Heb No.3 So great a Salvation 2v1-4

Now you may care to have your Bibles open at the first four verses of Hebrews, Chapter 2. Indeed, if you don't have your Bibles open at those verses, then I can't really think that you're going to get much profit out of our study this evening, for we are, so to speak, putting a magnifying glass upon those verses. And by God's grace and the help of His Spirit, we're trusting that we shall be able to come to grips with some of the truths contained in this passage of Scripture. There is a quip in evangelical circles that when you come across the word, therefore, in the Scriptures, you ask yourself what it's there for.

Which just goes to show how poor evangelical humour sometimes can be. But really, that's unkind, because it is helpful to ask what the opening word in that second chapter really indicates. It's a link word.

It's a word which brings together what has gone before and what is to follow. A bridge. It's a word which suggests that because of an argument that has preceded, there are certain things which follow as a logical deduction.

Well, what has preceded in the author's argument before he comes to chapter 2? Well, you recall that he has been talking about the Lord Jesus, and he's made it very clear that Jesus is supreme. Jesus is far greater than any of the Old Testament personalities. He's greater than the revelation that God gave to the fathers by the prophets.

He's greater than the ministry and the position that angels maintain. And the Lord Jesus Christ, having brought the gospel, the word of God, into this world, demands of us a response. That's the reason why we're studying this particular passage of scripture.

We believe that Jesus has saved us. We believe that he has given us his word. And because of this, we want to be diligent students of the Bible, and we want to live lives which will bring honour and glory to him.

After all, in the 14th verse of the previous chapter, we find a description of ourselves. We are heirs of salvation. How is it that we have entered into that privileged condition? Well, because of the ministry of Jesus Christ.

He alone had the right to save us. He alone had the ability to make us sons of God. And because of this, we ought to treasure the gospel message more and more.

So, the writer, having shown the supremacy of Jesus over against the Old Testament revelation, with both the personalities whose stories you come across there, and angelic beings who also are referred to, he stops for a moment, and he spends four verses applying what he has said to us. It's like taking ointment, if you like, and instead of just putting it on your skin, rubbing it in. Applying the ointment to yourself.

Applying the teaching. Now, any good preacher, as obviously the writer of the Hebrew epistle was, knows that it's necessary not only to widen the intellect of his hearer, but also to challenge him to a better degree of discipleship. So, these four verses that you come across in Hebrews 2 could really be put in brackets.

The bracket starting with the word therefore, and the bracket concluding at the end of verse 4, which in the A.V. reads, His own will. The fifth verse continues to talk about angels, which have been the subject matter from the 14th verse of the previous chapter, and the verses that preceded that. So, we're looking at a little bit of application that the author of the Hebrews makes.

And he'll do that from time to time. About a dozen passages I've counted in this epistle, where he leaves off his argument and he says, Not just are you understanding me, but are you applying what I am saying to your own discipleship? Because he is writing to people who are defective in certain areas of their Christian testimony. And he wants them to be better soldiers of Jesus Christ.

He doesn't want them to quote a phrase that he uses later on to cast away their confidence. He wants to encourage them. And so, time and time again, he'll pause, and he'll take the word and he'll rub it into their spiritual system.

Now, in these four verses that we're contemplating this evening, to use an expression often employed by the late and beloved Campbell Morgan, there are three movements. There are three particular aspects of this practical teaching. The first has to do with a danger.

A danger, a warning, flashing red lights. Because the author is concerned that these people that he's writing to may not appreciate the wonder of their salvation sufficiently. And having sounded that warning, he then goes on to make a most interesting contrast between what Moses taught and what Jesus taught, and how the Old Testament revelation differed in the way that it was brought from the New Testament revelation.

And then the third movement, the third thing he has to talk about, is the way that the gospel is communicated to other people like himself, and how God confirmed the gospel. I wonder if you've got those three movements in your mind. They're really quite simple for us to follow.

And indeed, in the notes that I've given you, I've tried to put them in headings which are easy to memorize. So then, let's consider this danger. The flashing lights that it seems to me one can perceive within that first verse.

Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard. Here is a very urgent request. A very urgent request in which the author, in a humble fashion, includes himself.

We ought to take care. We ought to take care about what? Well, that this revelation that's come through the Lord Jesus Christ, according to what he has to say in the second verse of the first chapter, is really appreciated. Is really appreciated.

