For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.”
Hebrews 4:4 reaches back to Genesis 2. There God finished making the world and stopped. One fact carries the argument. God once entered a rest of His own. So such a rest exists, and the question is who gets to share it.
Who Is Speaking
The verse names no human author for the words it quotes. Commentators say this is on purpose. Right through the chapter, the writer keeps the focus on the true speaker.
A J PollockThe writer needs to settle a point of timing in chapter 4. First he says, "He spoke in a certain place" (v. 4) and "And in this place again" (v. 5). Then comes the sentence, "Again, He sets a certain day, saying in David" (v. 7). Notice that the writer avoids saying David said it. He says God spoke it — God spoke it in David.
Two Scriptures, Two Facts
Genesis 2 on its own settles nothing about us. Put it beside Psalm 95, quoted in the next verse, and it does. One writer shows what each passage adds.
William KellyHe speaks only of Adam's world, only of the "works" God carried out on the six "days." … So Genesis 2 says, "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works." Thousands of years later, He said in Psalm 95, "They shall not enter my rest." The first scripture proves that He had a rest Himself; the second, that even His people had not yet entered into it. Sin came in for Adam and his race at the beginning. God could not rest in sin, nor could sinners as such enter into God's rest.
Whose Rest It Is
The chapter keeps calling it "My rest." That possessive shapes everything, and it rules out some familiar meanings people bring to the word.
C E StuartBut what is this rest? He will explain. It is God's rest, as the Psalm declares. "My rest." It cannot, then, be rest of conscience. Who could associate that with God? True, the sinner needs rest of conscience, and Christ gives that to the tired and burdened who come to Him. Nor is it rest of heart along the way. He promises that to us if we take Christ's yoke and learn from Him (Matthew 11:28-30). But God's rest is rest from all toil and labour. We read of this kind of rest in Genesis 2:1-3.
The Rest That Was Broken
God's rest in Genesis 2 did not last. Sin broke it, and God has been at work ever since.
Samuel RidoutAs far as this world goes, sin spoiled God's rest, for He can never rest where sin is. As one has beautifully said: "Holiness cannot rest where sin is. Love cannot rest where sorrow is." … God ended that work of creation and rested. But sin came into the world through Adam and Eve, and God took up toil at once. That toil grew and grew, and goes on to this very day.
Ceasing As God Ceased
One writer draws the comparison out. What God stopped doing decides what we will stop doing.
William KellyIt is not at all the common notion of resting from bad works when a man gets peace with God. However true that may be, it has nothing whatever to do with what is written here. … His works were never bad, but always and perfectly good. Still, He is to rest even from the activity of His love, to enjoy the glorious results. … Now is the time for the believer not to stop his good works. Soon he will enter the eternal rest of God.
Commentators differ on how much rest is already ours. One writer separates rest of conscience from the rest still ahead: "I have ceased from my works, as far as my conscience goes, because I have ceased from works for justification. I have not ceased from godly works — that rest has not come yet" (J. N. Darby).
What Still Remains
The seventh day of Genesis becomes a picture of something the chapter says is still ahead.
W. W. FeredayThere is another kind of rest yet to come. … This lies outside of the present world. It belongs to the new creation, which God will bring in when the present heavens and earth have fled away. Then God will have carried out all His purposes of grace. The full fruit of the cross will show in heaven and on earth. God will rest for ever, surrounded by all whom He has favoured. … There no sin will enter, no foe will intrude, no jarring note will be heard, and toil and suffering will be unknown.
Summary
- God's rest. The seventh day of Genesis 2 proves that a rest exists which belongs to God Himself. He rested in it first.
- God's rest broken. Sin spoiled it, so God has worked ever since. Holiness cannot rest where sin is, and no sinner can enter where God rests.
- God's rest promised. Psalm 95, quoted in the next verse, shows His people had still not entered. The invitation still stands.
- God's rest shared. Entering means stopping work as God stopped His — not stopping bad works, but all labour. So now is the time to work, not to stop.
- God's rest kept. It waits in the new creation, where God rests surrounded by all He loves, and no sin, foe, toil or sorrow ever enters.