Brother, you contradict the message of the passage with your human tradition. The passage plainly says that the "rest" is the rest of God on the "seventh day" of creation.
God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. For this good news—that God has prepared this rest—has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of those who listened to God. For only we who believe can enter his rest. As for the others, God said, “In my anger I took an oath: ‘They will never enter my place of rest,’” even though this rest has been ready since he made the world. We know it is ready because of the place in the Scriptures where it mentions the seventh day: “On the seventh day God rested from all his work.” But in the other passage God said, “They will never enter my place of rest.” (Hebrews 4:1-5 NLT)
That is a different rest not available to those who died in the desert as the passage plainly tells us they could have entered had they "shared the faith of those who listened to God".
And who was it who rebelled against God, even though they heard his voice? Wasn’t it the people Moses led out of Egypt? And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the wilderness? And to whom was God speaking when he took an oath that they would never enter his rest? Wasn’t it the people who disobeyed him? So we see that because of their unbelief they were not able to enter his rest. (Hebrews 3:16-19 NLT)
What is made obsolete are the animal sacrifices, which were a stand-in for Jesus' forgiveness as our High Priest in the earthly "copy" of the true temple in heaven.
- Mount Sinai - Animal sacrifices in an earthly temple "copy" as a stand-in, borrowing credit from the future daily of Jesus as our High Priest in the heavenly temple.
- Mount Zion - Jesus in the heavenly temple as our High Priest to forgive sins daily.
Read on and you will see that Paul is talking about human rules and not God's rules.
You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires. (Colossians 2:20-23 NLT)
God calls us through Paul to keep the true Sabbath of God rescued from the human tradition of Judaism since Joshua in the new covenant. The "rest" spoken of in Hebrews 3 and 4 "has been ready since He made the world". God did not give them this "rest" for 40 years with Manna! They kept a seventh day Sabbath from morning to morning, which was right in Eden, but not near the Promised Land. When they reached the Promised Land, they switched to a Sabbath from evening to evening, which is not a day of the week as defined in Genesis from morning to morning and confirmed below, because the Sabbath remembered is in the time zone of creation.
long after the Sabbath (evening), as it dawns beyond Saturday (morning), came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, to see the tomb. (Mathew 28:1, my own translation)
Although God gave them His Sabbath in the Promised Land, under Joshua they did not understand the "rest" of God's Sabbath to keep the Sabbath outside the time zone of the Promised Land. To correct this misunderstanding since Joshua, "God set another time for entering His rest, and that time is today", in the new covenant with the call in
Hebrews 3 and 4 to keep God's true Sabbath "rest". The "rest" that God wants us to enter "today", in the new covenant when believers find themselves living outside the time zone of the Promised Land, "has been ready since He made the world".
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience. (Hebrews 4:8-11 NIV)
United in our hope for the soon return of Jesus, Jorge
The 4th commandment was the “sign” of the Sinai Covenant now found to be “obsolete” in Hebrews 8:13.
Paul revealed the temporary nature of the Sinai Covenant in Galatians 3:16-29. Paul said the law was “added” 430 years “after” the promise made to Abraham “until” the seed (Christ) could come to whom the promise was made. Jesus used the same word “until” in Matthew 5:17-18.
In Galatians 4:24-31 Paul told the Galatian believers to “cast out” the Sinai Covenant of “bondage”.
We are not come to Mount Sinai in Hebrews 12:18. Instead, we are come to the New Covenant of Mount Zion in Hebrews 12:22-24.
Col 2:16
Let no one, then, judge you in eating or in drinking, or in respect of a feast, or of a new moon, or of
sabbaths,
Col 2:17 which are a shadow of the coming things,
and the body is of the Christ; (YLT)
Early Church Fathers who lived before the Council of Nicaea on the Sabbath:
Ignatius of Antioch
If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death—whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master(Letter to the Magnesians(shorter) Chapter IX.—Let us live with Christ [A.D. 110]).
During the Sabbath He continued under the earth in the tomb in which Joseph of Arimathæa had laid Him. At the dawning of the Lord’s day He arose from the dead, according to what was spoken by Himself, “As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man also be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” The day of the preparation, then, comprises the passion; the Sabbath embraces the burial; the Lord’s Day contains the resurrection(The Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians Longer Versions. Chapter IX.—Reference to the history of Christ.)
