The Everlasting Covenant

Rest in Activity

“We which believe do enter into rest,” because “this is the work of God, that ye believe.” The two statements are not contradictory, but are identical in meaning, because the work of God, which is ours by faith, is completed work, and therefore to enter upon that work is to enter upon rest. God’s rest, therefore, is not idleness, not laziness. Christ said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,” ¹ yet “the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary.” ² He works by His word to uphold that which He created in the beginning; so those who have believed God, and have therefore entered into rest, are exhorted to “be careful to maintain good works;” ⁴ but as those good works were obtained by faith, and “not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves,” so they are to be maintained by faith; but faith gives rest, and therefore the rest of God is compatible with and necessarily accompanied by, the greatest activity. EVCO 439.1