What s the Difference?

Transcription

1 What s the Difference? January 15, 2017 Hebrews 10: For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay." And again, "The Lord will judge his people." 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. 35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. 37 For, "Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; 38 but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." 39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. 1 More study helps at

2 10:26 if we This is not a typical conditional sentence. Possibly the GENITIVE ABSOLUTE ( hamartanontōn hēmōn) is functioning as the PROTASIS (if clause). Surprisingly the author grammatically identifies himself with the wilfully sinning group, but this may be a literary technique (editorial plural) similar to 2:3. The first person does not automatically identify him with the group spoken of in vv This same type of literary technique using the first person can be found in 1 Cor. 13:1 3. sinning willfully Wilfully is placed first in Greek for emphasis. The word is possibly analogous to the high handed sin of the OT (cf. note on 10:7). The grammatical form of the verb (PRESENT ACTIVE PARTICIPLE GENITIVE MASCULINE FIRST PERSON PLURAL) has been used by some to suggest that this refers to believers who continue in sin. If they would cease sinning they would avoid the judgment. However, this does not fit the ominous context of chapter 6 and 10: This is a life or death warning, a once out, always out warning! Rejection of Jesus in the presence of the clear light of revelation produces the darkest possible spiritual night. after receiving the knowledge of the truth The VERB in English, receiving, is an AORIST ACTIVE INFINITIVE. This is the crux of the interpretive problem. If they once received the full experiential knowledge ( epignōskō) of the (DEFINITE ARTICLE) truth; this sounds like believers! This is the same theological issue as 6:4 6. It must be admitted there is no easy, clear, obvious interpretation. My personal fear is that my own biases may dominate a very clear text. I must resist a systematic, denominational agenda which silences this powerful, inspired text. The issue is not sinning believers. The issue is believers who cease to believe! I cannot accept a theology that (1) makes salvation dependant on human performance or (2) turns assurance into a dogmatic pronouncement totally unrelated to the Christian life. I reject a theology of lost, saved, lost, saved, lost, saved! I also reject a theology of once saved, always saved which is unrelated to the continuing belief and lifestyle faith. Therefore, what do I do? I exegete the text: in its historical setting, in its literary context, in its grammatical expression, in its choice of terms, in its genre, and its parallel passages. I must admit that if all I had to work with was 6:4 6 and 10:26 29, there would be little option but that believers fall away from grace. However, 1. the historical setting, the Jewishness of the book, and the presence of persecution are major issues 2. the literary context (cf. 5:11 6:12) and the three groups (cf. us, you, and those who ) seem to reveal a Jewish setting of believing Jews and unbelieving Jews worshiping and fellowshipping in a synagogue setting 3. the use of so many OT quotes related to the tabernacle, the use of the term synagogue (cf. 10:25), and the roll call of faith, all point toward a reader familiar with the OT 2 More study helps at

3 Therefore, after exegeting the text I think the best overall explanation (not without its own problems and assumptions) is the supposed historical reconstruction of R. E. Glaze, Jr. in Easy Salvation, published by Insight Press, Hebrews seems to be a specialized book, to a select group. Does that mean it has no message for today? The warnings of this inspired author (along with James, Peter, and the writer of I and II John) should motivate believers to continue to run the race! The answer does not lie in an easy believism, nor in a fear-generated legalism, but in a godly life of faith, a striving toward holiness, produced by an attitude of gratitude in a full, finished, and final salvation (cf. 10:14) through 1 Christ by faith In these verses the apostle gives a vehement enforcement of his preceding exhortation, showing what dreadful consequences flow from totally neglecting his command. He does this by, first, stating the nature of the sin involved; second, by showing that it is impossible to be delivered from it; and, third, by saying what punishment will inevitably follow. If we deliberately keep on sinning. The apostle places himself with them, as he often does when rebuking them. Deliberately. That is, obstinately, maliciously, from choice, without compulsion or fear; and this is all that the word will bear. It is clear from these opening words of this verse what sin is intended, which is then denounced. It is the sin of renouncing the truth of the Gospel and its promises after we have been convinced of its truth and experienced its power. This is done deliberately, and not when taken by surprise or falling through a sudden temptation, as when Peter denied Christ. This sinning deliberately does not refer to those times of spiritual darkness that may press down on our minds, even though they are evil and dangerous. To sin deliberately happens when people through choice and from an evil heart of unbelief depart from the living God. They publicly declare that God was not in Christ s sacrifice. (See comments on verse 29.) 27. When a person under the law was guilty of a sin that carried the death penalty, and which no sacrifice could expiate, such as adultery, murder, and blasphemy, he could only look forward to the fearful prospect of the carrying out of his sentence. And it is clear that in this context the apostle argues from the less to the greater: If it was so, that this was the case for the person who sinned against Moses law, how much more must it be so for those who sin against the Gospel, whose sin is incomparably greater, and whose punishment is more severe? Judgment. This is not something that is dubious and that may or may not happen. It is not an 1 Utley, R. J. (1999). The Superiority of the New Covenant: Hebrews (Vol. Volume 10, pp ). Marshall, Texas: Bible Lessons International. 3 More study helps at

