Chapter 4
2022 - The outline says this chapter is about "A better rest". This chapter also starts with "Therefore," indicating that it will sum up what went before, in 3, which also started with Therefore, or 2 and 3, since both started with therefore. I think the chapter breaks are just wrong, and this is the summary of 3, which made the point that even with Moses to tell them directly, the Israelites in the desert still didn't really believe, and it cost them the promised rest, just as it costs us peace in this life and eternity in the next if we don't believe.
The first 13 verses seem to be about the current "Israel" not behaving like their fathers in the desert. It reminds the readers that God knows what is in their hearts. This seems to be directed to those who believe intellectually, but not with their hearts. They see that Jesus life matches up with the Messianic prophecies. They believe he is the one they waited for. But even so, they don't want to abandon the Law. They are anchored in the past, in the Law, just as old Israel was anchored in Egypt. They couldn't let go of tradition and history, and believe that a new way was opened to them. The ones addressed in Hebrews are having a hard time abandoning the old wineskins and embracing that a new day has dawned - even though they see that Jesus was the Messiah. They did not expect Messiah to so change tradition - to so overhaul their religion as to make it unrecognizable. The new religion probably seemed "too easy", and they didn't value it because it was so easy. Aren't we the same? If it's too good to be true, it probably is would be the same kind of skepticism they had. They want to believe, but....
The writer is telling them that where they have come to is still short of true, committed belief, and so still short of salvation..
Later - 2022/23-The writer seems to present a parallel between those who followed Moses and those who now have a choice of whether to follow Jesus or not. He says that all things are established from the foundation of the world. Perhaps this is to try and show that though everything about following Jesus, accepting salvation, and throwing off the rules and regs of the Law, seems to fly in the face of tradition, to throw away too much history, it is not truly a "new" idea, for if it is correct - as has been shown in the first three chapters, not only correct but better, then it was always meant to unfold this way, and it is NOT rejecting tradition so much as embracing the continuing revelation of God's initial plan, in place since before there was a universe.
He goes on to distinguish between the rest promised to Israel in the promised land and the "rest" offered to David much later. If God was still offering rest to David, then it is a qualitatively different rest than what was in view upon entering Canaan. Then he elevates this rest, this currently offered rest through Christ, to the same kind of rest God enjoyed at the end of creation. A Sabbath rest. Hmm...rest from sacrificing, from offering...from working, to enjoy true and lasting peace within. Rest from works of all kinds. Rest from obeying 631 rules or whatever it is to just enjoying life. Rest from trying to get everything perfect in order to go to heaven, rest from a worship rife with works in order to get it right to a worship in Spirit and in truth, without physical requirements at all. As God rested from the work of creation, we can rest from the requirements of reconciliation set up by the Law. One lasting eternal rest, with no necessity of repetition of any kind. No second baptism, no re-salvation, nothing. BUT, the same kind of disobedience that kept Israel from Canaan can also keep us from rest in our day. If we "harden our hearts", as in vs 7, if we hear the call and disdain it, then we can miss our offered rest just as those who died in the desert missed theirs.
Later - 2022/23 - Could it be that Canaan was an "endpoint" in God's plan, set up from before the foundation of the world? Had Israel obeyed His commands, would it have been just "rest" from then on? I don't think so. The sacrifices - daily - would still have been required. God rested on the Sabbath...that is, His work in constructing a workable sustainable system was done, and so he rested, not needing to do any more tweaking and fixing and repairing. His work was done. At the border of Canaan, the completed, total Law was in place, all fixed, all "handed down" to man. Had Israel followed the Law, they didn't need to add any more to it, not tweaking and fixing. It was sufficient and sustainable for a people to live like that under the Law forever. But the people did not obey. They did not embrace and accept that "rest". By David's day, it was obvious that the "rest" was not going to hold because of disobedience. For the Law to suffice, obedience beyond the mere requirements of the Law was required. The people didn't give this. So something else, some other "work", some new system was required. THEN, the writer makes the case that this new "rest" is in Christ. Vs. 10b is still difficult...but is perhaps a reference to the continual sacrifices...but that doesn't make any sense. In what sense, under the New Covenant, do we "rest from our works as God rested from His"? Vs 11 seems to equate "our work" and the work of the Israelites in Canaan, and the work of God in creation. Does it mean that we "work" toward salvation, and once we are saved we never have to do that again?