The gospel that Jesus has brought is God's final word to men and women. There's nothing else that he's got to say. That's the sum total of the first two verses of the opening chapter.

God, who spoke in days gone by, in centuries that have passed, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. And there is no other communication that God is going to make to this world above that which he has broadcasted through his Son. Nothing else.

Now, if you miss what God is saying through Jesus, you've missed everything. And if you've heard what God has said in Jesus, and you haven't put sufficient value on it, then you're in a very dangerous situation. And it's this, really, that is beclouding the heart of our author at the moment.

I say beclouding because he's sorrowful that Jesus, who he sees to be supreme above everyone else, and the message that he's brought is the most wonderful thing in all the world, he's sorrowful that this isn't appreciated by his readers, or so it would appear by the way that they're living their lives. So he makes this urgent plea. We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, this inheritance which is ours.

Because it's so marvellous that to esteem it lightly, to undervalue it, would be a terrible, terrible thing indeed. And having made his urgent plea, he suggests what the danger really is. And he does so in some very interesting language in the original.

We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. Lest at any time we should let them slip. That word slip is interesting.

It's got the idea of, if you like, a leak. You imagine a bucket that's got water in it, and it starts to leak. Bit by bit you lose the content of the receptacle.

Now he doesn't want those who have received something of the Gospel message to let it slip away, to let it leak away. He's got another way of expressing this, at least it's latent, it's concealed within the Greek terminology. It's the possibility of a ring just falling off a finger, slipping off.

There it was, and you didn't realise, perhaps when you were doing the washing, that when your finger got greasy, got damp, the ring fell off your finger. It slipped away, and you'd lost it. Noah says, the writer of this epistle, you're not to let the ring of the Gospel slip off from your heart, so to speak.

But there's perhaps even a more interesting way in which you could interpret that word slip, and it's got a sort of nautical meaning. If you go back to that expression, we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, that's got the connotation of ensuring that your ship is well moored up, that it's tied to the quayside, and it doesn't move away. That's the idea about giving the more earnest heed, ensuring that the ship is well secured in the harbour.

And the idea of slipping, again, maintaining the nautical explanation, conveys the scene of, shall we say, a yacht, and the sailor, the one in charge, hasn't taken sufficient notion, sufficient concern, of the wind that's blowing. He hasn't trimmed his sails accordingly, and he's let the yacht go right across the mouth of the harbour itself. It's gone away.

So you could translate this, if you wanted to, idiomatically, we must the more eagerly anchor our lives to the things that we have been taught, lest the ship of life drift past the harbour and be wrecked. You probably didn't know that it had got that nautical connotation in that verse, and yet there is a hint of it later on, because in the 6th chapter and the 19th verse, we get reference to the Lord Jesus Christ being an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast. And there the argument is the same.

Those who are heirs of salvation are anchored in the Lord Jesus Christ. How do you know that your anchor is going to hold? Well, you do so because, on the one hand, of the sovereignty of God. But the Bible talks about working at our salvation.

It suggests that, to some extent, we have a responsibility to see that the rope is well secured along the quayside so the boat won't slip away in a storm. We have some responsibility, just to change the illustration a little, to ensure that our sail is directed to the wind and to ensure that the yacht is coming towards the point where it can enter into the safety of the harbour. Well, this is at the back of our author's mind.

When he is asking for attention, give attention to the Christian faith. We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that we have heard. We are not to be neglectful.

We are not to be negligent sailors of the gospel ship. We are not to allow anything to slip from our grasp. That, then, is the teaching in this first verse.

There's attention drawn to a danger which confronts Christian people. I wonder if you realise that yourself. I'm sure you do, or else you probably wouldn't be here this evening.

You're an heir of salvation. But that doesn't mean to say that you're to sit back comfortably and just wait for the Lord God to bring you into heaven after you've finished your earthly pilgrimage here. No, you're to work at your salvation.

You are to ensure that you're in a right relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he's going to come back to this in the third verse when he talks about how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation. But there's the first movement, easily understandable in that first verse.

Attention and danger. He draws our eyes to the possibility that we might let certain things that God has given us slip away from ourselves. But the second movement, which is as interesting as the first, is one in which our author draws a distinction between the law and the gospel.

Look at that second verse and the third verse and you'll find some words which are almost identical and suggest a contrast. Verse 2, the word spoken by angels. Verse 3, salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord.