4 irrationally severe punishment that is threatened, but it is a just and righteous sentence, a punishment that fits the sin and crime. Judgment is sometimes taken for punishment itself (Psalm 9:16; James 2:13; 1 Peter 4:17; 2 Peter 2:3). But most often it refers to the sentence of judicial condemnation and trial, passed on to the offender who is to be then punished. In this way it expresses the general judgment that will fall on mankind on the last day (Matthew 10:15; 11:22, 24; 12:36; Mark 6:11; 2 Peter 2:9, 3:7; 1 John 4:17). Raging fire. The punishment and destruction of those sinners is achieved through raging fire. God himself is in Scripture said to be a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24, 9:3; Isaiah 33:14; Hebrews 12:29). This indicates God s essential holiness and righteousness. The judgment of God concerning the punishment of sin, as an effect of his will in a way consonant with the holiness of his nature, is called fire (1 Corinthians 3:13). But that is not the fire meant here. Here, the fire is devouring, consuming, destroying, matching the severity of God s justice, as in Deuteronomy 32:22; Psalm 11:6; Isaiah 9:5; 30:33; 66:15; Amos 7:4; Matthew 18:8; 2 Thessalonians 1:8. So, this raging fire speaks of God s holy nature, his righteous actions, and the dreadful severity of the punishment itself Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 28. On the testimony of two or three witnesses. This law is laid down in Deuteronomy 17:6, 19:13, and Numbers 35:30. God s judgment could only be carried out if two or three witnesses were available to testify. The Son of God. Whoever rejects, refuses, forsakes the Gospel, rejects and forsakes the person of Christ. Trampled. It might be thought that the Son of God is only involved here in a small degree. No, says the apostle, for he who is guilty of this sin tramples on the Son of God, that is, treads him underfoot. This word expresses the highest kind of scorn, contempt, and malice among men. To tread under foot is to despise and insult, as is plain from the metaphor. This contempt is directed toward both the person of Christ and his authority For we know him who said, It is mine to avenge; I will repay, and again, The Lord will judge his people. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Fall into the hands of. To fall into the hands of someone is a common expression and refers to anyone falling into and under the power of his enemies. When a person falls into the hands of his enemies there is no law or love between him and them, and he can expect nothing but death. This is what it is to fall into the hands of the living God. There is nothing in the law, 4 More study helps at

5 there is nothing in the Gospel that can be appealed to to stop the punishment. A dreadful thing. People are prone not to think about this. But God s judgment exists and will be dreadful, terrible, and eternally destructive of everything that is not good Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. These verses exhort the Hebrews to avoid the evil they are warned against. Hence the apostle returns to his previous themes about perseverance so that they can overcome all their difficulties. He begins by telling them to do something that will help them in their situation: Remember those earlier days, verse 32. He then describes their suffering in those earlier days, verses He reminds them how they acted in these situations and how they were enabled to do this, verse You sympathized. Literally, you suffered together. They were not unconcerned about other people s suffering just because they were free from suffering themselves. Compassion consists of, first, a real grief and troubled mind about the imprisonment of others, as if we were ourselves in prison with them; second, great prayer support for their deliverance (Acts 12); third, ministering to the physical needs, as many did to Paul (Acts 24:23); fourth, not being ashamed of their chains or sufferings (2 Timothy 1:16 17); and, fifth, being prepared to undertake dangerous action (Romans 16:4). The apostle does not mean a heartless, fruitless, ineffective pity, but rather, a real practical concern for the welfare of those imprisoned So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. 36. The apostle does not accuse them of lacking perseverance, but reminds them about the necessity of continually exercising patience. Perseverance is the grace of suffering Christians (James 1:4 5) and the correct reaction to all tribulations (Romans 5:4 5) For in just a very little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved. Note three things in these verses: first, a proposal about the object of faith, which is the coming of Christ, verse 37; second, the necessity for faith in this matter, and a warning about the definite ruin of those who shrink back, verse 38; and, third, the apostle s judgment about their faith, verse 39. My righteous one will live by faith. Three times in his letters the apostle uses this 5 More study helps at

