Responding to the New Covenant
Hebrews 10:19-25
Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 19 to 25, is our text for tonight in our continuing study of Hebrews, and we're fast coming to a conclusion in this book, and what a blessing it's been to be here and to share and to learn what God has for us.
When a man hears the gospel, the good news of salvation from sin through Jesus Christ, and when that man understands the gospel, and when that man believes that the gospel is true, and when he, to some extent, commits himself to that understanding, then he will, from that point, either go on to be a true believer or fall back to be an apostate.
You see, there are only two possible responses to the knowledge of the gospel. When an individual knows the truth of the gospel, he either goes on to believe, or he falls back into apostasy, and an apostate is one who rejects the truth, having known it. That's different from somebody who maybe rejects only knowing a portion of it.
There are only, then, two possible responses to the individual who intellectually understands the truth of the gospel, and that is to go on to faith or to fall back into a state of apostasy, which deserves, as the Bible tells us, the severest kind of punishment.
Now, tonight, we're going to consider the first of those two possibilities, and that is the positive response to the new covenant, or salvation, the positive response. A man knows the truth. He understands the truth. To a certain measure in his mind, he acquiesces to the truth. And at that point, if he goes forward and commits his life to Christ, he has taken a positive response to the truth. If he falls back, it's a negative response.
Now, next week, or if we don't get done tonight, in two weeks, we will consider the negative response, and we'll study the horrible tragedy, beginning in verse 26, of willful apostasy, and what happens when a man willingly has a negative response to the gospel. But tonight it's going to be positive.
Now, as have been studying in the Book of Hebrews, we have been plumbing the depths of this very deep book. It began, you'll remember, as we were introduced to the absolute superiority and sovereignty and supremacy of Jesus Christ. We found Him in the very first verses of the first chapter of Hebrews to be the all-sufficient one.
And then the writer of Hebrews begins to compare Jesus Christ with all of the features of the Old Testament, or the old covenant, because He's writing to Jews, and He wants to show them that Christ is the answer and they can drop everything else. And so He shows how Christ is better than Moses, and Christ is better than angels, and Christ is better than all the prophets, and Christ is better than Joshua, and implies that Christ is better than David, and Christ is better than Aaron, and Christ is better than all the priests.
And Christ offered a better sacrifice than the other ones. He is a better priest of a better priesthood than the other one. And He offers a new covenant better than the other one. And so all the way through chapter 10, clear to verse 18, from 1:1 to 10:18, is a presentation of the superiority of Jesus Christ. And we've been seeing it all the way through.
And now, as we come to 19, we find that He asks for a response. Now, periodically, up through chapter 10, verse 18, He has been giving warnings. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" in chapter 2. Later on in 4, more warnings. Later on in 5, more warnings. In 6, more warnings. "If we know these things and we fall away, it's impossible to be renewed to repentance." So warning has interspersed these presentations of the superiority of Christ.
But now He's going to ask for a full response, beginning in verse 19. And you'll notice that 19 begins, "Having therefore," and the therefores are always there for a good reason. They always point backwards. "On the basis of what I've said for 10 chapters and 18 verses, you must respond."
If you know the gospel of Jesus Christ, you either then take a positive response and boldly, verse 19, "enter into the holiest, or you take a negative response, verse 26, you sin willfully after you knew the truth, and you fall away, and judgment comes about. Only two responses. And that's what He's asking for beginning in chapter 10, verse 19, in response to all of the presentation of Christ up through verse 18 of chapter 10.
And it's an appeal for men to come to Christ is what it is, on the basis of doctrine. You see, no Biblical appeal is ever really made apart from a solid foundation in doctrine. That's true all the way through Scripture. All solid appeals are based on doctrine. And so ten chapters of basic doctrine about the identity of Christ, and, finally, He says, "Now here's the opportunity for you to respond."
And the first, then, is a positive response, and would to God that this would be the response that all men would have, that you tonight who don't know Christ would have even tonight. The positive response is salvation. Now, salvation is made up of three features, and these are common in our understanding throughout the Scripture: faith, hope, and what's the third? Love. Faith, hope, love.
Now, if you'll notice the text, first of all is faith. "Let us draw near," verse 19. Secondly is hope, verse 22. Pardon me, verse 23. Verse 22 really says, "Let us draw near." Verse 23, "Let us hold fast." And then there's love, verse 24, "Let us consider one another."
Three statements beginning with "Let us," one having to do with faith, one having to do with hope and one having to do with love. And they really kind of separate into three features the experience of salvation. Salvation is drawing near, holding fast and loving each other. That's the fullness of salvation.
Somebody who draws near and falls away, that's not salvation. Somebody who draws near, sticks around a while but doesn't love his brother falls under the qualifications of I John, in which it says, "If any man say he love God and love not his brother," he's what? "He's a liar."