Message Nine

The Sabbath Rest

Scripture Reading: Heb. 3:5—4:11

1. If we would have the proper understanding of the Sabbath rest in Hebrews, we need to know the significance of the first mention of the Sabbath rest in the Bible—Gen. 2:2-3:
   1. God rested on the seventh day because He had attained what He desired.
   2. The desire of God’s heart is to have man on earth expressing Him and representing Him— Gen. 1:26-28; Heb. 2:6-8a:
      1. The governing principle of the Bible as a whole is that in eternity past God made a purpose, a plan, to express Himself with His authority.
      2. God’s desire according to His eternal plan is to have Himself expressed and represented by man.
      3. When man is on earth expressing and representing God, God’s desire is satisfied.
   3. When there is a situation on earth in which man expresses God and represents Him, that situation is a Sabbath rest to God.
   4. The New Jerusalem will be God’s ultimate and eternal Sabbath rest because there God will be fully expressed and represented—Rev. 21:10-11; 22:1, 4a, 5b.
   5. The Sabbath rest is simply God’s satisfaction in His heart’s desire.
2. In the Old Testament, the good land was a rest because the temple could be built there— Deut. 12:9; 1 Kings 8:1-11:
   1. God regards the good land, His proper people, and Christ as one:
      1. In the Bible the land, or earth, signifies the proper people of God; therefore, according to God’s concept man is always related to the land.
      2. In the Bible the land is a type of the resurrected Christ; Christ is the good land—Gen. 1:9; Deut. 8:7-10.
      3. Man’s body was made with the dust of the land, but man himself was made in the image of God for the purpose of expressing God and was committed with God’s authority to exercise God’s dominion and to form God’s kingdom on earth—Gen. 2:7; 1:26.
      4. The combination of land, Christ, and humanity is the expression of God and the kingdom of God with God’s glory and authority.
   2. The temple was the ultimate consummation of the entering into the good land by the children of Israel—1 Kings 8:1-11:
      1. With the temple God could have His expression and His representation for His kingdom, government, and administration.
      2. The good land is a combination of the earth and the people of God with God’s dwelling place built up to express God and to exercise His authority.
      3. When God is expressed and represented, there is satisfaction for both God and man; this is true rest.
      4. The church life today is our good land, for here we have God’s dwelling place, expression, authority, kingdom, and rest.
3. The Sabbath rest in Hebrews 4:9 is Christ as our rest, typified by the land of Canaan— Deut. 12:9; Heb. 4:8:
   1. Christ is rest to the saints in three stages:
      1. In the church age the heavenly Christ, the One who has expressed, represented, and satisfied God and who rests from His work and sits at the right hand of God in the heavens, is the rest to us in our spirit—Matt. 11:28-29.
      2. In the millennial kingdom, after Satan has been removed from the earth (Rev. 20:1-3), God will be expressed, represented, and satisfied by Christ and the overcoming saints; then Christ with the kingdom will be the rest in a fuller way to the overcoming saints, who will be co-kings with Him (vv. 4, 6) and share and enjoy His rest.
      3. In the new heaven and new earth, after all the enemies, including death, the last enemy, have been made subject to Him (1 Cor. 15:24-27), Christ, as the all-conquering One, will be the rest in the fullest way to all God’s redeemed for eternity.
   2. The Sabbath rest in Hebrews 4:9, typified by the rest of the good land, covers only the first two stages of Christ being our rest:
      1. The rest in the first two stages is a prize to the Lord’s diligent seekers, who enjoy Him in a full way and become the overcomers.
      2. The rest in the third stage is not a prize but the full portion allotted to all the redeemed ones.
   3. The Sabbath rest mentioned in 4:9 refers to Christ as our rest in the first two stages, and especially in the second—the rest that remains for us to seek after and enter into diligently:
      1. In the second stage of His being our rest, Christ will take possession of the whole earth as His inheritance, making it His kingdom for a thousand years—Psa. 2:8; Heb. 2:5-6.
      2. In the second stage of Christ’s being our rest, all His overcoming believers who seek Him and enjoy Him as their rest in the first stage will participate in His reign in the millennium—Rev. 20:4, 6; 2 Tim. 2:12:
         1. They will inherit the earth—Matt. 5:5; Psa. 37:11; Luke 19:17, 19.
         2. They will partake of the joy of their Lord—Matt. 25:21, 23.
         3. This kingdom rest, typified by the entering into the good land of Canaan, is the goal of the New Testament believers.
4. There will be a total of three Sabbaths—the church, the kingdom, and the New Jerusalem:
   1. The present church is the Sabbath of enjoyment, and the coming kingdom is the Sabbath of reward—Heb. 10:35; 11:26; Rev. 22:12:
      1. God is wise to use the coming Sabbath as a reward to encourage us to enjoy the present Sabbath.
      2. In His wisdom God has ordained the next age with the millennial kingdom to be an age of reward as an incentive for us to seek Him and respond to His work in this age
   2. The church life is a life in which man is gained by God on earth for His expression and representation—Heb. 2:10-12; 3:6-8; 4:9.
   3. The book of Hebrews was written for the purpose of encouraging the saved ones not to forsake the church life but to endeavor, strive, and be diligent to enter into it because it is today’s Sabbath rest—Heb. 10:25; 13:1, 9, 13-15.
   4. We should be encouraged to be in today’s church life, today’s Sabbath, for it will feed us, edify us, build us up, and qualify us for and usher us into the Sabbath in the kingdom age.