Welcome to . . .
The Rest of
Faith
∞
If a minister
wanted to thin out his Sunday morning crowd, he would only
need to announce that, "Beginning next Sunday, I'll be
starting a long series on the book of Hebrews," for Hebrews
is, for most church-goers, a mysterious book with ominous
warnings that they will get to someday, but not
today.
But the warnings it contains are not meant to drive us
away, but to draw us near, for in understanding the truths
in Hebrews our lives can be transformed in an
instant,
and to delay such a benefit, even for a day, would be a
tragedy. One of those truths is "the rest of faith." In
Hebrews 4:11, the author directed his readers to "labor to
enter into rest," and he wrote that they couldn't please
God if they didn't. Given its importance, it would seem
that knowing what the rest of faith is would be well
understood, but for almost 2,000 years, what the rest of
faith is and how to enter it has proved elusive to
scholars.
Kevin Anderson, in Hebrews: A
Commentary in the Wesleyan
Tradition,
wrote, "The theme of divine rest has captured the
imaginations of theologians throughout the centuries." But
while it may have captured their imaginations, their
curiosity has not been satisfied, for George H. Guthrie,
the author of The NIV
Application Commentary, wrote,
"Scholars have spilled much ink over this question, with
mixed results." Uncertainty lies in every theological
corner. The Calvinist author, Arthur Pink, in
An
Exposition of Hebrews wrote: "The
apostle's argument (about the rest of faith) seems to be
unusually involved, the teaching of it appears to conflict
with other portions of Scripture and the 'rest' which is
its central subject is difficult to define with any degree
of certainty." In the absence of clarity and certainty, the
most widely held view in academia was succinctly
articulated by James Moffett who wrote in
A Critical
and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the
Hebrews: "'Rest'
throughout all this passage - and the writer never refers
to it again - is the blissful existence of God's faithful
in the next world."
There is truth in the view that Heaven will be a place of
rest from our journey here on earth. Our physical struggles
will be over; the world, the flesh, and the Devil will be
behind us. But if Heaven is the only or even the primary
definition of the rest of faith, we are hard pressed to
understand the author's disgruntlement with his people for
their failure to enter into it, for the only way they could
have entered the rest would have been to die or, like Enoch
and Elijah, be caught up into Heaven. In light of that, the
view that the "rest" referred to in Hebrews 3 and 4 is
primarily Heaven does not satisfy our thoughtful curiosity.
The pulpit and the pew, on the other hand, seem more
certain, with most defining "the rest of faith" as trusting
God in our day-to-day lives, particularly during the storms
of life, and to troubled souls, counselors often recall and
repeat the advice of the ol' southern preacher who chanted,
"Everything's gonna' be all right." There is truth in the
idea that the freedom from worry which results from
trusting God is a "rest," but if the writer of Hebrews
meant "Trust God and don't worry," you would think scholars
would have been quick to pick up on that idea.
But then what is "the rest of faith?"
Sandy Gregory spent seven months in the book of Hebrews and
he wrote a paper on the rest of faith which has proven to
be helpful to those for whom understanding of the rest of
faith is a pressing concern. The paper is nine pages, plus
a cover page, and it is now available as a PDF that may be
downloaded without cost or obligation through Gumroad, a
secure and highly reliable digital delivery service which
we use. Here's the link to take you there.
gum.co/restoffaith-2018edition-pdf
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