“…for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work…” Hebrews 4:10
It seems counter-intuitive to think of the holy life as one of rest. Most often we associate spiritual discipline and long-suffering with the way of the holy life, and indeed, the holy life demands them. John Wesley once said”
“Vain hope! that a child of Adam should every expect to see the kingdom of Christ and God without striving, without ‘agonizing’ first ‘to enter in at the strait gate! That the one who was ‘conceived and born in sin’, and whose ‘inward parts are very wickedness’, should once entertain the thought of being ‘purified as his Lord is pure’ unless he ‘tread in his steps’, and take up his cross daily’…”
What strong words! How can we begin to reconcile these two realities? On the one hand the way of holiness is one of bearing a cross daily, commitment to spiritual disciplines, and persecution. On the other hand, rest is at the center of the holy life. These two truths seem to contradict one another! The key to reconciling this paradox is understanding the role of the Holy Spirit in salvation as well as understanding the biblical concept of rest.
Rest: A Biblical Perspective
The biblical concept of rest is multi-dimensional. This is also true of our own modern understanding of rest. When we talk about “restlessness”, for example, there is a sense of worry, or anxiety. I’m quite restless during take-off and landing when flying. I also get restless when it is time to preach! There’s a sense of nervousness or anxiety inherent in the idea of “restlessness”.
We can also talk about the need for proper physical rest. Our bodies need proper rest to regenerate. Our physical strength, like our spiritual strength, is limited. In this sense, the word “rest”, implies the absence of effort, or ceasing to work. This also means that rest is productive.
I used to be a server in a restaurant. In an average shift, I would walk approximately seven miles in weaving in and out of tables, running back and forth from the kitchen, delivering drinks, appetizers, condiments, entrées and desserts. At the end of a shift, my back was sore and my dogs were barking! My body needed to cease working and rest.
Once again, thinking about rest this way helps us to see that rest is actually productive! It is during times of rest that our bodies have a chance to work to restore itself. It is when we stop and relax that body has the opportunity to do its work in restoring us. This is one of the concepts at the heart of the Sabbath, which results as God’s command for us to honor Him with our rest (more on this below). This understanding of rest is kin to the spiritual rest that will occupy our attention below.
These are just two modern notions of rest. But what of the biblical concept of rest as pertains to holiness and the saving love of Jesus? There are two types of rest that correspond to the holy life. The first is directly associated with the alleviation of the desperate and continuous worry that characterizes the human life when lived in separation from God. The psalmist describes this state this way:
“My God, my God, why have your forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the worlds of my groaning? O my God, I cry be day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest” (Psalm 22:1-2, emphasis added).
These precious words of David (that Jesus himself cites on the cross), once again, highlight the desperation of being separated from God.
The second, which we will consider in much more detail, is rest from striving in our own strength to please God or earn God’s favor. When we receive the gift of faith something supernatural happens. The Holy Spirit enters into our circumstances and makes His strength available to us. Much in the same vein as the concept of physical rest described above, it is in our weakness that the power of the Holy Spirit is poured out upon us. It is in our weakness and our rest that we are made strong (Romans 8:26; 2 Cor. 12:9 and 13:4).
Rest as Alleviation of Anxiety
One of the first images of restlessness we find in scripture is in Genesis 3 when God judges Adam and Eve for their disobedience.
“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return (Gen. 3:19).”
There are two possible interpretations of this text even though most modern readers are only aware of one. The first, and more familiar interpretation of this text, is that humanity’s disobedience created a deadly disruption in the relationship between God’s creation and humanity. Adam and Eve’s sin has created a rift not only between humanity and God, but also between humanity and nature. Now, because of Adam and Eve’s violation, there is strife, or tension between humanity and the creation (as well as between humanity and God). The beautiful and wholesome relationship that God intended for humanity and nature has been damaged.
The gravity of the event is far-reaching. To fully understand the biblical concept of rest in the context of Genesis 3 one must take a step back and look at the big picture, specifically, the disobedience of humanity in light of God’s original intention for humanity. God’s intention for humanity, God’s mission for Adam and Eve, was to reflect God’s love into the creation as the Divine image bearers. This is at the heart of the concept of the image of God in humanity. Humanity is meant to represent and interpret the love of God in and to the world. They are to be his representatives. This is what it means to bear the image of God.
