Having just encouraged his readers with a reminder of God's help for the faithful (1:14) the writer next urged his readers to be faithful. He did so to warn them of the possibility of retrogressing spiritually and consequently losing part of their inheritance.
"The second step in the argument for Jesus' superiority shows him to be infinitely great because of the nature of the salvation he won. . . . The author precedes the development of this thought with a brief section in which he exhorts his readers to attend to what has been said, a feature we shall notice elsewhere (e.g., 3:7-11; 5:11-14)."60
"The author uses doctrine as a basis for exhorting believers."61
"The number of unusual words and idioms and the avoidance of the vocabulary of the LXX suggest that in this paragraph it was the writer's intention to confront the thought and life of his readers in a more arresting way than reliance upon familiar words and phrases would foster."62
2:1 The meaning of "For this reason"is that since Jesus Christ is greater than the angels we should take the revelation that has come through Him seriously. If the Israelites received severe punishment whenever they disobeyed the Law that God gave them through angels, the punishment for disregarding what God has give us through His Son will be even more severe.63Later in this epistle we learn that the original readers were slow to respond to Scriptural imperatives. They had not grown as Christians as they should have (5:11-12). The writer took this opportunity to exhort them to "pay much closer attention"(Gr. prosechein) to what their teachers had taught them and to what they had read in the Scriptures. This Greek word means not only to turn the mind to something but also to act upon what one perceives (cf. Acts 8:6; 16:14). The readers were apparently regarding these things too lightly.
"God's speaking is the basis for the writer's own word of exhortation' (13:22)."64
The writer illustrated their position. It is as though they were in a boat on a river or at sea. He pictured them moored at a dock or anchored. If they continued to neglect their attachment to the truth that does not change, the currents of their age might carry them away from it. They might drift away from the truth they had heard (not their eternal salvation, cf. 6:19). "What we have heard"is the antecedent of "it."This is a warning against apostatizing, departing from truth once held. All the warnings in the Bible against following false teachers are similar to this one in their intent. If we do not diligently remain in the truth--and to do so we must know it and remember it--we will depart from it. We live in a world that is striving to separate us from it. Satan also wants us to abandon it.
". . . the [five warning] passages in question are concerned with the danger of apostasy."65
". . . apostasy . . . [is] the central concern of the entire epistle."66
"That church's experience 2, 000 years ago intersects our lives in this way: drifting is the besetting sin of our day. And as the metaphor suggests, it is not so much intentional as from unconcern. Christians neglect their anchor--Christ--and begin to quietly drift away. There is no friction, no dramatic sense of departure. But when the winds of trouble come, the things of Christ are left far behind, even out of sight."67
". . . if you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?"68
2:2-3a "The word spoken through angels"refers to the terms of the Mosaic Covenant (cf. Deut 33:2 LXX; Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19). For the Jews, these terms were not open to debate. For them the will of God was unalterable. It required obedience. Under the Old Covenant the connection between sin and punishment was clear and direct. Even more so, the readers could count on the New Covenant that had come not through angels, but through God's Son, to involve punishment for sinners. This is especially true if that sin involves failing to give attention to all our responsibilities as Christians who have received such a great salvation. "Transgression"refers to overstepping bounds, and "disobedience"to the violation of God's will more generally.69The writer did not specify the punishment, but it cannot be loss of salvation since Scripture specifically states that we will not lose our salvation (John 10:28-29; Eph. 1:11-14; 1 Pet. 1:3-5; et al.). In view of the context (1:8-14) the ultimate victory of Jesus Christ and their own ultimate deliverance and rewards seem to be what the readers were in danger of forgetting.
"The neglected salvation is not our final deliverance from hell, that is not the salvation about which we are speaking.' Rather, it is the opportunity to enter into the final destiny of man, to reign with Christ over the works of God's hands (Heb. 2:8-9)."70
"Salvation includes far more than moral and bodily regeneration, for it embraces the covenanted kingdom of God, the inheritance of David's Son, the joint-heirship and reign with Christ."71
Note that the writer himself could have been negligent. He said, "How shall weescape?"not "How shall youescape?"(cf. v. 1). The most natural conclusion is that genuine Christians are in view in this warning, not unsaved professing Christians. The writer gave us no clues in the text that he had in mind unsaved professing Christians. Everything he said can be true of genuine believers.
