Hebrews 4:9

Hebrews 4:9

The Earthly Sabbath: a Type of the Heavenly.

I. The heavenly blessedness is Sabbath blessedness, because it includes rest. The fundamental idea of the Sabbath is rest; and this is the idea which the Apostle makes most prominent in this place, because he uses Sabbatism, interchangeably with the word which signifies cessation or repose. But it can never be granted that mere physical or animal rest was the sole or even chief thing enjoined by the Sabbath law under any dispensation. It was the rest of man in God, a rest like that of God, a rest which in man's unfallen state was enjoyed by his working on the same plan and resting in the same spirit with God, and in his fallen state could only be recovered by his return in his whole being to harmony with God, and rest in Him. There is rest (1) from sin; (2) from sorrow and pain; (3) from labour and fatigue.

II. The heavenly blessedness is Sabbath blessedness, because it includes commemoration. From the beginning the Sabbath had a memorial character. Heaven will not be a mere repetition of the creation Sabbath, nor of the creation enlarged and endeared by such a providential sign or memorial of deliverance as made up the Exodus or Canaan Sabbath of the Old Testament. Nor will it be a mere repetition or prolongation of the resurrection Sabbath of the Christian Church. It will stand in the same relation with that Sabbath of the new creation, in which the Exodus Sabbath did to that of the old as from the first; this wonderful ordinance finds room for the oldest memories and for the most recent. Like some great pillar carved with successive inscriptions, or shield quartered with various arms, the Sabbath adds on, and yet loses nothing, so that the heavenly sabbatism enriches itself with all the spoils of the past.

III. The heavenly blessedness will be Sabbath blessedness, because it includes worship. The worship of the heavenly Sabbath will be distinguished (1) by gratitude; (2) by sympathy; (3) by consecration.

J. Cairns, Christ the Morning Star,p. 325.

References: Hebrews 4:9. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. iii., No. 133; Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 18; A. Barry, Cheltenham College Sermons,p. 74; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons to English Congregations in India,p. 168; Bishop Barry, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxi., p. 321; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 77.