3. For--justifying his assertion of the need of "faith,"
Heb 4:2.
we which have believed--we who at Christ's coming shall be found
to have believed.
do enter--that is, are to enter: so two of the oldest
manuscripts and LUCIFER and the old Latin.
Two other oldest manuscripts read, "Let us enter."
into rest--Greek, "into the rest" which is
promised in the ninety-fifth Psalm.
as he said--God's saying that unbelief excludes from
entrance implies that belief gains an entrance into the rest.
What, however, Paul mainly here dwells on in the quotation is that the
promised "rest" has not yet been entered into. At
Heb 4:11
he again, as in
Heb 3:12-19
already, takes up faith as the indispensable qualification for
entering it.
although, &c.--Although God had finished His works of creation
and entered on His rest from creation long before Moses' time,
yet under that leader of Israel another rest was promised, which most
fell short of through unbelief; and although the rest in Canaan was
subsequently attained under Joshua, yet long after, in David's days,
God, in the ninety-fifth Psalm, still speaks of the rest of God
as not yet attained. THEREFORE, there must be
meant a rest still future, namely, that which "remaineth for the
people of God" in heaven,
Heb 4:3-9,
when they shall rest from their works, as God did from His,
Heb 4:10.
The argument is to show that by "My rest," God means a future rest, not
for Himself, but for us.
finished--Greek, "brought into existence," "made."
JFB.
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