Hebrews 4:1-5, 11
Through Faith We Can Attain God’s “Rest”
[11] Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, that no one fall by the same sort
of disobedience.
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Commentary:
1-11. This chapter is a further exhortation to fidelity and develops the theme of
that “rest” which the people of Israel failed to attain. The comparison between
Moses and Jesus (cf. 3:1ff) is now extended to Jews and Christians. Moses had
tried to get the people of Israel to stay true to God and so enter their place of
rest (cf. Deut 12:9-10). He laid down the precept of sabbath rest (Deut 5:12-15;
Ex 20:8-11; 35:1-3; Num 15:32-36) in memory of God’s resting after the Creation,
and as a sign of the Covenant and a symbol of eternal rest. In the Gospel Christ
promises a new kind of rest, an eternal one, in the house of the Father (cf. Jn
14:1-3, 27).
The history of the chosen people is not, then, a mere chronicle of past events.
It is something meaningful to us today and full of lessons for Christian living. To
Christians also, as members of the new Israel, God offers a “rest”, one which is
richer than the temporal rest the Jews obtained when they took possession of
the promised land, for the rest promised to Christians is rest in heaven.
However, the Jews disobeyed God’s commandments; they soiled themselves by
worshipping idols and failed to grasp the significance of their own history. And
they confused God’s rest, their true destiny, with the sabbath rest—a physical
rest which they practised in an almost exclusively external way (cf. Mk 3:1-6; Lk
13:10-17). Christians also can run a similar risk if they fail to hold on to every-
thing which Jesus Christ, the mediator of the New Covenant has won for them.
1. God’s promise of rest remains valid, but to attain it one needs to be faithful and
obedient—to have a vigilance which comes from holy fear of God, a fear of being
excluded from eternal blessedness. The text can also be interpreted as meaning
“Let us fear, lest any one of you despair because he thinks he has been exclu-
ded permanently”; that is, “let us fear despair”.
In this context “rest” refers to all the supernatural graces we obtain through grace,
particularly that of seeing and enjoying God in the future life. This rest, which will
reach its perfection in heaven and which begins in this life with faith and grace, is
man’s true end or destiny. “God works with creative power by sustaining in exis-
tence the world that he called into being from nothing, and he works with salvific
power in the hearts of those whom from the beginning he has destined for ‘rest”’
(John Paul II, “Laborem Exercens”, 25).
The saints have often liked to describe the joy which heaven gives, that eternal
rest which God deigns to grant souls who depart this world. “Who can measure
the happiness of heaven, where no evil at all can touch us, no good will be out
of reach; where life is to be one long laud extolling God, who will be all in all [...].
This, indeed, will be that ultimate Sabbath that has no evening and which the
Lord foreshadowed in the account of his creation [...]. Only when we are remade
by God and perfected by a greater grace shall we have the eternal stillness of
that rest in which we shall see that he is God. Then only shall we be filled with
him when he will be all in all” (St Augustine, “The City of God”, XXII, 30).
Losing this “rest” is the only thing one should really fear.
2. The good news was proclaimed to the Jews in the sense that they also heard
the preaching of Moses which aimed at preparing the chosen people to be gene-
rous in their fidelity to the Lord’s promises. The Israelites, however, rebelled
against those who were the first to hear the divine message—Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Moses himself, Joshua and the prophets.
The preaching of the Word can actually harden a person’s heart if he does not li-
sten to it with the right dispositions. “To obtain salvation it is not enough to hear
the words. One needs to take them in with faith and keep a firm hold on them.
What good was God’s promise to those who received it if they did not receive it
faithfully or failed to put their trust in his power—if they did not, so to speak, fuse
with, become one with, the divine words?” (Theodoret of Cyrus, “Interpretatio Ep.
Ad Haebreos”, IV). What proves a person’s true obedience to God’s word is his
solidarity with those to whom God had given the authority to proclaim it.
3-8. The believer can be said to “enter God’s rest” because in this life he already
begins to be intimate with the three divine Persons. In biblical terms the “rest” is
connected with the Covenant which God establishes with men. “Rest” is the re-
ward for faithfulness to the Covenant; it begins in this life in the form of serenity
and interior peace and the enjoyment of material things (such as the promised
land), but will reach its perfection only in heaven. In this sense, as Psalm 95 re-
minds us, God promised his people rest repeatedly: the psalm speaks of a “to-
day” when they will enter his “rest”: everyone can begin to enjoy “today” the rest
of divine friendship, provided he does not harden his heart, provided he repents
and becomes faithful again.
