“For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.”
Hebrews 4:10
To understand this concept of Christ being our rest we would have to understand the meaning of the Jewish word “Sabbath “, which means “to rest or stop or cease from work.”
Sabbath of course takes its root from the beginning of creation when God Himself “rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made” (Genesis 2:2).
Now this concept of rest or sabbath doesn’t mean slumber or a state of inertia as men may want to believe but a cessation of laboring, an active faith.
The sabbath like many other concept in the old testament was a shadow of a substance that would come in the New Testament.
In this case, it symbolized the coming of the Messiah, who would provide a permanent rest for His people. Before Christ the Jews constantly labored in their own self righteousness under the law of Moses to please God through several ceremonial laws and endless offerings but yet continually failed to please God. ( Hebrews 10:11).
However Christ came to put an end to all these that we may cease from self righteousness and be made perfect and acceptable once and for all before the Father through his sacrificial death and the imputation of his righteousness (only to those who believe in Him).
To this end, the Bible says, Jesus “after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right of God” (Hebrews 10:12). What is the implication of this once and of all sacrifice we may ask ?
It means there was nothing more Christ could do to atone for our sins and therefore we are called to stop laboring to please God but to accept this sacrificial death by faith, as an invitation to rest, and a cessation from our moral and legal effort.
Jesus’ labor of atonement was a once and for all effort to make us acceptable before God and nothing else can be added or removed from it.
This work of atonement alone is what makes us holy, righteous, acceptable and not our own effort. Why? Because God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Most importantly the Bible admonish us about the vital importance of this atoning work of rest saying : “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:9–11).
How do we enter this rest? By faith alone in the atoning death of Jesus Christ. As simple as this appears it also connotes great responsibility of active faith. It involves a faith that works by love, not a faith that works from the perspective of self righteousness or fear but from the love of God.
A person who exercises his faith based on love would accept the atoning work of Christ not because he wants to be spared from punishment of damnation but because he wants to please God in obedience because he loves God.
Faith that works by fear would always work in self righteousness and could never cease from the effort of self.
When we love God we would live out his commandments easily and trust in what he has done for us through the death and resurrection of His son and cease from our own faith in self righteousness forever. This is the only acceptable way to enter His rest.