So how does this correspond with humanity’s relationship with the creation? This love was to be made manifest through humanity’s tender care for one another as well as the creation. This is the idea behind God’s command to Adam and Eve to “have dominion” over the earth (Genesis 1:28). The word “dominion” here does not imply that humanity is to abuse creation and use it in any way that suits humanity’s purposes. Rather, God is telling Adam and Eve, his image bearers, that they are the caring shepherds of the creation in the same way that God the Father, is the caring Shepherd for humanity. Once again, here we have one of, if not the central purpose of God crowning humanity with the divine image—to reflect the selfless and caring love of God into the world. Man and woman, like God, are to be the guardians, the care-givers in God’s created order. God created the world for His own glory. The beautiful relationship between the creation and humanity was intended to epitomize this wonderful reality.
So what happened when Adam and Even disobeyed God by eating of the forbidden fruit? They not only created a deadly breach in their relationship with the loving Creator, but they jeopardize one of their central, God-given responsabilities: to be the guardians of the creation. Rather than caring for the creation, they violated it by eating the forbidden fruit. This resulted in enmity between the creation, and the Divine image bearers and that enmity is manifest through the constant struggle and strain of humanity to live off the land. Hence the disruption in relationship between humanity and nature.
The consequence of humanity’s violation of trust is extremely practical: now they will have to work harder for a blessed relationship. Living off the land, being in harmony with nature, will now be strenuous. This makes perfect sense. When we violate trust things become much more challenging. Any time relationships are disrupted, things become strenuous. With this single act of disobedience, relationships are disrupted at every level and things become strained. Rest from this very strain is what God’s inner life of holiness offers. Through the gift of forgiveness which is made possible through the reconciling work of Jesus on the cross, trust can be restored and humanity is able to rest.
There’s a second interpretation here, however, that often goes overlooked and that is that the phrase translated “the sweat of your face” is a Hebrew idiom meaning “worry”. This would imply, then, that now that humanity has lost God’s fellowship they must care for themselves. They must be their own primary care givers. Adam and Eve must now concern themselves over daily provision. They have taken on a responsibility that was originally designed for God. When people decide to cut themselves off from God, they are on their own. This creates an unending anxiety in life. If we choose to play God in our own lives, we’ve got a burden too heavy to carry! This burden crushes us into the grave.
So what can we understand about rest and holiness from this passage from Genesis 3? We are able understand that two types of rest come with a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. First, reconciliation with the Creator is the balm that brings rest to the deadly strain of broken relationships in life. Forgiveness becomes the means by which we’re able to alleviate the exhaustion that results from a life overflowing with broken relationships. Forgiveness, is once again, the key. Forgiveness alleviates the heavy burden of sin that we carry which is so well demonstrated in Jesus who hangs on a cross and takes on the sin of the world. Forgiveness means rest.
Be Still and Know that I Am God
There is yet another dimension of rest that corresponds to the holy life and it is absolute crucial. It is to that concept that we now turn. This dimension of rest is directly linked to what it means to be “saved”. This means that in order to deepen our understanding of holy rest, we must lay a fundamental groundwork for understanding salvation itself.
Unfortunately, salvation, in all its complexity, is too often misunderstood. Even today, Christians engage in unending debates over the precise definition of salvation. One point on which orthodox Christianity has agreed, however, is that salvation is the work of God and not of man. This seems simple enough, right? In a sense, yes, it is simple, but in another sense, salvation is a marvelous mystery with many dimensions because its origins are in Him, the Eternal One. It is when we prayerfully reflect through those dimension of salvation that our understanding of rest is Jesus is taken to a deeper level.
