For where we sin wilfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains any sacrifice for sins,
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and heat of fire about to devour the adversaries.
This verse warns the person who has known the Christian message and then walks away from it on purpose. Two questions decide how we read it. What is the deliberate sin of the previous verse? And who are the "adversaries" the fire consumes?
The word "for" ties this verse to what comes just before — a call not to give up meeting together. One writer traces the line from that small neglect to the disaster described here.
It is a serious thing to read "not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some," so close to apostasy. But so it is. The habit is not only unworthy of Christians but dangerous... Little as the beginning seems to some, it is the beginning of a great and possibly fatal evil.
The sin here is not a believer's slip but a complete break. One writer draws the line by naming what the person does next.
The deliberate sin is turning away from the Christian faith. The Apostle is not speaking of a backslider who may go back into the world, like Demas, of whom we read in another letter. Such a person can be recovered. The apostate does more than give up Christianity. After professing it, he takes up some human religion. In effect he says, "I have tried Christianity, but I find Judaism, or Buddhism, or some other religion, better."
Another writer sets the law of Moses beside grace, and finds one exception.
For Israel under the law, deliberate sin had no remedy. The law allowed none. Under grace there is a perfect resource for all sins — "the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin." Only one deliberate sin is now without resource: turning away from Christianity. That is, giving up Christ and His sacrifice.
Nothing is left because there is no second offering to fall back on.
If they left Christianity, what other divine provision was there that could help them before the throne of God?... "There no longer remains a sacrifice for sins." That solemn statement shuts the door against everything besides the sacrifice of Christ... The language is decisive, so no one should mistake what lies ahead. No sacrifice remains. So a sacrifice was needed. Why speak of none remaining, if men could get to heaven without one?
The verse does not say the fire consumes weak Christians. It names a class, and one writer insists on the difference.
The sacrifices were still going on at Jerusalem, but there was no reality any more in anything there. They are not failing saints but adversaries. As such, they must expect a worse judgment than under the law of Moses — worse in proportion to the greatness of what they despised.
Earlier in the letter, Christ appears "a second time... to save those who are eagerly waiting for him." Here that same forward look holds something else.
No sacrifice then remains. At the close of the ninth chapter we saw the believer waiting for the Saviour from heaven. In place of that there is nothing but "a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries." The future is one of terror. Nothing can soften the dreadful doom awaiting those who have lined up on the side of the adversaries of God.
It might seem strange that such severity belongs to an age of good news. One writer answers that the good news is what makes it severe.
We do live in a day when the good news of God's grace is preached. But it is just that fact which increases the severity of the judgment... Grace makes known to us things of infinite greatness. To despise them is a sin of infinite greatness — far graver than despising the law of Moses with its holy demands.
The person frightened by this verse is usually the one it does not describe.
Their state is wholly in contrast with the apostate boldness described in this chapter as well as in Hebrews 6. There is nothing really in common. The apostate is as self-satisfied as he is scornful toward Christ. He hates the truth all the more because he once professed it. The tried and shaken believer condemns himself without sparing, and wants faithfulness to Christ above all things. The great remedy, valued by few, is confidence in His grace — a fuller sense of His work in judging sinful flesh, not forgiveness of sins only. He is also the believer's advocate when he fails.
- One sacrifice — Christ's offering is the only one God appointed; give it up and there is no other to fall back on.
- One sin — the deliberate sin here is giving up Christ altogether. A believer's failure has a remedy; this has none.
- One side — the verse counts those who quit not as failing saints but as adversaries, and the fire falls on them.
- One prospect — instead of waiting for the returning Saviour, they have only a fearful expectation of judgment.
- One caution — a backslider can be recovered, and the believer who condemns himself is not the person this verse pictures.
Any one that has disregarded Moses' law dies without mercy on [the testimony of] two or three witnesses
The writer reaches back to Israel's law courts, where two or three agreeing witnesses could send a man who set aside Moses' law to his death. That is the smaller case, laid down so the greater one in the next verse can land with full weight.
The phrase "without mercy" is not an overstatement. It describes how the law worked by design. Asked what the law can do for a person, one writer answers:
Curse me and kill me on the spot! Is there no mercy? Not in the law! There is no mercy at Mount Sinai. If a man stands before that fiery mount, the terrible choice is duty or damnation. There is no middle ground.
Israel did have offerings for sin. Why did they not cover the man in this verse? The answer lies in what those offerings were for:
When God set up this offering, the sins in view were those committed "through ignorance." Here we see the compassion of our God shining out. He knew well the weakness, ignorance and forgetfulness that mark poor, fallen humanity, and so He made this provision. Sin committed deliberately, in cold-blooded defiance of God, is not in view here... God is a God of mercy, but the law itself has no mercy in it. So the merciful provision of the sin and trespass offerings only took effect where the root of the sin was ignorance, not wilfulness.
Why witnesses at all? It follows from what the law judged:
The Law dealt only with outward acts. It condemned men for their deeds. So its punishments fell on what people could see and hear. Witnesses were therefore necessary to establish legal judgment... The Law thus worked effectively as a ministry of death.
