Heb 2:1-4 Attention Warning

Hebrews 2:1–4 ESV

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.

Warning

Every day we all give and receive warnings. There are all kinds of warnings, your phone warns you to charge it, your GPS warns you to turn left, or we might warn each other “the road is slippery”. A police officer may warn you that you are going too fast. We warn our kids to stop playing with their food during dinner, etc.

One thing you might notice is that often warnings are followed by a short description of the danger if you don’t listen to the warning. If you don’t charge your phone it will die. If we drive too fast we will get a ticket. If you don’t stop playing with your food you won’t get dessert. Last year at the Crawford fair Byron was putting his finger in the chicken’s cages, we told him: don’t put your finger in there, a few minutes later he was crying holding his finger not sure what had happened.

The seriousness of the warning also can be told by the tone of voice and the description of what might happen if we don’t listen. Let’s imagine for a second that a child is on top of the house telling you I’m going to jump, you don’t say in a calm voice don’t do it or you won’t get dessert today. You would instead use a loud voice, and short sentences and tell what will be the consequence of jumping.

This section of Scripture that we are going to study today also gives us a warning. Because of the seriousness of the warning, it has strong language, so strong that some take these warnings to say one can lose their salvation. I don’t think that is the case, rather it is using such strong language because of the seriousness of the warning similar to how we would use strong language if we would see someone in great danger, like a child about to run into a busy road.

Therefore

This serious warning starts with the word, therefore. Before we go any further we need to stop and consider what is the “therefore” referring to, because the author is saying that he already gave the reasons or the grounds for this warning. The “therefore” cannot be referring to the previous few verses because the logical argument started in v1. Therefore, therefore is referring to the whole of chapter 1 where the author shows that Jesus is much superior to angels and that He is God, therefore ignoring Him or His words is not without consequences. Therefore we need to take it seriously.

That is what Heb 2:1 says “Therefore we must pay much closer attention” or pay more careful attention. What do we need to pay much closer attention to? It says to what we have heard, that is the word spoken through the Son.

The phrase “what we have heard” indicates all of God’s word, not just chapter 1 of Hebrews. His whole argument you will remember was just this don’t ignore the OT or the NT. The way the author wrote this phrase in its original language is very similar to Deut 32:46 where Moses said to the Israelites “Take to heart all these words”. Moses was telling the people to pay attention to God’s command and teach our children to be careful to obey God’s word. The same Greek word, prosechein pay attention, is used only one other time in the NT in Luke 21, where Jesus was telling his followers to pay attention to His words after he said the following Luke 21:33 “33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” You might notice that there are some similarities between what Jesus said and Hebrews 2:1. What both are saying is what God said is more sure and stable that the world we see and observe. The world might fall apart but if we trust and pay close attention to what God said we are going to be safe and secure in His hands because what He said is going to happen no matter what it might look like in the moment, if we look at the waves we are going to sink, drift away, but if we keep our eyes fixed on Him, on His word, He is going to carry us through whatever it might come our way.

What we have heard is all that God has spoken in the Old and New Testament, whether through Moses and the prophets or through God’s Son and His apostles. The core of this message is the message of salvation through Jesus Christ. Riggans says we need to pay close attention “to the word of God brought to us in Jesus because otherwise, we are in danger of missing our only hope for salvation. If we don’t anchor ourselves in the word of God then we can miss the only safe haven there is—namely Jesus himself.

I think one of the lies this world tells us is that you can have Jesus and at the same time not be fully obedient to God’s word. The world tells us we can put more emphasis on the emotions and experiences than on what God has said or the standard He calls us to live. I’m not saying that emotions and experiences are bad, it is however bad if our faith is based on these instead of a sure foundation of God’s word.

For example, let’s imagine that for a period of time at our church we would experience a season of miracles. A time where God is doing amazing things in our midst maybe bringing healing and answering audacious prayers, then followed by a time where it seems that God is silent, a time where we don’t have many visible and tangible experiences or emotions at encounters with God’s handiwork on display. Our confidence should remain on the Truth, that is what He said. Our faith should rest in the person of Christ and not on our emotions and experiences. These emotions or experience have their place, they often drive us closer to His Truth, or confirm a step of faith, but as we mature one could argue that God expects more of us to trust Him and obey Him, despite our emotions.

