So Great Salvation (Heb. 2:1-4)

This sermon was preached on 10/2/2013

This passage suggests Paul was not the author of the book of Hebrews. In verse 3, the author places himself in a different category from the apostles who heard Jesus during his three years of public ministry. While it is the case that Paul was not one of the original group of apostles, usually he is very careful to state his apostolic authority in his letters and the author of Hebrews does not do so. Therefore, many commentators conclude that the writer of this book was not Paul or even another apostle. Several suggestions have been made as to who the author could have been, but the only detail we can be certain about is that no-one knows who wrote the letter. In fact, I don’t understand why people try to prove what they cannot prove regarding the authorship of Hebrews. 

It is the case that the author is continuing to show that Jesus is greater than the angels. In this passage he considers the involvement of angels in the giving of the divine law to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. This particular angelic activity is not mentioned in the Old Testament accounts, although reference is made to their presence there in Deuteronomy 33:2: ‘The LORD came from Sinai, and dawned on them from Seir; He shone forth from Mount Paran, and He came with ten thousands of saints (holy ones or angels); from His right hand came a fiery law for them.’ The activity is referred to elsewhere in the New Testament, in Acts 7:38-39 and 53 and Galatians 3:15. 

The writer of Hebrews does not mean that the voice that Moses heard on Mount Sinai was not the voice of God as such but the voice of an angelic intermediary. Stephen makes it clear in Acts 7:53 that angels were involved in giving the law (‘who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it’). Yet he also mentions that there was a specific Angel present (7:38-39: ‘This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected’). So it seems that the law was given by the Son of God accompanied by angelic helpers. 

The angelic involvement meant that they ‘raised the fire and smoke; they shook and rent the rocks; they framed the sound of the trumpet; they effected the articulate voices which conveyed the words of the law to the ears of the people, and therein proclaimed and published the law; whereby it became “the word spoken by angels”’ (John Owen). 

The counterpart, as far as the gospel is concerned, to the angelic involvement in the giving of the law is the way God bore witness by the apostles to the message of salvation with ‘signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will’. Verse 4 is almost a summary of the Book of Acts. The story of the church begins with the miracle of Pentecost when the apostles were enabled to speak in other languages without having learned them. Various other miracles, some of which included angelic involvement, occur in the Book of Acts. The particular reason for mentioning these phenomena may be connected to the accusation of the Jewish opponents who were boasting about the visible features of Old Testament occasions and rituals. While the giving of the law had its attendant displays of heavenly power, the giving of the gospel had greater.

The point of a warning

The author of Hebrews frequently intersperses his message with warnings to his readers to consider their lives in light of his words (2:1-4 is the first of five such passages in Hebrews). Given that many regard this book as a sermon or exhortation, it is interesting that such appeals were not left to the end of the message, but were given throughout it. These warnings can be regarded as nails fastening particular truths and responses into the minds of the readers. 

Further, the frequent use of warnings indicates the seriousness with which the author presented his theme and why he wanted his readers to respond positively to his message. Also, he addressed his warnings to all his readers whether they were Christians making progress or professors beginning to backslide or those who had already given up following Jesus. He also includes himself because he says ‘the things which we have heard’.

What is the point of a warning? We see warning signs every day. The sign on a bridge says the wind is too strong for high-sided vehicles to cross. This does not mean that the civil authority is against the transport company. Instead, the warning is intended for the good of the transport company. Similarly, these verses are a sign that God intends our good, that he is warning us of danger.

Danger of neglect

The point of the writer is to encourage his readers not to neglect the great salvation that they have heard. This is a solemn reminder of why many, perhaps the majority, of those who hear the gospel do not benefit from it. As Albert Barnes put it, ‘It does not have to be great sins which destroy the soul. Simple neglect will do it as certainly as atrocious crimes. Every person has a sinful heart that will destroy him unless he makes an effort to be saved; and it is not merely the great sinner, therefore, who is in danger. It is the man who neglects his soul – whether a moral or an immoral man – a daughter of amiableness, or a daughter of vanity and vice.’ 

Barnes then shows the danger of neglect in everyday affairs: ‘Neglect is enough to ruin a man.  A man who is in business need not commit forgery or robbery to ruin himself; he has only to neglect his business, and his ruin is certain.  A man who is lying on a bed of sickness, need not cut his throat to destroy himself; he has only to neglect the means of restoration, and he will be ruined.  A man floating in a little boat above Niagara Falls does not need to move an oar or to make an effort to destroy himself; he has only to neglect using the oar at the proper time, and he will certainly be carried over the cataract.’ How much more is the case with a person who neglects the gospel!

