Alexander Stewart
The Tree of Promise: The Mosaic Economy a Dispensation of the Covenant of Grace, pp. 286-289

“There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God.” (Hebrews 4:9)

The subject on which we are now to address you is one of great importance, especially in the present circumstances of this country. The text refers to the Sabbath, or, as it is given in the margin, ‘the keeping of the Sabbath.’ The apostle refers in the context to three divine rests, namely, the rest after the creation was finished, the rest of Canaan, and the eternal rest in Heaven. We shall not attempt to expound his argument verse by verse, but take the simplest way of illustrating the subject and coming to the point.

What, then, are we to understand by ‘His rest,’ ‘My rest,’ in other words, God’s rest? It must mean His ceasing from some divine work, and taking complacency in it.

1. The first example of this kind which we have, is the rest after the six days of creation. ‘And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made’ (Genesis 2:2). ‘For in six days the Lord made Heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed (Exodus 31:17). ‘God saw everything that He had made, and, behold. it was very good’ (Genesis 1:31). ‘The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in all His works’ (Psalm 104:31). The Lord invited and commanded Adam to enter into this rest. He could enjoy it in the contemplation of the divine perfections as revealed in the works of creation, by the worship of Him whose perfections were thus revealed, and in hope of Heaven, the eternal rest. It is to this the seventh day refers. It was appointed solely for man. There are no days in the life of God. The Sabbath is sacred for this end. Heaven was forfeited by the fall. The wicked can find no rest. But hope is again revived. The continuation of the Sabbath points to another rest hereafter.

2. Long after the time of Adam, God wrought another great work — the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. He set free from the bondage of the Egyptians the children of Abraham, His friend, in fulfilment of His promise. This constituted a new reason why Israel should keep the Sabbath. “And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence, through a mighty hand, and by a stretched-out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath-day’ (Deuteronomy 5:15). Their hearts would be filled with deeper feelings of adoration, as they contemplated these new discoveries of the character of Jehovah. Their worship would, therefore, be more earnest, and their hope for the Heavenly rest stronger. In the land of Canaan, the land of promise to which they were travelling, they had a type of this rest. The apostle speaks of it as the rest of God. ‘So I sware in My wrath, They should not enter into My rest’ (Hebrews 3:11). ‘For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His’ (verse 10). It was given by Him. ‘My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest’ Exodus 30:14). “This is My rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it’ (Psalm 132:14). The. wilderness was not their rest. They were passing through it. They were undergoing a course of instruction, discipline, and preparation. But alas! many of them came short of Canaan.

3. But long after Joshua had put Israel in possession of Canaan, David in his day (Psalm 95) virtually warned his contemporaries that this was not their final rest, that it was a rest merely in its relation to their state in the wilderness; and hence, that the sin and ruin of that evil generation which fell in the wilderness should be a warning to them. With still more point and appropriateness does the apostle urge the same warning on his contemporaries and on the Christian Church. To us, like Israel in the wilderness, redemption is past, the rest of Canaan is in the future. We are precisely in the position of the Israelites in the wilderness, more so even than David. This is our day; a short, passing, eventful one. “Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts’ (Psalm 95:7-8).

Mark now the position of the Sabbath. The context destroys every objection. It was given to man in his innocence. It is a present rest, and a pledge of a nobler life, when our present probation is ended. We had forfeited that life by the fall, but the promise of salvation restores our hope. And the continuation of the Sabbath is our pledge and preparation for Heaven. Thus from the beginning ‘the Sabbath was made for man,’ and not for the Jews only. It was the pledge of eternal life in the beginning. It was also a whole day, in the same sense as were the other six in which man was to work. Israel in the wilderness inherited the Sabbath and its hopes from their fathers, but with a new reason annexed, namely, the redemption from Egypt. But lest it should be confounded with mere temporary dispensations, it was embodied in the moral law, and is of permanent and universal obligation. Mark how the law secures its integrity. ‘Remember the Sabbath-day’ from the beginning. ‘Six days shalt thou labour,’ but ‘the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.’ The Sabbath is, therefore, as old as the creation. The deliverance from Egypt was not thought worthy of a place in the moral law as a reason why it should be kept, although it was one of the reasons the Israelites had for keeping it. To others for whom the Sabbath was appointed, this did not apply with equal force.

Mark now the form of the apostle’s corollary or inference from his argument. After all the Mosaic sabbaths and festivals are abolished, ‘there remaineth’ the keeping of a Sabbath’ to the Christian people of God — an ancient pledge of everlasting rest; and a pledge now brighter than ever, for it is in honour of the superiority of Christ’s work to the work of creation, and to the redemption of Israel from Egypt, that the day has been changed to that on which the Saviour rested from His work. ‘For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His’ (Hebrews 4:10). Hence the first day of the week is repeatedly called the ‘Lord’s day.’

Let us now consider the relation in which the Sabbath stands to the practice of religion.

1. It is the Lord’s day’ — Christ’s day. The fourth commandment prescribes one of the ways in which all men are called to pay divine honour to the Divine Saviour. Hence it is a sign or test of the religion of individuals and communities. The observance of the fourth commandment does honour to the Lord Jesus Christ. Disregard of it dishonours Him, and ‘sets Him at nought. Apostate individuals or nations are worse than heathen, for their sin is against the light of the truth.

2. The work of redemption specially manifests the glory of the Son of God. It shows His true character. It is the work in which the Father is well pleased. It is the work which, of all His works, God regards as the brightest and fairest, for it reveals all His perfections. Now it was from this work the Saviour rested, by finishing it. He rested, and was refreshed; and regarded, on the day in which He rose from the dead, the work which He had finished with infinite complacency. It is into this rest that men enter by believing the Gospel. And there is no surer way of rejecting the Gospel, than despising the Sabbath. As the Lord’s Supper commemorates the death of Christ, the Lord’s day commemorates His resurrection. If the unworthy partaking of the one is attended with danger, not less so must be the imperfect keeping or willful transgression of the other.

3. The Sabbath is now what it has ever been, the earnest and pledge of everlasting rest. It is the earnest; for on it we are set free from the world, and allowed to use it as a day of worship. It is the pledge; for it is the day of the Lord’s final triumph, in which He secured the fulfilment of His promise. There is no surer way of coming short of Heaven, than by setting at nought the Sabbath. How forcibly is this illustrated by the fatal example of the generation that fell in the wilderness! They did not deny that there was a land of promise; nor do we deny that there is a Heaven. They did not deny that the grapes of Eshcol were good [Numbers 13:23-24]; nor do we, that Heaven is a place of blessedness. But they allowed themselves to be terrified at the difficulties on their way thither, and failed to trust in the promise. And God ‘sware in His wrath, that they should not enter into His rest.’ Let us fear to dishonour the Saviour, lest we be found rejecting the Gospel. And as we would not come short at last, let us ‘remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy?’