Psalm 95 Part 3 PM Postscript

Considering Paul’s extensive exposition of Psalm 95 in Hebrews3:7–4:13 since writing the original 2 parts, I now feel compelled to add a third. Hebrews is a sermon preached by Paul to weary Hebrew/Christians and written down by someone else. In the passage under consideration, Paul picks up the last word of Ps95 (rest) and uses it nine times in his exposition to emphasis his point. From Heb4:4 he adds the metaphor of the Sabbath as symbolic of that spiritual rest. Some would argue that because he has spiritualized the Sabbath that somehow, he has annulled it, but Paul does the same thing to marriage and I am sure they would not use his metaphoric use of marriage as an argument for annulling that institution. No, rather he has magnified the beautiful truth that it is. In Hebrews 4 Paul is drawing a line between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.

The Israelites had failed to enter the ‘true rest’ that God was offering. Through ‘hardness’ (Ps95:8) they had ‘erred in their hearts’(Ps95:10). Like the sacrifices of the sanctuary, they had trusted in the physical manifestation instead of the spiritual truth it was teaching. When Paul commented on this he said, “there remains, therefore, a Sabbath rest to the people of God and whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from his labors as God did from His,” (Heb4:9-10RSV.) He was commenting on the gospel! The rest of Hebrews 4 which Paul is drawing from Ps95 was the rest of ceasing our labours for salvation and trusting in a finished work of redemption through Jesus on the cross.

Like Adam at creation, we begin our labours after creation. We have been ‘recreated in Christ’(2Cor5:17) and that is a finished and complete work to which we can add nothing! This is the NT Sabbath – we rest in a finished work of salvation and by keeping the Sabbath, we acknowledge not just the 24-hour memorial of creation as laid out by the fourth commandment (Ex20:8-11), (the letter of the law), but also the spiritual rest 24/7 which is a memorial of our recreation in Christ.