Hebrews 2:1-4

Warning to Pay Attention
1 We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2 For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, 3 how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.


Dig Deeper
“Where am I,” I wondered as I looked up and noticed that wherever I was driving it was not where I should be. It took me a few moments to realize that I had driven well past my exit and needed to find someplace to turn around. I had been driving home from out of town and was not sleepy or anything like that but I was tired and it was causing me to “zone out” a bit. I realized that without even realizing it, I had driven a good 6 or 8 miles past my exit and turning around where I was at would be no small task, in fact it would involve getting off of the interstate, driving through quite a bit of traffic and getting on the other side to go back where I needed to. It was quite a mistake that cost me about 30 minutes by the time I got back to my normal exit. But that’s what happens when your inattentive in your driving or in any other task. I didn’t make a conscience choice to miss my exit but I wasn’t diligent in what I was doing either, and that caused me to drift well past where I wanted to go. In the end, the consequences weren’t that bad but I was driving alone and I wasn’t in that big of a hurry. What if that was not the case though? What if I had been driving the President of the United States and had to get him to a major speech that he had to be on time for? What if I had made the same inattentive mistake then and drifted well past the exit? What was simply a mistake in the first scenario suddenly becomes a monumental one when the stakes are higher. That too, is true of most things in life.

In chapter 1 of Hebrews we have seen a solid case for the superiority of Christ. He is the exact representation of God and has a nature, status, and role that no other being could claim. The Old Testament Scriptures themselves, says Hebrews, stressed the preeminence of Christ when it comes to the relationship between Jesus and the Father, when it comes to the position and nature of Christ, and certainly when it comes to the authority that Jesus has. In every way, Jesus is superior to the beings that were highly respected in first century Judaism as the mediators between God and man who helped bring the much-revered Law of God to Moses and the rest of the people of Israel.

But this is not just some theology class for Christians of the first century to help them better understand the nature of Jesus, the Messiah. We do not have here an example of a teacher waxing eloquent about deeper matters that have no bearing on the real lives of his audience. The writer of Hebrews knew that the Christian community to which he was writing was struggling. Some had already given into the pressure of society and family to abandon Christ and had done so. Others were flirting with the idea. It just all seemed too difficult at times and returning to Judaism seemed to have a lot going for it. In most cases it would have meant an immediate restoration of familial and friendship relationships that were broken as a result of them following Christ. They would have been restored back into the Jewish community and found it much easier to work and live on a daily basis. That meant that the stakes were extremely high. What they understood about Christ and his importance in God’s plan for his people was absolutely vital.

The concern that the author of Hebrews had was something that he put in nautical terms. We must, he exhorted, “Pay the most careful attention” so that we “do not drift away.” The first term regarding attention comes from a word, “prosecheo,” which was used to render the idea of anchoring a ship, while the second term, “pararreo,” would describe a ship that had been allowed to drift past the harbor or docking point and fall victim to a shipwreck because the sailor carelessly failed to pay attention to the conditions. With that in mind, we could easily translate this verse with the consistent nautical theme to say “Therefore, we must anchor ourselves to what we have heard so that we do not drift past our harbor and get shipwrecked.”

The problem that they were having was not a lack of information about Jesus or even incorrect information regarding the Messiah, it was that they were becoming careless in paying attention to the most important details. This wasn’t an issue of hearing the truth but of heeding the truth.

And it was a truth that flowed from the superior nature of Christ that the first chapter focused on, which is why verse 1 begins with the word “therefore,” (the NIV has moved it to the middle of the sentence for readability purposes). Because of the incredible level of importance of these issues regarding Jesus, it’s not just that attention should be paid to these matters but the most careful attention. It’s one thing to slack off a little in personal health or some area like that but this was far more important than that. Missing a turn when I’m by myself and in no hurry is bad; doing it while driving the President to an important engagement is monumental. Drifting away from something in life can be bad, but drifting away from the revelation of God’s own Son was a matter of life and death and deserved their most diligent attention.

To make the point crystal clear Hebrews moves from lesser to greater to demonstrate the importance of the greater, a technique that was an extremely popular rabbinic tool during the time that this was written. The message that was spoken through the angels, in other words the Law, was a message that was binding and demanded one’s obedience and devotion. Violations of the Law received just punishment. This was something that no Jew would argue with. If one didn’t cling tightly to the Law they deserved the punishment that God had declared for those who violated the Covenant with Him. After all, what would be the point of entering into a Covenant if there were no negative consequences for breaking it?

There is, of course, no actual Old Testament passage that specifically states that the angels gave the message of the Law to Moses but by the first century, that was the firm Jewish understanding based, in part, on inferences from passages like Deuteronomy 33:2. The important assertion here, though, is the clear idea that the Law was a good thing that needed to be adhered to but it was administered by angels, the mere messengers of God.

Having already established the distinctive differences between the Son and angels, the thrust becomes obvious. If the lesser revelation given through messengers was important to hold to, then how much more so is that true of the complete revelation from God given through his unique Son? “How shall we escape,” Hebrews asks, “if we ignore such a great salvation.” The word for “ignore” in verse 3 is “amaleo” and it means to neglect carelessly as a result of apathy. In the mind of the author, the reason that they were drifting from the truth of Christ and his people was that they were apathetic to the nature of who he really was. To know that Jesus was the exact representation and embodiment of God and to consider walking away from that could only be a result of apathy and caring more one’s self and one’s situation than the greatness of the nature of Christ.

This was important stuff because, as the technique of lesser to greater makes clear, if a Jew wouldn’t think of drifting from the Old Covenant lest they face appropriate judgment, then how much more on the hook do they think they will be if they carelessly drift away from the greatest and truest revelation that God has given of himself—his own Son? This salvation that is found in the life of Christ, after all, was declared by the Son himself and confirmed by the eyewitnesses who were there (notice that the author says that the eyewitnesses confirmed to “us,” seemingly indicating that the author was not among the original disciples of Jesus but was a second generation convert). God had further confirmed that Jesus was truly God’s Son and the message about him was true through the signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit that were so necessary to verify the truth of their message before the New Covenant Scriptures were written and thoroughly dispersed to God’s people.

The writer of Hebrews knew that the message of the gospel was literally a matter of life and death and not something to be toyed with so he urgently pleaded with them to ensure that they weren’t drifting in their understanding of Jesus and the importance of clinging to him alone. He will give further reason for not drifting away from Christ and the dire consequences of doing so, but we should never read Hebrews and not take it as an opportunity to examine our own lives and make sure that we have not been careless in our own hearts and in danger of drifting past our harbor of safety.


Devotional Thought
Take an objective look at your own spiritual life. Have you drifted in some areas? Are you a little further out from the harbor than you used to be in areas like Bible study, prayer, evangelism, building relationships in the body, serving others, helping the poor, etc.? In other words, have you drifted in your walk with God? If you have, it’s almost certain that the underlying problem is that in some way you have taken your eyes off of Christ and forgot the incredible superiority of his nature and the Covenant that we have with him. Take some time today to consider what the writer of Hebrews might say to you or remind you of in your situation.