BibleProject - Hebrews: The Quest for Final Rest - 7th Day Rest E14

Episode Date: December 30, 2019

QUOTE"The design of the wilderness narratives in the Torah are trying to tell us that the arrival in the promised land is an image of the future seventh day rest that is beyond.” KEY TAKEAWAYSThe book of Hebrews is written to Messianic Jews who are extremely familiar with the Old Testament.Hebrews 3 is built around a long quote from Psalm 95, which is a psalm reflecting on Israel’s failure to enter into the promised land of rest.Israel rebelled seven times against the Lord in the wilderness.The ultimate seventh day rest has been inaugurated by Jesus, but has not seen its complete fulfillment yet. SHOW NOTES:Welcome to our final episode in our series on the theme of Sabbath and seventh day rest!In part 1 (0-21:10), Tim and Jon recap their previous conversations. Tim shares a resource called “From Sabbath to Lord’s Day” by D.A. Carson, a collection of essays examining the evolution and relationship of historical Jewish Sabbath celebrations and the celebration of Sunday as “the Lord’s Day.”In part 2 (21:10-33:00), the guys dive into Hebrews 3.Hebrews 3:1-19"Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.“So, as the Holy Spirit says:“‘Today, if you hear his voice,do not harden your heartsas you did in the rebellion,during the time of testing in the wilderness,where your ancestors tested and tried me,though for forty years they saw what I did.That is why I was angry with that generation;I said, “Their hearts are always going astray,and they have not known my ways.”So I declared on oath in my anger,“They shall never enter my rest.”’“See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. As has just been said:“‘Today, if you hear his voice,do not harden your heartsas you did in the rebellion.’“Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.”Tim notes that in verse 7, the writer begins to quote from Psalm 95. Earlier in Psalm 95, Yahweh is referred to as “the rock of rescue.” This name originally comes from a story in Exodus 17.Exodus 17:5-7“The Lord answered Moses, ‘Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.’ So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’”In Israel’s wilderness journey, there are seven stories of rebellion. Israel chose to doubt God and rebel against Moses seven times. These seven stories exclude them from being able to enter the promised land. Instead, that generation dies in the wilderness.In part 3 (33:00-40:30), Tim notes that the author of Hebrews then reads the wilderness narratives as a story that still applies to all people today. People can still miss out on the promised land of God’s rest if they harden their hearts and do not listen to Jesus.God’s rest is something that Christ inaugurated, but it has yet to be completely fulfilled and will be fulfilled in the future.In part 4 (40:30-end), Tim mentions that Hebrews seems to be written as an oratory speech or a written sermon. Jon says that he feels an urge to have some sort of practice or Sabbath ritual that he can rely on to create a rhythm in his life.Tim mentions that perhaps the most helpful part of a Sabbath rhythm is that it should be a constant reminder that our time does not belong to us, but is a gift from God. Resources:D.A. Carson, From Sabbath to Lord’s Day Music:Defender Instrumental by TentsBloc by KVHalfway Through by Broke in SummerI Gave You A Flower by Le Gang Show Produced By:Dan GummelPowered and Distributed by SimpleCast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey, this is John at the Bible Project, and today Tim and I are going to finish up a series that we've been calling seventh day rest. This has been a really long series, and if you're're just jumping in I recommend you start from the beginning but if you're not gonna, here's a quick recap. On page one of the Bible God brings order to the universe in a series of six days and on the seventh day he stops and he enters his creation like a king entering a temple to rest and rule. And God creates humans, calls the humans his image, and tells them to rest and rule with him in his creation.

And this vision of rest on the seventh day is a hope that ancient Israel took seriously. In fact, one of the ten commandments is to stop working on the 7th day, or in Hebrew, ship-bought and practice rest. And it wasn't just this one day. There's actually seven sacred festivals that all help Ancient Israel remember who they are and where this story is heading. Each festival, a way to practice now, what we hope for in the future, a time of unending, restful reign with God in His good creation.

And there's more. Every seventh year, there's a whole year devoted to rest. And every seventh, seven years, there's a culminating event called The Year of Jubilee, where all debts are forgiven, slaves are freed, it's the ultimate rest. In the last two episodes, we looked at how Jesus saw himself as the one bringing this ultimate rest. He claimed that the real year of Jubilee, the one that all of these festivals and practices are anticipating, that that reality is coming with him, that he is the Lord of the Sabbath. This claim, amongst others, God Jesus killed.

But the Gospels claim that Jesus laid in the tomb resting on the Sabbath. And on the first day of a new week, he rose from the dead. And that power that brought Jesus back from the dead is available to us. God's spirit can live in us, and God's Spirit is a sign that we too are destined for ultimate rest. And so now we come to our last stop in the series.

While Jesus brought ultimate rest, it has yet to come fully. We still find ourselves in a world of strife and struggle. And so, in this episode, we want to look at a passage in the book of Hebrews that brings these ideas full circle. We're going to look at Hebrews, chapters 3 and 4, but here's a key verse in 4 verse 9. There remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For anyone who enters God's rest, also rest from their work, just as God did from his.

