Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Hebrews 4

“Let us be careful” is more strictly “let us fear”; the writer does not want his readers to grow complacent, for there is real danger. God’s promises mean much to the writer. The particular promise in question “still stands.” That is to say, though it has not been fulfilled, neither has it been revoked. In one sense, of course, there was a fulfillment, for the generation after the people who died in the wilderness entered Canaan. But throughout this section it is basic to the argument that physical entry into Canaan did not constitute the ultimate fulfillment of the promise. God had promised “rest” and that meant more than living in Canaan. There is a problem about the word translated “be found” (GK 1506). It can mean either “think” or “seem.” If “think” is chosen, the writer is reassuring fearful Christians who thought they might miss out on the rest. If “seem” is chosen, these words constitute a soft warning to the readers to take care lest they miss the promised rest. A decision is not easy, but on the whole it seems that this second interpretation fits the context better.

The author, then, is reminding his readers that there was a generation to whom the rest was promised and who missed it. They should beware lest they make the same mistake.

“We have had the gospel preached to us” (GK 2294) uses the verb that became the technical term for preaching the Gospel (though the word can also mean simply “heard good news”). Israel of old, like Christians in the author’s day, heard the Gospel. The first half of the verse makes it clear that on the score of hearing God’s Good News, there was not much difference between the wilderness generation and the readers. The stress is on the readers. They have the message, and they must act on it, in contrast to the Israelites of old who did not. “The message they heard” brought them no profit. The last part of this verse can be taken in either of two ways (see NIV note for the second option). The meaning is either “It [the word] was not mixed with faith in them that heard,” or, “They were not united by faith with them that heard” (i.e., with real believers, men like Caleb and Joshua). The main thrust is plain enough: It is not enough to hear the message; it must be acted on in faith. This is the writer’s first use of “faith” (GK 4411), a term he will employ frequently. This word means “faithfulness” as well as “faith,” but the latter preponderates in the NT. Sometimes faith in God is meant and sometimes faith in Christ. In this letter it is often the former . Here the term points to the right response to the Christian message—the attitude of trusting God wholeheartedly. The writer speaks of “those who heard” without specifying what it was they heard. But there can be no doubt that he is looking for a right response to what God had done and to what God had made known.

“We who have believed” (GK 4409) once more stresses the necessity of faith. It is believers who enter God’s rest, not members of physical Israel, and they do so through a right relationship to God, with an attitude of trust. Characteristically, the writer supports his position by an appeal to Scripture. There is nothing in the Greek to correspond to “God” in “God has said.” Yet this is a correct interpretation because the writer habitually regards God as the author of Scripture. The verb tense used in “has said” (GK 3306) emphasizes permanence. What God has spoken stands. The quotation is from Ps 95:11 (see comments). Its point appears to be that those to whom the promise was originally made could not enter the rest because of the divine oath. This does not mean any inadequacy on God’s part, for he had completed his works from the time of Creation. God’s rest was thus available from the time Creation was completed, and his “rest” was the rest he himself enjoyed. The earthly rest in Canaan was no more than a type or symbol of this.

The writer does not precisely locate his quotation (Genesis 2:2) but contents himself with the general “somewhere.” Nor does he say who the speaker is, though once again it must be God, the author of all Scripture. Locating a passage precisely was not easy when scrolls were used; and unless it was important, there was a tendency not to look it up. The important thing is that God said these words. The passage speaks of God as resting from his work on the seventh day. It is worth noticing that in the creation story each of the first six days is marked by the refrain “And there was evening, and there was morning.” However, this is lacking in the account of the seventh day. There we simply read that God rested from all his work. This does not mean that God entered a state of idleness, for there is a sense in which he is continually at work . But the completion of creation marks the end of a magnificent whole. There was nothing to add to what God had done, and he entered a rest from creating, a rest marked by the knowledge that everything that he had made was very good (Genesis 1:31). So we should think of the rest as something like the satisfaction that comes from accomplishment, from the completion of a task.

The writer again adds Ps 95:11, which is central to his argument at this point. As here, he often uses “again” where a further quotation is added to a preceding one (e.g., 1:5; 2:13; 10:30). In this case, however, it does more than reinforce his idea; it introduces a second point in the argument. The first passage said that God rested (and by implication that the rest was open to those who would enter it); the second passage said that the Israelites did not enter that rest because God’s judgment fell on them. So the way is prepared for later steps in the argument.