Translations differ on one small phrase, and the sense turns on it:
The point pressed is not "before," or "in the presence of" witnesses... but at the agreeing testimony of two or three... The sense is that the despising transgressor died without mercy, but on the testimony of two or three.
The penalty was not invented for this letter. It stood in the law itself:
What was to be handed out to one who despised Moses' law? Death without pity was the penalty appointed there (Deuteronomy 13:1-11; 17:2-13).
The verse does not describe a man who slipped. Older translations read "despised the law of Moses," and contempt is heavier than neglect:
Clearly then, despising God's commandments shows deeper opposition to His will than setting them aside.
Everything in this verse exists to make the next one unanswerable. The greater offence is not a worse act of disobedience but a rejection of what God has given in His Son:
Those who despised the law of Moses died without mercy. What then must those deserve at the hand of God who trampled the Son of God underfoot? They counted the blood of the covenant, by which they had been set apart, a common thing, and they insulted the Spirit of grace. It was not simple disobedience, however evil that might be. It was contempt of the grace of God, and of what He had done in the Person of Jesus, to deliver us from the consequences of disobedience.
The comparison also guards God's character. He did not grow softer when the age of law ended:
Is God less holy under grace than He is under law? Does He think less of denial of His holy, spotless Son than of dishonour done to the commandments written and engraved in stone?
Anxious believers often read themselves into this warning. One writer draws the line:
The state of such believers is wholly in contrast with the apostate boldness described in this chapter and in Hebrews 6. There is nothing in common. The apostate is as pleased with himself as he is proud toward Christ, and hates the truth the more because he once professed it. The tried and shaken believer condemns himself without excuse and wants faithfulness to Christ above all things.
- Despised, not broken. The verse targets contempt for God's command. That is deeper opposition to His will than setting it aside.
- Without mercy. The law had no mercy to give; its offerings covered sins of ignorance, not deliberate defiance.
- Two or three. The law judged outward acts, so it needed witnesses. The man died on their agreeing word, not merely in their presence.
- Lesser to greater. Merciless death for despising Moses is the smaller case; the greater is contempt for the grace of God shown in His Son.
- Same holy God. Grace has not made God less holy. So this warning describes the settled apostate, not the trembling believer.
of how much worse punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and esteemed the blood of the covenant, whereby he has been sanctified, common, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
The verse asks a question instead of making a statement: how much worse a punishment does such a person deserve? It lays three charges in one sentence, and each one touches a different Person or gift — which raises the hardest question here: how can someone "sanctified" by the blood end up under judgment?
The question sets two things side by side: the penalty under Moses' law, and the Person now rejected.
The Jews knew Moses' law well. It demanded death for anyone who rebelled against it, once qualified witnesses established the case. But God's glory revealed in the Person of His Son goes infinitely beyond God's speaking by the law of Moses. If judgment under the law was that severe, then the far greater evil of the crime against the Son of God demands a far greater judgment.
Each charge answers a gift the gospel had held out.
The gospel presents to us, first, the Son of God; second, His precious blood, as the blood of the new covenant; third, the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of grace. Now what does the man who abandons the faith do — especially the Jew who professed Christianity, gives it up, and goes back to Judaism? He tramples the first under foot. He counts the second an unholy thing. He utterly despises the third. He treats the very things that bring salvation with the utmost scorn and contempt. There is nothing beyond them, nothing but judgment. He will deserve every bit of judgment he gets. All this, note well, is a vastly different thing from a true believer growing cold and careless and so falling into sin.
The sin in view is of a different order from breaking a rule.
It was not simple disobedience, however evil that might be. It was contempt for the grace of God, and for what He had done in the Person of Jesus to deliver us from the consequences of disobedience. On the one hand, if they knew what it was and still renounced it, what was left for them? On the other hand, how could they escape judgment?
That leaves such a person with nothing to fall back on.
If they now abandoned the infinite sacrifice of the Saviour which they had confessed up to that point, there was no other that could avail for their sins. None had real and everlasting efficacy but that one; and those who gave it up, after owning it, were absolutely without resource… Of course in their case it had been mere profession, and the sanctification only outward, separating them from their Jewish fellows.
This phrase is the knot in the verse. Commentators take the word here in an outward sense: a setting apart by open association, not the inward work of new birth.
As we have already seen, "sanctification" in Hebrews is outward — a matter of position. It is not the work of the Spirit of God in the soul by new birth… Nowhere does Scripture mean that a single sheep of Christ can ever perish. Our Lord's own words put the seal on this: "I give them eternal life," and "no one will snatch them out of My hand."
The Greek tense points the same way.
Here it speaks of a person with a Jewish background who has professed to be a Christian but then abandons that profession… The Holy Spirit does not use the present participle, for sanctification is not characteristic of this person. He does not use the perfect tense either, for no sanctification has been accomplished for him. He uses the aorist, which simply means that an event happened in the past, without implying a lasting consequence.
The third charge strikes the One who testified to the worth of the blood.
