14  The Tragedy of  Rejecting Full  Revelation—part 3  (6:9-12)

But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (6:9-12)

After the severest of warnings, comes the most loving of appeals. The writer was hoping earnestly that the unbelievers he so forcefully had been warning would not fall away, that they would not apostatize. His approach was to introduce them, so to speak, to the true Christians in their midst, to be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

First he gives a brief word to the believers who are to be imitated. Beloved is never used in Scripture to refer to unbelievers. Now he is speaking of things that accompany salvation, whereas in the previous part of the chapter he had been talking only about things concerning revelation. Both of these things—the use of “beloved” and the discussion of salvation conditions—indicate the writer’s change of audience. The previous topics—intellectual enlightenment about God’s word, tasting God’s gifts and His Spirit, and so forth—accompany revelation, not salvation. They are meant, of course, to help lead to salvation, but they do not do so apart from faith in Jesus Christ.

The Christians who are to be examples came out of the same background as those who are to imitate them. They were all raised in Judaism. They had had the same opportunity to know God’s revelation and to experience the work of His Spirit. They had had the same opportunity to hear the gospel and to see and experience Christ’s church at work. The only difference, though it was a very great difference, was that some had trusted Christ as Savior and some had not. That is also the great difference between the wheat and the tares of Jesus’ parable (Matt. 13:24-43). The same sun that hardens the clay melts the wax.

The term beloved (agaptos, from agap) expresses the highest kind of relationship. It is used sixty times in the New Testament. The first nine times it is used, it is used by God the Father in speaking of Christ, His beloved Son. Everywhere else, whether referring to Jews or Gentiles, it is used only of believers. Arthur Pink observes, “I cannot really love a brother with the Gospel love which is required of me, unless I have a well-grounded persuasion that he is a brother.”

The writer was convinced that his fellow believers to whom he was writing exhibited all the traits, all the true marks, of salvation—of true sainthood in the biblical sense. The implication is that, after considerable investigation, he was persuaded that these beloved brethren possessed all the things that accompany salvation and that they, therefore, would be superb examples for their yet unbelieving friends to observe and imitate.

ACCOMPANIMENTS OF SALVATION

Many things accompany salvation. The entire fifth and six chapters of Romans are devoted to these accompaniments. But the particular ones mentioned in this section of Hebrews are those that contrast with the accompaniments of unbelief mentioned in 5:11—6:5. For example, accompanying salvation is not infancy but maturity, not milk but solid food, not inexperience in righteousness but perfect righteousness, not repentance in dead works but repentance toward God unto life. The accompaniments of salvation are primarily positive, not negative. They do not reflect external ceremonial religion but internal regeneration, transformation, new life. Their significance comes not from repeated sacrifices but from the one perfect and complete sacrifice of Jesus Christ. They do not focus on the elementary truths of resurrection and judgment but on the believer’s blessed hope, not just on being enlightened but on being made new, not just on tasting salvation but feasting on it, not just partaking of the Holy Spirit but having Him indwell, not just getting a taste of God’s good word but of drinking and eating it, not just seeing God’s miracles but being one. These are the things that accompany salvation.

TO WHOM THIS APPLIES

Though we are speaking in this way no doubt is meant to be an encouragement to fellow believers who, after reading the previous somber section, may have been wondering—as do many Christians today—if this warning applies to them. Moving the last part of verse 9 to the beginning helps clarify the meaning. A paraphrased reading would be, “Beloved fellow Christians, though we have been speaking about these awesome and fearful warnings to unbelievers, we know that far better things apply to you. You have the accompaniments of salvation, not of unbelief. These warnings to apostates, and potential apostates, are put in this letter to you because these people are in your midst.”

Again the parable of the wheat and tares is helpful. Jesus made a special point that both true believers and mere professed believers would be in the church together until He returns, and that true believers can never be certain who the false ones are. The characteristics of unbelievers given in Hebrews 5:11—6:4 are not meant to be used by the church to try to separate the wheat from the tares. Only the condition of a person’s heart determines his standing before God, and only God has this knowledge. Under certain circumstances—such as for teaching false doctrine or living immorally—the church not only may, but should, excommunicate a member. But the Lord has made it clear that we cannot determine who in the church is really saved and who is not, and that we should not try to be the ultimate court deciding on such matters.

We do know, however, that any congregation may have an unbeliever on its rolls, perhaps even in a place of leadership, and it is to such people that this warning is given by the Lord. The faithful preacher and teacher is to give this warning, though he may not be able to determine to which particular individuals it applies. He is to teach it as part of the whole counsel of God and to let the Spirit apply it where it is needed. “Beloved,” the writer is saying, “I do not say these hard things because they apply to all of you. They do not. But there are some among you who very much need this warning.”

