So Great Salvation

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. Hebrews 2:1-4

“Much closer attention,” or as the KJV states it, “more earnest heed.” This is serious business. Not just pretty platitudes, intended to please our emotions. The scriptures are not simply beautiful poetry and historical tidbits, to be read as literature and compared with other ancient writings. This is the Word of God. It tells us Who and What God is, who and what man is, and how helplessly lost we are without God’s perfect intervention for us to save us from the sin which has us ensnared from our physical birth. God’s Word gives us details of that plan of grace, and the Savior Who was uniquely conceived and born as the only God-Man, qualified to pay the penalty for all our sins.

These truths must be examined with the enablement of God the Holy Spirit, Who gives understanding to our human spirits. We must learn to see God’s plan and purpose for us from His perspective, and to build doctrine upon doctrine, until we can see the whole realm of His Truth. A perfunctory read-through will not get the job done. That’s why we have the Church, the body of Christ, with her various members with their various spiritual gifts, led in worship and study by a pastor-teacher who is gifted to comprehend and teach God’s Truth from His Word to His flock in the earth.

“Much closer attention” means we read it, study it, savor it, and hear the pastor exegete it from the original languages. Then we absorb it into our soul and make personal application of the Word to our daily life. We store up that doctrine, to be remembered and appreciated as we learn more and more of the Word, categorizing it (essence of God, total depravity, unlimited atonement, salvation, Christian way of life, eschatology, etc.) in our souls and in our notes, continuing to build our very own spiritual structure that will sustain us throughout our sojourn on earth, and from which we are equipped to share with others who need this knowledge to begin and continue their own Christian life.

“lest we drift away from it.” In our fervor of new salvation or newly discovered Bible doctrine, we often think we are so totally dedicated to the truth that nothing would ever distract us from it. Sometimes, we reach a stage of growth (spiritual adolescence) when we become so smug with what we’ve learned, and so proud of our position IN CHRIST, that we tend to think to ourselves, “yeah, I know all that. No need for so much repetition. I can afford to relax the regimen for a while and go with what I know.”

That is dangerous for the believer in Jesus Christ! It is amazing how quickly the Christian can become side-tracked by worldliness, all the while being confident of his security in his eternal position. One gradually loses the keen sense of Whose he is, and begins to behave and think like an unbeliever. His spiritual security is eternal, alright, but his daily fellowship with God and his testimony to his fellow-man suffer from lack of focus. His priorities can get confused, and he becomes tolerant of the secular world-view, which is Satan’s own package of lies. As we become less diligent about our studies in Bible doctrine, we develop a tendency to compromise with the world.

“What we have heard” is Bible doctrine! Our lives must reinforce that with everything we do, every decision we make, every testimony out of our mouths. The only way humans can stay sharp for that duty is to cling to it, love it, study it and “pay close attention to it” as the treasured gift it is. This whole letter to the Hebrew Christians teaches them and us how the truths of the Mosaic Law became the foundation of the highest, grandest, most perfect display of God’s eternal plan, all embodied in God the Son: Jesus Christ. There is nothing more demanding of our attention!

V.2: “the word spoken through angels” (the Old Testament Law-Acts 7:53) is eternal truth. Those who disobeyed it received swift discipline. We now have the fulfilled gospel message of Christ’s complete atonement for everyone’s sins. No guesswork, no confusion. He came. He paid. He gave. What is His can be ours, instantly and for all eternity. If those Old Testament believers got swatted for ignoring and disobeying the Law as they understood it, how can we in the Church age expect to escape certain discipline for neglecting the knowledge of and faithful reliance on the ultimate gift of the Only Savior?

Accompanying the truths they received were signs, wonders, various “miracles” or powerful works, because God is compassionate with His people, and has often authenticated His Word by such outward displays, to assure them that it was really He, and not another who was speaking. They saw these miraculous occurrences and many believed.

At the time of the writing of Hebrews, God’s people had seen much greater miracles than Moses’ generation ever saw. God’s Son had been conceived and born through a virgin, guaranteeing His sinlessness, as the Old Sin Nature is passed down through the male in procreation. Mary was born a sinner, like you and me, but she didn’t pass on the sin nature, because the mother does not. Born without sin in His dna, Jesus lived 33 years as a human on the earth and did not sin. This was all necessary, because this truly human being had the most important mission of history: He must receive in His sinless body the penalty for all the sins of the human race. There they would be judged, because sin must be judged. Only a perfectly sinless, fully human being could do that. He was the lamb without spot or blemish, as required for the Old Testament sacrifice of atonement.

All this was perfectly executed by Jesus, and then He dismissed His spirit and went back to the eternal glory from which he came, but now he had a new family; a new creation—His Church—Royal Family of God--us—who are IN HIM and will be on display as the trophies of His victory over Satan for all eternity.

Those are profound truths from which we who belong to Him must not ever drift away.