The opposite of ‘to neglect’ is ‘to consider, to give attention to, to attempt to understand’, or as the writer says here, ‘to give heed.’ His words are a reminder of the importance of the mind in the evangelism of non-Christians and in the edification of believers. The consequence of failing to use one’s mind is a slow but steady departure from the gospel. 

Such a person is likened by the author to the pilot of a ship who fails to reach the harbour because he has not held fast to the maps describing the entrance. ‘The Christian is embarked in his little vessel on the stream of life, and he is bound to the New Jerusalem. The winds of temptation, the tides of corrupt custom, and the powerful under-current of depraved inclination, all present such obstacles in the way of his reaching the desired haven, that he is in great apparent hazard of being carried past the celestial city, and of making shipwreck on the shores of the land of Destruction’ (John Brown). Therefore he must give earnest heed to the instructions he has been given.

What are we in danger of neglecting? As I mention some possibilities, ask yourself if you have thought about them today or during the past week. We can neglect thinking that we have been adopted into God’s Family. We can neglect thinking that we have been baptised into the name of the Trinity. We can neglect thinking about the cross of Christ. We can neglect thinking about the meaning of discipleship. We can neglect thinking about the length of eternity. We can neglect thinking about the future. We can neglect our need of divine grace. We can neglect the necessity of holiness. We can neglect thinking about the fact that our sins were imputed to Jesus on the cross. We can neglect thinking about the doctrine of justification. We can neglect thinking about the necessity of keeping God’s commandments. And there are many other aspects of salvation that we can neglect.

A great salvation

There are many reasons as to why the writer describes salvation as great. He may be contrasting it with the rescue that the children of Israel experienced from Egypt. Their rescue was a great national deliverance, achieved by God against powerful and determined enemies. Yet that salvation had limitations. It was not a guarantee that those who escaped from Egypt would get to heaven. Many who were delivered from Egypt did not have true faith in God. So the contrast with the Exodus may be one of the causes of the greatness of the plan of mercy. Yet there are other reasons for its superiority.

The salvation is also great because of who performs the rescue. It is a salvation that involves the three persons in the divine Trinity. The Father planned it, the Son procured it by his life and death, the Holy Spirit applies it to people. We can contrast the greatness of salvation with the greatness of creation. In both we see the wisdom and power of God, although the work of salvation is greater than what was displayed in the work of creation. 

In particular, we can look at the contribution of the Son of God. Providing this salvation involved far more than keeping the universe in existence after it had been created. Jesus performs the latter by a word, but it took more than a word to provide salvation. He had to become a man and go to Calvary and there bear the penalty of sin. Salvation, as far as Jesus was concerned, cost him a great price.

Similarly, we can compare the work of the Holy Spirit in creation and redemption. The creation accounts in Genesis reveal his life-giving and beautifying functions as far as the universe was concerned. Yet the material on which he worked was compliant, unlike the hearts of sinner whom he convicts of their sins and into whose hearts he brings new life. Yet the Spirit does this with great delight.

The work of salvation is great because of the vast number of people who have been rescued by it. At the end of the day, it will involve a number that no person can count. They will have been rescued from the state of sin, pardoned by God and restored to his favour. Some of them were great sinners as to the amount and type of sins that they did. Others were more respectable sinners, living decent lives in their communities, but they realised that they were also sinners and availed themselves of the mercy of God. Still others were religious sinners, determined to practice all the requirements of their faith. Yet they came to realise that religion cannot save. Yet as we think of all the possible sins of which people can be guilty, there is none worse than the sin of rejecting the crucified Saviour. This sin makes religious, respectable sinners into the greatest of sinners. 

The work of salvation is great because of the destruction it prevents. A person who broke the law given by angels faced a severe penalty, usually physical death. The awful reality is that every sinner, unless he or she is changed by the grace of God, faces a terrible condemnation in a lost eternity, which is far worse than physical death. Many people today reject such a notion about God. They like to think of him as tolerant, especially towards their own sins. Yet the One who came to be the Saviour often stated explicitly that he came to rescue sinners from eternal death. 

In these verses the author asks a most crucial question, ‘How can we escape if we neglect so great salvation?’ The answer to his question is that nobody can escape unless they make use of the salvation that God has provided. This is the answer that each of us has to consider for ourselves. But it will be very sad if, at the end of the day, we will discover that we have lost salvation through neglecting it. Christianity is a message of salvation, but it is a salvation that has to be taken seriously.