Rest

Rest in Scripture is not simply the absence of labour. It is the state of completion and peace that results from finished work and a secured relationship with God. When Yahweh rests on the seventh day of creation, he rests because the work is done and it is very good. The Sabbath that follows is a sharing in that completed rest: the creature entering the rest of the Creator.

The Promised Land is described in Deuteronomy as the rest Yahweh will give his people after the wilderness wandering. “Yahweh your God is giving you rest and will give you this land” (Joshua 1:13). The land is not primarily real estate; it is the place where the nation can cease wandering and dwell securely in Yahweh’s presence. Joshua 21:44 records that “Yahweh gave them rest on every side,” and the New Testament argues that this rest was not the final one: David, centuries after Joshua, still speaks of a rest that “remains.”

Hebrews 3-4 argues that the rest God always intended is not the Sabbath day or the Canaan land but the rest of a complete relationship with God, entered by faith in Christ. “We who have believed enter that rest” (Hebrews 4:3). The articles below trace this theme through several of its key passages.