Hebrews 2:1-4

IIIWarning exhortation to give heed to the revelation that has been brought to us through so extraordinary a mediation

Hebrews 2:1-4.

1Therefore [For this reason, διὰ τοῦτο] we ought1 [it is necessary, δεῖ] to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard [to the things which were heard, τοῖς ], lest at any time [lest haply, lest perchance, μήποτε] we let them slip [flow by or drift away from them]. 2For if the word spoken by [through, διά] angels was [became, proved, ἐγένετο] steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; 3How shall we escape, if we neglect [after neglecting, ἀμελήσαντες] so great [a] salvation; which at the first began to be [was originally] spoken by [through, διά] the Lord, and was confirmed unto [for] us by them that heard4 him; God also [jointly] bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles [acts of power, δυνάμεις], and gifts [distributions] of the Holy Ghost, according to his own [his αὐτοῦ] will?

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Hebrews 2:1. For this reason it is necessary.—For the term Gospel (εὐαγγέλιον) our author employs here, after the periphrastic style of Luke (who employs the term εὐαγγέλιον only Acts 15:7; Acts 20:24), the term τὰ , the things which were heard, as referring not so immediately to the subject-matter of the Gospel, as to that special form of announcement which stands distinguished above all other methods of revelation. The Gospel would demand and deserve attention in whatever manner it might have found utterance in words, and addressed itself to our ears. The transcendent preëminence, however, of the mode of its historical introduction, creates a necessity lying in the very nature of the case, and whose observance is imperatively binding upon us, to direct and yield up to it our persons, Acts 16:14 (προσέχειν ἡμᾶς, with a correspondingly heightened devotion (περισσοτέρως), frequent with Paul, and not, as affirmed by Bleek, unknown to the classics, but found [Del.] Diod. Sic. XIII. p. 108; Athen., V., p. 192 f.). For the διὰ τοῦτο, on this account, so points back to the preceding exhibition of the glory of the Mediator of the New Testament revelation, as to furnish a basis for that warning admonition to fidelity of faith, to which the author’s anxiety for his readers leads him at this early stage of the Epistle. If the required heed and devotion are withheld, then must follow the fearful consequences, which, as shown by the μήποτε, the author would fain avert from his readers.—lest we be swept, or drift by (παραῤῥυῶμεν, Lachm., Tisch., Isaiah 2:0 Aor. Subj. Pass.). Drift by what? Not by the sure harbor of eternal blessedness—which were only properly a consequence—but by that which is heard. Here again, however, it is not to be understood of forgetting the mere words, which would be a meaning quite inadequate to the gravity of the passage; nor of drifting by the salvation contained in the Gospel, which is correct, indeed, as to the substance of the thought, but overlooks the specific demands of the context. It is rather that firm hold or holding-point, proffered in the Gospel, and which conditions our attainment of salvation. This those lose who do not yield themselves up personally to that which is brought to their hearing, and are then carried away from the Gospel, and as it were swept by the salvation which is in it not merely announced, but actually held out and communicated to believers, and are thus without stay or anchor, borne on by the stream, “as a ship before her landing shoots away into destruction.” (Gloss of Luther).

Hebrews 2:2. For if the word which was spoken through angels.—The supposition, which the author shares with his readers, and which he makes the basis of his reasoning, a minori ad majus, is the two-fold one, 1. that the Mosaic law is a word established by Divine authority, and which hence is not only obligatory, but also in earlier history vindicated its validity against every objective transgression (παράβασις), and subjective neglect (παρακοή, refusal to hear), by corresponding retribution; 2. that it was given through the intervention not of the Divine Messiah or Son, but only of angels. This angelic agency, however, finds no mention at Exodus 19:0. in connection with the legislation of Sinai, and also at Hebrews 12:19, only a Divine φωνὴ ῥημάτων, voice of words is mentioned in distinction from the accompanying natural phenomena. For this reason Dorsch, Calov, Schöttgen, Carpzov and Semler, have referred the passage to such revelations as Genesis 19:26, in which angelic agency is actually mentioned, exclusively of the law; while again D. Heinsius and G. Olearius, seeing that λόγος here must refer to the Mosaic law, have regarded the ἄγγελοι as referring to human messengers. But for the existence of the belief that the law of God was given to Moses by the mediation of angels, we have as testimonies Joseph. Antiq. Jud., XV., 5, 3, and Carmina Samarit., Ed. Gesen. III. 8; IV—8, 11, and particularly Acts 7:53, and Galatians 3:19. The tradition itself seems to have its biblical origin in the obscure words of the Song of Moses, Deuteronomy 33:2 : “And thou from holy multitudes,” scil. didst come forth, where the LXX. make express mention of angels; as also in Psalms 68:0 composed in the time of Solomon, in which at Hebrews 2:18 the entrance of Jehovah into Zion in the midst of the myriad chariots of His angels, is compared to His descent upon Sinai. We must guard, however, against restricting this angelic agency to the Angel of the covenant, who acted as Mediator of the most distinguished revelations of God in the Old Testament; for here the word is plural (δἰ ). The classical ἔνδικος is found elsewhere in the New Testament only at Romans 3:8. For the simple μισθός wages, or the classical μισθοδοσία, giving of wages, stands here the more full-sounding [indeed more intrinsically emphatic] form μισθαποδοσία rendering, or paying of wages; here the term is used in a bad sense, while at Hebrews 10:35; Hebrews 11:26, the requital is not that of punishment, but of approving reward.