And let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest. Seventh day is yet to come. It's something you enter in the present, which will come to its ultimate fulfillment in the future. In Hebrews 4 or 6, he says, listen, everybody, it still remains for some to enter that rest. There's still a rest that is yet to be entered into a future rest. The author of Hebrews looks back at the wilderness generation in ancient Israel and sees it as a warning for us today. The design of the wilderness narratives in the Torah itself is trying to tell us

that the arrival in the Promised Land is an image of the future seventh day rest that is beyond. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. We're going to do the final episode in a long conversation around the seventh day. And we're having this conversation how much later than the original. Much later than we had the actual conversations that'll culminate in the video. Real time we're talking in early December 2019. Yeah. We had the majority of the seventh day rest

conversations in like the spring. I think early mid spring of 2019. Okay. So like nine months ago. About a month ago. And I remember that conversation feeling like I left it, feeling a little, not unsettled, but wanting. Yeah. And I remember feeling specifically, man, we spent so much time getting so excited about this theme of seventh day rest and all of these practices that Israel had to remember it and to anticipate it,

and I was woven into all these stories, and it's just so rich, and then Jesus sees himself fulfilling it, and then we get to the Apostle Paul, and it's like, yeah, don't worry about it. That's how it felt to me. It's kind of like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. Jesus did that.

Yeah. He's Lord of the Sabbath. Yeah. I mean, he doesn't, Paul doesn't even talk about that. But he's just like, if you do the Sabbath or not, oh, you know, that's okay. Well, yeah, true. Though those are, I think they're closely related things,

but our whole discussion about the gospels was that Jesus was presenting the arrival of the kingdom of God as the arrival of the ultimate seventh day. The Jubilee that he was announcing is synonymous, identical with his arrival of the kingdom of God. But you could imagine. And Paul was all about the arrival of the kingdom of God. But while it's been inaugurated, it. Yes. It still hasn't come in full.

And so practicing some sort of ritual, which reminds you that this, this seventh-day rest is yet to come. Seems like it could be something that the apostles would be stoked on. And instead, you kind of get this sense of their mind with somewhere else. It's like, Paul wasn't like going around getting the early Christians to do any sort of sabith ritual. Right. He just didn't, it just wasn't on a radar.

Well, what we have in his letters is responses to issues usually problems, not always, of things arising in the churches. It got in the way. Yeah. It went away. Yeah. Like that some early Christians who weren't Jewish, they didn't have a history of the Sabbath.

Correct. That's right. And Paul's just like, yeah, don't worry about it. You don't need that. And if someone else, it does have a history of Sabbath and is doing it, that's great. I think I want to refocus that a little more. It's not that he said, it's not a big deal. It's that the weekly practice of the Sabbath,

along with all the laws of the covenant, but especially the poignant ones in their cultural context, kosher food laws, circumcision of the males, and Sabbath. Those were the most visible boundary, line-of-creating that set off the people of Israel from their neighbors. And so when Sabbath comes up in that letters of Paul, it's because there are Messianic Jews,

not all of them, but to Lisaam, who are making a requirement to be a part of the family of Jesus. That's the circumstance that compels him to what a requirement it is. And his point is, listen of the family of Jesus. That's the circumstance that compels him to not a required. And his point is, listen, the Torah of Moses played a crucially important role for the time

that it was the thing that God was doing in and through Israel, but now through the death and resurrection of the Messiah, the family of Abraham as it always was intended to be now consists of many nations, not just one. And so those markers don't define the identity of God's people anymore. That's why, then Paul says,

if you want to honor Jesus through the observance of the Sabbath, do that. Do that. He's like stoked on people being stoked on that. But he gets really down on people who say that you need to do it. Correct, that's right. I mean, really down on him.

Oh yeah, he's, yeah. What he really, really gets worked up about is circumcision in the letter to the Galatians. For Paul erecting any kind of entry barrier into the family of Jesus beyond trust in what he's done for me that I can't do for myself. Yeah, what he says is we are nullifying the grace of God.

That's what he says. But what I got from you, relations. After that conversation was the thing Paul was most interested in, where these love feasts, that they get together, fam, yeah, that's right, yeah. Families and extended families and neighbors, and people of any ethnicity, family, and extended families and neighbors and people of any ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, eating at the same table.

That's exactly right. In the name of Jesus. And so I guess, and all the historical evidence we have is that this was happening on Sunday, which was the first day of the week by everybody else's calendar. And after our conversation about the seventh day rest, I was so jazzed. You could have been like, so John, like, change your week, like, do a really strict, savage, ritual.

And I've been like, heck yeah? Yeah, sure, sure. Let's do this. It's so beautiful. Instead, we kind been like heck yeah. Yeah, sure. Sure. Let's do this. Yeah. It's so beautiful. Instead, we kind of ended with actually love feasts. Yeah. No, I think what we what you end with is the kingdom of God has come. So, you know, say the Lord's Prayer, live by the sermon on the mount, love your neighbor, and if adhering to the ancient wisdom of the Sabbath ritual is going to help you do that in your life, then honor Jesus through observance of the traditional Sabbath. Paul seems fairly clear,

but if that's not required, and if you don't do that, you're not any less of a follower of Jesus. So what you're saying, what I'm hearing you say is just that point, that it's good and it's wise, but it's not required. For you, then, am I hearing you say it undercuts the power that it could have. My question would be, why can't it still be powerful, but not be required for entry into the family of Jesus? I don't know. No, that's great point. Yeah.

