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Home > Resources > Sermons > Hebrews

Anchored in the Truth

Hebrews 2:1-4

November 26, 2000

 

Warning signs are part of everyday life. Orange and white barricades identify holes in the road. They are not invitations to fall in, but warnings to avoid such a fall. In the same way, we find warnings throughout the book of Hebrews. Each warning serves as a motivation to apply the doctrinal teaching set forth in order to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord. These warnings expose the pitfalls that are before us on the way to the Celestial City. We must give heed to them if indeed we are pilgrims on that eternal journey.

 

Dr. James P. Boyce taught, "The doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints teaches that those who are effectually called of God to the exercise of genuine faith in Christ will certainly persevere unto final salvation." He points out that the reason for this is "not to any excellence or power in the believer" but "due to the purpose and power of God and the grace which he bestows." Having said that, some would consider that a person need only profess faith in Christ then he is able to live his life any way he desires since God will preserve him. But this is an arrogant misunderstanding of this doctrine, for as Dr. Boyce explains, the Lord "does not act independently of [the believer's] co-operation, but leads [him] unto salvation through [his] own perseverance in faith and holiness" [Abstract of Systematic Theology, 425-426].

 

I spoke with a young lady recently about this very subject. Evidently she had professed faith in Christ as a child but had long since moved away from any active practice of Christianity. By her own admission she did not attend church or have an active faith in Christ. Yet she thought that she was a believer on the basis of what she did as a child. She has ignored her spiritual life and neglected any sense of responsibility as a Christian for many years. She has fallen into the very pitfall the writer of Hebrews warns against by drifting away from the gospel of Jesus Christ. For those who drift there is a question mark about the genuineness of their faith in Christ.

 

The Scripture clearly teaches that we are "protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (I Pet. 1:5). The tension of this truth is seen in the way God is protecting us by his own omnipotence yet we are simultaneously exercising faith in Christ. It is this same idea that is brought forth in our text. After setting forth the supremacy and magnificence of Jesus Christ as Creator, Lord, God-Incarnate, and Redeemer, the writer warns that we must not drift away from resting in this revelation of Christ in the gospel for something that is inadequate to save us. Faith in Jesus Christ as he is revealed in the gospel is not simply a one-time act but an ongoing, experiential relationship with him. A Christian does not merely make a profession of Christ. A Christian lives in the reality that Christ alone is his Redeemer and Lord. Anything less is sub-Christian and will not be found adequate for the journey to the Celestial City.

 

We must not fall prey to the presumptive attitude of professing a beginning in the Christian life while failing to have an ongoing affection for Christ and the gospel. Such failure constitutes a drifting away from which there is no escape before the righteous judgment of God. Are you in danger of drifting from the gospel? Consider with me three questions suggested by our text.

 

I. What have we heard?

 

There is a great emphasis on hearing in this epistle. In the 3^rd chapter the writer twice quotes from the Psalms, "Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me." Again he repeats this in the 4^th chapter (4:7). Jesus Christ often said, "He that has ears to hear, let him hear." John repeats this same warning to the seven churches of Asia Minor in the Revelation. Hearing brings accountability. "For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it."

 

1. Its content

 

What had these brethren heard? You will notice the phrase, "for this reason," as it is the key to understanding what they had heard. The opening words could be translated, "for this it is necessary," with an emphasis on "this" pointing back to the opening chapter in which the writer expounds the supremacy of Jesus Christ.

 

Kent Hughes has summarized the opening contents of the supremacy of Jesus Christ as,

His prophetic supremacy as the final word of God (vv. 1,2), his cosmic supremacy as Creator and Sustainer of all (vv. 2, 3), his Levitical supremacy as the ultimate priest seated in Heaven (v. 3), and his angelic supremacy in that he is superior to angels in name, honor, vocation, existence and reign (vv. 4-14). This manifold superiority of Christ is meant to be an anchor to hold them to their Christian faith amidst the increasingly stormy seas of persecution. Indeed, it is meant to be the universal anchor for all imperiled souls for all time [Hebrews: An Anchor for the Soul, vol. I, 47-48].

