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Examined Doctrine
PASSAGE · BSB

Hebrews 4

3 positions in the corpus lean on this chapter. Cited verses are marked.

1Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be deemed to have fallen short of it.

2For we also received the good news just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, since they did not share the faith of those who comprehended it.

3Now we who have believed enter that rest. As for the others, it is just as God has said: “So I swore on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.’” And yet His works have been finished since the foundation of the world.

4For somewhere He has spoken about the seventh day in this manner: “And on the seventh day God rested from all His works.”

5And again, as He says in the passage above: “They shall never enter My rest.”

6Since, then, it remains for some to enter His rest, and since those who formerly heard the good news did not enter because of their disobedience,

7God again designated a certain day as “Today,” when a long time later He spoke through David as was just stated: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.”

8For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day.

9There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

10For whoever enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His.

11Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following the same pattern of disobedience.

12For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

13Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

14Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we profess.

15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin.

16Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Who leans on it

Chrysostom on the final state of the lostPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Endless and conscious, and preached as a pastoral instrument rather than stated as a doctrine. The guest without the wedding garment is bound and carried out to "eternal and endless wailing and gnashing of teeth"; those …John MacArthur on the person of christPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Textbook Chalcedonian formula, restated in language that echoes the Definition's own four negatives almost word for word — unconfused, unchanged, undivided, unseparated — fifteen centuries later.Westminster Confession on the person of christPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°WCF 8.2 reproduces the Chalcedonian formula and its four negations in seventeenth-century English, insisting on 'two whole, perfect, and distinct natures' in one person, and adding 'with all the essential properties and …