Back to the purpose of warnings. Warnings are typically followed by possible consequences for not listening to the warning or are so detailed we can outline the implied consequences. We see this as well in Scripture. In the first verse, it says we must pay much closer attention, lest we drift away from it. We might ask what is it? the word “it” is referring to what we heard, the core message of God’s word is salvation through Christ. If we don’t pay closer attention we will drift away from the Lord. Drifting away has a nautical tone, it brings to mind the image of a drifting ship not holding fast to the anchor of the word.

The only kind of boating I know it’s just taking our inflatable boat and going down the river, therefore I’m not an expert like some of you. But what I can tell you is that the language of drifting away connotes the idea of a ship missing a harbor because of unexpected strong winds and currents.

We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, what kind of wind and strong current we will have to face. We will not be ready if we are not paying attention to God’s word. Practically if our attention is only on the daily demands and cares of this life when the storm comes we will be tossed to and fro and carried away by deceitful schemes, losing the comfort, peace, and security that only Jesus can give us.

We might wonder what kind of storm the first readers of this letter had to face.

During the first few centuries, the official religion was Roman polytheism, which means worshipping many gods. Therefore it was illegal to worship only one God, except if you were a Jew since there was an exception in the law for Judaism. For the first readers of this letter, it was illegal to be a follower of Christ. That meant there was a risk to be put in prison and losing any property you might have, you could be rejected by your family, and there was also public shame. You would have been viewed as someone who is an anarchist and as someone who wanted to destroy society. You would be considered a traitor for being a Christian. It would be a similar situation during WWII in America to say that you attend a Nazi group meeting every week. This is how society would view you as a Christian.

So we can see why the author of Hebrews gives such a strong warning against not paying attention to Christ. They were tempted to put more emphasis on the Old Testament and in the end, it was much safer to just be a Jew. However, being safe in the moment is not always safer for eternity. Society, in general, was giving a different message “worship all the gods, including your emotions and sinful desires.” It took conviction and commitment to follow Christ in a world of strong currents and unexpected winds pulling them away.

The circumstances for us right now are different. We cannot ignore the fact that in our world today there are many places where becoming a follower of Christ comes with a high price. But for the most part in the west right now we enjoy safety and freedom and even some tolerance. So how are we tempted today to not pay much attention to God’s word and drift away? What are some of the strong currents and high winds we and others face today?

Without strong opposition to following Christ and having all the freedom we want, we have not only one copy of God’s word but each one of us has a least a few. No one will stop us from reading the Bible. However, we are bombarded every day with subtle demands and distractions. Entertainment, recreation, sports, and comfort are the gods of this world. These things are not bad in and of themselves, but they can easily become the highest priority in our lives. Our phones and the internet can be helpful and at the same time, we can waste so much time on them. When all of our time is spent on other things we “just” won’t have time to read or think about what God says. When we do so we are literally not paying much attention to what we have heard.

I’m not putting down rules for us that God has not said, but each of us needs to consider how we are spending our time. Someone said that time is the most valuable commodity that there is, you cannot increase it and we can easily waste it. The worse thing about the time we are currently living is how easily we can be distracted by entertainment or social media. A lot of people nowadays have greater difficulty focusing and concentrating for longer periods of time. Research shows that this is due to the use of smartphones and social media. There are studies that show that the more you use social media the more likely you are to have negative feelings. I’m not telling you to break your phones or tv, I’m asking that we all consider and evaluate how we are spending our time and analyze if we are putting God’s word first and making it of foremost importance.

Someone may say that seems a little too harsh, one could have said the same thing in the first century. Hey, I’m just trying to save my life. But remember what Jesus said in Matt 16:25-26 “25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

We know the saying that the eyes are the window to the soul. What are we resting our eyes on? How good for our souls is it to rest our eyes on a screen? How much do we actually keep our eyes on God’s word? Keeping our eyes on the Word is what will anchor us to the truth so we will be able to stand the wind and waves.

