The Son of God greater than Moses, so Unbelief towards Him incurs a Heavier Punishment than befell Unbelieving Israel in the Wilderness. Heb. 3:14-16.
- 14. “For we are made partakers of Christ…ch. 6:4; 12:10, Rom. 11:17, 1Cor. 1:30; 9:23; 10:17, Eph. 3:6, 1Tim. 6:2, 1Pet. 4:13; 5:1, 1Jn. 1:3. We are spiritually united to the Saviour. We become one with him. We partake of his spirit and his allotments. The Christian is closely united to the Saviour, and as being one with him; John 15:1–7; 17:21, 23; Eph. 5:30; 1Cor. 12:27. The idea is, that we participate in all that pertains to him. It is a union of feeling and affection; a union of principle and of congeniality; a union of dependence as well as love; a union where nothing is to be imparted by us, but everything gained; and a union, therefore, on the part of the Redeemer of great condescension. It is the union of the branch to the vine, where the branch is supported and nourished by the vine. What else can be said so honourable of man as that he is a “partaker of Christ;”…that he is to share his honours in a brighter world.” Bernes, Albert &co
- if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end” ch. 6:11. To “hold fast the beginning of our confidence” signifies to “continue in the faith, grounded and settled” (Col. 1:23). It is to say with Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” (Job 13:15). “Firm unto the end.” This is the test. At the beginning of our Christian course, our confidence in Christ was full and firm. We knew that He was a mighty Savior, and we were fully persuaded that He was able to keep that which we have committed unto Him against that day. But the roughness of the way, the darkness of the night, the fierceness of the storm into which, sooner or later, we are plunged, tends to shake our confidence, and perhaps (much to our sorrow now) we cried, “Lord, carest Thou not”? Yet, if we were really “partakers of Christ” though we fell, yet were we not utterly cast down. We turned to the Word, and there we found help, light, comfort. In it we discovered that the very afflictions we have experienced were what God had told us would be our portion for “we are appointed thereunto” (1 Thess. 3:3).” Pink Arthur W.
- “We should persevere (1.) in the love of God and of Christ—in conscious, ardent, steady attachment to Him to whom our lives are professedly devoted. (2.) In that watchfulness over the heart; that communion with God; that careful study of the Bible; that guardianship over the temper; and in that habitual intercourse with God in secret prayer which is appropriate to a Christian, and which marks the Christian character. (3.) In leading a Christian life—as distinguished from a life of worldliness and vanity…The Christian is to be distinguished in temper, feeling, deportment, aims, plans, from the men of this world—and unless those characteristics are shown in the life and deportment, there can be no well-founded evidence of Christianity. Learn, that it is not mere feeling, that it is not mere ardour, and that it is not mere zeal that makes a Christian” Bernes, Albert &co
- 15. While it is said, To-day, 7, 8; ch. 10:38, 39. That is, persevere as long as life lasts, or as long as it can be said “to-day; to the end of our earthly pilgrimage.” This is a quotation from Ps. 95:7.
- 16. For some. Some of the Hebrews who came out of Egypt Num. 14:2, 4; 26:65, Ps. 78:17, Nu. 14:24, 30, 38. There is the need for more watchfulness against hardness of heart. The fact is that out of six hundred thousand men who left Egypt, but two of them were not cut off in the wilderness, Caleb and Joshua.