Have you heard this truth concerning Jesus Christ? Or do you look at Jesus Christ as an anemic religious figure that has only insignificant space in your life? "For this reason," he tells us, "we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard." It is because of the full and final revelation of God in Christ that we must pay closer attention than to all the other things bombarding our minds. Advertisers tell us that there are certain products we must purchase or programs we must adopt. These things are held up as being essential to our happiness and wholeness as humans. Without driving the certain car or wearing the certain clothes or smelling the particular way or investing with certain brokers our lives will be second-rate. Too often we are persuaded by these things so that we climb on the merry-go-round of the world, constantly spinning but never getting anywhere; all the while wondering why our lives lack the profound satisfaction that we have read about in the giants of the past or even seen among some in the present.

 

Are you paying "much closer attention" to what you have heard concerning Jesus Christ and the gospel? Such truth is not just to save you from sin but also to sustain you throughout all of the demands of life. To hear the gospel but not give its life-giving, Christ-filled message priority in your daily life is to face the danger of drifting into peril.

 

2. Its intent

 

The writer helps us to see this by showing the intent of the message of Jesus Christ and the gospel. He does so by comparing the lesser with the greater. He tells us of the law that was given through angels yet every word-because it was the Word of God-held its hearers accountable. "For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" The writer is certainly not denigrating the giving of the law in the Old Testament. It is the highpoint of revelation to the patriarchs, for the law revealed the moral character of God and his own demands for holiness to all men. As Moses mentions in Deuteronomy 33:2, the law was mediated through the agency of angels. Every word of the law was perfect and demonstrated the holiness of God. Every breach of the law demanded a consequence. When Moses communicated the law to Israel, one man ignored the 4^th commandment by gathering sticks for a fire on the Sabbath. When they asked the Lord what to do with him, the Lord commanded them to put him to death. Throughout the history of Israel and Judah, we find the judgment of God being leveled against those who heard the law but disobeyed it.

 

Paul tells us that the law is holy, righteous, and good (Rom. 7:12). "The problem lies not with the law," writes Philip E. Hughes, "which is the divine standard of life..., but with sinful man who is a law-breaker, with the consequence that the law stands over against him as an ordinance of condemnation and death, precisely because it is holy and just" [A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 76]. It is at this point that the comparison is enjoined. "For the glory of the law is completely surpassed by the glory of the gospel because the latter brings life where the former brought death" [P. Hughes 76]. If those who heard the law mediated by angels were held accountable to obey the law, which could not produce life, how much more are we held accountable to the gospel mediated through Christ, which alone can through faith grant salvation?

 

The intent of the gospel is to save sinners. The law does not give hope, not because of its weakness, but due to the weakness of our own sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3-4). The gospel alone gives hope to sinful men. That is why the writer calls it "so great a salvation." The intent of the gospel is salvation from sin and reconciliation to God through Christ. So what we have heard in the gospel is of greater value than even the law mediated by angels because the gospel alone through faith in Christ saves from sin.

 

3. Its evidence

 

But why were these believers-and we-to give constant attention to the gospel of Jesus Christ? We must keep in mind that the antagonists among these struggling believers were trying to move them away from confidence in the gospel to a confidence in lesser things. So the writer reminds them of how they received the gospel and why it is grander than all the other things that tempt them and alone worthy of their eternal confidence.

 

While the law came through angelic mediation, the gospel came through the Incarnate-Son of God, Jesus Christ. "After it was at the first spoken through the Lord," places emphasis on the Incarnation. We are to ever be astounded by the wonder that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself;" and that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (II Cor. 5:19; John 1:14). God himself has come to us to reveal himself in all of the radiance of his glory and holiness, and to effect our redemption through his own fulfillment of the law and then bearing its penalty against us at the Cross.

 

Furthermore, "it was confirmed to us by those who heard," a reference to the apostles and firsthand witnesses of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. While these first century believers heard some of the witnesses with their own ears, we have the vantage point of reading their own story of Jesus Christ in the pages of the New Testament. The evidence of the gospel's trustworthiness is strengthened by the testimony of the nine New Testament authors in their 27 books.

 

At times God enjoined the evidence by demonstrating his power in out-of-the-ordinary ways to confirm the trustworthiness of the gospel. Prior to the canon of Scripture and at the advent of the gospel message into a society that knew nothing of Christ, it was important for these signs and wonders to point attention to the power of Jesus Christ to save sinful men. "God also testifying with them [literally, the Greek term is 'to witness together with someone' or 'to join in giving additional testimony'], both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will." "Signs" were events that pointed beyond the act itself to God's mighty hand operating upon humanity or nature. "Wonders" tended to excite a sense of awe and amazement in onlookers because of its superhuman character that again points God-ward. "Various miracles" refers to the diverse ways that the Lord invaded the normal pattern of humanity and accomplished something beyond human capacity. "Gifts of the Holy Spirit" shows how even in the manifestation of spiritual gifts there is a testimony of the power of God at work among his people, all for the purpose of testifying of the great sufficiency of Jesus Christ. All of these things are done "according to His own will," that is, none of these acts or gifts come by the whim or random desires of men, but only by the control and purposes of God [see Philip Hughes 80-81].

