Hebrews 4:3

For we which have believed do enter into rest, as He said, As I have sworn in My wrath, if they shall enter into My rest; although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

The inspired writer here continues his warning based upon the incidents of the journey in the wilderness: Let us, then, fear, lest perchance, there still remaining a promise of entering into His rest, one of you may seem to have come short of it. To work out their own salvation with fear and trembling is a duty incumbent upon all Christians, Philippians 2:12. The life of the believers may not be spent in a carnal, false security, with the idea that they can live and act as they please, still cherishing their pet sins. The situation is rather this, that the believers are assured in the Gospel, by the promise of God, that there is a rest remaining for them. This is extending the promise of mere temporal blessings, such as the peace in the Land of Promise here on earth, to include the eternal rest with the Lord in heaven above. God wants all men to enter into the salvation prepared for His own in the mansions above, and His particularly urgent plea goes out to those that have accepted the hope and guarantee of the life to come by faith. Every believer, therefore, will take heed for himself, and the entire congregation of believers will watch carefully, lest by some temptation of Satan one of them should be in danger of losing the coveted prize, or should believe himself to be too late for its attainment.

We should not resemble the Israelites in their unbelief in the Word of God, as the writer wishes to emphasize: For indeed we, as also they, have had a Gospel preached to us, but the Word of their hearing did not profit them, because it was not thoroughly mixed with faith in those that heard it. The promise of God even to the children of Israel did not merely embrace the promise of the possession of Canaan, but also that of the blessings of the Messiah. The redeeming grace and favor of God had been proclaimed to them at various times; the promise given to Abraham that in him and in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed was their precious heritage, whose significance was also understood by their teachers. But all this glorious proclamation did them no good. They heard it, indeed, it was passed on from father to son, but it was not mixed with faith in their hearts, they did not place their hope of salvation in its gracious promises, and so it really profited them nothing. The fault thus lay not with God, for He had provided for the proclamation of the Gospel-message, but with themselves; they lost the blessings of the promise by their unbelief, Hosea 13:9.

This warning example the believers of all times should therefore keep in mind, that they may become and remain partakers of the blessing: For we do enter into the rest, we that have believed, as He says, As I swore in My anger, they shall never enter into My rest; although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. The solemn oath of God by which He denied certain people entrance into His rest was directed against the unbelievers. So far as the believers are concerned, if they but remain true to their faith and confidence in the promises of the Gospel, they do enter, they are continually entering into the eternal rest above. One by one, as the Lord calls them home, they leave the scenes of their earthly pilgrimage and are received into the rest, into the peace of heaven. Note: Had it not been God's gracious will and earnest desire to have all men saved, to have them all enter into His rest, it could not be said that He afterward, in wrath over the defection of some, had excluded them from the blessings intended also for them. Thus the failure of the unbelievers to obtain the blessings of the eternal rest was not due to the fact that the rest did not yet exist, for all of God's works were finished when the world was founded. God had planned and provided for the eternal rest of His own when the foundations of the world were laid, and He wanted all men to enjoy the beauties and glories of this rest. This fact is of immeasurable comfort to the believers, since it gives them the assurance that God has the earnest, sincere desire and will to have all men saved. This is substantiated still more fully in the next paragraph.