The Spirit of grace has testified to the value of that blood of the covenant. So to deny its value is a direct insult to the Holy Spirit… How true it is, also, that sin against one Person of the Godhead is sin against all. If a man tramples the Son of God under foot, he has also insulted the Holy Spirit, and denied God the Father, the giver of the Son.
The warning has a target, and the anxious believer is not it.
Such passages hold no terror for those who judge themselves. Knowing they are utterly unworthy in themselves, they rejoice in Jesus as their sure salvation… The heart that grieves in deep dismay over how little good it has done is in no mood to reject the ministry of grace, or to count the blood of Christ a common thing.
- Greater light, greater guilt. Moses' law demanded death for the rebel. The crime here is against the Son of God, so the punishment must be far heavier.
- Three gifts, three insults. The Son trampled, the blood called common, the Spirit outraged — he throws back all three of the gospel's gifts.
- Contempt, not weakness. This is not a believer growing cold. It is contempt for grace by someone who knew what he was giving up.
- Set apart, not saved. "Sanctified" here means an outward setting apart through open profession. It is real as a position, but it carries no lasting result.
- Nothing left over. Give up the one sacrifice and nothing is left but judgment. Yet the person who trembles at these words shows he is not the one described.
For we know him that said, To me [belongs] vengeance; *I* will recompense, saith the Lord and again, The Lord shall judge his people.
Both halves of this verse come from one song of Moses, quoted to back a warning. Everything turns on two questions: who is speaking, and who "His people" are.
The warning is not about breaking rules. It is about despising a gift, and the words from Moses close the last exit.
It was not simple disobedience, however evil that might be. It was contempt of the grace of God, and of what He had done in the Person of Jesus to deliver us from the consequences of disobedience. On the one hand, what was there left, if with the knowledge of what it was, they renounced this? On the other hand, how could they escape judgment? For they know a God who had said that vengeance belonged to Him, and that He would repay. And again: the Lord would judge His people.
The second quotation comes from a passage where God's dealing with His people is not only punishment. The same line in Moses' song goes on to speak of compassion.
"The Lord will judge — vindicate, defend or avenge — His people. He will have compassion on His servants, when He sees that their power is gone and there is none remaining." Precious grace for Israel in the days to come — and for each and all now who feel and admit their need!
(Mackintosh works from an older translation. The ESV renders the line, "the LORD will vindicate his people.")
Commentators differ over how wide the phrase reaches. Some keep it where Moses first spoke it — over Israel — while agreeing that God also deals with His own today.
The Lord does of course judge His saints today, and 1 Corinthians 11:30-32 makes this plain enough. But this passage is limited to Israel. The quotation comes from Deuteronomy 32.
Others take it as a standing rule over everyone who carries God's name. On this reading, the judgment is already near.
The writer adds two quotations from Deuteronomy 32:35-36 to confirm the teaching of a special judgment on the one who contradicts God and the one who abandons the faith. The Lord will judge His people. He is already standing at the door, ready to visit the great house that claims His name and to deal with it justly, according to what it really is. It is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, when He comes armed for vengeance to destroy His enemies.
Being God's people is not a shelter from His dealings. It is the reason those dealings are closer and stricter.
If He punished the vile practices of the doomed nations that had pushed into His land, He chastens His own people far more strictly. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2).
The same rod does not mean the same thing for everyone.
The Lord may, and does, chastise His people when they turn aside from His ways. But however hard His rod falls on them, they will still confess with David that His mercies are great. Sooner or later He will also deal with those who merely profess His name and then abandon it. For them His rod will be one of vengeance and "recompense" for their defiant rebellion.
If repayment belongs to God, it is not ours. That changes how a believer answers an insult.
If we keep silent when insulted, it is not that there is no answer to evil and malice. It is that the answer is left with God. We are never to try to take vengeance on the wrongdoer. God retains all vengeance in His own hands... Our part then is to follow in the steps of the Lord Jesus. When insulted, we commit ourselves to Him who judges justly. We remember the word that says, "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord'" (Rom. 12:19).
- Whose word. The warning rests on the God who spoke it. The appeal is not to a rule but to a Speaker who has already said what He will do.
- Whose right. God claims vengeance as His alone. So the wronged believer stays silent and leaves the answer with Him.
- Whose people. The words come from Moses' song over Israel. Commentators differ on how far they reach: some keep them to Israel, others apply them to the whole house that bears God's name.
- Whose reach. Nearness to God raises the standard. He chastens His own more strictly than He punished the nations.
- Whose hands. The same hands bring chastening and great mercy to a repentant believer. To the one who abandons what he professed, they bring recompense.
[It is] a fearful thing falling into [the] hands of [the] living God.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
But call to mind the earlier days in which, having been enlightened, ye endured much conflict of sufferings;
The letter has just delivered a severe warning. Then the tone changes. The writer points his readers back to the earliest days of their faith. Why should memory answer the danger of drifting? And what were they to remember?
The change of direction shows who the writer thought he was addressing. He aimed solemn words at some. But he thought well of the group as a whole.
