Rest in the Book of Hebrews and its Implications on Contemporary Christianity

Abstract

This work discusses Sabbath-rest, which was commanded and observed in the Old Testament (hereafter OT). In the New Testament (hereafter, NT), it appears there is no direct command to keeping the Sabbath holy. The Book of Hebrews, particularly chapters 3 and 4 focus on rest and use two Greek words, katapausis and sabbatismos translated as rest. The author of the Book of Hebrews only used sabbatismos in Hebrews 4:9 in defining the abiding rest, but in all the other ten (10) occurrences of the word he/she uses the word katapausis or its verb form katapausen. This work adopted exegetical and expository analyses and engaged in the word studies of keywords. The findings reveal that the New Testament teaching on Sabbath-rest has not contradicted the Old Testament teaching of it, even though there is no new direct command to keep the Sabbath holy. And that the rest in the Book of Hebrews actually refers to the OT Sabbath-rest, because it is connected to the creation rest. Canaan rest, rest from the enemies of Israel and rest of the Promised Land. But this rest is not limited to the OT rest; it is a better rest in Christ. The paper argues that though there is no contradiction between the OT and NT teaching on rest, there is a diference; since the OT rest was physical, the NT teaching on rest, particularly as stated in the Book of 'Hebrews focuses on the spiritual rest that can only be found in Christ by those who believed in Him.