Hebrews 2:3. How shall we escape—salvation?—The future ἐκφευξόμεθα stands in reference to the final judgment: we need not, however, (with Heinrichs, Steng., Ebr.) supply anything from Hebrews 2:2; but simply take the expression as at Hebrews 12:25; 1 Thessalonians 5:3, technically and absolutely. The Aor. Part. ἀμελήσαντες specifies the act which must have preceded and determined the impossibility of escape. This utter and complete impossibility (πῶς) of escape lies in the fact that precisely we (ἡμεῖς), who live in the time of salvation, have to do with a salvation of such transcendent excellence (τηλικαύτης σωτηρίας)=talis tantæque salutis, as that now under consideration.

Which being originally spoken through the Lord, etc.—The clause commencing with ἥτις (quippe quæ) is not designed to show that which grows out of the nature of “so great a salvation,” (Thol.); nor to exhibit the greatness of this salvation in the exalted character of its Mediator (Del.); but to illustrate the sentiment of the entire passage. The contrast between the mediation accomplished by the Lord, and that effected by angels, forms but a part of the Gospel claim to attention. A second contrast is found in the fact that it is not merely commands (Theod. Mops., Lün., Del.)—we must add that it is not merely promises—which constitute the subject matter of the announcement, but salvation itself. Still we are not therefore authorized in saying (Ebr.) that the law was barely a word: the Gospel, on the contrary, is a deliverance, a redemption, an act. The emphasis lies here, not as at Titus 2:11, on the fact that “the grace of God which bringeth salvation” has been manifested in the world, but that the salvation, after having had its proclamation commenced and inaugurated by the intervention of the Lord the Saviour Himself, has, through immediate ear-witnesses, taking a sure place in history, been transmitted to us.

The link between σωτηρία, salvation, and the βεβαιωθῆναι εἰς ἡμᾶς, established for us, is found in the Word of Salvation (Acts 13:26, ὁ λόγος τῆς σωτηρίας ταύτης), whose historical carrying forward and perpetuation was no less marvellous than its origin. Lönemann declines here to find a contrast between a more remote and a more immediate Word of God, on the ground that God himself is the ultimate and supreme author, as well of the Mosaic law as of the Gospel, and that the latter, as having originated διὰ τοῦ κυρίου is, in like manner, an intermediate one; while Ebrard and Delitzsch maintain such a contrast on the ground of the divine nature and equality of the Son. Both are equally wide of the mark. For while διὰ τοῦ κυρίου stands indeed parallel to δἰ , the relation of intermediateness expressed equally in both cases by διά, refers in this context not to the intrinsic relation of God Himself to men in His revelation, as being more direct through the Son, more indirect through angels, but contrasts the historical beginnings of the two Testaments, as being inaugurated the one through angels, and the other through the Lord Himself. The author’s eye is directed not to the transcendental, but to the historical mediation, as shown by the participial clause ἀρχὴν λαβοῦσα λαλεῖσθαι διὰ τοῦ κυρίου, which also is no mere objective apposition to ἐβεβαιώθη (Ebr.)—as if the province of the ear-witnesses was to vouch to later readers for the fact that the Gospel had come from the Lord Himself—but declares rather how the σωτηρία has become matter of evangelical proclamation, in which form it has had, through the ministry of those who heard it, its sure transmission to us.