In verse 32 we again see that, though these warnings were given for the sake of some, the writer had every confidence that most of the people he wrote to were true believers. He remembered the earlier days when they suffered much persecution for their faith, and he called on them to remember those days too. He appealed to them not to throw away their confidence at this late point in their history.
"After you were enlightened" points to a moment you can date. One writer made that phrase a question for his hearers, then a challenge about today.
But most people know the moment when the light first came to them. If there is one moment of moral energy in the history of a soul, it is the day that soul was made alive. Why do you and I not carry the strength of that moment with us? Is the Jesus we have now a different Jesus? I know there was a day when all was over between God and me. Now the day has come when all is over between the world and me. That is practical Christianity.
The same writer allows for a quieter case: Timothy, taught by a godly mother, may have come gently into God's flock.
The order in the verse matters. It leaves no quiet gap between the light and the attack.
There is always the danger of drawing back from the path of faith because of the shame and suffering it brings. These believers had begun well. The truth had enlightened them, and at once they found themselves in conflict for the truth.
The "hard struggle with sufferings" was not abstract. For Jewish believers, confessing Christ broke the closest ties they had.
"Call to mind the former days," the time of their first love, when they were first enlightened. These truths of God first flashed into their souls and brought peace and joy and comfort. Then they endured a hard struggle with sufferings. Their own relatives, perhaps members of their own family, handed them over to the council. When they confessed Christ, they found that their own parents had turned their backs on them! Those who had once held them in regard now looked at them with suspicion. They were branded as blasphemers "against Moses" "and this holy place and the law," because they declared for Jesus and the resurrection.
Suffering already endured is hard evidence. Someone who has paid that price cannot shrug it off as nothing.
This appeal would have real effect on those souls who were genuine. They could not easily overturn the reality of what they had suffered for the Lord's sake in their first stand for Him, and for identifying themselves with the believers who were suffering. Only a hard, untrue heart could renounce all this.
The appeal was not meant to make them proud of their record. And the danger they faced now had changed shape.
What better way could there be to keep those who truly loved the Lord from dishonouring Him, than to remind them of what they had already endured for His sake, by His grace? This would not feed pride. It would stir them up to endure still more for Him, who had endured so much for them... Perhaps what tempted them most at this time was not so much outward persecution, the enduring of a hard struggle with sufferings. The greater pull was something more subtle and deadly: a sleepiness of soul that makes turning away from the Lord possible.
Another writer describes the same danger: not defeat in battle, but slackening while still on duty.
Slackening off is always a danger for soldiers on active service, and Christians here below always are on service... Still, the great safeguard is against throwing away their confidence, their boldness of soul, which is the inner root of outward suffering and of service.
- Light. "After you were enlightened" marks a moment most believers can name: the day God's light first reached them.
- Conflict. That light led straight into a fight. Families turned away. Relatives handed believers over to the council. Confessing Christ earned them the name of blasphemer.
- Endurance. They came through it. The writer treats that record as proof he is writing to real believers, not just warning those who might fall away.
- Memory. Recalling the cost already paid is not praise for past achievement. It stirs a believer to endure more for the One who endured so much for him.
- Danger. The threat now is not open attack. It is the slow slackening of a soldier still on duty. So the one thing to guard is confidence of soul.
on the one hand, when ye were made a spectacle both in reproaches and afflictions; and on the other, when ye became partakers with those who were passing through them.
Hebrews 10:33 looks back to a time when these believers paid publicly for their faith — some held up to open scorn, others standing beside those who were. Why does the writer count both kinds of suffering as worth remembering?
The first half of the verse pictures a public spectacle. Samuel Ridout finds the same scene in Stephen:
They were made a public spectacle, held up to the scorn and mockery of others. It was like Stephen. They brought him before the council. His face was lit up with the light of heaven itself, yet they insulted him, threw him out of the city and stoned him. So these Hebrew Christians had tasted similar sufferings in some degree.
The second half names those who were not the target themselves, but stood with the ones who were. Another writer points to the Lord's own company, then weighs the two positions:
Christ Himself did not stand alone; He was the friend of tax collectors and sinners. There may be a harder trial than standing alone for the truth. In some cases, joining yourself to others calls for a higher quality. The first position needs courage; the second needs grace. You may not fear blows: do you fear being laughed at?
The verse names both groups. Ridout notes what God makes of even the smaller share:
They were either persecuted like this themselves, or they were companions of those who suffered. See how the Spirit of God dwells on any faithfulness there had been to the name of the Lord Jesus, however small! It counted even when it showed itself only by standing with those who were the direct targets of persecution.
The verse comes right after a severe warning. F. B. Hole explains why that warning is not the whole picture of these readers:
In verse 32 we see again that the writer gave these warnings for the sake of some. Even so, he was fully confident that most of his readers were true believers. He remembered the earlier days when they suffered much persecution for their faith, and he called on them to remember as well. He urged them not to throw away their confidence so late in their history.
That memory also works as a test:
This appeal would have real effect on those who were genuine. They could not easily throw away what they had truly suffered for the Lord's sake when they first stood for Him, and when they identified themselves with the believers who were suffering. Only a hard, untrue heart could disown all this.