I think if I remember correctly, again, I'm remembering months back. Didn't we? I use a metaphor that somebody who's very passionate about the observance of a weekly Shabbat on Friday to Saturday, I think might be offended by, and so I'm really not trying to be offensive, but I'm trying to understand Jesus's logic

of saying something like, he's the Lord of the Sabbath in his bringing the Kingdom of God that brings healing and blessing on the. So Jesus really seems to communicate that he is bringing about the ultimate reality to which all of these seventh day rest symbols and institutions pointed, institutions pointed, not just the weekly one, but the annual ones and the seventh year ones, because they were all about one main ideal. Well I guess all the laws like that in a way that if Paul talks about it is like a tutor or like a it's helping you anticipate something and when that thing comes, correct. Then why focus on the thing which was just anticipating the thing.

Yeah, which doesn't mean don't do it. So the word focus is the keyword in that sentence. It's not the main. The main thing is the arrival of the Kingdom of God and the advent of rest through Jesus. That requires, I think, at least I'm sure learning this in my middle age, for the long game to sustain that view and life posture over the course of a lifetime requires rhythms and habits to sustain that worldview. And I think a weekly rhythm where you celebrate the dawn of the seventh day, rest is really important. But the question is the cultural form

in which you express it. I'm a big believer in how rituals shape us. And so it's really beautiful to see that in the seventh day, in the seventh day rituals, was this forming that was supposed to happen. And what you're just saying is we need those kind of things for the long run. And so maybe there's this balance between, there's freedom in Christ, and the point is Jesus. So if you turn it into then adherence to rituals, you're missing the point.

But at the same time, creating rituals in your life that help you follow Jesus is really important. Yeah, yeah, totally. If the family of Abraham was truly fulfilled through the Messiah and it was always meant to be a multi-ethnic, multicultural family of the new humanity. It seems to me that the apostles are drying out that logic in the Jerusalem council in X-15 and

then in the Apostolic letters and in Peter's vision, right? With Cornelius. In the food. Yeah, that the cultural forms and practices that this movement is going to take will always be developing and changing in their shape and form because by nature encompassing all of humanity and all of its diversity and so to trap how you practice the celebration of the new creation into one cultural form, and maybe not even making it the boundary marker to entry into the family of Jesus like some people were doing in Paul's day. But you're saying this is what you have to do it?

Yeah, and just saying I think there can be many ways that a community of Jesus could, and a family, and a person, could create rhythms, to accomplish the same end. And I think it seems to me that's what Paul wants and a family and a person could create rhythms to accomplish the same end. And I think it seems to me that's what Paul wants to safeguard is that space for the spirit to shape a community that is practicing these

in new ways that haven't been even imagined before. In his mind, it doesn't discount or dishonor the traditions that have come before, you're foolish to ignore them, but it doesn't mean you have to repeat them. And I'm just talking here about the rhythms, the cultural forms, of how you practice certain certain things in the Christian tradition. So here's what's tricky, is that it's precisely the way that people practice these kinds of traditions and take out Sabbath, you know, and insert baptism

or the word supper or whatever. And because they're so shaping on us, we are very personally attached to them, right? Communities get super invested in their particular way. Yeah, because they find your community. Yeah, exactly totally. And so I think that's the challenge is at what point are we allowing our... what the Spirit has led me or our community to do, but we're making it like the bar by which now every other group is measured.

And it seems like that's what Paul wants to push us to like get a bigger perspective. You know what? Did we, another thing related to this? And I don't remember if we talked about it, about the relationship between the Friday night, Saturday night, Shabbat, and the Sunday celebration of Jesus followers. How did we talk about it? Yeah. Well, or just how they relate to each other.

Oh, yeah. I don't know if we did. I don't know. Because you read the cowboy 10 commandments at some point in the conversation. Yeah. And in that. Get yourself to a Sunday gathering.

Yeah, in the American tradition, has been completely shifted on to Sunday. Yeah as if it's just like a Christian Sabbath. Yeah, go to church Yeah, go to church on Sunday. Yeah, totally. Oh, this is an area of vigorous historical debate Mm-hmm. So you know, I've done as much reading as I have margined for over the years But if anyone is interested in this question, there's an edited volume by a number of different high-level scholars. It's edited collection by Donald Carson, DA Carson, called From Sabbath to Lord's Day. It's the most, it's maybe like 20 essays and they're all like 40 pages long. It's a massive book, but from everything from

ancient Israel to Hebrew Bible to Jewish second temple to New Testament to the early centuries of the church, they make the case that all the evidence points in that the Lord's day of the Sunday celebration was never a replacement for or viewed as a Christian Sabbath. Rather, it was viewed as the new thing, the new creation day that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. And that many Messianic communities continued in those first centuries to practice Shabbat, and then they would also celebrate Jesus. On the next day. On Sabbath you use Mark the end of the week and anticipation for the final day.

And then on the next day you get to celebrate resurrection that new creation has begun. Correct. That's right. Resurrection Sunday is about the first day of the new week. Yeah. Yeah. But the point is that they're not the same

and there isn't really any evidence that they were viewed by the same as the same in the first generation of Jesus followers. Well, this conclusion then would mean is that it is historically incorrect to call Sunday a Christian Sabbath. Right. It's the Lord's day. is that it's historically incorrect to call Sunday a Christian Sabbath. It's the Lord's Day. What it is, if you think of the Sabbath, the weekly Sabbath, as distilling all of the themes of the seventh day rest theme in the Hebrew Bible,

then in a way, the Resurrection Sunday, every single week, you're celebrating what you really celebrate on Resurrection Sunday in the spring like with Easter. For example. Yeah. But every Sunday is meant to be that resurrection celebration, not just one time a year. That a new week has begun leading us to the final creation. Yeah. Yeah. Inogulating the new creation and leading us through the course of a new week until it's shifted from celebrating the last day of the week to the first day of the week. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, that's right. And there's a place for both. Yeah, they're not mutually exclusive. Anyhow, so on that note, there is actually one topic

that we didn't discuss in our earlier conversations in the series that we kept alluding to. I think we just got to the end and we were tired. I don't know what happened. We don't know what happened, but we never talked about two chapters in the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament. They talk about rest. They are such an important culmination of this whole theme. So we thought we would go back and even though it's months later, to talk about these important two chapters.