GOD DOES NOT FORGET HIS OWN

For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. (6:10)

God knows who are really His and who are faithful. He will not forget His own or their work for Him. Our names are securely in His book of life. Our salvation will not be lost and our rewards will not be forgotten. “Rest easy,” the writer says. “Don’t worry.”

Many Christians today, as throughout history, experience times of doubt and even anguish at the supposed prospect of losing their salvation. When they read or hear a message of judgment, they are shaken and insecure. They do not know what it is to rest in the finished work of Christ and in their positional standing in Him before God.

After Malachi had given his severe warning of judgment, many of the faithful believers apparently were worried that it applied to them. But the Lord calmed their fear. “A book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who esteem His name. ‘And they will be Mine,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘. . . I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him’ ” (Mal. 3:16-17). In the next chapter, after still another warning to the wicked, God again reassures His own: “But for you who fear My name the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings” (4:2). God always knows His faithful; He always knows His own. We should not fear the final judgment. If we are in Christ, we can never be condemned. We should not worry about missing the rapture. If we belong to Christ, He will be sure to take us with Him. The sovereignty of God and His faithfulness secure us.

WORKS ARE EVIDENCE OF LOVE

A Christian’s works are not what saved him or what keep him saved, but they are an evidence of his salvation. As James tells us, faith without works is dead—not alive, not real, not genuine. Our faith is demonstrated by our works (James 2:18, 26). God is not so unfair and insensitive that He fails to see the works of love His beloved children perform. He clearly sees the fruit of our righteousness.

Paul told the Thessalonian believers that he knew God had chosen them to be His, to be saved, because of their “work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 1:3-4). They had the fruit of good works to go along with their statement of faith. Love is a product of faith.

LOVE HIS NAME

Love for and service to the brethren is an evidence of salvation (cf. John 13:34-35). But an even more significant evidence is love shown toward His name. God knows when our service is truly for His glory by whether or not it is done out of love for His name.

As important as loving fellow Christians is, loving God is immeasurably more important. In fact, without loving God first and foremost, we are not able to love each other as we should. The Jewish Christians being commended here ministered ... to the saints first of all out of their love for God’s name. The very reason they could love each other so much and serve each other so well was because they loved God so much. The key to true Christian service is a burning love for the Lord. All Christians ought to be attractive and lovable; but all are not. In this we often do not differ from unbelievers. But our responsibility, our calling, is to love and serve fellow Christians—and also unbelievers—first of all because of God, not because of themselves.

In the introduction of his letter to the Romans, Paul tells them of his gratitude for their faithfulness and of his longing to visit them (Rom. 1:8-10). But he also tells them that the driving force behind his ministry to them is the sake of God’s name and that it is first of all God that he serves (1:5, 9). God’s name stands for all that He is. To love His name is to have a passionate desire for the glory of all that God is. Speaking of some traveling ministers, John says of them, “For they went out for the sake of the Name” (3 John 7). They ministered because of their overwhelming love for the Lord. When Jesus recommissioned Peter, He did not ask him if he loved men and, if so, then to go out and serve them. He asked Peter three times, “Do you love Me?” After each of Peter’s affirmative replies, Jesus commanded him to feed His sheep (John 21:15-17). Our service to Jesus Christ must be based on an overriding love for Him. We can never properly love men, saved or unsaved, lovable or unlovable, until we properly love Christ.

These faithful believers to whom Hebrews was primarily addressed loved the name of the Lord. This was positive proof that their faith was the real thing. They were ministering to each other because they loved their Lord. We hear a great deal about loving and ministering to the Body of Christ, about serving each other in the life of the Body. No emphasis could be more scriptural—if it is in the right perspective. The genuineness and the effectiveness of the ministry we have to one another as saints is directly related to the love we have for Christ. The more we love God, the more we will want to do His will. Our concern should not be for trying to whip up love for people, but for loving God more and more. When our love for Him is right, our love for others will be right.

AN UNBROKEN MINISTRY

Keeping God as our focus and first love not only gives us the desire and power to love others and to serve them, but it also sustains us in our love and service. Only God’s love has such staying power. The faithful, loving Hebrews had ministered and were still ministering. Their love issued in an unbroken ministry to the saints. They just kept loving and serving. They could always speak of their fellowship with the Lord and of their Christian service in the present tense.

HOW SHOULD WE SERVE?

First of all we serve by ministering our spiritual gifts (cf. Rom. 12:3-8; 1 Cor. 12:9-11; 1 Pet. 4:10-11). Our frontline of service is through our spiritual gifts. But our spiritual gifts are not given for us to take and use by ourselves, much less for ourselves. They are to be used for God’s glory, in His power and for His name’s sake. Whether our gift is counseling, showing mercy, helping, teaching, preaching, administration, or whatever, it is to be ministered because we love the One who gave it to us.