Hebrews 2:4. God also jointly bearing them witness, etc.—The “confirmation” (βεβαίωσις) implied in the verb is all the more decisive and absolute from the fact that to the testimony of the Apostolic word is added the accompanying and authenticating testimony of God, John 5:31; Mark 16:20. This testimony comes in acts which, as tokens of an invisible and spiritual agency, are called σημεῖα, signs; as elevated above ordinary and natural laws, and thus exciting wonder and astonishment, τέρατα, prodigies, wonders. Their close connection, expressed by τε καί, both, and, corresponds to the Hebrew אוֹתוֹת וּמוֹפְתים, Exodus 7:3. The mentiontion of these in this connection furnishes an irrefragable historical proof for the fact that not merely in Corinth, but also elsewhere within the sphere of Christianity, phenomena had appeared, which could not be regarded as a mere heightening of natural powers, and that the proclamation of the Gospel in Apostolic times was accompanied by miracles. As a special kind of charismata appear the δυνάμεις also at 1 Corinthians 12:10, which at once direct attention to the divine agency required and imparted for the working of miracles, and keep their divine purpose alive in the Christian consciousness. The position of the words shows that πνεύματος ἁγίου is not Gen. Subj. (Camero, etc.), but Gen. Obj.: that κατὰ τὴν αὐτοῦ θέλησιν is to be referred only to μερισμοῖς (De Wette), and neither (with Abresch, Böhme) to the whole clause, nor (with Bleek) to ποικιλοις μερισμοῖς; and that αὐτοῦ belongs not to πν. ἁγίου (Œcumen. Carpz.) but to θεοῦ. God communicates the Holy Spirit to believers, yet to no individual one of these His entire fulness, and the distribution takes place in each special appropriation, according to His will and purpose. The Hellenistic θέλησις, Pollux 2:165 calls ιδιωτικόν.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. With the dignity of the New Testament Mediator, and with the greatness of the salvation which is proffered by Him in the Gospel, stand in corresponding relation the heaviness of the responsibility of the hearers of the Gospel, and the certainty of the condemnation of its despisers. “The child owes a deeper debt than the servant.” (Stein.) “Strictness and rigor of judgment must stand in relation to infinite grace: the higher the grace, the heavier the punishment. Disobedience to Christ is the thrusting away of our own salvation.” (Heubner.) The reason lies in the fact that Christ came not to do away with and abolish the law, but to fulfil it, Matthew 5:17. “With heedlessness, disregard and delay commences that which may end in the most fearful plunge into unbelief, disobedience, and their attendant judgment. Heedfulness, on the other hand, is the stepping-stone to faith, obedience, and the bringing forth of fruit in patience. What is more easily neglected, heeded lightly and thrown behind us, than a word which one hears? And yet how is, at the same time, the seed snatched from the heart, from which might grow faith and blessedness! But how frequently also does this word of patience again make its appeal to the heart!” (Rieger.)

2. The Gospel is not merely in its subject matter, but also in its form, the most perfect revelation of God. Salvation has not merely appeared, and been introduced into the world by means of the person of the Son of God and Lord of all things—exalted as He is infinitely above the angels—but has also, through the Lord Himself actually found utterance, and received, through His holy and truthful lips, its initiatory proclamation upon earth. “The strictness and rigor of the Old Testament are but a shadow beside the severity of the New.” (Quesnel.)

3. Not merely the establishment of Christianity, but also its maintenance and propagation in the world, are the work of the Lord. They stand not merely under divine supervision and guidance, but under divine agency, in which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, take their respective share. But we are called not merely to a participation in the blessedness of salvation, but also to coöperation in this work of God, in aid of its actual extension and carrying forward in the world.

4. Christianity has not merely to do with the knowledge and recognition of the truth, but also preëminently with the procuring of salvation. But how this is to be accomplished is, under the arrangements of God, announced to us in His word. Precisely for this reason the Gospel of God has been supplied with the most efficient powers, and with the strongest testimonies, and demands of us personal devotion, alike in its appropriation to ourselves, and in its propagation.

5. The distribution of the gifts and influences of the Holy Spirit in the Church is made neither accidentally nor arbitrarily, but in accordance with the will of God. So also the authentication of our testimony by accompanying signs. We must, therefore, neither contemn the lesser and more sparing gifts and signs, nor allow the great, splendid and numerous tokens of such Divine coöperation, to minister to envy, self-exaltation and strife; but mindful of their origin and design, strive to be found in their possession and use, thankful, humble, industrious and faithful.