I'm excited to do that. Because they're awesome. Big picture, letter to the Hebrews, nobody knows who wrote it, people who have strong opinions. Share them. I've shared them. And maybe they're right,

but there's so many of those different strong opinions that it's hard to know. So the basic flow of the letter is it's a pastor writing to a congregation of Greek speaking, diaspora, most likely messianic Jews, because the way that he can session the scriptures of Israel and the amount of competency that he assumes on the part of the listener, high bar, high bar, next level. And so, but essentially what he's trying to compel them not to abandon their allegiance

to Jesus. There's a need to say this is by the end of the letter that there's some of them losing confidence or losing courage because some people have been thrown in prison, some people have some form of persecution against these Messianic Jews. And so basically his letter is one huge rhetorical hammer. Don't give up. Elevating Jesus. He elevates Jesus in every possible way. A Jew would know how, as he's talking to other Messianic Jews. So in chapters one and two, he elevates Jesus above the Divine Council. He is God become human as the chief of the divine counsel.

He's not your average spiritual being. It's chapter one and two. The chapters that we're gonna look at, he elevates Jesus above Moses and Joshua. In the chapters following in chapter five, he's gonna elevate him above Aaron, and the whole priesthood, then he's gonna elevate him above the tabernacle and of all of the feasts.

It's exactly how one Jew would persuade another Jew. So what's cool about chapters 3 and 4 were these little movements and Hebrews. They almost seem like distillations of sermons that the pastor once gave. Because they're just rhetorically beautiful. Yeah, how do you want to do this? Do you want to just kind of like work our way through? Yeah. Yeah. Because they're just rhetorically beautiful. Yeah. How do you want to do this? Do you want to just kind of like work our way through? Yeah. Great. Let's do that. All right. Ebers. So Chapter 3 of verse 1 begins kind of almost like a new beginning. Therefore, my holy brothers and sisters who share in the heavenly calling,

fix your thoughts on Jesus, the one that we acknowledge is our apostle and as our high priest. And he begins to contrast him with Moses. He was faithful to the one who appointed him just like Moses was. Moses was faithful. Jesus was faithful. But then he says, but Jesus is more awesome. Jesus is found worthy of greater honor than Moses,

like a builder of a house. He was a greater honor than the house itself. Who built, assembled, the first house for God in the Torah, Moses. But who was the builder of everything? God. So Moses was faithful as a servant in God's house, but Christ is faithful as a son over God's house.

And we are his house. No, there's that little move there. So Moses built a building. What's funny is, I think in our context, this sounds like denigrating to Moses. No. Does it to you? Okay, some people take it that way.

I could see that. I was trying to say Moses was awesome. Yeah, Moses was awesome. He built the tabernacle. Exactly, yeah people take it that way. I could see that. He's trying to say Moses was awesome. Yeah, Moses awesome. He built the tabernacle. Exactly. Yeah. And he was faithful. Yes. And he bore witness and that's rad. Yep. You think that's rad? Yeah, yeah, totally. How much cooler is it that God built? Yeah. Well, all of creation. Yeah. And that also he is building you all into a temple where he dwells. That's right. And who is the builder of God's world?

Yes. That's Jesus. It's the Son. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, thank you. That's good summary. Yeah. I like it.

So, like, so apologies. And like you said, as a high bar, like if you just jumped into Hebrews because you found a Bible, you'd be like, what Hebrews because you found a Bible. Oh yeah. What? Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Completely lost. Oh yeah. And that's just the first step. He really goes next level, starting verse seven. So he just brings a new idea in the mix here. He just gives a long block quote from Psalm 95. Psalm 95. And he actually only quotes the last half of Psalm 95. Those we're gonna see, he assumes

that you've uploaded the whole thing because he assumes some things in the first half of. So it's this poem. Which I haven't. But what? It's this poem where in the poem, God starts speaking to you, the reader, in the Psalm. So he starts this block quote of Psalm 95, second half.

Today, if y'all hear his voice, don't harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion and in the time of testing in the wilderness. The word rebellion, it's alluding to this narrative where the people begin contending with Moses and with God in the wilderness. The noun is Maryva contention. And testing is a noun, Masa, Masa and Maryva.

And these are the two of the stories in the Torah where Israel rebels against God in the manner of Manna and water in the wilderness. So he goes on, your ancestors tested and tried me for 40 years. I kept providing for them, they saw what I did. So God says, I was angry. I was angry with that generation. Their heart's going astray, they haven't known my ways,

so I swore on oath, because I was mad, they will never enter my rest. That's the line. They will never enter my rest. Yeah. And in context, this is referring to the Promised Land. Yeah, the rest is the Promised Land. Yeah. Yeah. Now, get this. So it's positive, quick here. He's bringing up Psalm 95. Why is he bringing up Psalm 95 out of nowhere here? Right? Because he wants to talk about rest. Oh, that's right.

