2: But the word which they heard did not profit them - So far from it, that it increased their damnation. It is then only when it is mixed with faith, that it exerts its saving power.
3: For we only that have believed enter into the rest - The proposition is, There remains a rest for us. This is proved,(Heb 4:3-11), thus: That psalm mentions a rest: yet it does not mean,
4: For, long after he had rested from his works, he speaks again.(Ge 2:2).
5: In this psalm, of a rest yet to come.
7: After so long a time - It was above four hundred years from the time of Moses and Joshua to David. As it was said before - St. Paul here refers to the text he had just cited.
8: The rest - All the rest which God had promised.
9: Therefore - Since he still speaks of another day, there must remain a farther, even an eternal, rest for the people of God.
10: For they do not yet so rest. Therefore a fuller rest remains for them.
11: Lest any one should fall - Into perdition.
12: For the word of God - Preached,(Heb 4:2), and armed with threatenings, (Heb 4:3). Is living and powerful - Attended with the power of the living God, and conveying either life or death to the hearers. Sharper than any two - edged sword - Penetrating the heart more than this does the body. Piercing - Quite through, and laying open. The soul and spirit, joints and marrow - The inmost recesses of the mind, which the apostle beautifully and strongly expresses by this heap of figurative words. And is a discerner - Not only of the thoughts, but also of the intentions.
13: In his sight - It is God whose word is thus "powerful:" it is God in whose sight every creature is manifest; and of this his word, working on the conscience, gives the fullest conviction. But all things are naked and opened - Plainly alluding to the sacrifices under the law which were first flayed, and then (as the Greek word literally means) cleft asunder through the neck and backbone; so that everything both without and within was exposed to open view.
14: Having therefore a great high priest - Great indeed, being the eternal Son of God, that is passed through the heavens - As the Jewish high priest passed through the veil into the holy of holies, carrying with him the blood of the sacrifices, on the yearly day of atonement; so our great high priest went once for all through the visible heavens, with the virtue of his own blood, into the immediate presence God.
15: He sympathizes with us even in our innocent infirmities, wants, weaknesses, miseries, dangers. Yet without sin - And, therefore, is indisputably able to preserve us from it in all our temptations.
16: Let us therefore come boldly - Without any doubt or fear. Unto the throne of God, our reconciled Father, even his throne of grace - Grace erected it, and reigns there, and dispenses all blessings in a way of mere, unmerited favour.
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