TEXT [Commentary]

black diamond   B.   Warning (2:1-4)

1 So we must listen very carefully to the truth we have heard, or we may drift away from it. 2 For the message God delivered through angels has always stood firm, and every violation of the law and every act of disobedience was punished. 3 So what makes us think we can escape if we ignore this great salvation that was first announced by the Lord Jesus himself and then delivered to us by those who heard him speak? 4 And God confirmed the message by giving signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit whenever he chose.

NOTES

2:1 or we may drift away. “Drift away” is probably a nautical metaphor (BDAG 770). If Christian hope is “a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls,” mooring us safely in heaven (see 6:19), “drifting away” is a consequence of letting go of that hope by neglecting “the truth we have heard.” But for now the author does not press the nautical imagery.

2:2 For the message God delivered through angels. “Delivered” is literally “spoken,” as in 1:1 (“God spoke”). “Through angels,” we now learn, is one of the “many ways” in which God revealed himself “long ago” (1:1), and the revelation said to be given through angels is the law of Moses at Mount Sinai. While the Hebrew Bible does not mention angels at the giving of the law, Paul does (Gal 3:19), and so does Stephen in the book of Acts (Acts 7:53). Possibly the tradition goes back to the LXX of Deut 33:2, which adds to the image of the Lord coming from Sinai a reference to “angels with him on his right hand.”

2:3 first announced. “Announced” here, like “delivered” in 2:2, is literally “spoke.” “First” is literally “a beginning” (archē [TG746, ZG794]). Thus, salvation “took its beginning,” or “began” to be spoken by the Lord. In keeping with this term, Jesus is described a few verses later as an archēgos [TG747, ZG795], an initiator or “perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation” (2:10; also 12:2, “the champion [archēgos] who initiates and perfects our faith”).

by the Lord Jesus himself. Again (as in 1:5) the NLT supplies the name “Jesus,” which is not in the Greek text, because the reference is clearly to Jesus’ teaching ministry on earth. But Jesus is not actually named (not until 2:9). The reader is expected to understand that “the Lord” is in fact the Son (see 1:10). “By the Lord” is literally “through the Lord” (dia [TG1223, ZG1328]), in contrast to “through angels” (2:2). The point is that when Jesus spoke, God was speaking through him, just as God had spoken previously “through angels” (see 1:1, “through his Son”).

2:4 God confirmed. “Confirmed” is literally “testified with.” The NLT’s translation seems based in part on the verb “delivered” (ebebaiōthē [TG950, ZG1011]) in the preceding verse, which could itself have been translated “confirmed,” echoing the notice that the law of Moses stood “firm” (bebaios [TG949, ZG1010]; 2:2). Such notions as “confirmation” and “testimony” (2:3-4), no less than “violation” and “punishment” (2:2), are judicial in nature, accenting God’s role as judge and the solemnity of the warning being issued here.

COMMENTARY [Text]

The abrupt introduction of “we” and “us” signals that an exhortation is coming, more specifically a warning to the readers, the first of several throughout the book (see, for example, 3:12-13; 10:26-29; 12:25). The warnings are evident in the verb “drift away” (2:1; see note) and “ignore” (2:3). These are passive rather than active rejections of the Christian message, but a deadly danger nonetheless. The author has not used “we” or “us” since his opening sentence (1:2), where he included himself with his readers as recipients of God’s final revelation. If God has spoken “to us” (1:2), it follows that “we must listen very carefully to the truth we have heard” (2:1; my italics). “We,” says the author, are among the “people who will inherit salvation” (1:14), and as such, “we” must take account of the warnings that accompany the message of salvation. The terms “inherit” and “inheritance” are used first of the Son (1:2), then of those who trusted in God before Christ’s coming (1:14; see also 6:12; 11:8-9), and finally of “us”—the author and his audience, as well as Christian believers today (see 6:17-18; 9:15).

Past and present believers comprise one community of faith, yet there is a distinction. The message of God under the old covenant was a “message God delivered through angels” (2:2) in contrast to the message “announced by the Lord Jesus himself” (2:3). Angels are linked more explicitly to revelation in the past than in the present. They are not listed among the means by which God confirms the message of salvation among Christians today: “signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit” (2:4). While the author clearly believes that angels minister to us today as well, their ministry among us is not a visible sign confirming the Christian message. We entertain them “without realizing it” (13:2). The rhetoric of chapter 1 could imply that a message “delivered through angels” is somehow inferior to a message given through God’s Son. Subordinating angels to the Son could simply be the author’s way of subordinating the past to the present, or Judaism to Christianity, or Israel’s experience to “ours.” But this is not the case. If angels are “spirits sent to care for people who will inherit salvation” (1:14), they are a legitimate part of Christian experience even if we are not aware of their presence. The accent is on continuity, not discontinuity, and the argument is from the lesser to the greater. If even back then “every violation of the law and every act of disobedience was punished,” how can we escape now “if we ignore this great salvation” (2:2-3)? The point becomes crucial to the author’s argument, and he will make it again, not once, but twice (see 10:28-29; 12:25). Any reader familiar with Paul’s writings will recognize a kind of law-versus-grace distinction here, but not in the usual sense. It is not that the law offers only a grim prospect of judgment, while salvation through Jesus Christ brings forgiveness and mercy. It is rather that grace carries with it greater sanctions and risks than the law because more is at stake. To refuse God’s grace is far more serious than breaking God’s law. Grace is available for those who disobey the law, but once grace is refused nothing else remains (cf. 10:26).

Looking more closely at the “great salvation,” the author presents it as something spoken first by Jesus during his life on earth, and then passed on “to us by those who heard him speak” (2:3). It is God’s own message, meant to be heard (cf. 1:1-2), and God has confirmed it with things both seen and heard: “signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit whenever he chose” (2:4). The author (like Luke; see Luke 1:2-3) acknowledged that he was not one of Jesus’ original disciples but belonged to a different generation.

This makes it difficult for some to imagine that Paul was the author of the book of Hebrews, for Paul insisted that his message came “from no human source, and no one taught me. . . . I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ” (Gal 1:12). Paul listed “signs and wonders and miracles” as “proof that I am an apostle” (2 Cor 12:12). Yet caution is necessary because even Paul could acknowledge that certain things about Christ had been “passed on” to him by those who had preceded him in the faith and that he had “received” these things (see 1 Cor 11:23; 15:3). Once, he even acknowledged that “we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets” (Eph 2:20). This is not so different from Hebrews, where those who were with Jesus and “heard him speak” are given a certain priority so that theirs are the “signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit” validating the message (2:3-4).

We know from a summary of the Christian mission added later to Mark’s Gospel (Mark 16:9-20) that such things were taken seriously in the early years of the Christian movement. According to this tradition, when Jesus’ disciples went out to preach after his resurrection, the Lord worked with them, confirming what they said with such accompanying “signs” as casting out demons, speaking in tongues, picking up snakes and drinking poison safely, and healing the sick by the laying on of hands (Mark 16:17-18, 20). Neither Paul nor Hebrews is quite so specific. The author of Hebrews was less interested in what the “signs and wonders” were than in the salvation to which they testified and in God’s sovereignty over things that happened “whenever he chose” (lit., “according to his will”; 2:4).