The memory meets a danger that is still live. Hamilton Smith names it:
The Apostle also warns us not to be discouraged by suffering, reproach and affliction. There is always the danger of shrinking back from the path of faith because it brings reproach and suffering. These believers had begun well. The truth had opened their eyes, and at once they found themselves in conflict for the truth. But they held out in that conflict, and they joined themselves with all their heart to those who were suffering for Christ's Name.
One writer traces the believer's reproach back to the Lord Himself:
The one cleansed by the blood will find that he is called to share the Lord's reproach and shame, as he seeks to walk a path that follows His Word… No one has ever tasted reproach and shame as deeply as He has. But you and I, dear fellow-believer, have the privilege of carrying some measure of His reproach. May He grant us to count it greater riches than this poor world can offer!
The same call returns later in the letter. Ridout shows what it asks of believers who are free:
He now urges them to remember those in prison. They are not to feel mere pity, but to share in spirit with those in affliction, even though they themselves may be free. What a lovely identification of faith with the suffering people of God! "If one member suffers, all suffer together" — "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."
- Exposed. The first half of the verse means public scorn and mockery — what Stephen met before his accusers and outside the city.
- Beside. The second half covers those who stood next to the sufferers. Standing alone takes courage. Standing beside takes grace.
- Counted. God notes even the faithfulness that only stands beside the persecuted. No share is too small.
- Tested. What a person once suffered for Christ proves the faith was real. Only a hard heart could disown it.
- Continued. Believers who are free still share the same path: remember the prisoners as if sharing their pain, and carry Christ's reproach as riches.
For ye both sympathised with prisoners and accepted with joy the plunder of your goods, knowing that ye have for yourselves a better substance, and an abiding one.
Believers here had their homes and goods seized because of their faith. They did not just endure the loss — they welcomed it, and the verse says what they knew that made such joy possible.
Older English versions read "compassion of me in my bonds." That narrows the sympathy to the writer's own imprisonment. A closer look at the wording widens it, and changes the ending too.
Instead of "me in my bonds," read "prisoners"; for "in yourselves," substitute "for yourselves"; and omit the words "in heaven."… It was a time of persecution. The saints courageously, in faithfulness to Christ, showed their sympathy with those imprisoned for Christ's sake and identified themselves with them. This exposed them to the hostility of their opponents, and so they lost their earthly possessions.
Standing with prisoners in public is one trial. Losing property is another, and the two do not weigh the same on everyone.
The Hebrew believers had begun well. The letter urges them here to keep on enduring the fierce conflict with the enemy… To some of feeble faith such sympathy is no small trial; to others, the plunder of their property. These saints had shone in both respects.
Their sympathy was not private feeling. It linked them in the open with prisoners, and that link is what cost them their goods.
It was no small matter to have linked themselves with prisoners who suffered for Christ. It left them exposed to the ungodly persecutor. He thought he had every right to plunder their possessions, since everyone held them in contempt. But faith could rise above grieving over passing loss: they had what was their own, a better and enduring substance.
The verse does not say they took the loss calmly. It says they took it with joy.
An opposing mob smashed up some of their homes. It would have been a great thing if they had faced that loss with resignation and meekness — but in fact they faced it with joyfulness. This underlined a glorious fact in their minds. Their real portion lay outside earth and in heaven, far beyond the reach of all their opponents.
Behind the joy stood a Person.
Their faith was so active, and Christ was so real to their hearts as their treasure, that they joyfully accepted the plundering of their property… They willingly suffered the loss of all things for the sake of Christ. It is a blessed record, and a powerful testimony to what Christ is for His people in the fires of persecution.
"Better" is a comparison. What it is compared with is what the law promised Israel: prosperity in family and possessions for obedience.
In the later verses of that chapter we learn that we therefore possess "substance" of an eternal kind. It is "better" than anything promised to Israel under the law. If they had obeyed, they would have prospered and increased in their families and all earthly possessions. The Hebrew Christian had substance lying outside earthly things.
That possession was invisible. The verse says they knew they had it. The next chapter says how.
And what made the heavenly portion that was theirs so real to them? The answer is in the first verse of Hebrews 11. In Darby's New Translation it reads, "Now faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Faith substantiated the better and enduring substance to the early Hebrew Christian.
The writer holds this glowing record up to people whose love had cooled. He recalls their best days to wake them.
This repeating of such searching warnings within one letter plainly shows that the believers he addressed had lost some of their former love… They needed waking from this dream. Leading them to look again at the rich blessings of their heavenly inheritance would restore them to themselves… They had lost the things people naturally prize, without a murmur — indeed, with joy. They were firmly persuaded that the love of Christ had won for them in heaven a better and more enduring substance.
Joy under loss came from knowing the better thing. No one reaches that joy by deciding to look down on possessions.
We must know the better thing by experience, and hold dear the hope of "good things to come." Only then can we gain full victory over present things and our own worldly desires… If we are really waiting for the appearing of the glory, we will stand apart from everything that will be judged in that day.