God’s Wholly Other Plan to Save The World
As stated above, the Bible plainly teaches that there is nothing that humanity can do to save itself collectively, or individually. No one is able, in their own strength and effort, to put right that which was lost in the Garden of Eden. In fact, the very attempt to earn the gift of salvation, flows from human arrogance and pride which is precisely the root of the problem of sin. It is a part of our prideful nature to think that the answers to life’s problems can be found in ourselves. In other words, when we strive out of our own strength to put right what was lost we simply reinforce and accentuate the very problem. Works that flow from the brokenness of humanity only result in further demise. This is precisely the story of Abraham and Hagar.
Abraham, in his own strength, attempts to bring about the promise of God for a child in his own human strength. God promised Abraham that he would give him a child even though Abraham was advanced in age and even though Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was unable to bear children. It was precisely because Abraham could not conceive of a natural conception and birth that he assumed that God’s promise would come through human means, human effort. You see, God’s plan was so unimaginable to the human mind that Abraham had to make it intelligible by redefining it according to the broken human experience. Abraham misunderstood. He believed that in order for him to have a child in the condition he was in, he had to do it through his female servant, Hagar. Abraham greatly diminished the otherness of God’s plan. God profaned God’s holy plan, he made it common.
This story reminds us that when we fall into the deception of thinking that certain kinds of behavior can earn God’s favor, we greatly diminish the holiness of God and his mission to the world. God’s expectations, God’s standards for humanity, is so much more than the fallen human experience that God alone is able to bring it about in his people. The life that God has for his covenant people is so other than the brokenness of the fallen world that no strength of man is able to bring it about. God’s great plan for restoring and recreating His world was wholly other than anything within the realm of human imagination. This is why only God can make right that which went horribly wrong in the Garden of Eden. This is also precisely where the concept of rest enters into the bigger picture.
God’s Work, Not Ours
On this point two crucial concepts dovetail together. In the opening chapter of this book the concept of holy was defined in the general sense as “other”. That which is holy is set a part from the rest. To be holy is to be different. The previous section explained how God’s very mission to redeem creation by setting right what was lost in Genesis 3 is holy. God’s mission is holy in the sense that it is beyond the realms of human imagination or comprehension. Sarah laughed out of disbelief when overhearing God’s promise (Genesis 18:12)! More than this, the disciples we’re utterly confused when hearing of Jesus’ resurrection (Luke 24:10-11). These two examples show how God’s plan is wholly other than anything humanly conceivable. Here we have the holy mission of the Holy One of Israel.
Building on this, is our second concept which understands that it is not only the mission of God that is holy, but the means for accomplishing that mission is holy as well. This is to accentuate, yet again, that people cannot redeem themselves. Humanity has no means in itself to set right what went wrong in the Garden. Redemption must come about by means of the other. Salvation can only be the result of an external agent, independent from the brokenness of humanity and the current evil age, breaking into our world from the outside and offering something different, something new. This is all to say that God and God alone not only comes up with the plan, but God and God alone accomplish his holy plan in individuals, in society, in the world.
Once again, this astounding truth is best exemplified in the death of Jesus on the cross. Jesus came to earth for ministry. He came to serve. Jesus came to work. His work was undoubtedly strenuous. He was constantly challenged, he was tempted, he was doubted, he was abandoned, and finally, he was murdered. Of all the works that Jesus himself accomplished, the most important one, the indispensable one, is his death. If Jesus had healed one less person, but still died, his mission, his work, would still have been a success. However, if Jesus healed a thousand more but didn’t go to death on the cross, his mission would have been a failure. This means that it is in the death of Jesus that God’s greatest redemptive work is accomplished.
Note how the Evangelist John records this last moment, “he [Jesus] said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30). Jesus, in this moment, submits himself into the rest of death. It is in this moment that the mission of salvation, the establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth through the forgiveness of sins, is accomplished.
If this is the case for Jesus, it is surely the case for us as well! It is when we give up on our own efforts (driven by a sin nature) to earn God’s favor that the Holy Spirit enters in and empowers us for the holy life and it is in this context that these words of the Pastor who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews resonate, ““…for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work…” (Hebrews 4:10).
(This is an excerpt from a book manuscript by me and Charles Lake titled Holy is a Four Letter Word. All rights reserved.)
