“For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. 2 For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, 3 how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, 4 God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.” NASB
“We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2 For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, 3 how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.” NIV
Occasionally, usually in a Bible study setting, someone will ask the rhetorical question, ‘How many times must God say something in order for it to be true?’ Well, the answer, of course, is only once.
The fact is though, that if God only said things once our Bibles would be much thinner. For in truth, motivated by His grace and mercy and patience and goodness and compassion, He is willing to say things many more times than once in order to get the attention of His silly, wandering, fallen creatures.
That takes us back to the opening words of this epistle. In times past God spoke in many portions and many ways through many prophets, but the message has remained the same. Repent. Turn. Listen. Obey in faith. Live.
THE ANGELS’ PART
The message started in the Old Testament. This is where we also must begin. In the minds of the first Christians, the historical facts of Messiah’s ministry, His works, His words, His death and resurrection and exaltation, were all backed by Scripture; what we call the Old Testament.
The author of this letter certainly proves that point. If you have a Bible that capitalizes Old Testament references or prints them in an indented column, you can just scan the pages and see that he takes his readers again and again back to the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms.
Here in verse 2 of chapter 2 we find not the quote of a passage, but a statement that requires our attention to some Old Testament truth.
He says that the word was spoken through angels, and what they brought carried all the weight of divine authority.
There are other New Testament passages that speak very matter-of-factly, as though in the mind of the Hebrews there would be no questioning of the assertion that God used angels to convey His word to men.
“Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made.” Gal 3:19
The mediator mentioned there would be Moses, as is substantiated in Acts 7:37-38 in Stephen’s great sermon to the High Priest.
“This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, ‘GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN.’ 38 “This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living oracles to pass on to you.”
Then in verse 53 of that same chapter, Stephen still talking, we see:
”…you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.”
We have noted in the past that angels were held in very high esteem in the minds of ancient Jews. These powerful creatures went to and from the Throne of God, carrying out His will, delivering His messages, serving His people in His name. They were the perfect ambassadors of YHWH, and were highly honored as such.
Therefore the fact that they were instrumental in bringing the law to the mediator, Moses, on Sinai helped the people to receive it as coming straight from God. Hence, the writer says that this word spoken through angels was unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense.
What he was referring to was the punishment for breaking the Law, which was death. God wanted to maintain the moral and spiritual purity of His people, and the Law provided that blasphemers and false teachers were dealt with quickly and finally.
Now you may have noticed that this is a warning being issued to the readers of this letter, which now includes you and me. We will not neglect to take this warning into careful consideration today, but first we will go on to look at what other things the writer has to say about the confirmation of God’s Word – specifically, the gospel.
SPOKEN THROUGH THE LORD
Repeating the point I made in the beginning, God only has to say something once for it to be true, and once He has said it, it remains forever true. So as we move into these verses we will receive confirmation of my second point, that although He only needs to say anything once, yet He has been willing to repeat and confirm many times and perpetually so that all who will may believe and be saved.
Most importantly though, is the One who spoke of Himself. He spoke first, the others only confirmed. And since it was Himself he was speaking of, He is His own best witness. His testimony is true and eternal and as unchanging as He.
What did He say? “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” “The Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for many” “I am the resurrection and the life” Many other things He said that claimed Deity, that sent out the invitation for all who thirst to come, for all who were wearied by the burdens of the Law to come and find rest, assurances that life everlasting was in store for the one who believed His words and the One who sent Him.
He is recorded in all four gospels, and it is John who makes the claim that Jesus Christ of Nazareth did so many things in the course of His ministry that if they were all written down the world couldn’t contain the books.
I think John might have been exaggerating for emphasis, but we get the message that Jesus’ attitude was that He’d rather burn out than rust out.
He had under 4 very short years to do the things the Father sent Him to do and He didn’t waste much time sleeping.
This thing that was spoken, this plan of salvation, was spoken of by the Lord Himself, who then carried His cross to Calvary and completed the plan with His blood.
“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Me” Jn 12:32
THOSE WHO HEARD ALSO CONFIRMED
Who were those who heard? Well the Apostles, of course.
Now, I have seven or eight commentaries on the letter to the Hebrews available to me, and I was amazed that not one of them made much of this phrase, ‘…it was confirmed to us by those who heard’
Most of them basically repeated that, then moved on. Well, it is a pretty brief and straightforward statement, possibly because the author was one of them and humility would not allow him to say more. But let’s not move past it too quickly.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the Apostles of our Lord.
They were called out of an ordinary and unadventurous life to follow Him all over the Judean, Samarian and Galilean countryside, often confused, often rejected, especially when in or around Jerusalem. I am certain they often went hungry and weary, and sometimes badly frightened.
They became enemies of the Jewish elite and also the Romans by virtue of their friendship with Him, and young John was the only one who lived to a ripe age and died a so-called ‘natural’ death.
