Strive To Enter Rest

The gospel of Jesus Christ is a strange and powerful thing, full of perplexing paradoxes. It declares that the righteous God justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5). The message that all our sins are forgiven in superabounding grace--past, present, and future--doesn't turn people into licentious sinners, but rather into loving, holy saints (Romans 5:20-6:23; Titus 2:11-14). And it calls us to work hard and exert effort in order to rest (Hebrews 4:11).

"So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience [as Israel in the wilderness]" (Hebrews 4:9-11).

Strive to enter that rest. It's so weird. Jesus' saving work is, in one sense, finished (John 19:30). "After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Hebrews 1:3). And if we share in Christ through faith, we too are assured of our final rest in the heavenly Zion (4:3). But the weird paradox is that for precisely this reason, we are to exert continual effort in the Christian life on our homeward pilgrimage.

The book of Hebrews is full of effort language. Christians are constantly encouraged to "hold fast" to Jesus in confident, confessing faith (3:6, 14; 4:14; 6:18; 10:23). We are called to press on to maturity in faith and doctrine (6:1). We are to "show the same earnestness" and "not be sluggish" (6:11-12). We must "run with endurance the race that is set before us" (12:1). We are commanded to "strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord" (12:14).

Far from creating spiritual and moral laxity, a true apprehension of the glory of God's Son and the "great salvation" he has achieved should stimulate great energy for God and great effort against sin. Yes, it's true that from the first moment we believe the good news about Jesus, we are irrevocably transferred into God's kingdom (Colossians 1:12-13). The promise of our rest is sure because our Savior is sure. But it's also true that saving faith is a working faith. It strives against sin in our hearts that causes us to drift away from the gospel in search of earthly, tangible pleasures and comforts (3:12-13). Someone with real faith endures hardship with patience and prayerful hope (6:11-12). If there were ever anything that is hard work and effort, it must certainly be prayer! (If you don't accept this, I wonder if you've never truly prayed!)

True faith is also a perservering faith. "We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end" (3:14). "You have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised" (10:36). "These all died in faith" (11:13). Every day, as long as it is called "today," dissonant voices are beckoning for our allegiance. God's voice calls to us through the Word of his Son (1:1; 2:1-4; 3:7-4:12). But sin is right there with us to deceive us and call us away from Jesus, like the mythical Sirens. And every day presents opportunities to listen to Satan or listen to God. As long as we are alive, we live in "today." And each and every "today" God speaks to us--a chance to grow closer to him and enter his rest, or a chance to harden our hearts against him. Life's "todays" don't stop until we die. So faith must never stop either.

But if the future were really in question, in doubt, we'd give up. No one has the strength and will to keep up a battle like this for seventy years. But that isn't the picture painted by the author of Hebrews, either. We may be rowing against the tide, but the tide will never sweep us away. Those who belong to God's family have "a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf" (6:19-20a). Jesus is our anchor, and he has bound his brothers together with him, and he is towing us home. Even when our strength is flagging and we feel no faith and want to quit the race, Jesus never stops reeling us in. "He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them" (7:25). The Son never stops praying for us to his Father, and the Father is delighted to give what his Son asks. Yes, we may have to "fight the good fight of faith," but it is Jesus--not us--who is "the author and perfecter of our faith" (12:2). He will surely bring us home to our eternal rest.

Discerning the Thoughts and Intentions of the Heart

In the previous post I wanted to show from the book of Hebrews that the aim of Scripture is to "make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" by exposing our sinful condition in need of redemption and by pointing us to God's gracious provision of a Redeemer, Jesus Christ. In this post I hope to examine the first purpose a little more thoroughly.

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:11-13)

In 3:7-4:10 the author (Barnabas? Apollos? Paul?) provides an exposition of Psalm 95:7-11, which was written to teach Israel not to follow the example of their forefathers who, though they had been led out of Egypt's bondage and had had good news of deliverance and restoration preached to them, nonetheless refused to trust and obey God. As a consequence that whole generation died in the desert and failed to reach the Promised Land. "So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief" (3:19). The author of Hebrews embraces the idea that God the Holy Spirit still speaks today, calling us to turn from the hardening deceitfulness of sin and to embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ "firm to the end" of our pilgrimage on this earth (3:7-15). The ultimate goal of faith is that by it we "share in Christ" and enter and enjoy rest from our works, even an ultimate "Sabbath rest" for the people of God.

But in order to hear the good news that has come to us (4:2), we must constantly know our danger. The deceitfulness of sin continually hides in the shadows, not as an external enemy, but as an enemy within--"an evil, unbelieving heart" (3:12-13). We today in the age of the Second Exodus share in the same fallen condition of those of the First Exodus. Therefore we are urged not to "fall by the same sort of disobedience" (4:11). Temptations to sin are the same today as they were 3400 years ago; they are "common to man" (1 Cor. 10:13*).