6 prophetic assertion from Habakkuk 2:3 4 (Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11). The person referred to here is said to be my righteous one, a person really made just, or justified by faith. What is principally meant here is that characteristic of a righteous person that is the opposite of pride and unbelief, which makes people shrink back from God. The righteous one is humble, meek, sincere, submissive to God s will, waiting to do his wishes. Sincere faith will carry people through all difficulties, hazards, and troubles, to the certain 2 enjoyment of eternal blessedness. HEBREWS 10:26 31 Warning of Judgment 26 For if we sin deliberately and knowingly after having received the knowledge of the truth, there is no further sacrifice for sin. 27 Instead, there is a fearful prospect of judgment, and a hungry fire which will consume the opponents. 28 If someone sets aside the law of Moses, they are to be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses, with no pity. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be appropriate for people who trample the son of God underfoot, and dishonour the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, and scorn the spirit of grace? 30 We know the one who said, Vengeance belongs to me; I will pay everyone back, and again, The Lord will judge his people. 31 It s a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. It was said of the Roman emperor Gaius Caligula, who went mad and did all sorts of bizarre things, that he took to inventing new laws, and having them carved in small letters on tablets and then placed high up on walls, too high for people to read them. This then gave him an excuse to punish anyone he wanted for not keeping them. They hadn t been able to see them, but ignorance wasn t accepted as an excuse. Imperial edicts had to be obeyed. The sheer brutal irrationality of such a practice alerts us to something which is true in many more reasonable codes of law: that people who genuinely don t know the law, and break it, have a good excuse. There are times, of course, when ignorance doesn t count. You can hardly imagine a murderer being let off because he or she hadn t realized there was a law against killing people. Sometimes ignorance is wilful, or even culpable; but at other times it holds good as a genuine excuse. I didn t know there was a law in Montreal forbidding you to park your car with a wheel on the footpath, like people do in England to keep narrow roads clear. When I parked like that, the day after we arrived, the policeman grudgingly accepted my explanation and didn t give me a fine. Ancient Judaism had very clear rules about sins that had been committed in ignorance: they could and should be atoned for. The same was true, if anything even more so, for unwilling 2 Owen, J. (1998). Hebrews (pp ). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books. 6 More study helps at

7 sins, something someone knew was wrong and did by sheer accident, without intending to. You can see this dramatically acted out in Acts 23:1 5, when Paul rebukes the high priest, is himself rebuked for doing so, and responds that he hadn t realized the person addressing him actually was the high priest. Here his offence is both ignorant and unwilling; he didn t know Ananias was high priest, and he had had no intention of speaking roughly to a high priest should he meet one. As any law student will tell you, to prove a crime there has to be evidence both that the person actually did the deed and that he or she had what is called mens rea, a guilty mind; in other words, that they had intended to do it. It hadn t been an accident. In the ancient Jewish codes of laws and sacrifices, it was made very clear that the sin-offering, the central sacrifice dealing with sin, was specifically to cover sins that were committed either ignorantly or unwillingly. (The key passages are found in Leviticus 4, Numbers 15, and elsewhere in the same books.) If people sinned deliberately, knowing that something was wrong and choosing to do it none the less, there was no sacrifice prescibed for them; such a person was, in the old phrase, to be cut off from among the people, in other words, put to death. There was no place, especially among the nomadic and endangered wandering Israelites envisaged by the law, for people who deliberately and knowingly flouted the law by which Israel was both defined and defended. All this background is in mind as Hebrews launches into the most fearsome warning in the New Testament (apart from some on the lips of Jesus himself). The writer is not content with issuing an invitation to come boldly into God s presence in worship, as in the previous section. He realizes, and wants his readers to realize it too, that the alternative is to go back to a place where there is no promise of new covenant blessing. Someone who has heard the gospel of Jesus the Messiah, and has come into fellowship with the people who hold it fast and live by it, and who then turns away and declares that it s all rubbish and he or she doesn t want anything to do with it such a person, says Hebrews, is trampling God s son underfoot, treating the covenant blood as though it were meaningless, and despising the spirit of God through whom comes saving grace. The question of who precisely such warnings are aimed at is one which bothered the early church from the second and third century onwards, and ought still to concern us today. Some saw it as referring to anyone who, at any point after baptism, committed any serious sin. That s why, in the third and fourth centuries in particular, many prominent church attenders put off baptism until the last possible moment either before death, or, if they were called to ministry, before ordination! They were frightened lest, by subsequent sinning of whatever kind, they might forfeit their entire salvation. Others read it more in the light of what happened when persecution arose. Such passages as this, it was thought, applied principally to people who, under threat of physical violence or death, were prepared to blaspheme against Jesus and revile him. We in our day tend to react in the opposite way. We are so unused to thinking of judgment at all, or of God as in any way wanting to be angry with anyone, that we bend over backwards to downplay warnings like this one and suppose that they only apply in the most extreme cases. 7 More study helps at

