My husband Jim and I went kayaking last month on Lake Superior with a group led by our daughter Erin. (Not every post will begin with a story from that vacation, I promise) Being a good guide, she gave us a safety briefing before we began. Part of her briefing included the need to stay together. The first morning we went out there was an unusually heavy fog, which posed a higher risk of getting lost or running into danger if we didn’t pay attention and keep close to one another. Erin carries a whistle, and she explained that if we heard one toot it meant “Hey, I’m trying to get your attention, and you’re probably too far away,” two toots meant “Hold your position,” and 3 toots meant “Danger—there’s an emergency—paddle hard and get back together as quickly as possible.”
Chapter two of Hebrews begins with a safety briefing for our souls. This is the first of several warnings against apostasy in the book of Hebrews. The author is blowing his whistle to get our attention, warning us of a very real danger to which we are all liable: drifting away from the gospel truth of our great salvation by either lack of attention or neglect. He underscores his warning by harking back to the superiority of Christ which he so carefully set before us in the first chapter (that’s what the therefore is there for). For the superiority of our Lord Jesus Christ means that the salvation he accomplished at the cross and freely offers as a gift of grace is far greater than the salvation offered through the Law of Moses (the message declared by angels, Deut. 33:2; Acts 7:53). If this salvation is so much greater than the other, in which every transgression was justly punished, then the consequences of neglecting it are correspondingly higher. Continue reading “Hold Fast to Jesus”