The Rest of God

Iv. — 4. For he hath said somewhere of the seventh day on this wise, And God rested on the seventh day from all his works;

5. And in this place again,

They shall not enter into my rest.

6. Seeing therefore it remaineth that some should enter thereinto, and they to whom the good tidings were before preached failed to enter in be cause of disobedience,

7. He again defineth a certain day, saying in David, after so long a time To-day, as it hath been before said,

To-day if ye shall hear his voice,
Harden not your hearts.

8. For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another day.

WE speak, with Scripture, of the rest of faith. Faith, however, only gives rest because it rests in God; it rests because it allows God to do all; the rest is in God Himself. It is His own divine rest into which we enter by faith. When the Holy Ghost says, My rest, His rest, God rested, it teaches us that it is God’s own rest into which we enter, and which we partake of. It is as faith sees that the creature was destined to find its rest nowhere but in the Creator, and that in the entire surrender to Him, to His will and His working, it may have perfect rest, that it dares to cast itself upon God, and have no care. It sees that God, the cause of all movement and change, is Himself the immovable and unchangeable

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One, and that His blessed rest can never be disturbed by what is done either by Himself or by others. Hearkening to the loving offer, it forsakes all to find its dwelling-place in God and His love. Faith sees what the rest of God is; faith believes that it may come and share in it; faith enters in and rests, it yields itself to Jesus to lead it in and make it partaker. Because it honours God and counts Him all, God honours it; He opens the door, and the soul is brought in to rest in Him.

This faith is faith in Jesus. It is the insight into His finished work, the complete salvation He bestows, the perfecttion which was wrought in Him personally, and in which we share as partakers of Christ. The connection between the finishing of a work and the rest that follows is clearly seen in what is said of creation. God rested on the seventh day from all His works. He that is entered into His rest, hath himself also rested from his work, as God did from His. The rest of God was His glad complacency in what He had finished in Creation, the beginning of His blessed work of Providence to care for and bring on to perfection what He had wrought. And so it is the finished work of Jesus that is ever set before us in the Epistle as the ground of our faith, the call for us in fulness of faith to draw nigh and enter in and rest. Because Christ hath put away sin, hath rent the veil, and is set down on the right hand of the throne, — because all is finished and perfected, and we have received the Holy Spirit from heaven in our hearts to make us the partakers of that glorified Christ, we may with confidence, with boldness, rest in Him to maintain and perfect His work in us. And, resting in Him, He becomes our Joshua, perfecting our faith, bringing us in, and giving us a home in the rest of God with Himself, now to go no more out for ever.

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And if you would know why so few Christians enjoy this rest, it is because they do not know Jesus as their Joshua. We shall see later how Aaron was only a type of Christ in His work on earth. Melchizedek is needed as a type of His work in heaven, in the power and joy of the heavenly life. Moses and Aaron both shadow forth the beginning of Christ’s work — His work on earth; Melchizedek and Joshua His work in heaven. They show us clearly how, as in the type God ordained, so in reality there are two stages in Christian knowledge and experience. All the feebleness of our Christian life is owing to one thing: we do not know Jesus in heaven; we do not know that Jesus has entered in for us (vi. 20, ix. 12, 14), and that this secures to us boldness and the power of entrance into a heavenly state of life; that He there sits upon the throne as our High Priest in power, maintaining in us His own heavenly life; keeping us in personal fellowship with the living Father, so that in Him we too enter the rest of God. It is because we do not know Jesus in His heavenly life and power that our life is feeble; if we learn to know Him as He is to be revealed in this Epistle, as our heavenly Joshua, actually bringing us and our inmost nature into the rest of God, we cannot but enter into that rest. When Joshua went before, the people followed at once in fellowship with him. Entering the rest of God is a personal practical experience of the soul that receives the word in living faith, because in it it receives Jesus on the throne.

Let us do what Israel did in crossing Jordan; they allowed Joshua to bring them in; they followed him. Let us follow Jesus in the path He trod. In heaven God’s will is all. On earth Jesus made that will all. He lived in the will of God, in suffering and doing, in meeting trial, in waiting for the Father’s guidance; in giving up everything to it, He proved that God’s

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will was His path. Follow Him. Yield thyself, in the death to self, to the will of God; have faith in Jesus on the throne, as thy Head and life, that He has brought thee in and will make it true in thy experience; trust Jesus, as being partaker of His nature and life, to work all in thee that the Father seeks; and thou shalt know how blessed it is to enter the rest of God.

7. Deep restfulness, even amid outward activity, is one of the most beautiful marhs and aids of the life of faith. Cultivate that holy stillness that seeks to abide in God’s presence, and does not yield too much to things around.

2. This rest is God’s rest: it is found in His fellowship. Think of all He sees, of all He feels, and has to bear; think of the divine peace and patience with which He guides all; and learn to be patient and trustful, and to rest in Him. Believe in Him, as the one God who worheth all in all, and worhs in thee that which is well-pleasing in His sight, and thou shalt have perfect rest in letting Him do all for thee and in thee.

3. God is a supernatural, incomprehensible Being; we must learn to know Him in a way that is above reason and sense. That way is the adoration of faith, and the deep humility of obedience. Through these the Holy Spirit will work the work of God in us.

4. All entering in means a coming out from the place we were in before. Forsake all, and follow Jesus into God’s presence.

5. 0 my soul, listen to this word of the great God, and let His unspeakable loue draw thee — To-day, enter into My rest.

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