- Cost. They stood with imprisoned believers in public, and their persecutors took their goods.
- Character. Two trials — public shame and lost property — weigh on people in different ways. These saints stood in both.
- Cause. The joy came from knowledge, not nerve. Faith made real to them a possession better than anything the law promised Israel.
- Continuance. The possession is "abiding" — the one thing a persecutor cannot confiscate.
- Challenge. The passage speaks to people whose first love had cooled. Only real experience of the better thing frees anyone from the present one.
Cast not away therefore your confidence, which has great recompense.
Just before this verse, the writer reminds these believers of their earlier days. They suffered much for their faith, and they stood firm. Now he turns to a new danger. It is not that enemies will crush them. It is that they may let go of what they already hold.
The word translated "confidence" here is not a mood or a personality trait. It is the same word used earlier in the chapter for the right of access believers have into God's presence.
The apostle urges them not to throw away or cast off their confidence, because a great reward is laid up for them in heaven… It is the same word that is translated "boldness" earlier in this chapter: "Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus." They were not to cast away this boldness. They were to hold fast the joy of their hope and keep their confidence firm to the end.
Samuel Ridout (older translations read "boldness" in verse 19)
The reason to hold on does not lie in the believer's own steadiness. It lies in the One they trust. He is what He was when they first trusted Him.
In all they did and suffered then, the moving spring was hopeful confidence in Jesus. They were to keep that firmly (verse 35). For Jesus had not changed. Suppose they compared their first love and its effects with the reduced zeal that had since made the apostle's heart sad. If that made them question their own sincerity, they were wrong. What they did earlier was rightly done. And God was not unrighteous to forget their work. They must not cast away their confidence, because He was faithful to preserve the trust they had once placed in Jesus.
If pressure makes someone drop his confidence, the fault lies in that confidence. The pressure has changed nothing about God.
If someone casts away confidence in the living God, that confidence proves to be very deficient, for God Himself has not changed. Persecution tests it, no doubt, and the apostle would strengthen souls to stand by true, living faith.
What happens inside a believer is the source of what he can bear and what he can do.
The great guard is against casting away their confidence or boldness of soul, the root within of outward suffering as of service. Patient endurance is needed as ever. The love of Christ is its spring, glory with Him is its only hope, and the road is doing the will of God as He did it perfectly. The reward He assures cannot be separated from His coming, which here, as elsewhere, is kept right in front of the Christian.
The reward had not arrived yet. That is the whole difficulty. The answer is how little of the road is left.
They are called not to cast away their confidence and its great recompense. True, they needed endurance. But let them remember that the end of everlasting joy is near. He who is coming will come and will not delay, and it is yet a very little while. What blessed grounds to persevere in faith! They had long walked in Christ's path: a few trials more might be theirs. All above is glorious, and He is coming quickly.
Whatever they had lost by confessing Christ was not lost permanently.
He remembered, and he called on them to remember, the earlier days when they suffered much persecution for their faith, and he appealed to them not to cast away their confidence at this late hour in their history. An abundant recompense was coming for any loss they had suffered here.
The promise of a reward opens a side of faith that goes beyond forgiveness.
"Do not throw away your confidence," for it thus shows that it has "a great reward." Faith is a principle that grasps two different things about God. It views Him as one who justifies the ungodly, as in Romans 4. But here it grasps God as "a rewarder of those who seek Him." The moment you grasp God by a faith that does not work, you enter on a faith that does work. And while we rightly value a faith that saves our souls, let us not be indifferent to a faith that serves our Saviour. How boldly we sometimes assert our title, but do we value our inheritance?
- Confidence — the word is the same "boldness" as in verse 19: the right to enter God's presence through the blood of Jesus. That is what they were told not to throw away.
- Grounds — the confidence rests on Christ, not on feelings. Jesus has not changed, so there is no reason to let go.
- Root — boldness inside feeds both the suffering they bear and the service they give. Lose it and both dry up.
- Reward — the reward does not come now. It comes with Christ, and the wait is only a very little while.
- Reach — the same faith that receives justification also seeks God as a rewarder. Hold the title, but value the inheritance too.
For ye have need of endurance in order that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise.
These words were written to believers under persecution, tempted to give up. The verse ties three things together: endurance, doing God's will, and a promise still to come.
This endurance is not learned in comfortable circumstances.
He reminds them that they need patience, as we all do — or, as the word really is, "endurance." And it is tribulation that "produces endurance, and endurance produces character." Character and endurance do not come from an unexercised life. They needed that endurance which stayed under every stress, so that after they had done the will of God, they would still hold to Him, and so obtain the promise laid up for them in heaven.
The same word appears elsewhere in the New Testament, and it has one perfect example.
The word for endurance comes from a verb meaning "to sustain." It is translated "enduring" in one place (2 Cor. 1:6), and "patient continuance" in another (Rom. 2:7), and that sense is fully part of the word. It is a "patient endurance" that does not give way under trial and suffering… It is never applied to God directly, because there could be no such testing or pressure in regard to Him. But the Lord Jesus, in the place He has taken as Man, is our perfect example in it, Heb. 12:2-3.
