The aesthetics of the REST of the story

In the book of Hebrews, the rest promised to the followers of Jesus is linked to the same rest God took after he created the heavens and the earth.

That is enough to stop us in our tracks – well, it should be enough to stop us in our tracks if we would only pause a minute from trying to be good Christians. (What am I going to wear for Easter Sunday...?).

Look at it again: The rest in Jesus is the same rest God took after he created the heavens and the earth.

That would be nature. Nature writ large. The heavens and the earth. The cosmos.

And God, who needs no rest (because that is what systematic theology, the first part, which is theo-logy proper, tells us: God needs no rest because he is omnipotent; he changes not, which means he does not tire, which means he needs no rest – look it up in your Louis Berkhof)… and God, who needs no rest, RESTED.

What a rest it must have been! What a rest it is. What does it mean?

I have no idea. But it is a rest that includes the wonder and the beauty of the created and awe-some universe. Somehow, in Christ, man is so united, or re-united, with all of this awe-some-ness, that the rest we have in the Second Adam is the same rest that God had when he created it all.

This is much bigger than doctrines written with words. At least it is a picture, which is worth a thousand words. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork…

We don’t know anything as we ought to know it. But one day we will know even as we have been known.

Logos2Go

Hebrews 4.1, 4, 14 (1) Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it… (4) For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works” … (14-16) Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession…

Genesis 2.2-3 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Psalm 19.1-3 The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.

1 Corinthians 13.12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmanns, 1932)