Correct. But he's been talking about Moses. then he's going to bring up the stuff about rest. But instead of just talking about the wilderness narrative, he uses Psalm 95. Yeah, he could have just... Yeah. In the words, why didn't he just start talking about the wilderness narrative? He's going to in a minute. Why Psalm 95? So this is really fascinating. Psalm 95 begins with a call saying everybody sing for joy to Yahweh. Everybody shout out loud to the rock of our

salvation, the rock, the rock of our salvation. So God is being called the rock of rescue. This is new development but I've been really trying it on lately, using the word rescue. Oh, and save salvation. As a synonym for save. Yeah, I think the word salvation is so loaded. It's so loaded for people that afresh a kind of a new word that means the same thing, but gets you thinking in a new way is the word rescue. So I'm going for it. And it makes a nice alliteration right here, the rock of rescue. Right? Yeah. So let's praise the rock of rescue.

What's that? How has God the rock of rescue? What does that even mean? A rock of salvation. The poem goes on to say, you always the great king above all the other Elohim. Verse three. And then he goes through,

the three-tiered cosmos. And his hands are the depths of the earth. Yeah, that's the below. Yeah, the deep place below the land Yep, then mountain peaks belong to him high place the high place of the land. Oh, okay Yeah, see is his the sea and the dry land. Oh, so mountain peaks are kind of about the sky Yeah, so they yeah, there's up the touch is a sky. Yeah, so they, yeah, there's up the tussians of the sky. Yeah. So from, yeah, the water below the earth to the highest point of the earth that touches the heavens, or the sea in the dry land. Yeah. Just kind of a horizontal.

Oh, that's interesting. Vertical. I've never noticed that. Resforced vertical. Hmm. Resfies horizontal. The sea in the dry land. Yeah.

But all of the cosmos. Yeah, the whole cosmos is the work of his hands. So let's bow down and worship, kneel before the Lord Yahweh, our maker. He made the cosmos and he made us. How did he make his people? He's our Elohim. We are the people of his pasture. We are the flock that he cares for. We are his flock.

So that's the first half. Yeah, so many times. When did God create a flock? Of these people. I think we're meant to upload the Exodus story here. Because Exodus is how he creates. It's a new creation act where he brings his people through the waters to the dry land of rest and so on. So the point is this Psalms riffing on all kinds of stuff in Genesis and Exodus. But this phrase, the rock of our salvation, there's this interesting story right after the people go through the waters in Exodus and in Exodus 17, the people are thirsty. Mara. It's the better water.

Yeah. Refidim. And there's no water there, and so the people quarrel with Moses. And so they say, why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us, a thirst out here, and go to this. Okay. So here's what God says to Moses. Speak to the rock.

Almost. We're almost there. So this is verse God says to Moses. Speak to the rock. Oh, well, we're almost there. So this is verse 5, exit 17. The Lord answered Moses, go out in front of the people, take with you some of the elders, take in your hand a staff. You know that one that you struck the Nile with? Strike the rock. Oh, oh, so verse 6, sorry, this is the key detail.

So what he always says, I will stand there for you on the rock at Mount Harab. Strike that rock and water will come out of it for the people to drink. So Moses did this, and they called the place testing masa and meriva, quarling because they masa, meriva. So that's the story. Wait, is this the story you got in trouble for? Oh, it's a different story.

Later. We'll talk about that in a story. Wait, is this the story you got in trouble for? Oh, is it different? Later. It's late. We'll talk about that in a second. Okay. The whole point is, this rock is the rock of rescue. Oh. This is the rock of rescue. The rock of rescue. Yahweh stands on the rock.

Who? That's what he says. Who? And he says Moses, strike the rock. And then he provides water for the people out of the rock. And then what you find is in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses, for the first time, he recalls these wilderness journeys in Deuteronomy 32, specifically verse 15. And he calls Yahweh the rock of rescue.

Oh, he does in Deuteronomy. The rock that rescued them. Yes. So this is the thing. Yahweh is the rock of rescue. How? By providing water, providing life in the middle of a wilderness space. Okay. So there's these wilderness stories of rebellion that involve the manna. Remember, we looked at this one. They wanted quail and meat and they wanted water here. Then they're camped out at Mount Sinai for a year And then on the other side of Sinai they leave in the book of Numbers

So they leave Mount Sinai in Numbers chapter 10 and what follow are a whole series of rebellion stories In Numbers chapters 11 through 21. Do you want to just in Numbers, chapters 11 through 21. Do you want to just guess how many reliant the Tories there are? Is there seven? There's seven, exactly. And even more so, they're in a symmetrical design

so that the first one matches the last, the second one matches the fifth. It's a chiasm. It's a chiasm. So the one in the middle then... The one in the middle, is number four. It's where the spies go into the land and they see the giants. The sons of Anakim who are as big as the Nephilim and they're freaked out and they're like, no, we can't go in. And Kayla Bajashe were like, yeah, yeah, we can. That's the pivot because that's the story where God makes an oath.

I will not let them enter my rest. That's the center story. So there's a collection of seven rebellion stories. And that the center is the one that got him. At the center, yep, that's right in the rest. At the center is the one that's being referred to in Psalm 95 at the end. But then what's interesting is the sixth one is where the people are thirsty. And they say, why did you bring us out here to kill us with thirst? And what God tells Moses to do is speak to the rock, not strike it.

