall not enter into the land for which I stretched out my hand to establish you upon it; except only Chaleb the son of Jephonne, and Joshua the son of Naue. And your little ones, who ye said should be a prey, them will I bring into the land; and they shall inherit the land, which ye rejected. And your carcases shall fall in this wilderness. And your sons shall be fed in the wilderness forty years, and they shall bear your fornication, until your carcases be consumed in the wilderness. According to the number of the days during which ye spied the land, forty days, a day for a year, ye shall bear your sins forty years, and ye shall know my fierce anger. I the Lord have spoken, Surely will I do thus to this evil congregation that has risen up together against me: in this wilderness they shall be utterly consumed, and there they shall die.”’ And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, and who ... spoke evil reports against the land, even died of the plague before the Lord.” (Brenton)

• This danger is not over, by the way, because the wording of this verse occurs another time in Isaiah 66 as a description of hell: 22 "for, as the new heavens and the new earth which I am making [remain] standing before my face," (This is a declaration of Yahweh)… all flesh will come to prostrate themselves before my face… And they will go out and look among the corpses of the men who are transgressors toward me, for their worm will not die and their fire will not burn out, and they will be repulsive to all flesh.” (NAW)

• The emphasis of this passage in Hebrews 3 is upon what kind of person God is disgusted with – what kind of person is in danger of becoming an abandoned corpse. It is the “sinner” – the one who hears what God says but then rebells – literally “acts bitterly” toward God resulting in making God bitterly angry in response.

• And now we have a second question leading to the main point:

V.18 And then to which ones did He swear they would not enter into His rest if not to the non-compliant ones?

• There is a logical chain here:

  • v.15-16 establishes the fact that there were people who acted bitterly, rebelling against God and provoking Him to anger, at a specific time in history, namely, the Hebrews in the wilderness after the Exodus. And at that time, God issued a warning for them not to harden their hearts if they heard a message from Him.

  • V.17 establishes that God followed through with actually getting disgusted/grieved/angry/provoked with them and causing them to die in the wilderness, but this wrath was only against those who sinned against Him, or to state it another way, God had just reason to punish them because they had not upheld His standards of justice.

  • V.18 establishes that it was only to those who were unbelieving/disobedient/uncompliant that He swore out this just punishment.

• The “rest” which the ancient Hebrews did not enter was, as I noted before, literally the Promised Land of Canaan, but the settlement of Canaan was not intended by God to be the final meaning of “rest” as we will see later on in this passage – as well as in chapter eleven, which speaks of the patriarchs still seeking a “heavenly country” (11:16), and in chapter twelve, which speaks of the entry of Christians into a “heavenly Jerusalem” (12:22)³.

• The conclusion to which the two previous questions in verses 17 and 18 point is in v.19:

  • the sin against which the ancient Hebrews had been warned,

  • the sin which angered God to the point of instituting death,

  • the sin which resulted in God taking an oath not to let them enter His promised rest

  • was the sin of unbelief – not trusting Him – hearing His voice but setting their heart against what He said.

V.19 So we see that it was on account of unbelief that they were not able to enter.

• Could I note here, despite the legal language, how deeply personal this is?

  • Here is God reaching out and speaking to mankind.

  • God is thinking ahead about what is going to be hard about responding to His voice and reaching out to strengthen people in their weak spot with encouragement.

  • In v. 16, rather than initially painting their failure as a criminal law-breaking, He paints it as an inter-personal hurt – a bitter, disloyal attitude – that resulted in an awful emotional state for him in v.17 of anger/grief/sickness.

  • The relationship-words continue on in v.18 with God taking an oath concerning them, with the circumstance of persons being literally “un-persuaded” – He’s tried every way to persuade them to want to be with Him in His rest and to want to listen to Him and to walk with Him in His ways, but what they don’t want is Him. It’s very personal.

  • The matters of heaven and hell have everything to do with how we relate personally to the personal God. If our response to God’s communications toward us is one of unbelief, non-compliance, underestimating Him, bitterness, and resistance, then all the blessings of a good relationship with Him will be lost, and – what’s more – restlessness and death will ensue.

• Jesus said, “He who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has a judge; the word that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day.” (John 12:48, RSV)

• If unbelief is the great problem, how should we respond?

4:1 Therefore let us start being respectful lest, someone among y’all might decide to come up empty, the promise of entering into His rest being left behind.