LATER - 2022/23 - 11-13 seem to be saying that there is no faking this. There is no halfway position between "them" and "us". In the same way that they "fell" by not trusting and obeying, so can we preempt salvation (rest) by not committing fully to belief in Christ as the once and for all. He will know. There is no place in our minds that is hidden enough to "fool" Him.
Also, the whole division of soul and spirit is a metaphor about just how discerning God is about where we really stand with him. We might not be able to divide bone and marrow, we cannot make such a fine division at the cellular level with our primitive tools and understanding, but God can do even better and divide soul and spirit. There is no secret place. This is NOT a lesson on the particulars of God's creation of man and his constituent parts.
2023 - Soul and spirit, joint and marrow. The word, though, is living, active and ABLE to divide even the indivisible, and SHOW whether we depend on the "old" rest or the new rest which comes by faith alone.
2023 - As to this verse as a proof text for tripartite man, look what this same passage says in vs. 12, when it talks about "...the thoughts and intentions of the heart." If this was about creation and biology and the way that God constructed man, it would have to say the thoughts and intentions of our brains. We KNOW now that it is in the brain that thoughts and intentions are formed, not in the actual heart. It is metaphor, just as soul and spirit, and joint and marrow are metaphors and not "instructions for assembly".
2023 - MSB says there was the rest in Joshua's time, when the promised land was conquered and they rested from conquest. But this was not like the Sabbath rest of creation. They still had a lot of physical work to do, planting and harvesting, defending the new nation from attackers all around and so on. Therefore, the rest they had in Canaan was different than the "promised" rest. The rest in Canaan was physical, the promised rest is spiritual. This is proven by the fact that "rest" was promised/offered to David long after Joshua. The rest was still future. The "Sabbath" rest came with Jesus Christ, upon whom we believe once for all, spiritually, with no need for ongoing repetitious, do overs. The "rest" that Christ offers - "28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. [Mat 11:28 ESV]" - when done in spirit and in truth, is like the Sabbath rest, in that we need labor toward this end no more. That vs in Matthew is about the labor of "compliance with the law" imposed by the Pharisees with their legalistic requirements based on the Mosaic Law. It had turned into a burden, not an honor. In was unattainable except for the elite few, and so kept out of the grasp - no matter the effort - of the rank and file. A heavy burden. And Jesus said, I will do the heavy lifting, and you can rest. Possible FB post using this verse: 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. [Heb 4:9-10 ESV]
2023 - Vs 11 makes it clear:
11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. [Heb 4:11 ESV]. "That rest" is the better rest, the spiritual rest of faith in Christ as the way of salvation. We are not to fall, as they did, in making it all about the physical rest, which in fact NEVER came, and NEVER will on this earth. They made it about adherence to ritual, about works, about sacrifices made with hands but not with hearts. Let us NOT go there, let us not make the New Covenant into a physical task to be completed that we can accomplish by our own hands, but let us remember that it is by the completed, finished, sufficient work of Jesus Christ, and not anything we do, that saved us!
2022- Vss 14-16 are difficult...seem unconnected with what has gone before. I think what it may be driving at is that Jesus, since he was made wholly man, and yet did not sin, and since we have previously seen that his atoning for our sins makes him our high priest, we ought to realize that he is a perfect high priest, best able - more able than any high priest that ever came before - to accomplish our atonement and bring us into that promised rest. This last verse of the chapter:
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. [Heb 4:16 ESV]
We ought not to have any doubts about our high priest, or about his position, or that he has power on earth to forgive sin. We should turn loose our reservations as to whether he alone can save us, not resist his call in disobedience as so many have before us, but be confident in his authority to both offer to us and then bring about our salvation.
(Next day - I missed something here. 14-16 seem disconnected because they are. Per the outline above, in vs 14 we shift to a whole new topic, that being the superiority of Christ's priesthood. Indeed, that is what I saw in it. This will be the primary topic now through 7:28. The last verses of 4, through 5:10 just show that Christ is our high priest, and 5:11-6:20 are an exhortation to full commitment to Christ. So this part is surely addressed to those who accept who Christ is intellectually, but who reserve full commitment in their hearts.
2022 - I don't know who wrote this book of Hebrews, but I would not want to argue with him. How perfectly he ties things up. How confident in what we believe can we be if we just follow his reasoning?