Hebrews 4:3-6 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest… Comparing the Sabbath of God's rest at Creation with the Sabbath that is left to the people of God, he justifies the comparison by urging that "he that is entered into His rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His." This, surely, would seem to show that when we cease from "our own works," the sacred rest commences. What, then, are " our own works"? By these I would understand all those wretched and laborious ways of life which have their origin and end in the corrupted principles of our own hearts, as contrasted with those ways of life and happiness which at once become ours, and with them a Sabbath-rest of spirit, when (and this is surely before the grave), abandoning all the miserable devices with which the wisdom of this world endeavours to delude itself into fictitious happiness, we cast our sins upon the sacrificed Lamb of God, our cares upon the Father of mercies, and, in the bright confidence of faith, walk humbly on to heaven, feeling already within us the dawnings of the heaven we are approaching. (Prof. Archer Butler.) Parallel Verses KJV: For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. |
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