Timothy Ashton
Mat 11:28-30 “Come to Me all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke on you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”
Jesus says “Come to Me all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. The words ‘are heavy laden’ here mean – ‘to overburden with ceremony or spiritual anxiety’ So Jesus is not speaking about physical labour and burdens, but ceremonial and spiritual burdens. Because just prior to this He was talking about the law and the prophets (look at verse 11-15). So, Jesus is referring to those who are labouring and are overburdened with ceremonial and spiritually anxiety because of the heavy demands of the law.
Young’s Literal Translation says it this way… ‘Come unto me, all you labouring and burdened ones, and I will give you rest. Again I confirm that Jesus is not talking about physical labour, because in Ephesians 4:28 God tells us to labour with our hands, and God never contradicts Himself.
What is the benefit that Jesus promises us here? ‘Come unto me, all ye labouring and burdened ones, and I will give you rest, take up my yoke upon you, and learn from me, because I am meek and humble in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ Jesus promises to give us rest from the requirements of the law that burden our souls.
In Hebrews chapters 3 and 4 God tells us to labour to enter into His rest. This is the rest that Jesus is referring to here. Heb 3:15 “While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. But with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.”
Heb 4:1 says “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, ‘As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world’. For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest. Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief: Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.”
What is our responsibility to receive this promise?
“Come unto me, all ye labouring and burdened ones, and I will give you rest, take up my yoke upon you, and learn from me, because I am meek and humble in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. We only need to look to Jesus, believe in Him and set our affections on Him, and He will do the rest.
“Come unto me, all ye labouring and burdened ones, and I will give you rest, take up my yoke upon you, and learn from me, because I am meek and humble in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
We know the law was not easy to keep. But Jesus makes life easy when we walk together with Him and He doesn’t put any burdens that are heavy to carry on us. That’s His promise to us when we live under the New Covenant of Grace.
Jesus came to fulfil all the obligations and requirements of the Law for us, and in doing so, free us from those heavy laborious burdens.
In Genesis 2:2 When God finished His work of creation, He rested from His work.
In John 19:30 When Jesus finished His work of redemption, He said “it is finished” and then He bowed (or rested) His head and gave up His Spirit.
One Bible commentary says this: It is finished! and he bowed his head and gave up the ghost — What is finished? The Law is fulfilled as never before, nor since, in His “obedience unto death, even the death of the cross”; Messianic prophecy is accomplished; Redemption is completed; “He hath finished the transgression, and made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness, and sealed up the vision and prophecy, and anointed a Holy of Holies”; He has inaugurated the kingdom of God and given birth to a new world.
A few days later Jesus ascended to His father and “sat down” at His right hand, where He rested from His work.
This is why Jesus can and will give us rest, when we come to Him and are joined to Him or yoked together with Him, so we can benefit from His finished work, not ours.
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