Let brotherly love abide.
The last chapter of Hebrews turns from long teaching about Christ's priesthood to plain instructions for daily life. The first one asks believers not to start loving but to keep loving.
The shift from teaching to instruction at this point follows the shape of the letter itself.
We are closing the letter, and we get what is common in all the letters — some small details. It is very much the structure of Paul's letters to begin with doctrine and close with exhortation. So it is here. "Let brotherly love continue."
These instructions go to people the letter has just called out to a place of reproach. Yet they touch ordinary human ties.
This closing chapter of the letter reminds us that we are still in the body, and so still open to chains and suffering. We are still in the relationships of life, and these have to be respected. We still have daily needs, and these have to be met. Yet while we are on earth, we stand outside the religious world... Still, we do well to remember this: these instructions about the relationships of life show that being outside the camp does not put us outside what is natural.
The love named here is a particular kind, marked off from love in its wider sense.
There are two expressions of the activity of the Divine nature. One is love, or charity, as the Authorised Version calls it in places (1 Cor. 13; 2 Peter 1:7). The other is brotherly love, which the second of those references treats as distinct. Love of course has a wider range than brotherly love. There is a community on earth whose members are permanently connected by a birth-tie, as well as by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and by what comes from it — the forming of the Body of Christ. Seen as that body, we speak of being members of one another. Seen through the birth-tie, we speak of brotherhood.
That brotherhood is not a title Christians invented for themselves. Earlier chapters of this same letter supply its basis.
Remember that the early part of the letter calls believers the "many sons" who are being brought "to glory." It shows Christ as "the founder of their salvation," who is "not ashamed to call them brothers." So Christians are clearly brothers. The love between them is the fruit of the new nature God has planted, and it is to be cultivated.
The verb assumes the love is already there and asks only that nothing block it.
Notice, he does not say, Have brotherly love. He says, "Let brotherly love continue." The apostle writes the same way to the Thessalonians: "Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another." The Spirit of God never thinks of the saints as being without love. He encourages them to let it abound, by putting nothing in the way of the natural outflow of every renewed heart.
The same word appears a few lines earlier, about what survives God's shaking of all things.
The first verse of our chapter is very short but very important. The word continue is almost the same as the word remain, which closes verse 27 of the previous chapter. Only the things that cannot be shaken will remain when the great day of shaking arrives. So let brotherly love remain among God's people today. It is one of the things which will remain unshaken in eternity.
Persecution had once drawn these believers together. The warning looks to what comes after the pressure lifts.
This is very necessary in the long run. This letter was written late, not early. Love was easy in the glow of first love. Common persecution for the faith strengthened it rather than checked it. But when these trials do not press so hard, the closeness of believers to each other, as God's family here below, puts them in danger. The less grace people have for daily difficulties, the more they expect from others, and the harsher the judgments they rush to make.
Old prejudice between groups also fades slowly.
Racial prejudice and hostility are slow to be put right, unless grace works powerfully... So we see why both this letter and Peter's letters put weight on keeping brotherly love going.
The old nature is still there, so love must aim at the right thing.
The divine nature being in every believer, we cannot help but love one another. But we also have the flesh within us, so we need this call to love... We are not asked to love the flesh in fellow believers. We are to love them because they are brothers, despite all their weaknesses.
- Born, not built. This love is called brotherly because Christ is not ashamed to call believers His brothers. The tie is a birth-tie, not a preference.
- Already flowing. The command is not "have love" but "let it continue." The work is to remove what blocks the love the new nature already gives.
- Nearness tests it. Shared persecution makes love easy. Daily closeness tests it, and hasty judgments show up.
- Despite, not because of. We are not asked to love the old nature in a fellow believer. We love the person anyway.
- Unshaken. Continue echoes what remains after God shakes all things. Love among believers will still stand when everything else is shaken.
Be not forgetful of hospitality; for by it some have unawares entertained angels.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Remember prisoners, as bound with [them]; those that are evil-treated, as being yourselves also in [the] body.