What does doing God's will look like? One life shows it exactly.
When He was here He did God's will only, and that is why the apostle Paul says, "For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done (what Jesus did) the will of God you may receive what is promised" (Heb. 10:36)… A man who is doing the will of God is not living for himself. His only thought is to do what God wishes. And that is exactly what the blessed Lord did here.
The verse follows a warning about throwing confidence away. Persecution puts that confidence to the test.
If someone throws away confidence in the living God, that confidence is shown to be badly lacking, for God Himself has not changed. Persecution tests it, no doubt, and the apostle would strengthen souls to stand by true, living faith. Patient endurance would gain its reward. God's will for every believer is that hard experience should prove his trust is really in the living God.
Readers who had once been Jews might have expected honour and relief in this life. Commentators say the Christian's portion runs the other way.
As Jews, they might associate with the Christ freedom from suffering and promotion to high honour; but as Christians, their portion is to share His sufferings for righteousness and love and truth. No mistake is more common in Christendom than looking for present reward and distinction and ease through the gospel and the church… It is through suffering in faith and patience that we are disciplined and bear fruit to Him who chooses in this way to prune the branches of the vine.
The promise is certain. Endurance covers the waiting.
One thing only was necessary: that they should continue with endurance doing the will of God. Then without fail all that had been promised would be fulfilled to them. Their very position was that they had "fled for refuge" to "hold fast to the hope set before us" (6:18). That hope was abundantly sure, but its fulfilment can only be at the coming of the Lord, as verse 37 shows.
The call to endure also comes with comfort. It has a time limit.
Finally, the apostle gives them the cheer that it is only a little while that there will be need for this endurance… At any moment the welcome shout, with the voice of the trumpet, may be heard from heaven, and saints snatched from their place of trial will enter into the joy of the Lord. This very inducement is held out for perseverance. This sharp trial may be the last. This temptation to turn into an easier path may be followed by the coming of the Lord.
Endurance needs peace. A troubled mind makes the quiet doing of God's will impossible.
There is nothing that the soul of the believer is more brought to feel than that he has "need of endurance" (Heb. 10:36); but if he is hindered by anything from finding God to be "the God of peace," if sorrow and trial hinder this, there is the will of the flesh at work. There cannot be the quiet doing of God's will if the mind is troubled and unsettled about a thousand things.
- Endurance, not patience. The word means a steadiness that stays under pressure, and it is trial — not an easy life — that produces it.
- Endurance obeys. The one who endures is doing God's will — not living for himself, exactly as Christ did.
- Endurance is tested. Persecution proves whether your confidence is really in the living God.
- Endurance receives. Nothing promised will fail. But it comes at the Lord's return, not as ease or honour now.
- Endurance is short. It is "a little while": the sharp trial you are in may be the last one before He comes.
For yet a very little while he that comes will come, and will not delay.
These words close a section written to believers who were losing heart. They were tempted to go back to what they had left, and into that pressure comes a promise taken from the prophet Habakkuk.
This is not a detached prediction. It gives tired believers a reason to hold on.
Jewish believers, when disheartened, might naturally look back at their old setting of visible splendour. If so, the danger is pressed on them with great seriousness: the danger of abandoning all God had now done in Christ and given to faith. They are called not to throw away their confidence and its great reward. True, they needed endurance. But let them remember that the end of everlasting joy is at hand; for He that comes (and it is yet a very little while) will come and will not delay. What blessed grounds to persevere in faith! They had long walked in Christ's path: a few trials more might be theirs.
A natural way to comfort a suffering believer is to point to the end of life. That is not the comfort chosen here.
A modern preacher would say: "Yet a little while, and this scene will close. Death will put an end to your troubles. You will depart to be with Jesus, which is far better." But this is not the language of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because the Holy Spirit, knowing the mind of God, always puts the Lord's coming, and not death, as the expectation of the Christian.
Habakkuk was told that a vision would surely come, and that he should wait for it. The letter to the Hebrews takes up those words.
From this quotation we learn that the vision which will surely come is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the centre of every vision, and without Him there is no vision.
The wording is emphatic. Two small details press how short the wait really is.
What a wonderful hope is before us — nothing short of our blessed Lord Himself... In Hebrews 10:37 the word that qualifies "little" comes twice over. That gives the force of "ever so little." What follows makes it stronger still: "will come and will not delay." Very remarkable words, are they not?
Elsewhere Scripture tells of a bridegroom who is slow in coming. Does that clash with a promise of no delay?
Near the end of his life the apostle Paul comforts the Hebrew believers. He assures them that in a very little while the Coming One will come, and will not delay. "The very little while" in the one passage matches the delay of the bridegroom in the other. Once that delay is over, He will come and "will not delay." The two are in full harmony. When the apostle wrote, the Lord had already delayed. He did not know the hour of His return. He was inspired to announce only that it would be sure and soon.