What does all that mean? Well, you should have gathered from what I was able to share with you during the first two weeks of our study that the Old Testament law, when it was given to Moses, was mediated by angels. That doesn't become very clear in the Old Testament, not when you read the book of Exodus, but it is clarified in the New. For example, in the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, you read in the 35th verse that Moses received the law and he did so at the hands of angels.

Perhaps that's made even more clear in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 19, where we read Paul saying that the law was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. What does that mean? Well, it was angels who delivered the law of God to Moses. Back in Deuteronomy, in the 33rd chapter and the second verse, we read of that event.

The Lord came from Sinai at the place where the commandments were delivered and rose up from Seir. He shined forth from Mount Paran and He came with ten thousands of His holy ones. From His right hand went a fiery law for them.

What do those scriptures tell us? Well, they tell us, quite simply, as the writer of the Hebrew Epistle is informing us, that the old law of God was spoken by angels and the ten commandments were very important indeed. That's why in the A.V. the word steadfast is used. These commandments were not to be played around with.

They weren't a sort of optional extra for the Hebrews. They were to be maintained. If they were to be a successful people, they were to live by the law of God.

Indeed, we're told in that second verse, regarding the law, that if it was broken, if it was transgressed, if there was disobedience on the part of the Hebrew community, then they would be punished. That word transgression is interesting. It means stepping over the line.

It means going too far. If the Hebrews went too far and broke God's law, then they would be punished. The word disobedience also is an interesting one in the original.

It has the idea, first of all, of imperfect hearing, like a deaf man. And then it's got the connotation of careless hearing. And then, in its absolute sense, it's got the idea of unwilling to hear.

Now, if the Hebrews in the Old Testament era were unwilling to hear God's law, unwilling to live by it, then they would be punished. That's what our writer brings to our attention. But what about the Gospel? Well, he's already argued that the law brought by angels, entrusted to Moses, and shared with the people, was inferior to the Gospel revelation.

Now, if the Old Testament law, when it was broken, brought God's punishment, would not neglect of the Gospel bring an even greater punishment? Let's take that more carefully. I wonder if you've got the idea of this second verse. The author, I repeat, is speaking about the law brought by angels, given to Moses, and then transmitted to the people.

It was a sort of two-stage process. And the law was a very good thing in itself. But unfortunately, the Hebrew people didn't have the ability to rise to it, and therefore they came under the condemnation of the law, the punishment of the law.

But how did the Gospel come? How did God speak to people, bringing the new revelation of Himself? Well, not through an angel, not through Moses. When God spoke His final word, He sent His Son to bring the message. So, the contrast from the second verse to the third.

In the second verse, reference is made to the word spoken by angels. In the third verse, reference is made to the word spoken by the Lord Jesus. Now, if Jesus Christ is greater than the angels, and as you will see in our study in two weeks' time, He's far superior to Moses, then obviously the revelation that He brings of God is better than the angelic revelation transmitted through Moses to the people.

And if that revelation, by the angels through Moses, brought judgment on the part of those who didn't live up to the Ten Commandments, then what a sorry state awaits those people who neglect the salvation which Jesus broadcasts. And it's not any ordinary salvation. It's not just a great salvation.

The writer of the Hebrew says it's so great salvation. He piles up a couple of words before he comes to the noun so that you can see the importance of his subject matter. If the Ten Commandments had value, as they came to the people through Moses and the angels, how much more value is the gospel proclaimed by Jesus? If punishment follows breach of the first, then what will be the nature of the condition of people who neglect so great a salvation as Jesus Christ has brought to this world? Why did I turn you to the parable of a man giving a feast and inviting people to come along to it in Matthew chapter 22? You remember the story? Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king which made a marriage feast for his son.

And he sent invitations. And he expected that people who received such an invitation would be absolutely amazed that the king had invited them to the wedding of his son and they'd rush along and perhaps even bring a wedding present, though that's not what it says in the scripture. But they didn't.

He sent forth his son, his servants, to call them that were bidden to the wedding and they would not come. Rather, they made light of it. They made light of it.

How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? That word neglect in the original is exactly the same word as light in the fifth verse of Matthew 22. Jesus, of course, in setting forth the parable is giving a picture of those who brought face-to-face with gospel opportunities make light of it. You know such people, don't you? They're probably in your family circle and it worries you.

They may be in your street because you've talked to them. There may be men in your office or in your shop and they laugh. They ridicule.