Christians have received a further invitation from God to enter his rest: because
many Jews proved to be unfaithful, a new people of God was established. This
marks a new “today”, a new point when one can opt for fidelity and enter the pro-
mised land. This “today” has two characteristics: it requires our free response to
God’s decision to call us; and it does not happen immediately: for the new peo-
ple of God, also, there is a future “sabbath”, that is, heaven.
To appreciate the subtle play of words, one should remember that the same term
is used in Hebrew for the word “rest” and for the sabbath as a day of the week.
11. The sacred writer ends his commentary on Psalm 95 with a short, concise
exhortation summing up what he has been saying and inviting his readers to en-
ter God’s rest without delay.
“There are a number of reasons why the text speaks of striving to enter (God’s)
rest,” St Thomas comments. “First, because, there is a long road ahead. Then
because time is short—and we do not know how much time we have. Third, be-
cause ours is a pressing interior call which urges us on with the stimulus of love.
Finally, because of the danger of delaying, as happened in the case of the foolish
virgins (Mt 25:1-13), who arrived late and failed to gain entry” (”Commentary on
Heb.”, 4, 2).
The central idea is not only urgency and eagerness but also dogged perseve-
rance with the help of grace.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
From: Mark 2:1-12
The Curing of a Paralytic
[6] Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, [7]
“Why does this man speak thus? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God
alone?” [8] And immediately Jesus, perceiving in His spirit that they thus ques-
tioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question thus in your
hearts? [9] Which is easier to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to
say, ‘Rise, take up your pallet and walk?’ [10] But that you may know that the
Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic—[11]
“I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home.” [12] And he rose, and im-
mediately took up the pallet and went out before them all; so that they were all
amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”
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Commentary:
4. Many Jewish houses had a terraced roof accessible by steps at the back.
The same structure can be found even today.
5. Here Jesus emphasizes the connection between faith and the forgiveness of
sins. The boldness of the people who brought in the paralytic shows their faith
in Christ, and this faith moves Jesus to forgive the man’s sins. We should ques-
tion how God views our faith: the faith of these people leads to the instantaneous
physical and spiritual curing of this man. We should notice also that one per-
son’s need can be helped by the merits of another.
In this man’s physical paralysis, St. Jerome sees a type or figure of spiritual pa-
ralysis: the cripple was unable to return to God by his own efforts. Jesus, God
and man, cured him of both kinds of paralysis (cf. “Comm. in Marcum, in loc.”).
Cf. notes on Matthew 9:2-7.
Jesus’ words to the paralytic—”Your sins are forgiven”—reflect the fact that his
pardon involves a personal encounter with Christ; the same happens in the
Sacrament of Penance: “In faithfully observing the centuries-old practice of the
Sacrament of Penance—the practice of individual confession with a personal act
of sorrow and an intention to amend and make satisfaction—the Church is defen-
ding the human soul’s individual right, man’s right to a more personal encounter
with the crucified forgiving Christ, with Christ saying, through the minister of the
Sacrament of Reconciliation: ‘Your sins are forgiven’; ‘Go, and do not sin again’
(John 8:11). As is evident, this is also a right on Christ’s part with regard to eve-
ry human being in the soul’s life constituted by the moment of conversion and
forgiveness” (John Paul II, “Redemptor Hominis”, 20).
7-12. Here we find a number of indicators of Jesus’ divinity: He forgives sins, He
can read the human heart and has the power to instantly cure physical illnesses.
The scribes know that only God can forgive sins. This is why they take issue
with our Lord’s statement and call it blasphemous. They require a sign to prove
the truth of what He says. And Jesus offers them a sign. Thus just as no one
can deny that the paralytic has been cured, so no one can reasonably deny that
he has been forgiven his sins. Christ, God and man, exercised power to forgive
sins and, in His infinite mercy, He chose to extend this power to His Church. Cf.
note on Matthew 9:3-7.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.