There is More

Richard Baxter (1615 – 1691), in The Saints’ Everlasting Rest, writes:

“When God would give the Israelites his Sabbaths of rest, in a land of rest, it was harder to make them believe it, than to overcome their enemies, and procure it for them. And when they had it, only as a small intimation and earnest of an incomparably more glorious rest through Christ, they yet believe no more than they possess, but say, with the epicure at the feast, Sure there is no other heaven but this! or, if they expect more by the Messiah, it is only the increase of their earthly felicity [happiness].

“The apostle [who wrote Hebrews, the “rest” Baxter writes about is Hebrews 4:9] aims most of this Epistle [Hebrews] against this obduracy [stubbornly refusing to change an opinion or course of action], and clearly and largely proves that the end of all ceremonies and shadows is to direct them to Jesus Christ, the substance; and that the rest of Sabbaths, and Canaan, should teach them to look for a further rest, which indeed is their happiness.”

I have chosen to use the original manuscripts when quoting Baxter, Ambrose, and Owen rather than update their English to make it easier to read for a few reasons. One is that reading older English should slow us down and ponder what they are writing – consuming words rather than pondering words is a disease. Another reason is that in using current English something might be missed, or something might be injected, that would add or subtract from the original authors’ thoughts – I don’t want to take that chance. Thirdly, the more we read a style of writing or a form of English that we are not familiar with, hopefully the more familiar we’ll become, thus enabling us to read more older writing with greater profit.

When Baxter writes above, “it was harder to make them believe it, than to overcome their enemies, and procure it [the inheritance of Canaan] for them” he is pointing out that the Israelites did not accept God’s promise of rest in the Promised Land of Canaan – they understood warfare but they didn’t understand the Sabbaths, they didn’t understand “rest”. They, like us, were more comfortable doing than believing and resting.

An irony with both the Israelites and ourselves is that when we insist on the primacy of doing we end up not doing as much and we inevitably fall short of what God has promised us in Jesus Christ.

This is because, like Baxter’s above example of an epicurean, we just can’t believe there can be anything more than what we are experiencing. Baxter points out that rather than the Israelites seeing that the inheritance they were gaining, and the rest from the Wilderness wanderings they were experiencing, were just a foretaste of more to come – they thought they were experiencing and inheriting all that there was, that there was nothing beyond what they had.

This is pretty much the picture of the church today. We would rather “do” than “believe and rest”. We think that what we have is all there is. We do not see that all that the Father gives us is designed to draw us deeper into Jesus Christ; we do not look for more of Christ, a clearer vision of Christ, a deeper rest in Christ – we tend to simply look at ourselves and what we have and we do not believe there is anything more.

We are comfortable with Martha; we think Mary is irresponsible (Luke 10:41 – 42). We dumb-down the words of Jesus, we excuse them, we don’t really want to hear Him say, “…but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” We say and preach and teach “Yeah but…what Martha was doing was important.” But Jesus doesn’t say that, we add to Jesus’ words. Jesus says, “…but only one thing is necessary…”

Baxter points out that the happiness we seek is not more of the eternal Christ, but rather more of the here and now Christ; give us happiness now and don’t bother to expand our horizons, don’t bother to expand our vision of You, don’t trouble us with thoughts of eternity. Unlike our fathers and mothers of faith in Hebrews Chapter 11, we are not seeking a City to come (and that is coming), we are not looking for a City whose builder and maker is God. We do not want God to work and live within the Holy of Holies of our lives, but rather we want Him to entertain us in the Outer Court.

We would much rather eat from food trucks than dine in the palace of the King of Kings.

There is so much more; more peace, more understanding, more grace, more mercy, more hope, more faith, more love…more rest, deeper rest…and most importantly…more of Christ.

Are we learning to know Jesus Christ as our Sabbath, our Rest? What does this look like in my life? In your life?