This is a guest post by Josh Alley. Josh is a graduate student in political science at Texas A&M University and a member of Declaration Church.
Perhaps you’ve heard that the Bible is “living and active.” This phrase comes from Hebrews 4:12, which says that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
We rightly cite this verse as evidence of the power of God’s word. But do we grasp the scope of this power or the intention God has in wielding it? In particular, God employs his powerful word both to expose sin and to offer mercy. By answering these questions, the context increases our joy in God and his gospel. The living and active word that removes any hope of earning salvation through works simultaneously offers mercy.
Exposure
The first way God wields his powerful word is to expose us.
Heb 4:12 starts with “for,” so we must connect it to the previous verse. Heb 4:11 exhorts readers to enter God’s rest and Heb 4:10 says that “whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”
What does it mean to enter God’s rest? In short, it means to believe (Heb 4:3). Those entering God’s rest are those who have placed all their faith and trust in God.
Pauly (2013), Creative Commons
The author exhorts his readers to enter God’s rest “so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience” (Heb. 4:11). Here, disobedience refers to how Israel heard God’s voice and still rebelled against it (Heb 3:16-19). In response to their rebellion, God swore that a generation of Israelites would not enter his rest in the Promised Land. That promise is repeated throughout these chapters (Heb 3:11, 18; 4:3, 5). God punishes those who hear the word and fail to follow it.
Heb 4:11 implies that without entering God’s rest, disobedience is inevitable. People either enter God’s rest or fall. So the power of the word is, in part, a power that either enables people to rest or illuminates their disobedience.
In “discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart,” the word exposes all disobedience. It pierces every denial and obfuscation, and it exposes all the sin in the human heart. Heb 4:13 reinforces this point, as “all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him [God] to whom we must give account.” Anyone who fails to keep one part of God’s law has violated the whole law (James 2:10), and the scriptures uncover every sin.
Being cut open by God’s living and active word is painful, as I know from personal experience. When I arrived at college, I thought I was a good kid. But as friends read the Bible with me, I saw that the law demands perfection. My striving was inadequate. Having this sin exposed is uncomfortable, but subsequently resting through faith is far sweeter.
Mercy
But that’s not all. The second way God wields his powerful word is to grant mercy. If all the word shows is the hopelessness of obeying God, the power of the Scriptures will terrify. But God made another way—we can rest from our works through faith (Heb. 4:3). Jesus intercedes before God as a “great high priest,” so when we place our faith in his perfect works and in his payment on the cross for our sin, we no longer need to strive. Through faith, believers are justified in God’s sight because Jesus’s perfect righteousness covers our disobedience.
Thus, after warning about the consequences of disobedience, the author of Hebrews encourages his readers to draw near with confidence to the throne of grace (Heb. 4:16). This is astounding. Though God’s word exposes all our sin, he offers us mercy and grace.
Due to the power of the Scriptures to expose sin, we can please God only by faith. God calls us to rest from our works through faith, and when we do, we find not condemnation but mercy. So God’s word is powerful enough to cause us to delight in salvation through faith in Jesus.
Context matters.
Thank you for this post. I have benefited greatly from the Context Matters series. This post has helped me think about Heb. 4:12 in its context. With that, I do have a couple of questions.
I noticed that it seems like “work” of Heb. 4:10 is being used in a works righteousness sense (e.g. “earning salvation through works,” the reference to James 2:10, “My striving was inadequate,” “we can rest from our works through faith,” “we no longer need to strive”). Is this the meaning of “work” in this context, especially in light of the fact that God rested from his work, in creation (4:10)? Would it be better to see “work” in the sense of labor? Otherwise, how does God rest from his works righteousness?
Assuming the labor meaning of “work”, what then does “rest” mean? Is it just having faith? Or is rest where a person of faith perseveres until death when our work/labor/toil/suffering ceases?
It doesn’t seem that my line of questioning changes the main point of this post. But if I’m thinking rightly, it may help to clarify the support used to make the point.
Respectfully,