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The Daily Word of Righteousness
So Great Salvation, #2
Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. (Hebrews 4:11)
The children of Israel neglected their salvation. They did not labor to enter the rest of God.
But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? (Hebrews 3:17)
The holy patriarchs and prophets did press forward in unrelenting faith toward that land of promise.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. (Hebrews 11:13)
What is the "city that hath foundations," the "mark" toward which Paul pressed until he went to be with the Lord? What is the perfection, the rest, the land of promise?
The "rest" of God is not Heaven. The patriarchs and prophets are in Heaven, in Paradise, but they have not attained the perfection, the rest of God.
God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:40)
Let us see if we can discover exactly what it is the Hebrew Christians were neglecting. They had been saved from wrath. They had been filled with the Holy Spirit of God. They had experienced, through the ministries of the Apostles of Christ, the works of power of the age to come. What, therefore, is the "rest" of God? What goal were they neglecting to pursue?
In order to portray the grandeur of that to which we have been called, the author of Hebrews first points toward the exaltation of Christ. The idea is that the Lord Jesus Christ, while the eternal Word from the beginning and the Lord and Savior of all men, also is the "firstborn among many brethren" (Romans 8:29).
In describing the supreme Glory of Christ the writer gives us the concept of that for which man has been destined, for the Lord Jesus reveals in Himself what God had in mind when He said, "Let us make man in our image" (Genesis 1:26).
The first chapter of Hebrews informs us that Christ is the Prophet of God, the Heir of all things, the Creator of the worlds. He is the Brightness of God's Glory, the Image of God's Person, and upholds all things by the Word of His power.
After having made an atonement for our sins, He was lifted up to be seated at the right hand of the Father in Heaven. He is the "first begotten" of the Father and therefore greater than the angels.
Suddenly the emphasis shifts from the Heir of salvation to the "heirs" of salvation.
Are they [the angels] not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? (Hebrews 1:14)
The change from the Heir to the heirs is surprising, but it is the key to the understanding of the term, "so great salvation."
The "salvation" being referred to in the phrase "heirs of salvation" is the inheritance of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is rulership over all the works of God's hands. The sons of God are coheirs with Christ.
To be continued.