And he gets angry and strikes the rock anyway two times. And then God says that that was a lack of faith. Yeah. And Moses fails. This is the moment of Moses' failure too. In other words, it seems like the author of Hebrews is using Psalm 95 because simultaneously is activating the rebellion story on both sides of Mount Sinai before and after. And it allows him, the mention of the rock of rescue, allows him to use this title for God, who gave them

life in the desert, but ultimately they rejected the life that God wanted to give them in the desert. These are exactly the things that the author of Hebrews is going to bring out. Okay. Sorry, I don't know if that was too long. Oh, but the point of those seven stories, these are the seven stories that exclude them from the ultimate seventh day rest. Oh, yeah. Right? The seven rebellions that keep them from entering the seventh day rest. Which for them was the promised way. Promise land is that rest. Exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. So what these are is design patterns in the future.

It is that you're reading throughout the Torah. So as you come back to Hebrews 3, then, he, what he's going to go on to do is say, listen, this song wasn't just about our ancestors in the past. This song is to every generation of Israel who has yet to enter the ultimate seventh day rest, which is exactly the point that he draws. He says, listen, everybody, let's encourage each other every day as long as it's called today of Psalm 95. Because Psalm 95 said today, listen, listen, not the past is just the instruction

for the people waiting to go into the future rest. So today, we have come to share in the Messiah if we hold on to our conviction firmly until the very end, just like it's been said, hey, don't be like the people of the wilderness generation. Who were the people who heard and rebelled? Well, it was the people most sled out. Why did they perish there in the wilderness

because of their lack of trust, he says? The point is he reads those wilderness narratives as a challenge and exhortation to every future generation that from... You could get lost in wilderness too. Yeah, that's right. If you don't listen to his voice, and you harden your heart. Correct. That's right. And the whole design of the wilderness narratives in the Torah is trying to tell you that the promised land itself is an image of the ultimate future seventh day rest. Say that again. The design of the wilderness narratives in the Torah itself is trying to tell us that the arrival in the promised land is an image of the future seventh day rest that is beyond.

How does it do that? Well, those rebellion narratives are of a huge, like wet blanket on the storyline of going into the Promised Land. They go into the Promised Land, but it's only the second generation because all the parents are the second generation get in. So they find the rest. Oh, right. In theory.

In theory. Until they repeat the sins of their ancestors. And they never really do find the rest. In the land, right. In theory, in theory, until they repeat the sins of their ancestors. And they never really do find the rest. In the land, correct. And so you're saying because there really isn't ever any rest found in the Promised Land. Throughout the whole Hebrew Bible. Throughout the whole Hebrew Bible, you read that and you're clearly like, whatever this Promised Land rest is, it doesn't happen when you enter the Promised Land.

That's right. And inhabit it. That's right. And so the point of Psalm 95 is those past narratives are in image of the future hope. Now we haven't done any sort of theme on land. Oh yeah. In a way this video is it. This video? It represents one aspect of the land. One aspect of it. I mean, someone was just remarking about how the number one promise in the Hebrew Bible is about the land. Ah, yes, yeah, totally. And then it seems like here, when we're talking about entering the rest,

we're referring to the promise of the land. Yeah. But are we talking about the promise of the land anymore? In its narrative sense. What does that mean? It's narrative sense. Oh, well, if you're just in the narrative, thinking from the narrative perspective of these characters,

it's about the land of Canaan. A place where you can live in freedom. Yeah, that's right. And abundance. That's right. Actually, no, a distinct video on the land would be cool because the land that is actually possessed by the Israelites never even comes close to the land borders promised to Abraham. And by the time you get into the profits, the land gets expanded out to

encompass the whole of creation. When they talk about the land. A very often, that's right. There's a handful of key texts where just like in the seventh day becomes an image of the transcendent time of the new creation. So that particular plot of land becomes an icon for the whole of the new creation. That'd be interesting.

And, but you can see part of that going on right here. So in Hebrews 4 or 6, he says, listen, everybody, it still remains for some to enter that rest. There's still a rest that is yet to be entered into a future rest. Now if you were a Jewish person in the first century reading that, you could think, oh yeah, we'll get the land back. We won't be occupied and we'll have abundance and freedom here in this land that was promised to us. Is that what the writer of Hebrews is talking about? No, I think he's following a different line, a different line of interpretation. In his mind, the promised land,

the actual promised land, what we today call Israel-Palestine, is an image of something greater and more and more expansive. But what he's focusing on on the seventh day, not the land as such, but for him it's universal. I see. So he says enter the rest. Yeah, let's watch his logic. Okay, let's go back up to verse three of chapter four. So he's contrasting, he's saying, listen, the previous generation, they died. Yeah, in the wilderness, right?

Verse three, now we who have trust, we do enter that rest. Just as God said, he quotes Psalm 95, I declared on my oath, they won't enter my rest. And as God said, he quote Psalm 95, I declared on my oath, they won't enter my rest. And then he says this, and yet God's works have been finished since the creation of the world, for you know, somewhere in the Bible,

it has spoken about the seventh day with these words. He quotes some Genesis 1. On the seventh day, God rested from all of its work. But then again, in the passage we're talking about, Psalm 95, it says, they shall never enter my rest. Do you see what he's doing here? He sees Genesis 1 which says, God rested. That's his rest.

But then he reads Psalm 95 and says, but here God saying, my rest is something yet to come. So which is it? Did God rest in the past or is the rest to come yet in the future? So he draws the conclusion, verse 6, it still remains. There's still... Seven days yet to come. Seven days yet to come. But he also said, in verse 3, we have entered it by believing.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's something you enter in the present, which will come to its ultimate fulfillment in the future. That's right. It's something that God did in the past. Mm-hmm. Something we could enter in the present. Mm-hmm. And it's something is yet...