They make light of what you have to say and that's an awful thing. How shall they escape if they make light of this message? How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? So, you see the second movement. He's concerned to contrast the law with the gospel.

The law coming through intermediaries, the gospel coming directly through Jesus. If the breach of the law, rejection of the first revelation of God is culpable, brings punishment, then it logically follows that neglect making light of an even greater revelation brings greater condemnation. So then, these are the opening movements in these four verses.

There's a warning, which he gives in the first verse, flashing lights, that people may not have secured themselves well to the harbor. The possibility that they're slipping by to change the illustration just a little. They're slipping by the mouth of the harbor.

They're negligent. And then he takes the thought of negligence and applies it to not attending to the gospel as well as perhaps the Old Testament covenant was attended to. And if neglect of that brought the condemnation of God, how much more condemnation will accrue to those who neglect the greater revelation of the Lord.

And then the third movement. That is found in the latter part of the third verse and on to the fourth. For here, our writer is talking about how he came to learn of the gospel himself and how he knew in his day that the gospel was true, how it was authenticated.

Do you remember, I was rather contentious. I was in an argumentative mood in my first address on Hebrews when I said that I didn't believe that it belonged to Paul as author. But I said that I wouldn't tell you why Paul couldn't have written it until later on.

Well, this is the reason why Paul could not have written Hebrews. Because here in the third verse he talks about those who communicated the gospel to him. Our anonymous author is now speaking and he is referring to how he himself came to hear the gospel.

How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him. Now Paul, if he'd been the writer of Hebrews could never have used that terminology. Why? Because time and time again in the epistles that he penned he claimed he received his revelation not from anyone else but by Jesus Christ alone.

It wasn't communicated to him by any intermediary, by any other disciple. Listen to Paul as he's writing to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 23.

For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. What I'm sharing with you Corinthians I haven't got from anybody else. I've got it directly from Jesus Christ.

He says the same thing when he's writing to the Galatians in the first chapter and the opening verse. Paul an apostle not of men neither by man but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. And he goes on in that chapter to indicate that the gospel he preached he received from the Lord.

The twelfth verse or the eleventh and twelfth verses of Galatians 1. I certify you brethren that the gospel which was preached of me is not after men for I neither received it of man neither was I taught it but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now I've given you two examples. I could have given you many more.

The basis of Paul's argument that he was an apostle was really wrapped around the extraordinary revelation that Jesus gave him personally. And Paul claimed that he had seen the risen Lord and that he'd come under the tuition of the Christ himself. So here when you come to the third verse of Hebrews chapter 2 you find the author saying that what he is passing on to others was originally spoken by Jesus and Jesus taught other people who in turn taught him.

So there's Jesus and the apostles and then our author. So it is inconceivable that the author could possibly have been Paul. Who might it have been? Well I quoted one of the early church fathers, Oregon, who said only God knows.

Well obviously the Lord God does know but I've got a rather strong suspicion that the writer of the Hebrews was none other than our good friend Apollos of whom you read in Acts chapter 18. Apollos was a man who was born at Alexandria and he came to live in Ephesus. He came under the influence of two Jewish Christians and let me read what the writer of the Acts has to say about Apollos.

Acts 18 verse 24 A certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord and being fervent in the Spirit he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord knowing only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard they took him unto them and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.

And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him who when he was come helped them much which had believed through grace. For he mightily convinced the Jews and that publicly showing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ. Here is a Jewish man comes under the influence of Aquila and Priscilla is in a place where Paul has been for a long period of time and it may well be that this man, I only make it as a suggestion I'm not being dogmatic at all that this man who come under the influence of the great theologian Paul writes this epistle to his own people and very often the thoughts of Paul seem to be duplicated at times in the passages which would be quite logical if this man had been influenced by Paul and Aquila and Priscilla in the first instance.

Well, no matter who wrote it really what we rejoice in is that we have this epistle and that it helps Jewish people to come to a greater understanding of the gospel. This word of God was communicated says the author by the Lord to the apostles and then by the apostles to those people who have received this letter and amongst their number he associates himself as though he's writing to people with whom he used to live at one stage. But having made reference to the way that he's received the gospel its communication he also has some intriguing things to say about the confirmation of the gospel.

God also, bearing them, the apostles, witness both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his will. And here, of course, he's referring to miraculous phenomena which accompany the initial proclamation of the gospel. You come across that word, do not sign that word signs, do not in John's gospel.