8 We are probably as greatly deceived, in this respect, as were those in earlier centuries who treated these passages as a warning not so much against sinning as against baptism. It is absolutely basic to both Judaism and Christianity that there will come a time when the living God, the creator, will bring his just and wise rule to bear fully and finally on the world. On that day, as unanimous early tradition insists, those who wilfully stand out against his rule, live a life which scorns the standards which emerge in creation itself and in God s good intention for it, and spurn all attempts at reformation or renewal, will face a punishment of destruction. The images of fire and vengeance they are only images, but that doesn t mean the reality is any the less fearful are as frequent in the New Testament, if not more so, as they are in the Old. If there is no place in God s world of justice and mercy for someone who has systematically ordered their life so as to become an embodiment of injustice and malice, then there must come a point where unless God is going to declare that human choices were just a game and didn t matter after all God endorses the choices that his human creatures have made. I know, of course, that there are other views held on these matters today, but this seems to me the one which comes closest to what we find in the New Testament. This passage, then, is a warning about a more specific danger: that someone who has come close to Christian faith, and perhaps shared in the life of Christian worship, will then turn round and publicly deny it all. As we noted when looking at 6:1 8, this seems to relate to a quite specific situation of persecution, coming from the direction of non-christian Judaism, directed (as that of Saul of Tarsus had been) against fellow Jews who were embracing Jesus as Messiah. This will become clearer, once more, as the present chapter proceeds. But the passage remains as a warning to us as well. If we have got as far at least as reading Hebrews, and trying to see what it might mean for us, we should be all the more eager that there will never come a time when we might give in to the temptation to declare that the whole thing was worthless. The living God, to whom everyone will render account (4:13), is neither to be trifled with nor presumed upon. It was after all a nineteenth-century cynic, not a Christian believer, who said, God will pardon me; that s his job. HEBREWS 10:32 39 Suffering in Hope 32 But remember the earlier times! When you were first enlightened, you went through great struggles and suffering. 33 Sometimes you were exposed to public reproach and physical abuse. Sometimes you stood alongside people who were being treated in that way. 34 You even shared the sufferings of those who were imprisoned. When people looted your property, you actually welcomed it joyfully, because you knew that you had a better possession, a lasting one. 35 So don t throw away your confidence. It carries a great reward. 36 What you need is patience, you see; then, when you ve done what God wants, you will receive the promise. 8 More study helps at

9 37 For in just a little while from now, The Coming One will come, and won t delay; 38 But my righteous one will live by faith; And if he hesitates, my soul will not delight in him. 39 We are not among the hesitators, who are destroyed! We are people of faith, and our lives will be kept safe. The prophet saw his world crumbling all around him. He had watched and prayed and warned the people of what would happen if they didn t turn away from their evil ways. He had hoped that some at least would listen, and that the nation as a whole would gradually be brought round to hear and obey. He had waited and watched and hoped. And feared. Because he knew what the result might be if they didn t. And he was right. Here they came now: a great enemy, fierce and strong, swift as a leopard, menacing as wolves, laughing at opposition, sweeping all before them. Why didn t God act and stop them? Why did he let wicked pagans like this have their way in the world, worshipping their own military might and scooping up whole nations the way fish are gathered in a net? The prophet is Habakkuk, seeing the people of Babylon sweeping through the ancient Near East, with vulnerable Israel in their path. He realizes that there is no escape. This, it seems, is what God has decreed. And he finds himself called to a different ministry from what he might have expected as a prophet: summoning people simply to wait, to go on praising God even if everything goes wrong (Habakkuk 3:17 18). In the middle of it all he has a word, like a little motto, for those who remain faithful, who cling on to the God of Israel even when Israel as a nation seems to be drowning before the pagan onslaught. He contrasts the faithful with those who think they can manage by themselves. Look at the proud, he says. Their spirit is not right in them. The righteous one, however, shall live by faith. This saying, made famous by Paul s quoting it in Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11, emerges here (verse 38) as well. Clearly it was a well-known text in early Christianity. What Habakkuk seems to have meant was that, when everything all around seemed to be turning upside down and inside out, God s true people would hold on and last the course. Faith was what would matter God s faithfulness to them, and their answering faithfulness to God (the word faith can mean faithfulness in both Hebrew and Greek). The New Testament writers seem to have latched on to the sentence in Habakkuk not least because they believed that the time of trouble for Israel that had begun with the Babylonian invasion had continued, more or less, right through to their own day; and that now, with the coming of the Messiah, God was at last making the way 9 More study helps at