Declared by angels

By this point, you have realized that the author of Hebrews was not writing to give these believers a “feel-good” sermon. Therefore you won’t get that either as we look at Scripture verse by verse. But we will receive what we truly need, God’s word for us in a world of strong currents and unexpected high winds. And this comes in the form of a strong warning. This warning continues here in v 2-3 where it says:

Heb 2:2-3 “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,”

From verses 2 to 4 the author of Hebrews gives even more reasons why we should pay much closer attention to Jesus’ word, to God’s words to the Bible. Here, the author uses what was known as a rabbinic homiletic: “argument from lesser to greater.” We could say a comparison from light to heavier from smaller to greater. The lesser here is right judgment, which was received by rejecting the message declared by angels, that is the OT.

You might say, wait a minute… I don’t remember anywhere in the OT saying that angels brought the message to Moses in the giving of the law.

When we look at the description of the giving of the law to Moses at Mount Sinai in Ex 19 and 20 there is nothing that indicates angels giving the law. However when Moses repeats the account in Deut 33:2 he says that God came with a myriad of holy ones, or ten thousand angels. Sometime before the first century, it was widely spread that angels had a role in mediating the transmission of the law. We see in the NT at the stoning of Stephen when he gives a recount of the OT he says regarding Moses Acts 7:38 “38 This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us.” and v53 “53 you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.” and Paul says Gal 3:19 “19 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.” this is repeated here in Hebrews 2:2 when it says the message was declared by angels.

Regarding this point, Leanna asked me a very good question. What is the importance that the OT message was declared by angels? For the first-century Jews, this was highly important because it validate and confirmed the belief that the law had a divine origin, it was from God, and it was not something that Moses invented. The fact that this is mentioned in this letter also confirms the idea that the first readers of this letter were former Jews who became Christ-followers.

Besides the fact that the OT was delivered by angels, it proved to be reliable. The author goes on to say that this word was not just reliable, but that every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution.

The author could have used only one word to describe disobedience, but there are two words. Both words indicate willfully rejection of listening to God’s voice. The first-word transgression or infringement means willfully breaking the law, or crossing a line that has been clearly drawn. It is listening and doing it anyways. Like when we tell our kids don’t do this, then they turn around and do exactly what you told them not to do.

The second term translated as disobedience means flawed hearing, which we might call half-hearted listening. It is the attitude of intentionally filtering out what you don’t want to. Like when we tell our kids something and they just “forget” to do the part that they didn’t want to do.

All of this is about not listening to God’s voice. Even partial listening is also disobedience. Transgression and disobedience are a lack of listening to God, rather it is choosing to listen to our desires or the world’s message. Therefore it matters to pay close attention to what He said, not what we think He said or what we want Him to say. That’s probably why we need God’s word written down to us, so there is no doubt in what God said. Even with what God said written down there is the temptation to water down or ignore some parts of God’s word.

We cannot ignore what God says just because we don’t like it, or our world doesn’t “approve”. The C&MA is in the discussion and possibly voting next general council about the question of ordaining women. My main argument against this is because if we do so, we are going to be ignoring what God says just because we don’t like it and are seeking the approval of others, or ignoring what God says for “practical reasons”.

You may be sitting here thinking, how could “they” do that. Well, we can easily be tempted to point finger at others, however, if we are truly honest and ask God to search our hearts, every time we disobey God we are not listening to Him, at that moment we are not paying close attention to what we have heard.

Just punishment

In Heb 2:2-3 The author compares the lesser punishment with greater punishment. Transgressing the law of the OT was met with severe and inescapable punishment. Every transgression was met with a prescribed penalty. Those that deliberately disregarded the law of God received the death sentence. (Num 15:31)

At first, we might consider the OT law to have an overly severe punishment for not following God’s law, but here Heb 2:3 is saying that the punishment for disregarding Christ is far greater. Heb 2:3 “3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” This is a rhetorical question to emphasize that there is no escape if we neglect the word of the Lord Jesus.

