“And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief” (Hebrews 3:18-19 ESV).
Israel’s refusal to enter the land of God’s promise following their departure from Egypt has been well-documented over the course of Hebrews chapter three. However, their reluctance to follow God’s direction should prompt us to ask an important question: “why?”
We can find one potential answer in the word “disobedient” as found in the passage quoted above. While this word is commonly used to describe those who are insubordinate, it also carries several other shades of meaning in the original language of this passage. Those definitions include…
- To refuse belief. (1)
- Not to allow one’s self to be persuaded. (2)
- To refuse to be persuaded. (3)
Taken together, these definitions tell us that Israel’s rejection was volitional. In other words, they refused to believe God or follow His guidance because they didn’t want to believe or follow Him. Unfortunately, this characteristic was not unique to Old Testament Israel, for there were others who responded to Jesus in much the same way.
For instance, Jesus once resurrected a dead man named Lazarus as recorded for us in John chapter twelve. Lazarus had been entombed for several days when Jesus arrived at his burial place and he was unmistakably dead. When Jesus restored him to life, many responded by placing their faith in Him as a result. However, there were others who responded differently: “…the leading priests decided to kill Lazarus, too, for it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus” (John 12:10-11 NLT).
So much like the overwhelming majority of Israelites who left the nation of Egypt, this second group refused to be persuaded by the evidence of God’s work in their midst. Instead, they sought to hide the evidence of Lazarus’ resurrection by ending his life again.
In a similar manner, those who do not wish to acknowledge God can always find a means to justify their refusal to be persuaded. Thus, as one Biblical scholar concludes…
“…the New Testament maintains that unbelief is generated not so much by intellectual causes as by moral and psychological ones. The problem is not that there is insufficient evidence to convince rational beings that there is a God, but that rational beings have a natural hostility to the being of God… Man’s desire is not that the omnipotent, personal Judeo-Christian God exist, but that He not exist. The New Testament sees not only atheism but human-fabricated religion as being grounded in such antipathy toward the true God.” (4)
(1) G544 apeitheo Mounce Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/apeitheo
(2) G544 apeitheo Thayer’s Greek Lexicon https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g544/kjv/tr/0-1/
(3) G544 apeitheo Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words © 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers https://studybible.info/vines/Disobedience,%20Disobedient
(4) R.C. (Robert Charles) Sproul, If There’s a God, Why Are There Atheists?: Why Atheists Believe in Unbelief, Revised edition of the book The psychology of Atheism. (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1978).