Theological Ramblings

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 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. (Hebrews 2:1-4)

The main point of these verses is the importance of paying attention to the Word of God and heeding what it says - particularly the Gospel of Christ. That’s simple enough to see, but I’m intrigued by the way he makes this point. Many times the wording of the Bible might seem confusing to many people. We wonder “Why did he say it that way? Couldn’t he have just said what he wanted us to see?” I’m a firm believer that when the wording is complex it isn’t because the writer is intending to be unclear of elusive, but rather that there is some reason why he has said it this way. So I want to show how I broke this passage down.

The Writer here makes a logical correlation. He begins this chapter with his conclusion: Therefore we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. Then he sums up his argument. Now we have to look back to Chapter 1 for his major premise. Chapter 1, in fact, in its entirety is the major premise: Jesus is superior to the Angels. Ch 1 vs 1-2 begins the comparison, by mentioning that Jesus Christ has now replaced all vehicles previously used to deliver God’s revelation. He then explains in the rest of the chapter that Christ is superior to the angels, who are one of these vehicles. As a matter of fact, our English translation may have unfairly biased our interpretation of this. We read “angel” and likely jump to the conclusion that The Writer is speaking of Gabriel, Michael and others. However, the root word for “angel”, ?????????, transliterated “ang’-el-os” or “angelus” in Latin literally means “messenger”. By implication, then, the plain sense interpretation of this would be that The Writer is referring to all those who have previously carried the revelation of God, be they angels (as we understand them), human or otherwise. This would then imply that when The Writer continues on in subsequent chapters to compare Christ to Moses, he is not simply moving from one bullet point to another, but moving from general to specific. I find this interpretation compelling for there are precious few moments in the Old Testament when the message of God was delivered by an actual angel. Most of the revelation of God had been delivered by prophets. Thus, since no mention of prophets is given in the comparison to Christ, except for Moses, it can be induced that angels is meant as a broad stroke. I don’t believe that The Writer intended Moses to be representative of all the human prophets, for I believe him to be representative of The Law instead. It would be as though someone mentioned Christ to us, we would not assume that they were talking about him as a represtentative of all the Apostles, though Jesus was certainly the greatest Apostle (btw, Apostle also means messenger :)), we would understand this to be a mention of the very foundation of our faith. It was the same for Jews: Moses was the foundation of their faith. He wrote their Torah. He lead them from Egypt and delivered them to the cusp of the Promised Land. All of this was by God’s leading, but they still looked up to him - a great deal more than we look up to Paul or Peter.

That, however, is not necessarily intrinsic to this syllogism. What is important is the major premise: Jesus Christ is a superior messenger than the angels. The minor premise may be found following the conclusion. It’s a somewhat convoluted way of presenting a logical argument, but who presents logical arguments concisely anymore? Verse 2 gives the minor premise, which is in short: “The revelation of the Angels (previous messengers) proved reliable, and those who neglected it were punished for neglecting it.” So the argument goes like this:

• A: Jesus Christ is a superior messenger than all the angels
• B: The message of the Angels proved reliable and all those who neglected it were punished.
• Therefore C: We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard (through Christ).

He goes on to explain this in verse 3 of chapter 2 when he says, “How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” This is the end of the thought that gave us our minor premise. The whole sentence is: “For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience recieved a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” See it? He’s saying If the inferior (angels) was so reliable that those who transgressed were punished, then the revelation of the superior (Christ) will be all the more reliable and the punishment for those who neglect it all the more assured, which leads The Writer to conclude that it is necessary for us to pay closer attention to such revelation lest we “drift away”, which is significantly putting it lightly. This major thought of his will become a characteristic theme of this book, showing up again at choice points in chapters 6 and 10, to the degree that many use these texts as evidence for an Arminian understanding of security.

But for today, let’s take away the point that the testimony of Christ is sure and trustworthy, and therefore it is worth our trust and consideration. Many times we behave as though we choose our beliefs based on what works for us. It’s characteristic of the world we live in. Spend any time in open air evangelism and you’ll see it all over. People want what feels good to them or what serves their needs and desires. It’s often the same rubric people use when they pick which presidential candidate will receive their vote. Candidate A promises to lead based on principals of right/wrong, and to protect the core of what makes our country what it is, while Candidate B promises to do nothing but give people what they want and so Candidate B wins. That’s an intentional caricature of the situation, of course. Many times there’s a good mixture of A and B in both parties, but the fact of the matter is, most voters look for B instead of A, which is wrong. We choose religion like we choose our fast food restaurants. Which isn’t going to keep me up at night? I can’t eat at Taco Bell - too many beans! But we should be choosing the things worthy of our faith based on the merits of them, whether they are right and true and trustworthy. The author of Hebrews says that Christ is a sure testimony, and therefore he deserves our trust and attention. And if we don’t give it to him, woe to us for the judgment will come.