Yet they were faithful to confirm the life and deeds and words of Jesus in their teaching and in their writing, preserved for us by the Holy Spirit and handed down from age to age so that we could study this Word today. We owe them some special notice.
First there was Stephen. He was not one of the eleven, but he was the first to be martyred, because of his faithfulness in proclaiming the Gospel to those who had crucified Jesus.
Next there was James, son of Zebedee and older brother of the Apostle John. So faithful was his witness and so courageous was he as he was led to his execution, that one of his captors fell to his knees and apologized to James, confessed that he was a Christian, and was beheaded along with the Apostle.
Exactly 10 years later, the Apostle Philip was scourged, imprisoned and crucified in Phrygia.
Then there was Matthew. Tradition says he went to Ethiopia were he was pinned to the ground and beheaded with a halberd (a battle axe with a 6ft handle).
Andrew, brother to Simon Peter, according to reports preached the Gospel to many Asiatic nations and was crucified in Edessa on an ‘X’ shaped cross.
Peter we know was one of the leaders of the Jerusalem church, along with James. He also traveled with the Gospel and in his old age, while in Rome, was arrested by order of Nero and crucified upside down. The position was per his request, since he did not consider himself worthy to die the same way as his Lord.
Bartholomew preached in several countries and translated the Gospel of Matthew into the language of India where he taught it in that country, then he was beaten and crucified by pagan idolaters.
Thomas preached in Persia, Parthia, and India. In Calamina, India, he was run through with spears by angry pagans and thrown into an oven.
The Apostle John, as mentioned earlier, lived to the nineties, was given the Revelation while a prisoner on the isle of Patmos, wrote his Gospel and was possibly the only one of the Apostles to die a peaceful death.
Little or nothing is recorded of Mathias who was chosen to replace Judas, or of Simon the Zealot, Thaddaeus, or James, son of Alphaeus.
But they were Apostles, chosen and taught and sent out by Christ, and we can be assured that our lack of information about them cannot diminish their noble rank in the church or the work that God blessed them to do, wherever it was they went and however they met their home-going.
And of course we should mention Paul and Barnabas and Mark, who tradition tells us was dragged to pieces by the people of Alexandria when he spoke out against a ceremony for their idol Serapis. And there was Luke, and Jude, and the list goes on and on, of men and women who were faithful to pass on accurately all they had heard and seen with their eyes, what they beheld and what their hands handled concerning the Word of Life (1 Jn 1:1).
We owe them a debt. We owe it to them to carry the torch; to hold high the Gospel flame and confirm it to the next generation and the next until the Lord calls us up.
(Historical information on the Apostles taken from “The New Foxe’s Book of Martyrs”, Bridge-Logos Pub., 1997)
GOD HIMSELF CONFIRMS
Well, if the author only briefly mentions the human heralds of the good news, he ultimately gives credit where credit is due.
They had the message but it was God’s message. They were selected by God and they were empowered with the unction of His Holy Spirit. But men cannot do miracles in their own power, nor can they accurately predict the future apart from the enlightening Spirit of God.
Therefore God both affirmed their calling and confirmed their message by the many ways He demonstrated His power through them.
Albert Barnes, on the wording of verse 4 says the following:
“The word rendered signs, means any miraculous event that is fitted to show that what had been predicted by a prophet would certainly take place… wonder denotes…something that is fitted to excite wonder or amazement – and hence, a miracle. The words together refer to the various miracles which were performed by the Lord Jesus and His Apostles, designed to confirm the truth of the Christian religion.” BARNES’ NOTES on the Old and New Testaments – HEBREWS, Baker Book House, first printing 1949
The important thing for us to be clear on from this verse is that these signs and wonders and miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit were all according to God’s will. Men do not work these things up from within themselves. There is nothing in men or women that can be cultivated to result in any supernatural manifestation, whether it be the power to heal a limb or spontaneously speak an unknown language. These things were all according to the will of God by the power and enabling of His Holy Spirit, and they were meant to confirm the divine calling of the Apostles, and ultimately to confirm their message, which was the good news of salvation found in the preeminent Christ.
LEST WE DRIFT
I said we would come back to the warning so here we are.
Let’s begin with this phrase, “For this reason”. For what reason? Why this warning?
The first chapter of Hebrews establishes Christ, better than the prophets and better than the angels, in that He is God in essence and God in creation, and in setting forth that in these last days, God has revealed Himself in the One to whom He says ‘Thou art My Son, today I have begotten Thee’; the One to whom He says, ‘Thy throne oh God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of Thy Kingdom’, and ‘Sit at My right hand until I make Thine enemies a footstool for Thy feet’.
So it behooves us to pay close attention to these words, ‘For this reason’. There can be no better reason to pay earnest heed to what is being said, than that it is being said by the One who has provided the salvation we will inherit.
