There are times when looking at Scripture that your entire mindset has to change if you are going to hear and apply it in a right manner. And it’s a hard task to achieve. For example, if all of my life I believed that a rabbit looked like an elephant it would be difficult ever to see why rabbit hunting required such a low-powered weapon. If I were going to see why that weapon was good and right I would first need to adjust my thinking and realize that a rabbit was a small furry animal. For until then, that change of mind, I would be prohibited by my presuppositions from seeing that the weapon would be a wise and good choice.

As I have said, there are times when this same type of mindset alteration needs to occur in looking at Scripture. For it may be that you’ve assumed something wrongly your entire life, and the end result is that when you look at Scripture your presuppositions prohibit you from seeing the truth. I believe Hebrews 3 is one of those texts that challenge our presuppositions and assumptions of what is true to the core. For it presents a problem that the revivalistic mindset that is ingrained in most anyone who has grown up with my background struggles to solve. For it tells us that not everyone who has prayed a prayer and walked an aisle should be given the assurance that he or she is indeed born again.

But that is not where the text starts. It doesn’t begin with the presentation of this reality to us, and so neither will we start there. Rather, the text begins by declaring (again) Christ’s supremacy. Thus far the readers have been shown that Christ was God’s supreme revelation of himself, that he was himself God, the Son, that he is superior to the angels (and his message to theirs), and that his becoming flesh only highlights his supremacy as he accomplished God’s redemptive purposes for his people. And yet in chapter 3 the author of Hebrews tells us of his supremacy in regard to yet another.

Jesus is superior to Moses

Now, as with his comment regarding the angels, the author is not trying to show that Moses should not be seen as a faithful servant of God. In fact, he states such exactly. He writes in verse 2 that Moses also “was faithful in all God’s house.” Then, again in verse 5 he writes, “Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later.”

Moses would have been seen in their eyes as a great prophet and leader from God. He led the people out of Egypt, received the law, and (as the text says) testified of truths that were later revealed. Therefore, the author is not trying to crush their perspective of Moses. He does, however, add one element to this perspective. For he tells them (in like fashion) that Jesus is superior to Moses.

Thus, reading the first six verses together, his argument becomes very clear. He writes: “Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses – as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in hope.”

So, we see his superiority stated twice in saying, “Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses” and in the contrast between verses 5 and 6. Thus, we see that Jesus was faithful to his father even as Moses was faithful to God, but Christ should be seen as more glorious because just as the builder of a house should be counted of greater honor than the house, we should realize that Jesus created Moses. Remember, he is God, the Son. Thus, he is greater. Also, Moses was faithful in God’s house as a servant (i.e. he was faithful as from among God’s people) while Jesus was faithful over God’s house as a Son (i.e. he reigned over God’s people as God the Son).

Therefore, the audience should see very clear that they want to be among those who belong to Christ. They want to be “his house,” if we follow the analogy in the text. And yet there is a seeming problem at the end of verse 6. For the author writes, “And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in hope” (emphasis added).

What is the problem?

The author of Hebrews seems to paint their salvation in a conditional light

The author of Hebrews writes in verse 6, “But Christ was faithful as a Son over His house – whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end” and in verses 12-14, “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today’ so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if indeed we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.”

What are these “if” statements? It sounds as if he’s making their salvation conditional. Is this not a problem for us? Salvation is not conditional once you’ve professed Christ is it? Isn’t that the demand of our belief that if one is once saved he is always saved? So, why list an “if” clause, so as to paint their salvation in a conditional clause? What place does this have after he has already addressed them as “holy brothers, sharing in the heavenly calling”?

Now, does this mean that someone can be saved and then not saved at some later time? That is a question that we’ve asked already and will ask and answer again as we move through this book. And the answer is, “No, someone cannot at one time truly be saved and at some later time not be saved.” We have numerous texts to support this thought, such as 1 John 2:19, Romans 8:29-30, and 1 Corinthians 1:8-9, in which he says, “God will confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” Thus, be assured salvation is the work of God’s grace from beginning to the end. He saves you, and he keeps you. And there will be no person whom he has justified who will not be glorified on that final day.

This is indeed a good reality. And it is not bad to remind ourselves of truths expressed clearly in other areas of Scripture. Nor is it bad to remind ourselves of these truths expressed clearly elsewhere so that we might rightly understand the text with which we are currently dealing. Yet we must not use them so as to ignore the text at hand.

Thus, we have reminded ourselves of the truth that God preserves his people, and yet the “if” clauses found in our text have not disappeared. So what do they mean – especially if they can’t mean that one can lose his salvation?