• The only other place in the Greek Bible where this hortatory “let us fear” occurs is Jeremiah 5:21-25 “Hear ye now these things, O foolish and senseless people; who have eyes, and see not; and have ears, and hear not: will ye not be afraid of me? saith the Lord; and will ye not fear before me... But this people has a disobedient and rebellious heart… they have not said in their heart, Let us fear now the Lord our God, who gives us the early and latter rain, according to the season of the fulfillment of the ordinance of harvest, and has preserved it for us. Your transgressions have turned away these things, and your sins have removed good things from you.” (Brenton)

• The renowned Greek N.T. scholars Westcott & Hort called Hebrews 4:1 “this very difficult passage.” It is difficult because the verbs have a wide enough range of meaning that they can be translated somewhat differently, and furthermore, it is not immediately obvious how the three clauses of the verse all fit together, but I will try to share what I understand of it:

  • The first clause of verse 1 is an exhortation using the Greek root phobew – fear/be respectful/be careful, but it is passive voice (indicating something that makes you fearful), and it is Aorist tense (indicating the beginning point of that fear/respect).

  • The next clause opens with mēpote – “lest” – literally “not a time” – so it is something to be avoided (or at least “cautious” about⁴), and it is followed by a genitive absolute with its own subject and verb, the passive voice participle καταλειπομένης “being left behind” with “promise” as its subject, so it is the promise which was left behind, and this is followed by the infinitive clause “to enter into His rest,” which seems to be what the promise was, and what was left behind.

  • Now, the way the Greek sentence works, it could either be God who left the promise for us, or it could be the one who falls short/comes up empty who is the one who left God’s promise behind him. To interpret it as God leaving a promise to stand for us, as most of the English versions do, requires changing the opening word μήποτε to mean something different than is in Greek lexicons, and it pretty much requires changing the passive participle (“being left”) to active voice (“remaining/standing” – or adding a word like “us” to be the object of the participle as the KJV did), and furthermore, throughout the New Testament that verb almost always means to move away from something, not to leave something for someone else’s benefit, so I have attempted a different translation which does not change the normal meaning of all these Greek words. “…lest someone among y’all might decide to come up empty, the promise of entering into His rest being left behind.”

  • In the third and final clause of this verse, the verb which I translated “decide” (δοκῇ) has to do with making an evaluative decision, which is why “seem” and “be found” are also translations of this verb, and the thing to avoid is ὑστερηκέναι to fall/come up short (or literally “empty”) and fail to reach the promise of His rest – which, despite the different words used to translate it, the meaning is unmistakably the same.

• Lack of faith is what kept folks from entering God’s rest, and faith (which is a healthy form of fearing God) is what will keep us from missing out on God’s rest.

• This indicates that there may be those who don’t believe the Gospel who are associated with the fellowship of the church – the “you/y’all” mentioned in this verse. This is why it is healthy to recognize that there is a difference between the visible church (that is the church-goers) and the invisible church (that is the elect who are actually entering God’s heavenly rest), even if we can’t distinguish between the two with absolute certainty at this time.

• “This does not mean [however] that the true Christian needs to fear the loss of his salvation or fear that he will not make it to heaven. God has promised that every true Christian will make it: ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life’ (John 5:24). ‘My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand’ (John 10:27-28).” ~Frank Barker, Jr.

• Still, “[B]elievers ought to fear and guard against the ‘evil heart of unbelief’ …Whatever, then, has a tendency to shake our faith in the testimony of God – whatever has a tendency to draw away our minds from that saving truth which is the source at once of our comfort and our holiness – ought to be an objection of cautious fear to every Christian… Faith, in general, is the belief of God’s word, and respects His threatenings as well as His promises; and so gives credit to the motives of fear as well as of hope, both of which are necessary to believers while in this world.” ~John Brown

• Furthermore, your fear of God and your belief in His promises expressed out loud by your voice and expressed visibly by your actions could be just the thing that keeps someone else from being fooled by the deceitfulness of sin and missing out on God’s offered rest. Courage and faith are not natural, but they can be contagious, and your faith can encourage others to trust God and find blessing that they might otherwise miss out on.

• Now, the next couple of verses re-state the difference between the saved and the unsaved:

4:2 for we have been evangelized just the same as they have, however the message heard did not benefit them, they not having been combined by faith with the ones who heeded [it].

• The Hebrew people in the desert with Moses were evangelized with the good news:

  • Moses and Joshua told them that God wanted to bless them with a settled life and prosperity in the Promised Land of Canaan and be their God and they His people. (Deut. 1:20-21)

  • “They understood that under the figure of the land of Canaan, they were being promised ‘a city which hath foundation, whose builder and maker is God’—heaven… They had the promise of the forgiveness of sin through the blood of the Lamb. The Gospel was preached to them in symbol.” ~Frank Barker, Jr.

• Later, during the time of Christ and the Apostles, the Jews in Jerusalem again heard the Good news/the gospel preached:

  • Matthew 11:28 “Come here to me, all who are laboring and who have been burdened, and I myself will give rest to you.” (NAW)

  • Luke 4:18 “‘The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed… 8:1 Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with Him… 16:16 ‘The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it.’ …20:1 …He taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel…” (NKJV)

  • Acts 5:42 “And daily in the temple, and in every house, they [the apostles] did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.” (NKJV)

• But history tells us that something went wrong such that generations of Hebrews did not get those benefits. They didn’t believe the good news – or they may have believed it but thought it was bad news so they didn’t want it, so they rejected the benefits.

