Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Hebrews 4:6

"Seeing therefore it remaineth that some should enter thereinto, and they to whom the good tidings were before preached failed to enter in because of disobedience," — Hebrews 4:6 (ASV)

The argument moves along in logical sequence. Some will enter that rest because it is unthinkable that God’s plan should fail of fulfillment. If God prepared a rest for humanity to enter into, then they will enter into it. Perhaps those originally invited will not do so, for there is often something conditional about God’s promises. It is precisely the force of the present argument that nothing can stop the promises from being kept, but they must always be appropriated by faith. So if one does not approach the promises by faith, one does not obtain what God offers and the offer is made to others. Some, then, must enter God’s rest, though the first recipients of the Good News (cf. v.2) did not. The writer concentrates on two generations only: the wilderness generation and his contemporaries. There had been other generations who might have appropriated the promise. But the focus is on the first generation who set the pattern of unbelief and then on the writer’s generation, who alone at that time had the opportunity of responding to God’s invitation. The intervening generations were not germaine to his argument. The reason the first group did not enter God’s rest was “their disobedience” (GK 377). This word is always used in the NT of disobeying God, often with the thought of the Gospel in mind; so it comes close to the meaning disbelief (cf. v.11; Romans 11:30). Because the first generation had passed the opportunity by, God set another day. The idea that the wilderness generation was finally rejected was one the rabbis found hard to accept. Thus they expressed a conviction that somehow those Israelites would be saved. The author, however, has no such reservations about that generation. They disobeyed God and forfeited their place. Psalms 95 was written long after the Israelites in the desert had failed to use their opportunity and had perished. Its use of the term “Today” shows that the promise had never been claimed and was still open. The voice of God still called. A day of opportunity remained, even though the fate of the wilderness generation stood as an impressive witness to the possibility of spiritual disaster.