Hebrews 4:10

‘For he who is entered into his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his.’

It is true that this could refer simply to one who has died in Christ, but it is then semi-redundant. Why introduce this idea at this stage? But the immediacy of the whole passage suggests rather a living present experience, which contrasts with a past experience of ‘dead works’, and furthermore God did not enter His rest by dying, but by having completed His creative work. In God’s case it resulted from the completion of creation, in the Christian’s case from the completion of his new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15), when all is supplied that is necessary for his rest and he ceases from law-works. No longer does man need to strive after righteousness. The works are complete. The thought is surely of a living positive experience, not of something that befalls on death. They ‘rest’ as in a new creation along with God the Creator, leaving their old works behind them. And we know that the One Who actually performed the creative work was the Son (Hebrews 1:2). So they rest in Christ, partaking of Him. They have ceased trying to save themselves by their works. They have put aside all such efforts. They rest in what He has done and is doing in them and what He is for them, and thus they find rest and are assured of eternal rest.

Some see the change of pronoun (from ‘they’ to ‘he’ as signifying that this is a direct reference to Christ Himself, suggesting that through what He has accomplished He entered into His rest, and because it was accomplished there is nothing further for Him to do. His work is complete. Thus as we partake in Him we too enter that happy position. But it seems more likely that the change of pronoun personalises to individual believers, in the light of the exhortation to come, the idea which is the continual thought of the passage, otherwise we would expect the writer to draw attention to the change more specifically.