Be fulfilled to be future. Yeah, that's right. That's right. 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh

1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh So since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since the people who formerly had good news announced to them didn't enter into it, thinking about the wilderness generation, through Psalm 95, God is as it were renewing the call, calling it today, saying today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts. And then look at this, verse 8,

for if Joshua had given them rest. Because he's the one that brought them into the promised one. Yes, totally. Now he's writing in Greek. You spell Joshua in Greek with the Greek letters, Jesus. It's the name Jesus. Oh, in other words, for you reading this in Greek with the Greek letters, Jesus. It's the name Jesus. Oh. In other words, for you reading this in Greek, it's the word, it's the name Jesus. And that's for sure he's winking at you here. So if that previous Jesus had given them rest, why are we talking about another day in Psalm 95?

And then verse nine, so I'm telling you, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. The implication is that it was risen Jesus, not the Jesus of the past, has opened up the Sabbath rest for the people of God. Anyone who enters God's rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. So let's make every effort to enter into that rest. So this guy is all over the Old Testament scriptures, but he's drawing together these threads from Genesis 1,

from the image of the Promised Land as a new Eden, Ultimate 7th day rest, from the wilderness narratives, showing how Israel never attained that rest. And in this author's mind, that actually summarizes the whole Old Testament story. Even the whole monarchy, right? With David and so on, he just dismisses as one long period of disobedience, which is how the prophet understood it, too. And so he reads the Old Testament the way that the final shapers of the Tancht did, which is that the ultimate rest has never yet happened to our people yet. But the one who's greater than Moses and greater than Joshua Jesus will has opened up that rest for us.

Hmm, you want to see something interesting? If you look in chapter 12 of Hebrews, he actually talks even more about how we have come to that rest. It's available in the present. Look at verse 22 of chapter 12. He says, you all have arrived at Mount Zion to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels and joys assembly, that's the divine counsel. To the assembly or the church Ecclesia of the first born, whose names are all written in heaven, you've come to the God, the judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.

You've come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and his sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than a blood even of Abel. In other words, it's pretty packed. The point is, is he believes in the present. In this present age, we have already come into contact with the new creation, the ultimate seventh day rest, which he calls Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, all of the new humanity that inhabits the new creation. It's already happening. It's already something you can experience. In the present, he says in chapter 6, you get a taste of these powers of the new creation through the spirit. So this is why you drew attention this moment ago where ago where it was the ultimate rest something in the past is it in the present or in the future. Yeah. And in his mind it's like it's all of them.

If you were to sit him down, it's him now all of a sudden, but the author of the Hebrews and say okay, that's very beautiful language. What do you mean? Like I'm like I'm a first century Roman citizen. My allegiance is to Jesus now. I'm serving the poor. I'm eating these meals in a community where we love each other and hierarchies don't matter. we love each other and hierarchies don't matter. But life is still difficult. Yes. And I'm still paying taxes. Yeah, yeah.

So it comes with crops, socks. Yeah. What are you talking about? I've come to Mount Zion. I'm not, I'm not, I'm Mount Zion. Yeah. Wherever, I'm an Ephesus. Yeah.

And I don't see angels everywhere. Yeah. And like, so what are you talking? Yeah, I know. Yeah, that's right. Well, first, and I'm not dismissing this all. I'm saying, this is a written sermon. Yeah.

So this is the point at which, you know, in a sermon, I'm not this kind of preacher. I'm really a teacher is what I am. Yeah. But, you know, you know. You're motivating. Yeah, he's being a motivational preacher right? Yeah, totally. Yeah, and what he's also referring to I think is the service of worship in their gathering. The idea is, and this concept of worship, this is a whole new frontier for me that I'm reading deep into right now,

as we get into apocalyptic, is that the temple liturgy of Israel's temple has had a fundamental influence on the history of concepts of worship right into messianic Judaism and early Christianity so that when the gathered people of God come together, it's as if they create on earth the mirror of the celebration happening in the new creation. Pick your metaphor. If you want to use spatial of metaphors, it's in the heavenly Jerusalem. If you want to use time imagery, it's in the future rest. Yeah. But the point is in the present when God's people gather to bring their prayers and their joys and celebrate together in the name of Jesus,

they are creating a bit of heaven on earth through worship. I think that's why he brings up. You've come essentially to the temple and are participating in angels and the souls of the righteous made perfect in a joyful assembly. He's describing like a day in the Sabbath day in the temple courts, when the

Levitical Choirs are doing their thing. So I think that's what he's referring to here. So he or she really believes that when God's people are gathered in the power of the Spirit, praising Jesus, and you bring all of the stuff in the week where you tried to love your neighbor and you tried to be aware of the people hurting people around you and You bring all those burdens and cares and joys into the weekly gathering and you bring it all before Jesus alongside all these other people who are trying to follow Jesus to and you announce that He's the King of the universe despite What everybody else says around us. I think that's what he means right here.

The stuff happens. By the way, I'm not describing how I feel about church. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I my six year old is asking for like a snack and he's like tired and falling asleep and my eight year old is can't stay still and I all of a sudden 20 minutes have gone by and I haven't listened to anything. That's often my experience. I think I think that's one reason why this idea of practicing a Sabbath or practicing the Sabbath in a traditional way even, has become really appealing to people is because there's this restlessness about the lack of significance and meaning in some Protestant traditions.