Hebrews turns from teaching about Christ to daily Christian life, where other people's trouble tests our love. This verse asks for more than sympathy at a distance. It asks the free to feel their way into the cell, and the comfortable to remember that they share the same body as the sufferer.
This command does not stand alone. It is the second of two ways the chapter puts love to work.
Verses 2 and 3 show two directions in which brotherly love is to express itself. First, in hospitality; that is, in the love of strangers... We are told to rise above worldly motives and to welcome believers we do not know, simply because they are believers... Second, it is to show itself in remembering believers in trouble, especially those in prison.
Everything turns on the word "remember." One writer says it asks for a shared spirit, not a kind thought from a safe distance.
He urges them now to remember those in prison — not with mere pity, but sharing in spirit with those who suffer, even though they themselves are 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."
The verse has two halves. One writer says each half reaches us on different ground: the first through our place in the body of Christ, the second through ordinary human life.
Then another duty — "Remember those who are in prison," and the encouragement follows — "as though in prison with them." Take your place in the body of Christ as His prisoners: not prisoners in body, but in a spiritual sense. When he speaks of suffering for Christ's sake, he appeals to you in that spiritual place. But when he speaks of suffering mistreatment in a common, ordinary way, he appeals to natural life: "since you also are in the body."
Commentators differ on the closing phrase. Others take "the body" as the frail human body, and one warns against reading the church into it:
The idea that this refers not to our frail human body but to Christ's body, the church, is even harder to hold, since this letter never once mentions that relationship.
Either way, the phrase lands with force. Present comfort is no guarantee, and that turns remembrance into prayer.
As for the others who were suffering hardship, they should look at their condition with sympathy. The joys and griefs of every member of Christ's body belong to all. But they should also feel a grateful sense of the special mercy that spares them, for now, the same distress. While they were in the body, they could be given the same cup to drink. So they should remember such people. The prayer of faith might ease their sorrow. God had opened prison doors for some, and shamed the slowness of His people's faith by giving at once what they asked for (Acts 12).
Prison carried public disgrace. The temptation was to let the prisoner drop out of sight. One name from Paul's own imprisonment shows the opposite.
Another form of brotherly kindness is actively remembering those who, as early Christians, had to bear the shame of public chains or prison. Perhaps we fail to see how wrong it is to keep our distance from believers shamed in this way. Then the apostle's moving words about Onesiphorus, written out of his own case at Rome, may help. We find them in 2 Timothy 1. They can give us a right sense of how fitting and valuable such care is before the Lord. And how many are the "ill-treated" who are not in prison!
Paul knew both sides of this — the chain, and the comfort of other believers carrying him on their hearts in prayer. And such kindness is never spent on the prisoner alone.
How well Paul knew what that was! "With far more imprisonments" tells us in a few words (2 Cor. 11:23) how often he faced that trial... And he knew from experience the comfort of sympathy, and the strength of having other believers carry him on their hearts in prayer... On the other hand, kindness done to saints the Lord Jesus will remember, and regard as done to Himself. "I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me... As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me" (Matt. 25:36-40).
- Two outlets — brotherly love goes out in two directions: to the stranger at the door, and to the believer in prison or trouble.
- Not pity — "remember" asks you to share in spirit with the suffering while you yourself are free.
- Two claims — the prisoner claims you through your place in the body of Christ; the mistreated claim you through the body you share.
- Pray — being spared trouble is mercy, not safety. Remember with thanks, and let it turn into the prayer of faith, which has opened prison doors before.
- Received — care for a disgraced believer is fitting before the Lord, because He counts the visit as made to Himself.
[Let] marriage [be held] every way in honour, and the bed [be] undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers will God judge.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
[Let your] conversation [be] without love of money, satisfied with [your] present circumstances; for *he* has said, I will not leave thee, neither will I forsake thee.