It describes what Jesus does on many an occasion starting off with turning water into wine in Cana of Galilee. This beginning of signs, says John did the Lord Jesus thus displaying his miraculous powers. And we know very well that in the early church these signs and wonders which attest to the ministry of Jesus were maintained by some of the early proclaimers of the gospel.

We read scriptures which give indication of this in the first epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians and the first chapter in the fifth verse the great Bible expositor says for our gospel came not unto you in word only but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. And when you go into the Acts of the Apostles you find occasions when these early ambassadors of Jesus Christ are miraculously used. A man sits by the gate beautiful, he's a lame man he's been lame for a long time as a result he has to beg and he happens on one occasion to stop Peter and John who are going into the temple at the hour of prayer and in the name of Jesus you know the story they call for his healing and he leaps around as a result of the faith that they have an attestation, a confirmation of the message that they were preaching.

You go all the way through the Acts of the Apostles and you find most remarkable instances of miracle of the intervention of supernatural power sometimes angels coming down and releasing men from prison sometimes that the shadow of one of the early apostles, Peter passing over some sick person and causing him to be healed sometimes the raising of people who were dead back to life again remarkable things, signs wonders, divers miracles gifts of the Holy Ghost all these, says our writer authenticated the message which was communicated to him by others who had heard the Lord speak. And of course more teaching about this is given in Paul's letter to the Corinthians particularly the first letter in the 12th chapter and the 14th chapter where you discover a great deal of information about spiritual gifts that word gifts there charisma, is the word that is also used in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 and there also you get the teaching that these gifts, these miraculous abilities are nonetheless within the sovereign control of the Holy Spirit he gives these gifts to men for them to use from time to time according to his own will and of course the question then arises because you're curious people and you perhaps want to know just what my own thinking happens to be in this particular area well what about the attestation of gospel preaching today what about these signs and wonders these divers miracles, these gifts of the Holy Ghost are we to expect them in the same way in which the apostles obviously were empowered by God. Is it the case that God today in exactly the same fashion is going to authenticate his word and that sort of question of course is very explosive today in evangelical circles because there are those like for example the man who wrote a book which I have in front of me, Signs of the Apostles Walter J. Chantry, an American theologian and preacher whose whole argument in this particular book is that these signs were just for the apostolic days God would authenticate his message before Scripture, the canon of Scripture was complete and on completion of the canon that sort of attestation, that supernatural phenomena, that ceased and then you've got another book that argues exactly the opposite case.

I keep them side by side in my library and sometimes I see static going from one book to the other because the theses completely contradict one another, the Spirit Filled Church by John Lancaster. Well, what are we to say? What is our own understanding of this? It seems to me that one cannot but argue that whenever God does something really remarkable in history then there are miraculous signs which may not be repeated in the same quality as they were when that particular incident came into being. I mean for example taking the Old Testament the dividing of the Red Sea, that miraculous deliverance from Egypt after the angel of death had gone over the land of the pharaohs and wreaked disaster and devastation amongst the firstborn of the Egyptians.

You don't read repetitions of that sort of thing. The parting of the waters, well that happens just on another two occasions as far as I am aware in the Old Testament. It's not phenomena that's repeated and repeated and repeated.

You come to the annunciation the heralding of the birth of the Lord Jesus in this world obviously this is a unique event and one hears of angels appearing to shepherds and one hears of angelic choirs chanting praise to almighty God. There were certain things that happened when Jesus was conceived which have never been repeated and again when the church was born on the day of Pentecost it seems that such a satanic event as that will be singularly marked by the miraculous in a way that perhaps in the same quantity or rather in the same quality will not be repeated. These are great pivotal points that I've been referring to in God's dealings with mankind.

But having said that and having I feel logically been driven to make those observations I personally cannot myself feel that the argument is watertight that as a result of this God will never supernaturally break in upon the Christian community as they are engaged in evangelistic exploits or perchance within his sovereignty as they are gathered together in worship. One would perhaps not expect it as I say in the same degree as in these epochs to which I have made reference but I think that one would be very careful certainly I would be very careful in drawing the conclusion that all these things have to be resigned completely to the Old Testament and the New Testament era. God is still God and these supernatural phenomena to which reference is here made is within his control within his power and if he wishes to manifest certain of this charismatic then doubtless he will do so and it is up to us to be willing to be used in such a fashion if it is within God's purpose.