Unbelief & Disobedience

 May 8, 2022

“Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin…Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” —Hebrews 3:12-13, 17-19 

Two different words are used to define the problem the author addresses here: disobedience and unbelief. They are almost equated here; disobedience is the fruit of unbelief. It was because of their unbelief that they disobeyed and therefore could not enter the rest God had prepared for them.

The argument here leads to the next chapter where he talks about temptation. Yielding to temptation leads to sin, but unbelief is why we yield, ie. We don’t believe God is able to keep us, and to be honest, we aren’t willing to be kept.

Hebrews 4:16 gives the remedy: “Come boldly to the throne of grace,” not merely in the face of immediate temptation, but in anticipation of it. We are told to “Come now (“Today”) so we will have the grace needed when the temptation/trial comes. Waiting to pray till we are in the midst of trouble is the path to failure. The soul that is at rest is at rest because of the daily routine (3:13) of coming before the Lord corporately and individually.

The argument culminates in 4:12, with the Word of God central to the process, as it alone exposes the hardness of our hearts and gives birth to faith (Romans 10:17).