Hebrews 4:10

For he that is entered into his rest hath himself also rested from his works, as God did from his.

The effort to make the person who has entered into his rest to be the Saviour appears forced, although some able scholars defend that meaning of it. The view here is that it pertains to the rest which any true follower of the Lamb enters upon his becoming a Christian. Rest is a universal human longing; and, although in youth the desire for rest might not be so urgently felt, its need and urgency, with increasing rigor, appear more and more as life unfolds. The promise of it, like a fleeting mirage, beckons beyond each pressing complex of frustrations, problems, duties, and sorrows; and for countless travelers from time to eternity, there must be frequent emotion, if expressed or not, which contains the cry of the Psalmist, "O that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away and be at rest" (Psalms 55:6); or the hope of Job to be where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest" (Job 3:17). The thought of ceasing from his own works, on the part of the Christian, is also intriguing. If God is resting from his works, what is there that man can do? Does he propose to move everything alone? Surely the works of righteousness, that is, human righteousness, cannot avail unto salvation.

This verse also has its application to Christ. He did indeed finish the work of his earthly ministry and enter into that eternal rest to which his followers are invited to come. All who will receive it are invited; and Christ, as representative man, has already entered upon the rest, or into it. The recurring and overwhelming thought of that "rest" so much discussed here is the eternal nature and purity of it, utterly distinguishing it from Canaan, or earthly sabbaths, which even at best were dim and imperfect symbols of a genuine reality, the rest of God. That rest is inherent in the very nature of God, who himself rested on the seventh day of creation, and who surely purposed that his people should share in it, that sharing being made possible only through the sacrifice of Christ.