Much service to one another, of course, has nothing to do with our spiritual gifts but is simply part of every Christian’s responsibility. Every believer’s ministry, for example, involves praying for other believers. We are to “pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints” (Eph. 6:18). Our ministry to one another also involves rebuking sin in a brother, seeking to restore him in love, confessing to one another, forgiving, bearing one another’s burdens, caring for the weaker brother, giving to the needs of the saints, and many other responsibilities. All these things are part of our ministry to one another, and none of them can be generated on its own. All must be generated by the right kind of love for Jesus Christ.

The Christian life boils down to one thing: the measure of our love for the Lord. How preoccupied are we with His name—not with saying it sentimentally in a “spiritual” tone or with vainly repeating it in our conversation and prayer—but with doing His will for the sake of His glory? How lofty and exalted is our view of God and how overwhelming are our concern and genuine love for Him? When we love Him with all our “heart and soul and mind and strength,” we will then be able—and only then be able—to love our neighbor as ourselves.

The saints that are ministered to are simply fellow Christians. All true Christians are hagios, “holy ones,” or saints (cf. 1 Cor. 1:2). It goes without saying that we often do not think or act like saints, in the popular sense. But the writer is speaking of our identity in Christ. We are holy ones in our Lord, even when we are unfaithful and act unsaintly. Being a saint has nothing at all to do with one’s degree of spiritual maturity or rank. It refers to any person who is saved, who is set apart by God for Himself in His Son Jesus Christ. Because God sees us as He sees His Son, we are all “holy in His sight.”

The proof that the Hebrews addressed in 6:9-10 were true believers was their loving, faithful, and continuing ministry to fellow believers, fellow saints. The greatest gift our love can give God is that of loving, faithful service to each other, His children. If we love Him, we will serve one another. To say we love God while we have no use for our brothers in Christ is to lie. John, often called the apostle of love, goes into this truth in depth in his first letter. “The one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now.” A few chapters later, he puts the same truth even more strongly: “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” In the last chapter he summarizes the truth: “Whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him” (1 John 2:9; 4:8; 5:1). Loving one another is not an option or an extra; it is bedrock Christian living.

FOLLOW THEIR EXAMPLE

And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, that you may not be sluggish, but be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (6:11-12)

The writer is again speaking to the unbelievers, those who had made some sort of profession of faith but who were in imminent danger of falling back into Judaism and of losing forever their opportunity for salvation. The hope that is now extended to them is for them to become imitators of the true believers that have just been described—by becoming true believers themselves. “Take a look at these true believers,” he is saying. “My sincerest desire is that everyone of you become as they are. How wonderful it would be if all of you were the same, if every single one of you could have the same full assurance of hope to the end. We don’t want you to fall away and lose all hope.” There is no hope apart from Jesus Christ, and it is therefore to Him that these are called to come before it is too late to come. Then they could all claim this hope “as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast” (Heb. 6:19).

Diligence (spoud) can carry the idea of eagerness or haste. The suggestion in this passage is that the unbelieving Jews can get to belief quickly. Coming to Christ is not a long, drawn-out process that takes years, or even months or weeks, of preparation. All it takes is an act of faith. It may take some people a long time to come to Christ after first hearing the gospel—but it need not, and it should not. Salvation is an instantaneous experience, and it should not be postponed.

The idea of haste is also in verse 12. These Jewish unbelievers’ sluggishness was a terrible hindrance to their being saved. Sluggish is a translation of the same word (nthros) that is rendered “dull” in 5:11. Just as they were sluggish in hearing, they were sluggish in believing. They had not consciously, outrightly rejected the gospel; but not to accept it, for whatever reason, is the same as rejecting it. There is a time for carefulness and deliberation, but not when you know the right thing to do and have no guarantee of how long you will have the opportunity to do it. The time for accepting Christ is never later; it is always now. “Now is ‘the acceptable time,’ behold, now is the ‘the day of salvation’ ” (2 Cor. 6:2). It is quite possible that many more people who have heard the gospel are lost because they put off trusting in Christ than because they purposely reject Him.

Before it is eternally too late, those on the edge of salvation should imitate true believers. The imitation, of course, is not to be of their personalities or abilities or individual lifestyles or habits, but of their faith—evidenced by love and labor for the Lord. “Follow the saved,” they are being told, “those who have had the same persecution that you have had but who have patiently endured it because their faith is real. Follow them and come to all the promises that salvation brings” (cf. Heb. 13:7).