Hebrews 4:11 Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. This implies — 1. There is danger and an evil to be feared. 2. The evil is falling. 3. All and every one is in this danger Lest any fall." 4. Lest any should slight the danger, he instanceth in the Israelites, who fell by unbelief.To fall may be a sin or a punishment. If a sin, it is apostasy. If a punishment, it is exclusion out of God's rest, with all the miseries that accompany it. So it seems here to be taken. By this, as by many other places, we easily understand how we must conceive of examples, and what use we must make of them. If they be examples of punishments, we must account them as executions of God's laws, and especially of His comminations. The use that we must make of them is, to avoid those sins for which they were inflicted, and to be the more careful in this particular because by them we may easily know that God's laws are not only words and His threats only wind. It is not with God as it is often with men, who will threaten more than they will or can do. Thence the saying, "Threatened men live long." But here it is otherwise. God's word is His deed, and His punishments, threatened against apostates are unavoidable. They are not made unadvisedly, and out of rash passion, but according to the eternal rules of wisdom and justice. And let every one know that that God that spareth neither men, nor angels, nor His own chosen and beloved people, will not spare us. Therefore, as we desire to escape this fearful punishment, let us labour to enter into that rest which God hath promised. (G. Lawson.) Parallel Verses KJV: Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. |
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