Hebrews ends with practical advice for people under pressure, and this verse reaches into the wallet. The reason to be content is not a comfortable life but a word God has spoken — and commentators ask hard questions about who may claim it.
The command targets more than envy of a neighbour. One writer traces the word itself back to its plainest sense:
As we look around us today, we see that covetousness marks the whole world. The word "covetousness" in the original means "having more." It is not always about wanting what someone else has. It is about wanting more than I have. At the root of all covetousness lies discontent with what we already have.
Another writer calls greed beneath anyone who follows Christ:
Greed is grubby and unworthy of any decent person. It is far beneath those called to follow Christ in faith and love, whose eyes have been opened to their better and lasting possessions where Christ is. Discontent with things is natural to unbelievers.
Why should anyone be content? One writer asks the obvious questions before giving the answer:
"Be content with what you have." Why? Is it because you are so well off in the world? Is it because you have everything your restless heart could want? Is it because there is not one crack in your circumstances for empty desire to slip through? Is this to be the ground of our contentment? By no means. What then? "For He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you." Blessed portion! Had Lot been content with that, he never would have sought the well watered plains of Sodom.
Lot was an early Bible figure who chose the well watered land near the city of Sodom.
Contentment sounds easy until you look at your actual circumstances. They are often the last thing anyone would choose. One writer meets the objection head on:
Are our present circumstances then so very desirable; are they just what they should be? They are the very reverse of that... Why then are we to be satisfied with them? Because, as Hebrews 12 has shown, God appoints them to correct and train us. And because He has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." That is it. We can be satisfied in our present circumstances, because God guarantees us the lasting presence of the One our hearts thirst for.
God spoke these same words long ago to Joshua, one of Israel's great leaders. That raises a fair question. May an ordinary believer claim a promise made to a man like that?
We might very properly say to ourselves, "But I am no Joshua. He was a very eminent man of faith, and I am a very insignificant and often a very feeble believer. Would it not be pushy and out of place for me to assume that a promise made to him is just as valid for me?" It is delightful to discover from these verses that such an application of this ancient promise is not the boldness of presumption but the boldness of faith.
God gave the same assurance to men whose lives had little in common:
As He said long ago to Jacob the wanderer (Genesis 28:15), to Joshua the warrior (Joshua 1:5), and to Solomon the worshipper (1 Chronicles 28:20), so He says to us. His word gives strong comfort, because it is impossible for Him to lie.
The cure for a grasping heart is not a bigger income but a better portion:
The living God is the source of all wealth, and He Himself is our portion. If we grasp that, and if He fills the heart, there is no room left for greed... The flour may be down to the bottom of the barrel. The oil in the jar may look too small to bother pouring out. Even then we hear Him say to our empty circumstances, "I" — blessed substitute for all the hoarded wealth of this poor world — "I," the living God, "will never leave you nor forsake you."
The verse does not stop at information. What God says about Himself, His people are meant to repeat about themselves:
"He has said … so that we may boldly say …" If God speaks we may accept what He says with all confidence. More than this, we may assert what He asserts with all boldness... we may take it home with full confidence, as spoken to each one of us. In our reading of Scripture let us form the happy habit of applying the words of God to ourselves in this way.
- Root — Covetousness is not mainly envy of others. It is discontent with what you already have. It wants more, so no amount of getting ever cures it.
- Ground — Contentment never rests on comfortable circumstances. It rests on a sentence God has already spoken. Lot's move toward Sodom failed that test — a failure of contentment, not of income.
- Gift — The promise guarantees a Person, not better conditions. With the living God as your portion, the heart has no room left for greed.
- Reach — God said these words to Jacob, to Joshua and to Solomon. Weak believers may claim them too, and claiming them is faith, not presumption.
- Result — Because He has said it, we may say it. Read God's promises as spoken to you personally, and greed loses its grip.
So that, taking courage, we may say, The Lord [is] my helper, and I will not be afraid what will man do unto me?