 

What have we heard? We have heard of Jesus Christ and the gospel and his power to save us from the penalty of sin. We have heard the good news, so why would we dare to look elsewhere for that which cannot save or sustain us through life and eternity? The Roman philosopher Seneca expressed the idea well: "Who is so ungrateful as the man who has so completely excluded and cast from his mind the benefit that ought to have been kept uppermost in his thought and always before him, to have lost all knowledge of it?" [David DeSilva, Perseverance in Gratitude: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Epistle "to the Hebrews," 105]. How can we who have received so much in the gospel drift away from it to our own judgment?

 

II. Why must we take action?

 

Kent Hughes has written, "Drifting is the besetting sin of our day." He explains that drifting "is not so much intentional as from unconcern" [48]. That is why the writer of Hebrews interrupts his exposition of the supremacy of Jesus Christ over the angels by injecting this stern warning of drifting away. If you read through chapters one and two you will notice that in 2:5 he continues where he left off in 1:14. His parenthetical warning (in 2:1-4) demonstrates the writer's belief that doctrine is never merely academic; it always has potent, practical applications in the believer's life. So the warning comes, that in spite of the grand revelation of Jesus Christ, we have the tendency to drift away. Why does this happen?

 

1. Because of self-deception

 

Jeremiah warned us that we do not know our own hearts: "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jer. 17:9). Our writer tells us, "For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it." There is the possibility within the bosom of any of us to drift away from Jesus Christ. We might make loud professions of faith; we might do honorable service; we might receive the applause of men, yet still drift away. Did Judas Iscariot think in those early years of following Christ that he would drift away from him? Have we not all known those who have professed to be Christians at some point but the ongoing process of their lives reveals them moving farther and farther away from the gospel of Christ? Please understand we are not talking of even the possibility of someone losing his salvation: Judas was never a believer but only appeared to be one (John 6: 70-71; 17:12). But we are speaking of those who claim to know Christ but by neglect of the gospel-a neglect of perseverance-they expose that their lives have never known the saving grace of God.

 

There are multiple warnings and commands throughout Scripture that exhort us to persevere, to continue on, to endure, and to be faithful. These warnings are God's effective tools to guard his people against the danger of falling away. God's tools are not impotent in their purposes but mighty to accomplish what he has established them to do. Why do we need such warnings? Because our own hearts, even as believers, are deceitful and weak, tending toward all manner of rebellion against God. Thus we need his sustaining grace.

 

We must take action to guard ourselves because of the tendency to "neglect so great a salvation." This is not necessarily an intentional act on our part. But it might stem from laziness or slothfulness in our spiritual disciplines or unfaithfulness in attending the proclamation of the Word and worship with God's people. It does not take much for our hearts to get cold. Can we admit this? A little neglect of reading and meditating on the Word, a little neglect of the prayer life, a little neglect of assembling with the body of Christ, a little neglect of the fellowship of kindred minds tends toward weakening our spiritual resolves. I do not believe that it is simplistic to say that most of our spiritual problems of coldness and apathy come because we neglect the very means that God has given us to keep our hearts passionate toward him. You might be looking for some new experience or some secret formula or some new truth to put fire in your soul. But what our writer is counseling us to do is to look to Jesus Christ, to see him as all sufficient, to engage our minds in thinking upon him.

 

Are you truly engaging your mind and passions on Jesus Christ? You might complain that God is not doing this or that for you, or that the church is failing you here and there, but it may be that the very problem rests in your own neglect of the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. Your neglect is manifested in your ingratitude for the gospel and your apathy toward spiritual disciplines. So I counsel you in light of our text, take action, "pay much closer attention to what we have heard" concerning Jesus Christ and the gospel.