To see the answer to this question, we need to shift our mindset from what we might have thought for most of our life, otherwise we will never be able to see it – as with the analogy with which I began. And the shift many of us need to make today is by turning from the thought that just because someone prays a prayer, walks an aisle, or even claims to have repented of his sins and believed on Christ doesn’t guarantee that he is converted. Now the reason is not because these things are bad. In fact, the way that one is converted is by repenting of one’s sins and placing his faith in Jesus Christ. However, when someone is truly converted, his heart changes. He is, in fact, given a new heart – a heart that loves the Lord and desires to follow him.

Therefore, if you are witnessing to someone and he claims to repent and believe, then you rejoice. But you cannot say, “I know you’re saved. You’re going to go to heaven.” You can say, “If you’ve truly repented and believed, then I know you’ll be in heaven.” But then you will want to point out that if they’ve truly repented and believed, then God has given them a new heart that will love him and long to obey him and long to flee from sin and will not despise him and deny him before men.

So, if someone claims to have repented and believed, you may call him brother, for you have no reason to think otherwise, only reason to believe. However, you can tell him that he is truly converted if his heart proves to have changed by God. If it doesn’t then you cannot give him assurance of salvation – for you would only have reason to doubt it.

That seems to be the position of these individuals receiving this letter and the exhortation and warning of chapter 3. The author calls them brothers, indeed, holy brothers, because their claim is that they have believed in Christ, and he has no reason to doubt that. However, he doesn’t want to tell them, simply, “You’re on your way to heaven” lest they really aren’t converted and have just gone through some emotional experience and not really had saving faith. He doesn’t want to give them unqualified assurance, especially if they’re saying, “Yeah, we might just walk away from this whole Christian thing,” or that would be a manifestation that they’ve not been given new hearts that love God and despise sin. Therefore, he tells them, “We have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm to the end.” It’s like saying, “We’re all on our way to heaven, if our hearts really show that they have been made new and we are really converted.” For a truly converted heart will be changed so as to hold onto one’s confession of Christ until the end.

Therefore, do you see, he is not saying, “You must do all this in order to be converted” or “You’re converted, but you’ve got to do all this to maintain that.” Rather, he is saying, “You are converted by placing your faith in Christ. It is of no work on your part. However, since true conversion results in this change, if you don’t have that change, I don’t want to assure you that you’re converted.”

And this kind of a statement is a kind thing to say. However, it seems that in recent times we have seen any kind of qualified statement as bad and have longed to give people instant assurance (based on their profession) for so long that we’ve allowed a number of people who fill our church roles to think they have truly been converted because they prayed, or walked an aisle, or professed faith when they give no signs of having been given a new heart that longs to follow, obey, and submit to Jesus Christ.

Thus, I think we should allow this text to give us a paradigm shift in how we give people assurance that they are saved. Tell them that if they are their life will reflect that God has given them a new heart.

What then is my personal response to this reality?

What should be our personal response to having heard this text today? Should it be to say, “Man, if my life is supposed to look like this, I really need to get it in gear and start doing some good things”? That is not where the text points us. The text points us, rather, to belief. Therefore, your response needs to be to believe. Remember it is by faith that you are saved and as a result of faith you will obey. Faith alone saves, and yet faith never comes alone. Faith produces faithful obedience.

For this reason the author of Hebrews spoke of the Israelites and their sin as they hardened their hearts to God, sinned, and did not enter into the land (his rest). He writes in verses 16-18, “For who provoked him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?” Yet when he boils down the reason they were punished, he doesn’t list their many acts of disobedience. Rather, he writes, “So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief” (v. 19). If they had believed, they would have obeyed.

Therefore, where you are today, battling with temptation, battling with a fight of sin, what do you need to do? Believe in Christ. Believe, for this is what a converted heart does. Your heart should respond to that and say, “Yes, I do believe in Christ. I do believe that what he has spoken is true, that what he condemns is sin, and that what he commands is right.” So, I exhort all of you hearing me right now to believe. That is my exhortation to you.

And yet there is one more response we must all hear and obey. It is from verses 12-13 as the author writes, “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today’ so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

Each of us needs to take on the task of encouraging one another daily to believe in Christ. For it is only by faith that we will be faithful, only by faith that we will continue to walk in obedience. And we need to do it daily and as long as that day is called today, that is, daily and all day long each day.

We do this because we want no one to walk in disobedience and not hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end. God has provided the church as a channel to bring us the means by which we will believe and continue to believe. Therefore, we needed the church to speak the gospel to us that we might first believe and we need exhortation that we might continue to believe, and as we continue to believe we will show that we have truly been converted and are indeed partakers of Christ.

May God grant us grace in this labor. Amen.

CONSIDERING CHRIST, FAITHFULNESS, AND JUDGMENT