Hebrews 2:1-4
1 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3 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, 4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
In O.S. Hawkins’ fantastic and fascinating book, In the Name of God: The Colliding Lives, Legends, and Legacies of J. Frank Norris and George W. Truett, he recounts the moving words that B.H. Carroll, the founding President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, said to his successor, L.R. Scarborough, in 1914 as Carroll lay on his death bed.
Upon his death bed, B. H. Carroll issued a final charge to Scarborough. Carroll appealed that if heresy ever came to the seminary, he should take it to the faculty. If they did not give it a fair and honest hearing, then Carroll said to take it to trustees of the seminary. If this failed, then, in Carroll’s words, he should take it to “the common people of the churches and they will hear you.” Carroll further pleaded with Scarborough to “keep the seminary lashed to the cross.”[1]
That image of being “lashed to the cross” is powerful and profound. He was telling Scarborough to tie himself, to bind himself and the seminary to the cross and to the message of the cross, the gospel. He was, in effect, warning Scarborough that it is possible to drift from the cross, from the gospel, if we are not lashed to it.
In many ways the writer of Hebrews is saying the same thing in the beginning of Hebrews 2. He is calling on the church to lash herself to the cross, to lash herself to the gospel of Jesus. Why does he write this? Let us consider.
We must lash ourselves to the gospel or we will drift from it.
Our text begins with a plea for attention.
1 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
First, let us ask what this “what we have heard” is? What had they heard? It will help us to know that “what we have heard” serves as something of a formula in the New Testament for the gospel, the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. For instance, in Acts 4 we read of the religious establishment of the time trying to silence Peter and John and stop their preaching. Peter and John, in response, speak of the power of what they had heard.
18 So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, 20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”
Clearly what they “had heard” was the gospel of Jesus. More than that, it was so powerful to them, so attractive to them, that they simply could not stop speaking of it. In 1 John 1 John uses the phrase twice in the first three verses of his letter.
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life
3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
What John and the other apostles had heard “from the beginning,” was something they had seen “with our eyes,” was, indeed, something they had “touched with our hands.” It was “the word of life.” It was what they had received from God and what they proclaimed and what John now wrote about it.
It was the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, the proclamation that we are dead in our sins and trespasses but that God, in His mercy, sends His Son to pay the price for our sins and rise from the grave so that all who come to Him in repentance and faith will be saved.
So this is what the writer of Hebrews is talking about when he writes that we must pay attention to “what we have heard.” He is saying we must pay attention to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And what are we to do with this gospel, with what we have heard? Listen:
1 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
Notice the intensity of the language. We:
- must pay
- much
- closer
- attention
He is not talking about adding five minutes to your quiet time. He is talking about Christians coming to revalue what we have, through our laziness and neglect, devalued. He is talking about us coming back to the gospel as the very words of life!
Why? Here is why: “lest we drift away from it.”
If, then, we do not pay much closer attention to the word we may “drift away from it.” This image of “drifting away” is a provocative image indeed. Grant Osborne writes:
Literally, the construction commands the people to “continue to hold fast (present-tense prosechein) lest we drift away,” a strong nautical image of a ship slipping away from its moorings and drifting away to sink on the rocks. Some also take this picture as a ring slipping off the finger to be lost in the grass. After I suddenly lost weight due to illness, I lost my wedding ring in exactly this way.[2]
It is a terrifying thought: We can drift like an unmoored ship. We can slip like a too-loose ring. In both cases, something valuable is threatened and lost. I have witnessed this over the years, the devastating effects of not paying sufficient attention to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have seen individuals and families drift from biblical truth, drift from gospel moorings, and end up dashed upon the rocks of the kingdom of this world.
We must lash ourselves to the gospel or we will not escape tragic consequences.
There are also dire consequences if we do not lash ourselves to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3a-b how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?
This is a fascinating argument that the writer is making. Let us begin with the first curious phrase: “For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable…” What is he talking about here? He is talking about the fact that the law was delivered by God through His angels. This will sound strange, perhaps, but it is biblical. Consider Galatians 3, for instance:
9 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.
Likewise, Stephen, in Acts 7, proclaimed this to his hostile audience:
53 you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.
So that is the first part of the argument: the law was given to Israel by God through the ministry of angels. The second part follows logically and also explains why, in Hebrews 1, we find the long argument that Jesus is superior to angels. Grant Osborne explains:
Let me paraphrase: “Because Christ is completely superior to the angels, it is absolutely necessary (dei, “must”) that we concentrate closely on his revealed truths regarding himself and salvation.” Careful attention is not a mere option but a serious requirement for every believer. The readers have grown lax in their spiritual concerns and focus on the things of the world rather than the things of God.[3]
Ah! So now we see: the law was given by angels but now a greater message (the gospel) has been delivered by one greater than the angels (Jesus)! And this leads to the third part of this argument. If “every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution” when Israel violated the lesser message delivered by lesser messengers, how much greater will be the retribution if we ignore the greater message delivered by the greater messenger?
