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.