One might ask what could be worse than the death penalty? It is hell, an eternal death, punishment. A never-ending complete separation from God.

Hell is a place of eternal conscious punishment for the wicked. Jesus gives the image of hell where people will weep and gnash their teeth (Matt 25:30). It is a place prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41). It is eternal punishment, unquenchable fire, “where their worm does not dies, and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:48)

The eternal destination is not something that we can take lightly and the author of Hebrews also doesn’t take it lightly either. After giving all the grounds for this warning, in the 14 verses of chapter 1, now he finishes this warning by giving even further reasons for this warning. He says in v3-4:

Heb 2:3-4 “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.”

In these two verses, the author gives four more reasons why we need to pay closer attention to the gospel message, to God’s word. First, the message was declared by the Lord himself. Second, it was attested to us by those who heard the word. Third, it was confirmed by signs and wonders. Lastly, it is confirmed by the giving of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

This great salvation message was declared by Jesus. It was not an angel, it was not Moses or another created being. It was by the Lord and creator himself. God the Son who is the heir of all things, through whom the world was created, who is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of God the Father, the one who upholds the universe by the word of His power. Jesus is the one that declared that no one can come to the Father except through Him. He is the way, the truth, and the life. What a grievous sin it is not to listen to Him!

Second, the great gospel message was attested to us by those who heard. At the time of this letter, it was not only the first followers and apostles, plus the 3 thousand that came to faith at one time in Acts 2, but also there were followers of Christ all over the world because of the early missionary work of Paul and Barnabas and the other disciples. At the time of this letter, disciples had given their lives and since then there has been a multitude of people that lost not only property but their own lives for the sake of Christ. We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses that attest to the truthfulness of the gospel and of God’s word.

Third, the veracity of the gospel was attested to us by the many signs and wonders and miracles, performed first by Jesus and then continued by his disciples and apostles. Even today there have been signs and wonders attesting to God’s great salvation.

The last reason the author gives for listening to the great gospel is the new outpouring of gifts of the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Holy Spirit is the ultimate confirmation of the truthfulness of the gospel and of God’s word. It is the fulfillment of the prophecy from Joel 2:28 “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.”

Therefore there are more than enough reasons to take God’s word seriously, especially the central message of salvation through Jesus Christ. There is plenty of confidence to trust our lives to Jesus. The consequences of not listening to God are eternal and of uttermost seriousness.

I feel the weight of this warning. The prophet Ezekiel received this warning in Ezekiel 33:8-9 “8 If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. 9 But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.”

Here is the reality that this warning in Heb 2 gives us all. It doesn’t matter how long you have been going to church, or how much you have done for the Lord. It doesn’t matter if everyone thinks you are a Christ-follower. No one except you knows what is in your heart.

There is another serious warning from Jesus in Matt 7:21-23 “21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

It doesn’t matter what we do, what matters is if we know Jesus and His great salvation, and He knows us. Do you know Jesus?

Do you live in a way that you desire to love Christ and His commands more than your desires of the world? Are you paying close attention to what He has said in His word? Do you live as if the words of this Bible, Christ’s words are reliable? Do you depend on Him completely?

If you don’t, there is one thing you can do. Repent and ask for Jesus’ forgiveness. Ask Him to change you, to give you a new heart, a heart that loves Him and His word. He will give you the Holy Spirit to aid you in carrying out His words, to give you the ability to love Him. To fellowship with Him now and forever.

If you know and walk with Jesus. Remember your 1st love. Remember where you were when He saved you when He rescued you. Remember who you were, how we were blind and lost. He saved a wretch like me and you. Even now after all these years, we are in no better position, we need Christ. All good we have done it was not us, but it was Christ working through us by His grace. The only credit we can take is all the wrongs we have done. There are no grounds for boasting, all of us need Jesus. All by grace alone, nothing our hands have done, it is amazing grace.