Commentators differ over which stage of the Lord's return is in view. One reads it of His public appearing in glory:
Hebrews 10:37 does not deal with His coming (parousia) for the Church, to take up all saints. It deals with His appearing (epiphania) as King. That appearing, just as much as His coming, is what we expect. For then Christ's reign on earth will begin — the subject of nearly every Old Testament prophecy — and the faithful ones will receive their crowns.
Another applies it to the moment Christ gathers His own, before the judgments fall:
How happy it is that before that time arrives Christ will come for His Church... How sweet and happy is our prospect.
So what is the waiting for?
In contrast to the wicked, the godly will find in this delay an occasion for the exercise of faith... So the people of God, in the prophet's day or in ours, are urged to run with spiritual energy, to wait with patience, and to live by faith.
- Pressure — These believers had already suffered loss. They were close to throwing away their confidence. What they needed was endurance.
- Person — The hope held out is not death, and not an event. Habakkuk's promised vision is a Person: the Lord Jesus Himself.
- Nearness — The word for "little" comes twice over, giving the sense "ever so little." The promise adds that He will not delay.
- Certainty — Any delay belongs to the waiting time, not to the arrival. Once the little while is over, He comes.
- Faith — The delay is the space where the righteous live by faith instead of drawing back. They run with energy and wait with patience.
But the just shall live by faith; and, if he draw back, my soul does not take pleasure in him.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
But *we* are not drawers back to perdition, but of faith to saving [the] soul.
Chapter 10 has just closed with a warning about shrinking back. The last verse draws a line between two kinds of people, and the writer puts himself and his readers on the safe side of it.
The verse sets one group against another. That contrast shapes how we read every warning in the letter.
Do not miss the contrast in the last verse of our chapter. It lies between drawing back to ruin and believing to the salvation of the soul. This is more proof, if any were needed, that the contrast in Hebrews is not between believers who do well and believers who do badly and so (as some suppose) may perish. It is between those who truly believe to salvation and those who only profess, and who draw back to their eternal ruin.
The wording carries the point. It names a kind of person, not one past act.
Men could not be saved while giving up this faith. Drawing back from Christ would be drawing back to ruin. Yet in the same letter this apostle puts those who had believed to salvation in a completely different class from those who could fall away. He writes, "we are not of those who shrink back" — not simply, "who have shrunk back," which there would be no need to say, but "who shrink back." We are not the kind of people who do that. We are "of those who have faith and preserve their souls." That is the class we belong to.
The letter warns and reassures at the same time. Each word goes to a different group.
Like all the strong warnings of that letter, this one goes first to a body of professing Christians. They had been trained in Judaism, and they were in danger of being pulled back under its influence... Yet while the letter warns a body of professors, it shows the fullest confidence about individual believers... It is always good to distrust ourselves; but we can never go too far in trusting God. The worst of it is that those who really need the warning do not heed it. They go on in a light and careless way. Meanwhile the warnings frighten those who seek to walk with a tender conscience and an honest heart, though they do not apply to them at all.
Notice the pronoun: he does not say "you", he says "we".
But the apostle, as he always does, cannot leave the subject with those solemn words. True faith must have a word of cheer, and so in the last verse he puts himself alongside them, alongside all true believers... We are of those who believe. Our faith is not the short-lived kind — like the seed on rocky ground, which lasts a season and then withers away under pressure.
Keeping the soul reaches further than rescue from judgment. Commentators differ on where its weight falls. Ridout points ahead to "that day of glory, when all the fruit of faith will appear to view." Another writer sees it as already begun:
Soul-salvation in these scriptures must include the salvation from judgment that is ours when we believe, when we receive the forgiveness of sins and God justifies us on the principle of faith. But on its positive side it takes in the present enjoyment in the soul of that salvation which, in its fullness, is ready to be revealed. It is ours in this world now, because it is "in Christ."
The verse is not an ending but a hinge. What follows shows what faith looks like.
After the appeals and encouragements that close chapter 10, we find in chapter 11 a review of the great lives of the Old Testament. The aim is to put before the Hebrews all the resources of faith... Now this is what faith is.
The danger did not end with the first readers. The professing Christian world can draw back by copying.
Christendom has drawn back by way of imitation. It has copied the Jewish system. Once again it puts up magnificent temples with visible altars, and appoints official priests to conduct elaborate ceremonies. These appeal to the eye and to the natural man, and they raise no question of conversion or new birth. So Christendom has not given up the profession of Christianity to go back to Judaism. Instead it has tried to attach Judaism to Christianity. The result is that Christendom is losing the vital truths of Christianity, which only a true believer can enter. At the same time it keeps the outward things of Judaism that the natural man can appreciate.
- Two classes. The line runs between real believers and people who only profess. It does not run between believers who do well and believers who do badly and perish.
- Two directions. One class draws back to ruin; the other believes onward — a settled character, not a single act.
- Two audiences. The warning goes to a professing body. The confidence goes to individual believers, and the writer counts himself among them.
- Two horizons. Saving the soul covers forgiveness now and present enjoyment of that salvation, with its full display still ahead.
- Two ages. The same drawing back happens today by copying: people keep the outward religion and lose the truths only faith can enter.