I'm malleable (hopefully not to a fault)

OK, I was wrong. Or I should say: my view has changed. I never know if I’m right, but when I change my view (which is not all that rare) it is hoped that I end up in a state that is “righter” not “wronger”.

That may be the single clumsiest sentence I’ve penned in some time. So let’s just get to what I’m talking about. I'm talking about Hebrews, chapter the 4th, verses 9-10. Now, I always liked the ESV translation:

⁹ So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, ¹⁰ for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. (Heb. 4:9-10, ESV)

But... let's look at

⁹ So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. ¹⁰ For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. (Heb. 4:9-10, NASB) ¹

And just for fun, a translation I’ve been exploring recently, Young's Literal Translation:

⁹ there doth remain, then, a sabbatic rest to the people of God, ¹⁰ for he who did enter into his rest, he also rested from his works, as God from His own. (Heb. 4:9-10, YLT)

The ESV fit my interpretation that the “whoever” in v.10 refers to believers, and that the Sabbath rest refers to, well, the millennium in a post-millennial sense. I.e., the golden age that we are in, currently, because of the finished work of Christ.

But I think I was wrong.

Other translations, such as (but not limited to the NASB and YLT) are more consonant with the view that the one entering rest is not the believer, but Christ.

What really convinced me is not the weight of another translation, but the exposition on the analogy to God finishing the good work of creation and entering rest. It is much more fitting to compare this with Christ finishing His work and resting than to garden variety believers whose works, in terms of salvation, are of no merit.

My pastor won me over to his view.

But it wasn’t a total victory—he obliquely implied a late date for the penning of Revelation. I am holding fast to my belief that the late date is a tradition based on scant evidence—and that an early date is possible—until you pry my partial-preterism from my cold, dead hands.

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¹I’m nothing if not hip, so I now say “NAZ-BEE” not “N A S B”. Because that's what cool people say.