• The further details of this verse are somewhat controversial, for, despite scholarly support⁵ of the verb translated “combined/mixed/united” as having a singular subject (namely, “the word”), actually, only one of the thousands of Greek manuscripts spells this verb in the singular (Sinaiticus), but it is also spelled this way in the European Renaissance-era edition of the Greek New Testament called the Textus Receptus.

  • The KJV translators used the Textus Receptus rather than the traditional Greek New Testament (used by the Greek-speaking church) to make their translation of the New Testament, so the KJV and NKJV (and, surprisingly, the NASB) read along the lines of “the word… did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.”

  • The ESV, on the other hand, did the best job of the other standard English versions in rendering the verb with the plural subject “they,” as it is in practically all of the Greek texts: “the message… did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened.”

  • Around the year 400, Chrysostom applied it along these lines in his preaching: “Caleb then and Joshua, because they agreed not with those who did not believe, escaped the vengeance that was sent forth against them. And see how admirably [it is] said, not, ‘They did not agree,’ but, ‘they were not mixed’—that is, they stood apart (but not contentiously) when all the others had one and the same mind.”

  • Keeping the subject plural and the voice passive here, as the ESV did (and as I did in my translation, “…the message heard did not benefit them, they not having been combined by faith with the ones who heeded [it].”), also has implications in supporting the sovereignty of God in the process of salvation, for it indicates that those who heeded the Gospel were added into the faith by an outside agency – by God. That is also consistent with the wording of Acts 2:41, where it speaks of souls “added” (passively) to the church.

• But either way it is translated, the point is still that “faith” (believing the good news) has to accompany the “hearing” of the preaching in order for the audience to receive any “benefit/profit/ value” from evangelism.

  • In other words, just because you sat in church and heard about Jesus doesn’t mean it will do you any good, if you don’t believe it.

  • Relating this verse to the previous one and extending it to ourselves, the “promise” of “entering into [God’s] rest” is the “gospel” that “we” – as well as “they” (the ancient Jews) – were evangelized with. “Not heeding” that “good news,” “not believing” it, and not standing “together with” other believers “in faith” is, humanly speaking, what will make you “miss out” and “leave” the promised “benefit” behind.

• V.3 states the same idea, but positively:

4:3 yet, we – those who have become believers – are entering into His rest, just as [surely as] He had said, “So, as a result of my anger, I swore, ‘[I’ll be damned] if they will enter into my rest’” …

• “The believers” who “enter” God’s rest in this verse are painted in stark contrast to “the disobedient unbelieving/non-compliant ones” back in 3:18 who would “not enter.” (J. Brown)

  • Just as surely as they won’t enter, so it is sure that we who believe will enter, for it is when we become believers in the Gospel that we begin entering in to God’s rest, just as Ephesians 2 says, “by grace you are saved through faith…”

  • “Note the present tense… we have not yet entered God’s rest in its fulness, but we are ‘already in process of entering.’” ~P.E. Hughes

• Next, our author takes us on an excursus on the Sabbath day, which is one form of rest, but we’ll have to get into that next week.

Conclusion

• “In the language of Psalm 95, it is still ‘today’ as far as God’s promise is concerned; and this indicates both opportunity and responsibility: opportunity in that we live in God’s day of grace, and responsibility on our part not to despise or turn away from this privilege… for there is no attitude more dangerous for the church than that of unconcern and complacency.” ~P.E. Hughes

• As you may have heard it said, “The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart.” The widespread apostasy in our nation is a result of individual persons becoming complacent toward spiritual things, and the path to spiritual renewal and widespread revival is to start with our own heart and work on our attitude toward God.

• “You have heard the Gospel. How long have you heard the Gospel? What effect has it had in your life? Has it changed your life? Does your life evidence the fruit of faith? It is a faith that works by love that profits! Has this faith produced the fruit of the Spirit? Has it united you to Christ in such a way that your life is manifesting obedience? Are you really concerned to do His will? Are you growing in Christ-likeness? That is the question! … Use the means of prayer to soften our hearts and to build up our faith. Remember that the disciples prayed, ‘Lord, increase our faith!’ Use the Word of God. ‘Faith comes [and grows] by hearing; and hearing comes by the Word of God.’ Shun anything and anybody who tends to tear down your faith. Seek the company of Christians who mean business and who believe to a greater degree than do you.” ~Frank Barker, Jr.

• 2 Peter 1:4-7 “God has…given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.” (KJV)

APPENDIX: Side-by side Greek Text and English Versions of Hebrews 3:15-4:03