 

2. Because of divine reckoning

 

We must also take action because God himself will take action. The writer does not offer detail at this point. He takes up the matter more later on. But for now he just asks the question: "How will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" The picture of drifting away in the first verse shows the scene of a boat that has broken away from its mooring and slowly, unnoticeably drifts into the open sea or heads toward the peril of hidden reefs. Now the question of the third verse arrests our attention. Is there an escape for anyone neglecting salvation in Christ? Especially, is there escape for those who have heard the gospel in its fullness and richness over and over? Can we escape when we are no longer anchored in the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ?

 

The "we" is emphatic, as Marvin Vincent has described it, "We, to whom God has spoken by his Son, and who therefore, have so much the more reason for giving heed" [Word Studies in the New Testament, IV, 394]. We do not hear the gospel without responsibility to faithfully heed its call. Built into the very fabric of the gospel is a sense of accountability. We impoverish our own souls, yes; we even imperil our own souls, by neglecting the gospel of Jesus Christ. So we are warned that there is no escaping this divine reckoning with the gospel of Christ. Do you take the message of the gospel seriously? Are you paying attention to Christ and the gospel, more attention than to the passing fancies of the world or the religious substitutes bombarding our society?

 

III. How must we respond?

 

We must all agree that this text is somewhat frightening! For it demonstrates to us the seriousness of the gospel while at the same time warning us of the dangers found in our own hearts. But rather than the text creating fear I believe it is given to promote action on the part of all who believe. Yes, for those who are neglecting the gospel, there is good cause to fear! But for you who love Jesus Christ, who have known his saving power at work in your life, and who desire to follow after him, this passage serves as a stimulant for progress in the gospel. There are two actions that are called for in our text.

 

1. Hear it seriously

 

We must listen with seriousness to the gospel. When the gospel is being proclaimed we must seek to devote our minds to grasping all that it reveals concerning Christ. To be daydreaming or whispering or thinking on other things imperils our understanding of Jesus Christ. We may think that the gospel is elementary and that we already know all of it. But if we truly know the gospel we realize that it is not reduced to 4-laws or wholly contained in a little tract or booklet. The gospel speaks of Jesus Christ in the fullness of his person and work. There is nothing elementary about that! Indeed we must know the basics of the gospel in order to understand and believe; but the gospel contains enough wealth and treasure for us to feast on the rest of our lives. This is why the writer tells these who have professed faith in Christ, "For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it." He is talking about paying closer attention to Jesus Christ and the glories of the gospel. His whole epistle engages our minds on the riches of Jesus Christ and the gospel. So we must hear it seriously.

 

In this let me recommend that hearing the gospel demands discipline. We must prepare our minds long before entering to worship or to study. What fills your mind during the week will have some affect on how you hear on Sunday. We all have responsibilities, jobs, or school that require so much of our thought; that is understandable. But do we take the time during the day to read the Word and ponder its meaning? Do we indiscriminately indulge our minds throughout the week on things that will adversely affect our hearing the Word on Sundays? We ought to ask the Lord to enable us to hear the Word. Do you pray for understanding? We should also seek to worship the Lord as the Word of God is expounded, for it is in that encounter with the Lord in the proclamation of Holy Scripture that we are helped to worship in spirit and truth.

 

2. Heed it faithfully

 

The opposite of "neglect" is to heed. That is the call given to us by this text. Rather than drifting away through neglect of the great salvation that is ours in Jesus Christ, we are to faithfully heed the gospel. Very simply, this means that you believe and keep on believing the gospel. You see the gospel as your meat and drink. You find the gospel to be your very passion.

 

This cannot help but have a radical effect on our lives. For as we love the gospel, feast on the gospel, think about the gospel, and discipline ourselves according to the gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ permeates every part of our lives. The gospel works its way into our conversations. The gospel strengthens us as we face the uncertainties of life and the difficulties before us. This permeating gospel helps us with our assurance of salvation, which in turn helps us in our praying and serving and worshipping.

 

Conclusion

 

Are you paying closer attention to Jesus Christ and the gospel? Maybe you realize that you have been slowly, even without your realizing it, drifting away from the centrality of the gospel in your life. Then I urge you to turn from this; see it as sin and unbelief; look to Jesus Christ with the eyes of faith.

 

Maybe you are thinking that you can put aside the gospel for now, thinking you can return to it later. Our text does not give us such liberty. He warns that to neglect the gospel means no escape. So what are you doing with the gospel of Jesus Christ? Is the gospel the anchor for your soul?

3175 Germantown Rd. S. | Memphis, Tennessee | 38119 | (901)758-1213