Yeah, I think that's right about that. There's this desire of like there's got to be something Yeah, just to shake that app. Shake that up and make this really come to life more. Yeah. Yeah I and some people might find that by Discovering traditions that are more connected to the historical form of a Christian liturgy You know, yeah People are doing that and I and I understand that appeal more than ever because it's so non It's a type of church experience that's not

Designed to meet my needs in any way There's nothing there's nothing. There's no marketing involved. It's just like I saw we do it Yeah, there's this story that's been being retold through these symbols and practices for thousands of years and I go participate in it to remind myself of what is ultimately true. But for there are some people who experience that as it doesn't help them. It's not helping them can write to ultimate reality and to the personal presence of Jesus. For some people, their local church

and son togethering is where that happens. And for other people, it might need to be reinventing it and discovering something in their home or in their family or in the house or something. I don't know. Yeah, but I think what's exciting is to think about the opportunity, regardless of how you're

going to do it, is that we live in the story and where history is being culminated in a seventh day. And that seventh day is still packed with all that meaning of creation as it should be resting and ruling with God and His wisdom, and abundance and freedom, and to anticipate that is part of our calling. And however you do that, there's tons of cool ways you could do that, that really shapes you. And it gives you kind of a new vision for how to think about the world that we're navigating

and all of its problems. Yeah. And then on top of that, we've got this even another image of, yes, that seventh day is coming, but it's also happened with Jesus, which inaugurated a new week, and we get to celebrate that too, of resurrection and new creation in this, like, at this next level of anticipation. And if the way that you're remembering that

and community is feeling stale, there's tons of ways to mix that up. Yeah, that's right. And I think for me and for people who come from tradition that's kind of been, I come from a non-denominational tradition. So it's kind of like, we don't have any traditions.

Like we just kind of like, tradition. We're not having traditions Yeah, and so there's this kind of like there's this willy-nilly spirit of like we'll just do youth group however we want to we'll do this in like That has its own trap in which you're now just kind of like chasing the new fad. Yeah, usually a decade late And that's become tiring so then there's this thought of like, let's just do something that's been done for ages. But then for other people, there's going to be a different sentiment. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, think of the core principles we talked through in the series. Back to that first, the first conversations we have that in the history of Sabbath practice, one of the main things is by inconveniencing my life one day in a weekly rhythm, it reminds me that my time

is not my own, but it's subject to the rule and reign of God. That's awesome. I need to be reminded of that. The way and the rhythm, the cultural form that that takes will probably have varied in the course of my own life, and it probably will need to vary again. But that's a core idea. The idea that the ultimate reign and rule of God, which is what I hope for in the culmination of all creation, has already been launched and is already at work in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. So what does it mean for me to participate in that, in that, with my entire life? But then also to mark out rhythms of weekly moments where I can remind myself of that

story because it's difficult to believe, at least for me, and I need rhythms to remind me of it. So those are things that could be expressed in lots of different forms, couldn't they? I think. And I think that's what the Apostle thought, which is why they made the decisions that they did at the Jerusalem council, to which you and I stand indebted to. Those Gentiles, right, on the other side of the planet, 2000 years later, we are directly

affected by their decision, right? And that we're not following all of the Jewish laws. Yeah, or that it creates an open space of freedom for the Holy Spirit to guide future generations into how they're going to faithfully and rhythmically live out this vision of life and of the universe and of the hope for the seventh day rest. I think that, and I think that's what Paul, what we see Paul pushing is communities towards in the places where Sabbath became controversy, whether in Galatia or in Colossae or in Rome. Yeah, yeah. It's unfortunate that it's become such a point

of controversy, right? Sabbath practices, because what it has always been meant to do is be create a space for freedom and creativity and hope. And I hope that's what these conversations, and I really hope that's what the video can kind of invite people into. Cool. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bile Project Podcast. This video on 7th day rest is going to release on our YouTube channel in the first week of 2020. I just got to watch the final version with sound design and it is my new favorite video. And I'm excited for y'all to see, I feel like it recaps what we discussed really well,

has some really beautiful symbols in it. It's great. And so I'm looking forward to you all seeing that. Thanks for listening through this pretty dense conversation on seventh day rest. We're going to begin in the New Year, a new series on trees in the Bible. Trees, they have a significant animated role in the biblical story. They are not passive. Trees play an active role. This is a really exciting series I am looking forward to releasing it in 2020. The Bile Project is a non-profit organization we are in Portland, Oregon. We exist

to show that the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We make all sorts of videos that you can find on our website, thebibleproject.com, and they're all for free because of a huge group of people like you who are supporting this. Thank you so much. We also have this podcast, other resources. You can check it out. Check back tomorrow, we're gonna release a real special quick podcast update on the last day of the year. If you don't listen to that, then I'll say now,

happy, happy new year. We're so glad to be a part of this with you. Hi, my name is Micah. I'm Brent, and this is Audrey. We're all from Bear Christian's School. I first heard about the Bible project when my church, they did a little video of it, and I thought it was really cool.

So I went home with my brothers, and we got right onto our computers and started watching it right away. I use the Bible project to help me understand the verses that are hard for me to go over my head. My favorite thing about the Bible project is that it's local here in Portland, so you can actually come and meet the people who run this.

We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We're a crowdfunded project by people like me. Find free videos, starting notes, podcasts, and more at thebibyoproject.com. you