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With regard to the nature of this "rest" both verses 3, 4 and 10 look back to
Gen. 1: and 2:, where we are told that God rested upon the seventh day after the
completion of the six days' creation. The believer is said to rest "from his works as God
did from His" when he enters into this "rest that remaineth". Verse 9 departs from the
usual word for rest to give us its full and perfect meaning:
"There remaineth therefore a Sabbatismos (a Sabbath rest) to the people of God."
There is one further feature that demands attention, and that is the statement made in
4: 3:
"Although the works were finished from the foundation of the world."
"The foundation (katabole) of the world" is an expression that has been carefully
examined in The Berean Expositor, and the translation "The overthrow of the world" has
been adopted instead of the A.V.
This "overthrow" we find indicated in Gen. 1: 2:
"And the earth became without form, and void",
the six days' work which follow being the preparation of the earth as a platform for the
outworking of the plan of the ages. When the writer of Hebrews wished to speak of
laying a foundation, he uses the verb themelioo, Heb. 1: 10, and not kataballo. The
question that comes to us as a result of this is:
"In what way does this reflect upon the believers to whom the apostle addressed his
words, for their rest is likened to the seventh day rest of God" (see Heb. 4: 3, 4, 10)?
A little wider study, we think, will help us to appreciate the apostle's meaning. In
4: 1 he writes:
"Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you
should seem to come short of it",
and in 4: 11 he adds:
"Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example
of unbelief."
Now we are already acquainted with the fact that the grand exhortation of Hebrews is
to "go on unto perfection", perfection being the doctrinal equivalent of the rest that
remaineth. So therefore in Heb. 6: 1 we read:
"Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine (word of the beginning) of Christ, let
us go on unto perfection."
This "perfection" we see to be the parallel with the "rest" of chapter 4: by observing
the second half of chapter 6::