Hebrews 13:6 is the believer's answer to something God has already said. God has just promised never to leave or forsake His people. Because of that, the writer tells us what we can now say out loud: who our helper is, and how little man can do to us.
The verse starts with a link word. What we say rests on what God has said. The setting is money and the worry that comes with it.
The call comes: "Let your course of life be free of greed, contented with what you have. For He has said, I will in no way leave you, no, nor at all forsake you; so that we say confidently, Jehovah is my helper, and I will not fear: what shall man do to me?" (verses 5, 6.) Greed is sordid and unworthy of any decent person. It is even further beneath those called to follow Christ in faith and love, whose eyes are opened to their better and lasting possession where Christ is. Discontent is natural to unbelievers.
Read as a question, the closing words are not brave talk. They are an argument no one can answer.
We are to be content with the present circumstances in which God has placed us. The reason given is very blessed: whatever our circumstances, the Lord is with us. He has said, "I will not leave you, neither will I forsake you." If the Lord speaks like this, we may boldly say, "The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid: what will man do to me?" The last sentence is really a question. If the Lord is my helper, what can man do?
Neither half of verses 5–6 is new. The writer takes both from the Old Testament and hands them to us.
These verses hold two quotations from the Old Testament. The first is God's blessed promise to Joshua, a man of faith. Here it applies to every child of faith, in every age. Secondly, there is the bold response of faith to such language, from the Psalmist (Ps. 118:6), which every believer may adopt at all times.
The promise behind the boldness had a long life before it reached this letter, and it reached people in very different situations.
How full of comfort are those words in Hebrews 13:5: "He has said, I will in no way fail you, neither will I in any way forsake you, so that with good courage we say, the Lord is my helper: I will not fear; what shall man do to me?" (R.V.) These words were spoken first to the lonely wanderer Jacob, then to the warrior Joshua, and lastly to the worshipper Solomon. They are brought into the New Testament, it would seem, specially for us and at such a time as this.
The readers had once lost property gladly for Christ. That did not make them safe from the pull of getting more.
They had joyfully accepted the plundering of their goods. Yet they are not above the need of a warning against covetousness. For, as they declined in grace, they had grown in selfishness. They might give gifts to the saints, while taking care to add to their own worldly goods. As our hearts move away from Jesus, they draw nearer to themselves… Because of His words of faithful promise, we may speak confidently in circumstances that look most disheartening. Each one may boldly say, "The Lord is my Helper." … Man stands helpless and harmless before the power of the Lord, who counts every hair of our heads and keeps them safe.
The threat in view is not only violence. It includes the pressure of people who control your living.
We have our title to everything we need throughout our entire pilgrim journey in the gift of Christ Himself. "So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my Helper" — no matter what the circumstances are. No matter what groups of men may do. Vast associations of wealth may close down the little honest business where you earn your living. Labour may unite and shut everyone out of work who will not bow to its demands. Still we have the living God, the Lord and Master of all.
Hebrews keeps urging boldness, and this is one place where the boldness faces outward.
Others have made this confession and lived to see it honoured.
God never abandoned a man who stood for Him. "Our fathers trusted in You and were delivered." The Hebrew youths in the furnace of fire, Daniel in the den of lions, Elisha and his servant in Dothan — they all declare to us that God stands by those who are true to Him. The Devil is just as powerless as men if the Lord is with us.
- He said — the confidence starts with God's own promise never to leave or forsake; faith only echoes it back.
- So we say — that little word "so" is the hinge. Because He spoke, we speak, and we speak boldly, before God and before the world.
- Helper, not extra — the cure for greed and discontent is not more possessions. It is the presence of the One who is with us, in the circumstances He chose for us.
- What can man do? — the closing words are a question with no answer. Closed businesses, hostile employers, furnaces, lions, and even the Devil are all powerless while the Lord is with us.
- Old words, our mouths — God's promise to Joshua and the psalmist's bold reply belong to every believer, in every age.