Our sobering need, then, is to allow the word of God to do the painful work of a surgeon's scalpel, piercing through our defenses and facades to our innermost places of idolatry and unbelief. As we read the Scriptures, the Scriptures read us, showing us who we really are, "naked and exposed" before the God from whom we cannot hide. The word judges "the thoughts and intentions of the heart."

How do we do this? Using Bryan Chapell's language, we must first identify the "Fallen Condition Focus," the sinful attitudes and behaviors--or general brokenness--that prompted God to speak or act in that passage. This involves identifying both personal or communal sin (wrong belief, idolatry, etc.) or brokenness of our world due to sin (death, disease, pain, injustice, etc.).

It's easy to identify behaviors that contradict God's law and nature. But the real matter is seeing through external behaviors (sins) to the heart attitudes beneath them (sin). Jesus himself taught that wrong living is the overflow of a wrong heart (Mark 7:20-23; Luke 6:43-45). The behavior is the "fruit," whereas the heart is the "root." In order to free a garden of weeds, the roots have to be removed. And because we are susceptible to "the same sort of disobedience" as Israel, we too must examine our own hearts.

So if we see in Scripture Israel trying to shore up security against Assyria by forming an alliance with Egypt (fruit), we have to recognize the root: a desire to exercise tangible control over their circumstances rather than releasing themselves to the hands of the Sovereign Lord. They not only craved control--an exercise of unbelief in their good and powerful Father--but they also were in effect usurping God's role as controller of destiny. They were setting up themselves as gods, a subtle but insidious idolatry. As we read, we need to ask: Where am I doing this same thing? Do I get mad at my kids when they don't follow my orders? Do I slam my fist and curse when yet another Virginia driver putters along in the left lane or merges onto the expressway oblivious to the presence of other cars around him? (Seriously, what is with drivers in this state?) Prohibitions against lust reveal the worship of pleasure as god and a vain quest for satisfaction apart from the living God. Fearing others' judgments and criticism may mean either too high a view of yourself or an inappropriate fear of people rather than a fear of God.

In the end, if we're reading the Bible rightly, we ought at many times to see ourselves as hopeless sinners, knowing that no behavioral regimen or list of dos and don'ts will be enough to save us and set us on the right path in life. We ought to be left craving deliverance from without--and that's exactly what the Bible does, giving us hope by revealing and proclaiming to us Jesus the Savior.

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*In 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 Paul uses the same idea that Israel fell in the desert because of idolatrous hearts set on evil, just as what threatens the church today. He says that the whole of Israel's history was written as examples to train the New Testament church in wise living.

How to Read the Bible, According to the Author of Hebrews

I've been asked to consider leading a teaching time at my church on how to read the Bible. In prepareation I started mulling over passages about God's Word itself for direction. One important passage is Hebrews 4:12, which says that "the word of God is living and active, sharter than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." I've thought about this verse many times, but I never related it to its actual context in the letter. So I went back and read chapters 1-4 of Hebrews, and the following structure emerged:


1. (1:1-7) In the past God spoke through the Law and the prophets, but "in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son." The reference to Jesus' superiority over angels is likely a nod to the Jewish notion that angels were the intermediaries through whom the Torah came to Moses. So in saying Jesus is better than the angels is saying he reveals truth more clearly than angels and that he himself is greater than the Law.


2. (2:1-4:11) The Old Testament and Israel's story is an example intended to point us to the rest and peace that come through the obedience belonging to faith--a "Sabbath-rest" for the people of God greater than of Israel in Canaan. The history and practices of Israel are meant to be shadows of greater things to come, namely, the era of the Messiah and the worship of his new covenant people. The author is explicit to say that, like Israel, "good news has come to us" (4:2)--the news of Jesus the superior head (2:5-9) and priest (2:10-17)--but it must be met with faith and obedience. The gospel is God's very voice speaking to us, and we should not harden our hearts to it (3:7-4:11).


3. (4:12-13) As a gracious warning to us, the word of God serves to discern the wrong beliefs and idolatrous, sinful heart attitudes that lead us astray from clinging to God, receiving the news of his salvation, and obediently trusting him through this life. The Scriptures serve to "leave us naked and exposed" in God's presence.

4. (4:14-16) Rather than leave us laid bare as hard-hearted and dull-eared sinners who are doomed to fail to reach God's rest, the word of rescue comes again, pointing us to Jesus, our great high priest and mediator before God, through whom we can draw near to receive grace and mercy to help us in time of need. Our redemption lies not in a behavioral program, but in a person.

In other words, the aim of the Bible as we read it is twofold: (1) The warnings and examples contained in the Law and in the narrative history of Israel and the nations are meant to expose not only their sin and fallenness, but ours as well. The author to the Hebrews is insistent that historical texts still speak today by the Holy Spirit to all who hear. So it is God's word which also points us to our own need for rescue. (2) The Rescuer and Redeemer pledged in the promises and foreshadowings of the Old Testament has come in Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. As the word expounds, he is the one who perfectly meets our needs, and we are directed to trust and follow him.