6. Taking into account the character of the recipients of our Epistle, this passage contains an irrefutable testimony to the actual working of miracles on the part of Jesus and the Apostles. In his appeal to this as a well known and unquestioned fact, the author would have rendered but the slenderest service to his cause, had its reality been open to the slightest shadow of doubt and questioning. Facts like these send to a common grave the mythological hypothesis regarding the history of Jesus, the naturalistic explanation of the miracles, the denial of the agency of the Holy Spirit, and the restricting to purely historical factors the explanation of the origin of Christianity.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The obligation resting on us to give earnest heed to the Gospel which has come to us through Divine coöperation. 1. How it is demonstrated: a. by the greatness of the proffered salvation; b. by the excellence of its original Bearer and Proclaimer; c. by our being placed in the Church of Jesus Christ. 2. How it finds a hinderance: a. in the skeptical spirit of our age; b. in the perversity of our own nature; c. in the temptations to apostasy from the Church. 3. How God aids to its performance: a. by the impressiveness of His judgments; b. by confirming the truth and power of the Gospel in history; c. by the imparting of His Spirit in His operations and gifts.—In the Gospel alone we are to find a sure means of resistance to the tide which would sweep us to perdition; for these means are: 1, originated by Christ; 2, confirmed of God; 3, made efficacious to our salvation by the Spirit.—With what have we, as preachers, most to do in the proclamation of the Gospel: 1, to see that we preach Christ as the Mediator of salvation to all believers; 2, that our preaching of salvation be found in harmony with that of the Apostles; 3, that the testimony of God in manifold tokens and proofs accompany and confirm our testimony.—To what are we especially to give heed in the hearing of the Gospel? 1, that we learn from it the counsel of God for our eternal blessedness; 2, that we accept it as, in accordance with the will of God, it has been brought to us by a special economy of salvation; 3, that we supplicate the assistance of God for our personal attainment of the salvation that is proffered to us.—It is the earnest will of the Lord that His Gospel be: 1, reverently heard; 2, conscientiously obeyed; 3, powerfully and efficiently spread abroad.—By what we recognize the true miracles of God in history: 1, they serve as signs which accompany the word of His revelation, and direct our attention to the sovereign sway of God in the world; 2, they present themselves as the witnesses of God’s pleasure in the proclamation of His word; 3, they evince themselves to be effects of Divine power by their connection with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.—We have no other means of escaping the coming destruction than by giving earnest heed to the Gospel: for 1, the Gospel is not an abrogation, but a confirmation of the Law; hence it, a. requires not merely to be heard, but believed and obeyed; and b. prophesies of the coming destruction of its contemners; but 2, the Gospel is not a repetion, but a fulfilment of the law; hence it, a. preaches in a sure way salvation in Christ; and b. is accompanied by God’s actual attestations to its truth and power.

Starke:—To whom much is given, of him will also much be required. In the New Testament the light of revelation is much clearer and more glorious than it was amidst the promises and the types of the Old Testament. Bethink thyself, thou who livest in the last time, to what this pledges thee, Luk 12:48; 2 Corinthians 6:1.—Thou reader of the Holy Scripture, mark well what thou readest, and give heed to the Divine truths which therein are set before thee, since it is God who speaks with thee; for otherwise thy heedlessness will be sorely punished, Matthew 24:15.—The word of the Law has proved steadfast, in respect of the powerful proofs of Divinity, to wit, the numerous signs and wonders, which accompanied the giving of the Law; 2, in respect of the obligation which it involved to faith and obedience to all the words, commands and prohibitions of the Law; 3, in respect of the promises which the Law communicated to him who was obedient in faith, of which promises not one ever fell to the ground; 4, in respect of the threatenings with which the law is throughout enforced and confirmed.—God’s word, alike Law and Gospel, is unconquerable; it may, perhaps, be assailed, but cannot be overpowered, Luke 16:17.—Ah, what blessedness is it that we have the word from the mouth of God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ Himself, confirmed by so many signs and wonders! But precisely according to the greatness of this blessedness is the guilt and punishableness of the unbelief which, notwithstanding this great certainty, still doubts, John 5:38.—The Gospel leads us, indeed, also to our duties, which we have to practise toward God, our neighbor, and ourselves; but the Gospel itself consists in pure blessedness, in the recommending and actual proffering of all the treasures which accompany salvation, Acts 13:26.—Although we, perchance, may not have heard the Son of God preach in person, still this will in no way impair our salvation. For even the author of this Epistle (whoever he is), according to his own acknowledgment, had himself not heard the Son of God, but been converted by the Apostles who had heard Him, Luke 10:18.—The Gospel is a doctrine of whose Divine truths we may be convinced even antecedently to, and without miracles; yet God, in accommodation to the weakness of men, has ex abundanti added miracles, partly to awaken the needed attention, partly to strengthen the faith already kindled, John 20:30-31.—The miracles that have confirmed the Gospel, God has held under His own control in respect of time, place, persons, number, and kind and manner, Psalms 72:18.