"Unlike most modern congregations the early Christian church was an integrated community centered around the worship of God and the advancement of his kingdom. Economically it was a commonwealth, which meant that its members were not being pulled apart from one another by the pursuit of individual goals of success; they were devoting everything they were and owned to the strengthening of one another and the cause of Christ. Worshiping and eating together, the members were in constant communication [cf. Acts 2:42]. . . . Little time or distance separated the members of this body, so there was an unhindered communication of the gifts and graces of each one to the others."72
"It is emphatically NOT the same situation a Baptist preacher in the twentieth century faces when he climbs into the pulpit before eight thousand professing Christians. We are therefore fully justified in concluding that, when a New Testament writer uses a term like brethren,' he is not thinking that some may and some may not really be brothers, but he assumes and believes that all his readers are in fact born again.
"Since the writers themselves never explicitly say that they feel their audience is a mixture and since they everywhere make statements to the effect that they are talking to genuine Christians, we have no warrant for reading into their otherwise clear statements qualifications which they themselves never make."73
The warning is against neglecting, not rejecting, salvation (cf. 6:19).
"He [the writer] is not encouraging sinners to become Christians; rather, he is encouraging Christians to pay attention to the great salvation they have received from the Lord.
"More spiritual problems are caused by neglect than perhaps by any other failure on our part. We neglect God's Word, prayer, worship with God's people (see Heb. 10:25), and other opportunities for spiritual growth, and as a result, we start to drift."74
Chapter 1 glorifies our great Savior, and chapter 2 exalts our great salvation.
2:3b-4 Jesus Christ spoke of these aspects of salvation during His earthly ministry (e.g., Matt. 4:17; 19:28; Luke 12:31-32; 22:29-30). The apostles taught the same truth and by doing so confirmed His word.
"By speaking of the hearers' (ton akousanton), all interest is concentrated on the message, not the office, of those who had brought the word of redemption to the community . . ."75
God testified to His approval of Christ's preaching and the apostles' preaching about Christ by providing authenticating miracles that showed God was with them (cf. Acts 2:43; 4:30; 5:12; 6:8; 8:6, 13; 14:3; 15:12; 2 Cor. 12:12). "Signs"emphasizes that the miracles signify something. "Wonders"emphasizes the reaction of awe that the miracles produced in those who observed them. "Miracles"emphasizes their supernatural origin and "gifts"the graciousness of God in providing them. The writer intended that reference to these miracles would bolster the readers' confidence in the gospel they had received.
This statement does not force us to date the epistle after the apostles had died.
"It is too much to read into this verse that the writer and his readers belonged to a second generation of Christians . . ., though 5:12 shows that they were not new converts . . ."76
The original readers may have been, and I believe were, people who had heard the apostles' preaching and had observed the miracles that accompanied that preaching. This statement does not say that the signs and wonders had already ceased. They may have, but this statement does not say that. The prediction that they would cease occurs in 1 Corinthians 13:8. Ephesians 2:20 implies the temporary duration of apostolic ministry that included signs and wonders.77
"Hebrews' references to the Holy Spirit are generally incidental; much of the space occupied in Paul's theology by the Spirit is filled in Hebrews by the exalted Christ."78
I think signs and wonders are less common in developed countries today because most of these countries have the complete Word of God. God now typically validates the gospel through His Word (cf. Rom. 8:16; 1 John 5:1-13). Occasionally we hear reports of miracles that validate the gospel, but they are usually in places where the Word of God is not as available.
This is the first of five warnings in Hebrews (cf. 3:1-4:16; 5:11-6:20; 10:19-39; 12:1-29). It is the shortest and mildest one. These warnings deal with drifting from the Word, disbelieving the Word, dullness toward the Word, despising the Word, and defying the Word.
"The warning of Hebrews 2:1-5 is linked by dia touto(for this reason') with the entire argument of Hebrews 1. Because of the Son's superiority to angels (1:1-5), the angels' worship of and service to Him at His coming (1:6-7), His future rule and sharing of joy with His companions (1:8-9), and His future subjugation of His enemies (1:10-14), the readers would do well to heed these eschatological teachings. Neglect of this eschatological salvation (cf. 1:4; 2:3, 5) may result in individual temporal discipline similar to that experienced under the Old Covenant (2:2). The salvation' of 2:3 is the same as that in 1:4. Hebrews 2:5 clarifies that the soteriaunder discussion is eschatological."79
"One of the greatest dangers of the Christian life is losing interest in what is familiar (8:9; Matt. 22:5). The entire Epistle lays stress on steadfastness at almost every stage, and this is one of the essential marks of the true, growing, deepening Christian life (3:14; 4:2, 12, 13; 6:1, 19; 10:26; 12:27, 28; 13:8)."80
". . . the doctrines the epistle presents, the warnings it delivers, and the exhortations it gives all were intended to prevent regression and to encourage continuous dynamic development toward spiritual maturity."81