10 through to the new age in which salvation, rescue and deliverance would come to birth. Study Notes Hebrews picks up, as well, the previous verse from Habakkuk (2:3): It will surely come, it will not delay. One might suppose that a time-lag of several hundred years would count as a delay ; but the point here in Hebrews 10:37 is that, with the coming of the Messiah, the devastating judgment on the one hand, and the rescue from it on the other, are not far off. If (as may well have been the case) the writer lived to see the awful war between the Jews and the Romans, from AD 66 to 70, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem itself, I think he would have said, Yes: that s what I was talking about. The judgment on Jerusalem (the centre from which persecution had come against those Jews, such as the readers of this letter, who had hailed Jesus as Messiah), could not but be seen as deliverance by those who had undergone the trials spoken of in verses These verses, in fact, give us a clearer indication than almost anywhere else in the letter of the situation which the readers were confronting. Right from the start they had faced terrible times, just like the Christians in Acts 8 or 1 Thessalonians 2. Indeed, the readers of this letter may include some of those very people, or others who had become Christians at the same time; after all, Paul tells us that he had himself been a persecutor of the church (Galatians 1:13 and elsewhere), and that was in the very early days; he himself was then persecuted by his own fellow Jews, as he describes graphically in 2 Corinthians 11. We don t have to look too far, alas, to see contemporary examples of the same thing. Wherever a regime exists which claims absolute power and regards Christian faith and witness as a threat, Christians will come under attack, as we saw with Eastern European Communism in the cold war years, and have seen again with the situation in China and in many Muslim countries. Many Christian readers today know exactly what it s like to suffer public ridicule and physical abuse, to stand alongside those who suffer it, and to find their property being looted and the authorities looking on and doing nothing. The writer insists, though, that such horrible and frightening moments are to be seen and, he says, were seen by those early Christians as themselves a sign of hope. The outrageous lawlessness of plundering other people s property with apparent sanction from the authorities is a pointer to the fact that, though we still live in the evil present age, there is coming a new age in which God will give his people a better possession (another use of better, which as we saw is one of Hebrews favourite words). This steers us towards the great picture of the next chapter, in which the writer will draw our attention to the way in which the heroes of Old Testament faith were looking forward to the new world that God would make, in which they would obtain the true inheritance. Once again, then, his argument, now being rounded off before the final main section of the letter in chapters 11 and 12, returns to the theme of confident hope and patience. The troubles you re going through at the moment, he says, are just what you should expect, granted the fact that the promised new age has already broken in to the present time through Jesus himself or, if you like, that Jesus has gone on ahead of us into God s future world, and is already there on our behalf and that we are therefore out of tune with the present world because we are in tune with 10 More study helps at

