Hebrews 4:11
Read Hebrews 4:11 Using Other Translations
What does Hebrews 4:11 mean?
Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest
Not eternal rest; this is not to be entered into now; nor is an
entrance into it to be obtained by labour; salvation is not by
works; eternal life is a free gift; good works do not go before
to prepare heaven for the saints, but follow after: nor is the
saints' entrance into it a precarious thing; God has promised it,
and provided it for his people; Christ is in the possession of
it, and is preparing it for them; and the Spirit of God is
working them up for the self same thing, and Christ will give
them an abundant entrance into it: but the Gospel rest is here
meant, that rest which believers now enter into, and is at this
present time for them, ( Hebrews 4:3 Hebrews 4:10
) and though true believers are entered into it, yet their rest,
peace, and joy in Christ, is not full; they enter by degrees into
it, and by believing enjoy more of it: and this is to be laboured
for by prayer, hearing the word, and attendance on ordinances;
and this requires strength, diligence, and industry; and supposes
difficulties and discouragements, through the corruptions of the
heart, and the temptations of Satan; and this is designed to
quicken and awaken a godly jealousy in God's people, over
themselves:
lest any man fall after the same example of
unbelief;
into the sin of unbelief, and into punishment through it, as the
Israelites did; who sinning, their carcasses fell in the
wilderness, and they entered not into God's rest, as he swore
they should not: true believers may fall into sin, and from a
degree of the exercise of grace, and of the steadfastness of the
Gospel; but they cannot finally and totally fall away, because
they are kept by the power of God; yet they may so fall, as to
come short, or at least seem to come short of enjoying the rest
and peace of the Gospel state: external professors may fall from
the Gospel, and the religion they have professed, and come short
of the glory they expected; and fall into just and deserved
punishment, in like manner as the unbelieving Israelites did.
