“Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (v. 28). Here the Lord Jesus sounds out a call to come to Him for rest from being burdened to toil. The toil mentioned in this verse refers not only to the toil of striving to keep the commandments of the law and religious regulations but also to the toil of struggling to be successful in any work. Whoever toils thus is always heavily burdened. Thus, the Lord calls the toiling ones to come to Him for rest. Rest refers not only to being set free from the toil and burden under the law and religion or under any work and responsibility but also to perfect peace and full satisfaction.
In Matthew 11:29 the Lord Jesus gives us the way to rest: “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” The Lord’s yoke, His way of living, is a rest, but our yoke is a burden. Therefore, we should not take our yoke. Rather, we should take the Lord’s yoke, His way of living.
The Lord’s yoke is to take the will of the Father. It is not to be regulated or controlled by any obligation of the law or religion or to be enslaved by any work, but to be constrained by the will of the Father. The Lord Jesus lived such a life, caring for nothing but the will of His Father (John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38). He submitted Himself fully to the Father’s will (Matt. 26:39, 42). Therefore, He asks us to learn from Him. To learn from Him is not to imitate Him outwardly but to copy the Lord in our spirit by taking His yoke-God’s will (11:29a; 1 Pet. 2:21). God’s will has to yoke us, and we have to put our neck into this yoke.
The Lord Jesus said that if we take His yoke and learn from Him, we will find rest for our souls. The rest we find by taking the Lord’s yoke and learning from Him is for our souls. It is an inward rest, not anything merely outward in nature. The hardest thing is to rest in our souls. People lose sleep because their soul is bothered. Yet by taking the Lord’s yoke and learning from Him, we share in our soul His rest in satisfaction (Matt. 11:28b, 29b, 30).
Christ is the One greater than the temple (Matt. 12:6). In the Old Testament the temple was the house of God (1 Kings 6:1). The temple was founded upon a foundation of stone (5:17; 6:37), and it was built of stone, cedar, and cypress overlaid with gold (vv. 7, 9, 15-16, 18, 20-22). Stone signifies transformed humanity; cedar, humanity in resurrection; cypress, humanity through death; and gold, divinity. Therefore, with the temple we see the mingling of humanity with divinity through death and in resurrection and transformation. The temple built of these materials was a type of Christ as the real temple, as the One greater than the temple.
In Matthew 12:6 the Lord Jesus declared, “I say to you that something greater than the temple is here.” This word was spoken in reference to the historical instance mentioned in verses 3 and 4. David and his followers were not priests, but they entered into the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence. They were justified in doing this because they were in the house of God. This instance illustrates an important principle: outside the temple everything was common, but when something was brought into the temple, it was sanctified by the temple. Everything, every day, every matter, and everyone in the temple was holy. The principle is the same with Christ as the One who is greater than the temple. Whatever we do outside of Christ is illegal, but whatever we do in Christ is legal.
Home | First | Prev | Next