Justin Martyr
The Lawgiver is present, yet you do not see Him; to the poor the Gospel is preached, the blind see, yet you do not understand. You have now need of a second circumcision, though you glory greatly in the flesh. The new law requires you to keep perpetual sabbath, and you, because you are idle for one day, suppose you are pious, not discerning why this has been commanded you: and if you eat unleavened bread, you say the will of God has been fulfilled. The Lord our God does not take pleasure in such observances: if there is any perjured person or a thief among you, let him cease to be so; if any adulterer, let him repent; then he has kept the sweet and true sabbaths of God. If any one has impure hands, let him wash and be pure.(Dialogue with Trypho the Jew Chapter XII.—The Jews violate the eternal law, and interpret ill that of Moses.)
For we too would observe the fleshly circumcision, and the Sabbaths, and in short all the feasts, if we did not know for what reason they were enjoined you,—namely, on account of your transgressions and the hardness of your hearts. For if we patiently endure all things contrived against us by wicked men and demons, so that even amid cruelties unutterable, death and torments, we pray for mercy to those who inflict such things upon us, and do not wish to give the least retort to any one, even as the new Lawgiver commanded us: how is it, Trypho, that we would not observe those rites which do not harm us, —I speak of fleshly circumcision, and Sabbaths, and feasts?(Dialogue with Trypho the Jew Chapter XVIII.—Christians would observe the law, if they did not know why it was instituted. [A.D. 155]).
And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday,1 all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration.(First Apology Chapter LXVII.—Weekly worship of the Christians. [A.D. 155]).
“Wherefore, Trypho, I will proclaim to you, and to those who wish to become proselytes, the divine message which I heard from that man. Do you see that the elements are not idle, and keep no Sabbaths? Remain as you were born. For if there was no need of circumcision before Abraham, or of the observance of Sabbaths, of feasts and sacrifices, before Moses; no more need is there of them now, after that, according to the will of God, Jesus Christ the Son of God has been born without sin, of a virgin sprung from the stock of Abraham. For when Abraham himself was in uncircumcision, he was justified and blessed by reason of the faith which he reposed in God, as the Scripture tells. Moreover, the Scriptures and the facts themselves compel us to admit that He received circumcision for a sign, and not for righteousness.(The Second Apology of Justin for the Christians Addressed to the Roman Senate. Chapter XXIII.—The opinion of the Jews regarding the law does an injury to God.)
“As, then, circumcision began with Abraham, and the Sabbath and sacrifices and offerings and feasts with Moses, and it has been proved they were enjoined on account of the hardness of your people’s heart, so it was necessary, in accordance with the Father’s will, that they should have an end in Him who was born of a virgin, of the family of Abraham and tribe of Judah, and of David; in Christ the Son of God, who was proclaimed as about to come to all the world, to be the everlasting law and the everlasting covenant, even as the forementioned prophecies show.(The Second Apology of Justin for the Christians Addressed to the Roman Senate. Chapter XLIII.—He concludes that the law had an end in Christ, who was born of the Virgin.)
Tertullian
“[L]et him who contends that the Sabbath is still to be observed as a balm of salvation, and circumcision on the eighth day . . . teach us that, for the time past, righteous men kept the Sabbath or practiced circumcision, and were thus rendered ‘friends of God.’ For if circumcision purges a man, since God made Adam uncircumcised, why did he not circumcise him, even after his sinning, if circumcision purges? . . . Therefore, since God originated Adam uncircumcised and unobservant of the Sabbath, consequently his offspring also, Abel, offering him sacrifices, uncircumcised and unobservant of the Sabbath, was by him [God] commended [Gen. 4:1–7, Heb. 11:4]. . . . Noah also, uncircumcised—yes, and unobservant of the Sabbath—God freed from the deluge. For Enoch too, most righteous man, uncircumcised and unobservant of the Sabbath, he translated from this world, who did not first taste death in order that, being a candidate for eternal life, he might show us that we also may, without the burden of the law of Moses, please God”(An Answer to the Jews Chapter II.—The Law Anterior to Moses. [A.D. 203]).