11 the future one. Once you realize that, you have every possible motive to hold on in faith, not to hesitate and waver (verse 39). Those who hesitate or shrink back are in danger, as he said in the previous passage, of losing everything. Those who hold on in faith, as Jesus himself had 3 promised, will gain their lives These verses take up the allusion to God s judgment at the end of v 25 and develop the warning about rebelling against God found in earlier passages ( cf. 2:1 4; 3:7 4:11; 6:4 8). The NIV translation if we deliberately keep on sinning rightly conveys the sense of the present participle sinning in Greek. However, it would be a mistake to think that this merely referred to the sinful behaviour which is sadly evident in all of our lives. The context and the parallel with previous passages indicate that the writer has on view the specific sin of apostasy or continuing rejection of Christ. If, through the gospel, people have received the knowledge of the truth and then turn their backs on that truth, no sacrifice for sins is left. There is no alternative way of forgiveness and acceptance with God apart from the death of his Son. To abandon that once-for-all sacrifice for sins is to abandon all hope of salvation. All that remains for such people is a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Their fate is the same as those who never turned to Christ or who actively opposed the gospel! Even under the first covenant, anyone who rejected the law of Moses in deliberate rebellion died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses (Dt. 17:2 7). How much more severely must someone be punished who renounces and opposes the provisions of the new covenant? The awful nature of apostasy is described in three parallel clauses. The person who turns away from Christ has actually trampled the Son of God under foot, treading him with contempt by denying his true nature and identity. Such a person has also treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him. Christ s death inaugurates the blessings of the new covenant and brings us into a sanctified or holy relationship with God ( cf. 10:10; 13:12). To abandon that relationship is to treat his blood as unholy (Gk. koinon, common, unclean ) and not as the sacred means chosen by God to achieve our salvation. The person who turns away from Christ has also insulted the Spirit of grace. The Spirit of God brings us to trust in the grace of God, and to take hold of the benefits of Christ s work for ourselves ( cf. 6:4 5). The Spirit also distributes God s gracious gifts, confirming the truth of the gospel ( cf. 2:4). The inevitability of the punishment awaiting apostate Christians is then suggested by two quotations from the OT. It is God s role to avenge or repay sin of every kind (Dt. 32:35). But God has specifically revealed that he will judge his people ( cf. Dt. 32:36), vindicating the true by removing the false. It is a dreadful thing to fall into God s hands when he is acting like that in judgment As in ch. 6, a severe warning is followed by words of encouragement and hope. Here we are given some helpful insights into the experience of the first readers, not long after their 3 Wright, T. (2004). Hebrews for Everyone (pp ). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 11 More study helps at

12 conversion ( after you had received the light). They are called to remember what they endured ( you stood your ground, Gk. hypemeinate). Similar words are then used in v 36 and in 12:1, 2, 3 and 7 to emphasize the need for continuing endurance. Their experience of persecution is described with an athletic metaphor: it was a great contest in the face of suffering ( cf. 12:1 3). They suffered themselves, being publicly exposed to insult and persecution, and shared in the suffering of others, standing side by side with those who were so treated. In the Introduction it was argued that this persecution, which involved no bloodshed (12:4), could be related to trouble in Rome when Claudius became emperor. Their sympathy with those in prison and their joyful acceptance of the seizure of their possessions was made possible by their certainty about God s promises. They knew that Jesus had made it possible for them to inherit better and lasting possessions ( cf. 13:14) and this controlled their thinking about the present and its values This recollection of their faith, hope and love in earlier days becomes the basis for an appeal not to throw away your confidence. Confidence of free and open access to God, which is given by the blood of Jesus (19; cf. 4:16), must be held fast and openly expressed (3:6; cf. 4:14; 10:23). The confidence in God which the readers previously demonstrated must not be abandoned or lightly discarded, no matter what difficulties they might now be facing. It will be richly rewarded ( cf. 6:10). Salvation does not depend on human effort, since it is totally the work of God. But, as long as salvation remains a promise, we need to persevere (lit. you have need of endurance ) in faith, in order to do God s will and receive what he has promised A special encouragement to persevere in faith is found in the assurance that Christ will return and not delay in fulfilling his saving plan. The writer quotes from Hab. 2:3 4 in a form that depends on the Greek translation of the OT (the LXX ). That version makes the subject a person, rather than a vision or revelation as in the Hebrew text and the English versions. In Hebrews, the implication is that Jesus Christ is the one who is coming and who will not delay. The introductory words ( For in just a very little while), which probably come from Is. 26:20, emphasize the point and suggest that the readers had a problem about the need to wait patiently for Christ s return. This would have been especially the case if they could see more persecution and suffering on the horizon. The writer has also transposed the order of the sentences in Hab. 2:4 to make it clear that the person who lives by faith ( my righteous one), rather than he who is coming, may be tempted to shrink back. God will not be pleased with those who shrink back in unbelief: they will be destroyed in the coming judgment. However, the writer ends the chapter on a positive note by suggesting that his readers are those who believe and are saved (lit. who have 4 faith which leads to the preservation of the soul ). 4 Peterson, D. G. (1994). Hebrews. In D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham (Eds.), New Bible commentary: 21st century edition (4th ed., p. 1345). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press. 12 More study helps at