Hear again the text:
2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3a-b how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?
How indeed?
The rejection of the gospel is a devastating crime with devastating consequences!
First, the ultimate rejection of the gospel leads to eternal judgment and damnation, the ultimate consequence. I am referring to the lost. They will pay the ultimate price for having rejected the ultimate message.
But even believers who drift from “what we have heard” face dire consequences. When a believer drifts from the gospel they enter into a place of inner turmoil and conflict and schism. They grieve the Holy Spirit. They begin to act against “what we have heard.” They live in hypocrisy, inwardly if not outwardly. They give the devil a place to cause harm and havoc. They lose their sense of peace, their sense of joy. They begin to fracture internally. And when this happens, there are usually one of these three results:
- The rejection of the faith.
- Moving to a heretical “church” that will buttress what the adrift believer now thinks.
- Staying in a biblical church but living in hypocrisy.
This last dynamic happens all the time: people in bible-believing churches that do not believe the scriptures. These people are usually very unhappy, not involved in the ministry of the church, and quick to complain. I am convinced that when you find a perpetually unhappy person in a church—a person who is irrationally contrarian and belligerent—then you probably have found somebody with a heart problem, a gospel problem, a “drifting” problem. I know this because people in churches who are deeply grounded in the gospel, joyously worshiping with the brethren, and consistently involved in healthy ministry, do not exhibit such misery and such animosity.
It is a serious thing to drift from the gospel! Be warned, dear church!
We must lash ourselves to the gospel or we will be working against the God of Heaven and earth.
But there is more. The writer of Hebrews goes on to argue that this gospel from which we dare not drift has the full weight and backing of the Lord Himself. He gives evidences of its truthfulness and abiding power.
3c-d It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, 4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
This is a powerful list of evidences! Listen:
- The Lord declared the gospel.
- The people of God received the gospel.
- The gospel was confirmed by signs and miracles.
- The Holy Spirit works in and through and out of the gospel.
To drift from the gospel, then, is to fight against both the word of God and the work of God. The gospel is a treasure. For the gospel is the good news of Jesus!
God gives the gospel!
God works through the gospel!
People are saved through the gospel!
The gospel tells us of and calls us to Jesus, the Savior and King!
So to drift from the gospel and, God forbid, to come to disdain the gospel is to drift from and come to disdain the great work of God in the world!
All of this leads us to an important question. How do you know if you are drifting? How do you know if you have detached yourself from the anchor of the gospel? I would like to propose a series of questions that I believe can help us ascertain whether or not we have drifted or are drifting. Ask yourselves these questions and answer honestly.
- Do I feel any spiritual weight or agitation or guilt when I neglect the study of God’s word?
- Do I feel sorrow when I do not attend worship and I could have done so?
- When I hear ideas and philosophies of the world presented as truth do I weigh those against the truths of God’s word?
- When a worldly idea has become very popular and fashionable but it clearly conflicts with scripture, is it a struggle for me to reject the worldly idea?
- Do I consistently expose myself to worldly philosophies and ideas?
- Have I lost the ability to be disgusted with ideas that clearly violate God’s word?
- Am I apologetic about scripture before lost people?
- Do I hate the devil? (Serious question: would you say that you hate the devil and his destructive work?)
- Can I say that I study the scriptures intentionally, consistently, and with deep conviction?
- Do I grieve over the lost?
- Do I think often of the fact that Satan is a deceiver?
- Is the gospel of Jesus Christ a beautiful treasure to me?
Church, let us be sober-minded on this most-important question: have I drifted from the gospel?
If we have, I pray that the Holy Spirit of God will move upon us and lay us low, breaking our hearts and shattering our pride and pretentions. May we see the deep, deep tragedy of gospel-drift. May we see it, may we loathe, and may we return to Jesus, who is the very heart and point of the gospel.
Come back to Jesus. Come back to Him now.
[1] Hawkins, O. S.. In the Name of God (p. 94). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
[2] Osborne, Grant, Guthrie, George H.. Hebrews: Verse by Verse (pp. 58-59). Lexham Press. Kindle Edition.
[3] Osborne, Grant, Guthrie, George H.. Hebrews: Verse by Verse (p. 58). Lexham Press. Kindle Edition.