Newell writes:
“Drifting is the quietest, easiest, most delightful way of dying!” – W.R. Newell, HEBREWS Verse by Verse, Moody Press, 1947
Several commentators of old rendered this phrase ‘lest we drift away from it’ in different ways.
Tindal: ‘Lest we be split’
Doddridge: ‘Lest we let them flow out of our minds’
Stuart: ‘Lest at any time we should slight them’
Whitby: ‘That they may not entirely slip out of our memories’
The word used means to flow over, it can mean to escape by stealth,…
…I’m sure by now you get the drift…
When I was in my Jr. High and early High School years we lived near Clear Lake in California. I don’t know the exact dimensions of the lake and it is not important here, but it is the largest freshwater lake in California, and by freshwater we mean not salt water and nothing more. The actual condition of the lake belies its name and its claim to freshness. It is murky, green, smelly and not for swimming.
One day I was goofing off with a friend at the lake shore and we found a boat. It was a sixteen foot long metal tub with no identifying marks on it. The thing had apparently come loose from its moorings somewhere around the lake and come up against the eastern shore.
So, being about fourteen years old, my friend and I could not resist sitting in the boat while talking about all the adventurous things we were going to do with it. Because of course, when you are 14 and you find a boat it is automatically yours.
We were going to paint it, we were going to name it, we were going to put seats in it, we were going to get some oars…
Oh, yes, that’s right, there were no oars – which came acutely to our attention when we looked up and realized we had drifted about 30 – 40 yards from shore.
The writer to the HEBREWS is teaching us that through neglect and inattention it is very easy to drift away from spiritual truth.
He is saying that God has spoken through His Son, that His Son came and preached salvation, purchased salvation, provided salvation, and there ought to be no other consideration in our life or in this world that would be allowed to catch our attention in such a way as to let His words and that message flow away and cease to be the thing that secures us to our moorings.
But he is not only talking about something accidental here. Don’t forget that he uses words like ‘transgression’ and ‘disobedience’, and ‘neglect’ and ‘recompense’ which means ‘payment’ or ‘payback’.
A very startling example of the seriousness of deliberate neglect of God’s Word is given to us in Numbers 15:32-36
“Now while the sons of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day. 33 Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation; 34 and they put him in custody because it had not been declared what should be done to him. 35 Then the LORD said to Moses, “The man shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” 36 So all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.”
Put to death for gathering wood? NO! For defiantly disobeying the command of God. For saying by his actions that honoring God is less important than the man’s desire to collect wood for whatever it was he wanted to do with it.
D.L. Moody, in one of his sermons, asked the rhetorical question, ‘If a man hangs over a cliff by a chain of ten links, how many links in that chain must be broken in order to dash that man to his death?’ Well, the answer, of course, is ‘Only one’.
James 2:10 “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all”. In other words, he has become guilty of breaking the whole Law.
So, you might ask, who can be right according to the Law, since it only takes one transgression to be guilty of all? The answer again, is ‘none’.
And if a Just God must hold men accountable for the slightest transgression of His Word, ordained as it were by the angels who delivered it into the hands of His chosen mediator, how much more will He have to honor the clear light of the Word spoken through His Son who came and preached salvation to all who simply believe?
The patriarchs and the ancients had a certain amount of light and they were held accountable; now we have the Light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ (2 Cor 4:4), and we presume upon grace when we treat Christ and His Gospel dismissively.
Who does that, you may ask? Why, people all around us, louder and more derisively as the days go by! But worse, those in the church who have turned away from true spiritual worship for forms of entertainment and deliberate deceit for personal gain.
This is not the last time in this letter that this problem will be addressed. We’ll study it in more detail later, but listen for now to Hebrews 10:28-29.
“Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?”
The message is that ignoring the salvation provided by the Son of God, confirmed by decades of faithful ministry by men and women who knew Him face to face, accompanied by miracles and signs and supernatural gifts granted by God according to His will, results in eternal tragedy that can only be defined in terms of Hell and separation from God.
Knowing this, we as believers must with concentration of the will, anchor ourselves faithfully in the study and dispersion of this great salvation, first preached by the Lord Himself.
GREAT SALVATION
Let’s end on the upbeat. Listen to Andrew Murray on this ‘Great Salvation’.
“This is the greatness of salvation; the everlasting Father in His love speaks to me Himself in the Son. The Son shows and brings and gives me all the Father speaks; and I have the Holy Spirit in me, fitting me to hear and know and possess and enjoy all that the Father in the Son speaks and gives.” THE HOLIEST OF ALL, Andrew Murray, Fleming H. Revell Company
This great and mighty salvation that we have been given, beloved, is many times over confirmed to us by the God who only needs to speak once, but perpetually and in many ways confirms it over and over to us, joyfully and gladly, because by it He brings many sons to glory.
Let us be alert and ever ready to toss out the lifeline to those who are drifting past.
Some will ignore it, but some will grab it. And every time someone grabs it, the gospel is confirmed.
