A Sabbath Rest Remains

October 29th, 2025
by Lance Waldie

Hebrews 4:9-11 So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. 10 For the one who has entered God’s rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. 11 So let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, by following the same example of disobedience.

The Sabbath, or seventh, is used in at least four different ways in the Bible. First, it is a reference to a single day of rest. God set forth one day in seven for Israel to rest, reflecting His example of rest after creating the world in six days, resting on the seventh (cf. Exod. 20:8-11). Exodus 20:11 says that God rested on the seventh day, and Exodus 31:17 says that He ceased from His work and “was refreshed.” Therefore, the weekly Sabbath was to be a day that commemorated God’s work and a day to be observed by Israel as a day of rest and worship.

A second way the Sabbath is used is in reference to the Sabbatical year. This Sabbath was not for people but for the land where the people lived (Lev. 25:2-5). God commanded Israel to allow the land to lay uncultivated after six years of sowing, pruning, and gathering. In the seventh year it was not to be worked. The unattended growth of the fields were for the poor to glean from and for the beasts of the field to eat (Exod. 23:11; Deut. 15:2-18). God told Israel that He would provide their food through the sixth-year harvest that would be enough for three years (Lev. 25:20ff.). But since Israel failed to keep this ordinance (Jer. 34:14-22), God exiled them from the Land (2 Chron. 36:21) until it could enjoy all of its Sabbaths (Lev. 26:34-43). Violating God’s command to keep the Sabbatical year was clearly a sin that finally caught up with them.

A third way the Sabbath is taught in the OT is in relation to the Year of Jubilee (Lev. 25). This occurred every fiftieth year, for it was the conclusion to 49 Sabbatical years. So, there was a Sabbatical year every seven years, and at the end of seven Sabbatical years (49 years), the fiftieth year was a Jubilee, an anniversary or celebration. The regulations of the normal Sabbatical year were enforced, but in addition to those sanctions, property reverted to its original owners, financial debts were forgiven, and indentured servants were released from slavery.

A fourth use of the Sabbath is found in Hebrews 4:6-11, citing a Sabbath rest for the people of God. In this instance, the Sabbath rest concerns trusting in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, or Christ. This was an appropriate message for the author given that he was preaching to Jews who knew the Sabbath laws of the OT. Having shown that the “rest” the OT spoke of was incomplete (Heb. 4:8) and yet future, the author now clarifies exactly what he means. Since Joshua, having brought Israel into the Promised Land after the death of Moses, did not bring rest to God’s people in an eternal sense, David spoke of “rest” in a later context in Psalm 95—400 years after Joshua. The Hebrews author thus explains that God’s rest is attainable only by faith, not by works. So the one who truly enters God’s rest is the one who rests from his own works (v. 10). The rest that God calls His people to enter into is His rest, and His invitation to share in His rest is a call for all to cease from religious works in order to find rest. True rest is through faith.

So the finale to the theme of “rest” in v. 11 is to “be diligent” to enter God’s rest. The word means to be “eager” or “zealous” to do something. To be sure, this is not a call to enter God’s realm of rest by works but an exhortation to trust God and to be careful not to make the same mistake Israel made in the wilderness when they failed to believe that God could deliver them.

Food For Thought
Believing God and having faith in Christ are not human works to be rewarded by God; they are virtues. Our call to be diligent to enter God’s rest is a persistent call for anyone who has been presented the gospel of salvation. All those who simply profess to know Christ do not necessarily have rest in Christ. Knowledge perhaps, but not faith. Knowing it and receiving it are distinct.