Berlenburger Bible:—God uses means for our sakes, but we must ascend through the means to their author, and observe the hand of God, so that we may be able to conclude that this and that is the work of God, and not of man, Under the testimony of men, God’s procedure and joint testimony are to be recognized, and not to be disjoined from it.—Down to our own day, it is still a characteristic of ordinary conversions, that God, the Lord, who gives richly, does it still in measure, that man may recognize it as grace.

Laurentius:—What in spiritual and Divine things we have experienced, seen, and heard, we must also announce to others, that in the hearts of others the same may also be established.

Rambach:—The contemners of the Gospel will be more sorely punished than the transgressors of the law, as they have less excuse for their unbelief.—He who has done evil, seeks to escape judgment, but from the judgment of God there is no escape.—Miracles are 1. no mere matters of accident, but spring from the eternal counsel and purpose of God, to glorify His Son and His Gospel, John 9:3. John 9:2. They are wrought of God’s free will, according as on special occasions it has seemed to Him good. 1 Corinthians 12:11.

Steinhofer:—Attention to the preached word is most powerfully urged upon us by the importance 1. of the person who has spoken to us of such things; 2. of the subject-matter which is thus revealed and tendered to us.—The proofs which formerly confirmed this word, have, in the lapse of time, lost none of their power.—We desire no other Gospel—as, in fact, there is no other—than that which we have heard from Him, and have believed.

Phil. Matth. Hahn:—Reasons for attention to the Gospel: 1. The Lord has spoken; 2. the word speaks of pure salvation; 3. it has been sealed by Divine testimony.

Rieger:—To refuse to give heed to the counsel of God for our salvation in the Gospel, is a heavier crime than to violate His law. In the case of the law, it is a cannot, of the Gospel, a will not.

Heubner:—Disobedience to Christ is a thrusting away of our own salvation.

Kluge:—The nobler the hope, the more earnest the sanctification.

Fricke:—As a kernel in the shell lies our whole salvation in the words of Christ. They are all fraught with meaning; here is salvation: hear and embrace!—The additions to the word, which salvation furnishes to us, God gives neither according to reckoning, nor according to desert, but according to His will.—What takes place in the kingdom of Christ, will always bear Christ’s impress upon it.

[Owen:—Diligent attendance unto the word of the Gospel, is indispensably necessary unto perseverance in the profession of it.—The profession of most of the world is a mere non-renunciation of the Gospel in words, while in their hearts and lives they deny the power of it every day.—If the ministration of the Gospel be not looked on as that which is full of glory, it will never be attended unto.—The word heard is not lost without the great sin, as well as the inevitable ruin, of the souls of men.—It is meet that the Gospel should be armed with threatenings as well as promises.—A sceptre in a kingdom, without a sword—a crown without a rod of iron, will quickly be trampled on.—The threatenings of future penalties on the disobedient, are far more clear and express in the Gospel than in the Law].

Footnotes:

[1] Hebrews 2:1.—[δεῖ, not moral necessity, we ought; but logical, we must, it is necessary.—τοῖς , historically, to the things which were heard when God ἐλάλησεν spoke in his Son.—μήποτε not, lest at any time (as Moll: nicht jemals), but, lest perchance, lest haply as Hebrews 4:1; Matthew 4:6; Matthew 6:25. So Del. and De Wette, nicht etwa; so Alf. and Bib. Un. haply. Wordsworth both here and Hebrews 4:1 neglects it in his rendering.—παραῤῥυῶμεν 2 Aor. Subj. Pass. might be rendered figuratively to slip away from, but not possibly “to let slip, as if causative. Here better to flow by, or, aside from, to drift by, or, away from. Alt.: “to flow past or aside,” “deflect from a course,” and hence “be diverted.” Moll, with many others, vorbeigeströmt werden, to be drifted or swept by.

Hebrews 2:2.—διὰ not by angels as agents as if ὑπὀ .; but through, by means of angels, as instruments (διά).—ἐγένετὁ, became proved itself; not was, as Eng. Ver.

Hebrews 2:3.—So also διὰ κυρίου, through the Lord, God the Father being conceived as the supreme agent.—διὰ τῶν , through them that heard him, with still the idea of intermediate agency.—αὐτοῦ, his, not the reflexive αὑτοῦ ἑαυτοῦ, his own, viz., will (θέλησιν).—K.].