Entering our rest

Verses promising "everlasting possession" to Abraham's descendants illuminate connection to Israel.

By DAVID PARSONS
moses painting 521 (photo credit: freechristimages.org)
moses painting 521
(photo credit: freechristimages.org)
The biblical credentials for Israel’s modern-day return to her ancient homeland are overwhelming, yet some Christians continue to deny the obvious. In particular they insist the New Testament is devoid of any reference to the continuing validity of the land promise to Israel.
Now there are many ways to soundly answer this challenge, and one of these New Testament “proof texts” can be found in the book of Hebrews.
The writer of Hebrews spends much of chapters three and four urging us to “enter” the rest provided in Jesus, drawing an analogy to the failure of the Israelites in the wilderness to so enter the rest promised them in the land which lay ahead.
Hebrews first quotes verbatim from Psalm 95: “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me... So I swore in My wrath, “They shall not enter My rest”’” (Hebrews 3:7- 11).
The passage later continues: “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it...
For we who have believed do enter that rest... Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, ‘Today,’ after such a long time, as it has been said: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.’ For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God...” (ibid. 4:1-10).
Now this promise of rest originates in an emotional conversation between God and His servant Moses in the days between the giving of the first and second tablets of the Ten Commandments. The Lord is still angry over the sin of the Golden Calf and tells Moses he and the people should go on ahead to Canaan without Him, lest He “consume” them along the way.
But Moses intercedes and God relents, vowing: “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14).
This promise of rest in the land is then repeatedly affirmed elsewhere in the books of Moses, including in Deuteronomy 3:20, 12:9 and 25:19.
Well, some Christians contend that this promised rest was fulfilled when Joshua led the people in conquering the land, citing such passages as Joshua 21:44: “The Lord gave them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers...”
Yet the writer of Hebrews insists that if Joshua had truly given them the rest intended by God, then there would have been no need for David to speak of a future day of rest in Psalm 95:9-11.
Taken together, these verses clearly indicate that God intended for Israel to one day enter a permanent rest in the land promised as an “everlasting possession” to Abraham and his natural descendants (Genesis 17:8). It is a rest whereby the nation of Israel never again has to struggle to possess the land and finally rests from their “works” – meaning striving for righteousness through the Law – just as God rested from His works.
And the writer of Hebrews affirms this in the simplest of terms: “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God” (Hebrews 4:10; see also ibid. 4:1).
To this day, the promise of an abiding rest for Israel back in the land given to them by God has never been completely fulfilled. But we are witness to a process of restoration in our day which will ultimately end in Israel as a nation entering that rest, in what the Bible refers to as the Millennium.
Now as a Christian, I believe this will be realized when the Jewish people cease striving for righteousness through their own works and finally rest in the atonement which the Lord has provided for both the land and the people (Deuteronomy 32:43).
In any event, here we have in Hebrews another unmistakable New Testament affirmation of the land promise in the context of a future restoration of Israel.