The Everlasting Covenant

Rest and Inheritance Inseparable

The rest and the inheritance were always associated together in the promise. When the children of Israel were being instructed in the wilderness, they were told: “Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. For ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which the Lord your God giveth you. But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when He giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety; then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause His name to dwell there.” ¹ So also Moses said to the tribes that had their lot on the east side of Jordan: “The Lord your God hath given you this land to possess it; ye shall pass over armed before your brethren the children of Israel, all that are sons of power. But your wives, and your little ones, and your cattle ... shall abide in your cities which I have given you; until the Lord have given rest unto your brethren, as well as unto you, and until they also possess the land which the Lord your God hath given them beyond Jordan.” ² EVCO 411.1

The rest and the inheritance are really one. Our inheritance is rest, in the place of the weariness that sin brings. In Christ, who is “God with us,” we find rest, “in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him that worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.” ³ The Holy Spirit is the first-fruits of this inheritance, until the purchased possession is redeemed. “The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance.” ⁴ He is both our rest and our inheritance; having Him, we have all. EVCO 411.2