Eighth Day Rest

By Pastor Chad

I can never really rest on a plane. I just can’t get comfortable. To be honest, long flights are miserable for me; I just can’t sleep well. I need to stretch out my legs and lay somewhat horizontal to get adequately comfortable. Usually, on my flights back from the Middle East, I am exhausted by the time I get home. I just want to go to bed and sleep–I just want rest. 

Longing for rest is something to which we can all relate. Everyone of us has a time we just wanted to relax and rest for a while. It is no surprise then that God uses rest as a description of entering into His spiritual peace and joy. You may not have ever noticed, but when God rested on the seventh day of creation, His rest never ended. By that I mean, on every other day, Genesis ends the day’s creative work with “and there was evening and morning the [nth] day.” For the first six days of the week, there was an evening and a morning, but there wasn’t an evening and morning on the seventh day. 

Early Jewish readers took that to mean that God was still at rest and they could enter into God’s rest by entering into the Promised Land. Thus, when God banned the first generation of Hebrew wilderness wanderers from entering into the Promised Land, He said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest’” (Hebrews 4:3 a reference to Psalm 95:11). Interestingly enough, however, even after the Hebrews entered and conquered the Promised Land, David still wrote as if they had not fully entered into God’s rest. The author of Hebrews highlights this: “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:8-10). You see, the author of Hebrews is arguing that one does not enter into God’s rest simply by entering into the Promised Land. If that were the case, then the Hebrews would have entered God’s rest when Joshua led them into the Promised Land. To enter into God’s rest then, meant something else. 

Early Christians claimed that the seventh day rest and the Promised Land were all pictures of something greater than was to come. Jesus, who was killed on a Friday, rested on the Sabbath in the tomb, but His “rest” ended on Sunday, the eighth day. Now, all who want to enter the eighth day rest of God must enter into His rest through his Son, Jesus Christ. How do we enter into such a Sabbath rest of God? Hebrews 4:2 tells us, “For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.” All of the events that happened in the Old Testament were pointing to the ultimate work Jesus would accomplish on the cross. And all who believe in Him, can enter into the rest of God. 

Are you restless in life? Looking to find true joy and peace? There is only one way–one must enter into the eighth day rest of God by believing that Jesus died for our sins and surrendering your life to Him. My encouragement to you: come take a load off! Come take a rest! Rest in the comfort of our Lord.