In other words, the "sacred writings" are meant to "make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 3:15). More on this to come.

Brothers of the Same Family

This morning as I read Hebrews 2:5-18, I was struck by how Jesus, the Son of God, who is the effulgence of God's own eternal glory, so gladly emptied himself to take up our cause before his Father. In a true familial solidarity far surpassing the utopian ideals imagined by Marx and others, in his incarnation and baptism Jesus bound up himself with sinful, enslaved, derelict mankind, even calling us "brothers," and suffered the agonies of temptation, rejection, shame, and death so that we might be set free from fear, death, deception, and futility and share in his place of glory and love as co-sons and co-regents before the Father.

A beautiful 15th-century Latin hymn, "O Love, How Deep" (author unknown, translated by Benjamin Webb), captures this story well.

O love, how deep, how broad, how high,
It fills the heart with ecstasy,
That God, the Son of God, should take
Our mortal form for mortals’ sake!

He sent no angel to our race
Of higher or of lower place,
But wore the robe of human frame
Himself, and to this lost world came.

For us baptized, for us He bore
His holy fast and hungered sore,
For us temptation sharp He knew;
For us the tempter overthrew.

For us He prayed; for us He taught;
For us His daily works He wrought;
By words and signs and actions thus
Still seeking not Himself, but us.

For us to wicked men betrayed,
Scourged, mocked, in purple robe arrayed,
He bore the shameful cross and death,
For us gave up His dying breath.

For us He rose from death again;
For us He went on high to reign;
For us He sent His Spirit here,
To guide, to strengthen, and to cheer.

To Him Whose boundless love has won
Salvation for us through His Son,
To God the Father, glory be
Both now and through eternity.

Lead On, O Shepherd

"The sheep hear his [the shepherd's] voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice." (John 10:3-4)

If you've been around the church long enough, it will come as no surprise to hear that Jesus is our Shepherd. He says he is the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls (John 10:14; 21:15-19; 1 Peter 2:25; 5:4). But what is remarkable is that our shepherd is also himself a lamb (John 1:29: Revelation 5:5), a human who meekly came and bore our low estate. He "wore the robe of human frame / Himself, and to this lost world came."* Jesus came in the flesh, took up our cause, battled against sin, death, and the devil, and triumphed over them all. Having suffered and been vindicated, he is now "the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him" (Hebrews 5:9).

How astounding it is that now this Lamb is our Shepherd! But instead of some restful pastoral scene--as true as this is sometimes--we need to know that we are also enlisted into his army. The biblical imagery of a shepherd referred to a general-king who led his people out to battle and back in to worship and rest. And though our final rest is secured, we aren't there yet. This life is still a "struggle against sin" (Hebrews 12:4). We live between two ages in the tension where we have the Holy Spirit and are justified, yet we still sin (simul justus et peccator).


The two earliest forms of the Anastasis (Resurrection) icons depict this reality and give us good cheer and hope. The first (above) shows Christ, the Victor over death and sin's enslaving powers, drawing Adam (symbolic of all humans) from the grave toward himself. Salvation has been won and is now being offered. But to come to Christ, Adam must first pass under and embrace the Cross. He must trust in Jesus' finished work and have his old life put to death in submission to Jesus' lordship. This portrayal is decidedly baptismal. (I find it of note that even though Adam must embrace the cross is faith, the work in drawing him there belongs entirely to Jesus. Calvinism in the eight century!)


The second form (above) is quite different. Jesus is still holding the Cross and drawing Adam from the grave over the ruins of hell. But here Jesus is walking, even marching, forward. He's leading Adam out of death and into glory in "triumphal procession" (2 Corinthians 2:14).** As the "founder of [our] salvation," Jesus is "bringing many sons to glory" (Hebrews 2:10). This word translated "founder" is archegos, one who leads from the front, a "pioneer" or "captain." Jesus himself lived under sin, died our death, and now has risen in victory into life everlasting as King. He now conscripts us to share in his reign and follow him into all he has secured for us. We live now in tension: Will we endure in faith, or will we succumb to worldly pressures? Will sin ever be put to death within us? Will evil and sickness and malice and selfishness and unlove ever cease within and without?

Yes. Amen and Yes--in and through Jesus Christ alone, the Alpha and the Omega, who holds the keys to Death and Hades (2 Corinthians 1:20; Revelation 1:17-18). Our hope is sure and steadfast, because with Christ as our Shepherd, we're not left to wander aimlessly in the dark. He doesn't sit on the sidelines to cheer us on. He calls us, takes us by the hand, and leads us as he battles at the forefront, taking us where he has already gone. Lead on, O King eternal!

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* "O Love, How Deep"; attributed perhaps to Thomas a Kempis.

** The idea of being led in a triumphal procession, however, is not all glory and honor. Roman military generals led their captives in a victory parade toward the Coliseum, where they would be put to death. Only we who have allowed ourselves to be conquered and put to death in Christ in this life will find life now and in the age to come.