We have been looking at the rather severe warning passage in Hebrews 10:26-31 over the last few weeks. We’ve seen that apostasy is quite possible among those who have been attached to the church and have felt some spiritual experiences and adopted some Christian practices, yet they have ultimately “spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace” (Heb. 10:29) and therefore they will experience God’s just punishment.
The writer concluded this warning by reminding his readers of their former faithfulness, when they were being tempted, in order to encourage them to endure their present and future tests (cf. 4:12-16; 6:9-20). Here is what he wrote:
32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. 35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. 37 For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; 38 but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” 39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
“The juxtaposition of 10:26-31 and 32-35 suggests that it may have been the experience of suffering, abuse, and loss in the world that motivated the desertion of the community acknowledged in v. 25 and a general tendency to avoid contact with outsiders observed elsewhere in Hebrews (see … 5:11-14)” (William Lane, Hebrews 9—13, p. 297).
So in this passage the writer of Hebrews first calls them to remember past faithfulness (vv. 32-34) and then he encourages them “do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.” He encourages them to endure.
Hughes notes with reference to this passage, “We may have begun well and now want to end well. If so, part of the secret is to remember well” (R. Kent Hughes, Hebrews: An Anchor for the Soul, 2 vols. (Wheaton: Crossway, 1993), 2:54).
We might identify the big idea of this passage like this: To have faith that endures trials, recall how God worked for you in the past, focus on doing His will in the present, and remember to trust His promises in the future. Or, to put it another way: By pointing the community to the past as well as to the future, the writer seeks to strengthen their Christian resolve for the present.
This passage may seem somewhat foreign to us and irrelevant to our situation. After all, we are probably not experiencing persecution like that expressed in this passage. And then, of course, there is the prosperity gospel teaching that we can claim health and freedom and a good life now so that we don’t have to experience such bad things.
But we do need this encouragement. Life can be tough. There are many things that can discourage us from continuing on with Jesus Christ. Our country does not look with favor upon Christians practicing their faith as it had in the past. Sometimes our families are against our commitment to live for Jesus Christ. Our culture paints Christianity as an antiquated, dogmatic, homophobic, anti-science propaganda that we are better living without. So we have need of endurance. We need to remember that there will be “a great reward” for us in the future if we hold on and don’t shrink back.
Our writer takes his readers back to the “former days…after you were enlightened.” This word “enlightened” is the same word used back in Hebrews 6:4. We said there that this experience of being enlightened is a part of the pre-Christian experience when the Holy Spirit begins to open one’s eyes to spiritual truth. However, we noted there that although this is the experience of every Christian—we must have our eyes opened (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:4-6)—it does not necessarily result in salvation, for those who experienced this back in Hebrews 6:4 ended up turning away from Christ and could no longer experience repentance.
2 Corinthians 4:6 says
“God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
Before God opened our eyes, we did not even see our need for the Savior. We mistakenly thought that we were good enough to get into heaven by our own righteousness. We had no idea of how terrible our sins were or of how holy God is. We did not appreciate the fact that the Son of God gave Himself on the cross to pay our debt of sin. But then, while we were yet in such darkness, God graciously opened our eyes. With the converted slave trader, John Newton, we could sing, “I once was blind, but now I see!”
This had happened to the recipients of this epistle—their eyes had been opened and they saw the sufficiency and supremacy and sweetness of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and believed.
So the first thing that happened is that God’s loving light invaded their darkened hearts and minds and gave them sight to see the beauty and majesty of the glory of God revealed in Jesus. When God’s grace takes hold of us, the lights go on!
John Piper points out that…
But then the New Testament talks about how becoming a Christian means we also shine like lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse world (Philippians 2:15). We don’t just see the light of God’s glory more clearly, we begin to reflect it. God shines into us and we shine out to the world.
So I take Hebrews 10:32 to point to these two things. These Christians had come to see the light of the gospel of the glory of God as true and infinitely valuable; and they had then begun to shine in the world as a witness to this truth and value. The first experience set them free from the world and the second made them stand out from the world.
Before we work through the text, one other word of introduction may be helpful. Jesus’ parable of the sower (Matt. 13:3-23; Mark 4:3-20; Luke 8:5-15) serves as a useful backdrop to our text. Jesus described the seed of the Word as sown on four types of soil. Some fell beside the road, where the birds ate it, so that it never took root and sprouted. This represents unbelievers who hear the gospel, but do not understand or believe it. Other seed fell on the rocky ground, where there was no depth of soil. It quickly sprang up, but it had no roots, and so it withered. This represents those who hear the Word and immediately receive it with joy. But when affliction or persecution arises, they quickly fall away.
The third soil is infested with thorns. The seed sprouts, but the thorns, representing worries, riches, and pleasures of this life (Luke 8:14), choke out the word so that it does not bring forth any fruit. The fourth type is good soil, representing those who hear, understand, and accept the Word, and bear fruit with perseverance (Luke 8:15).
In my understanding, only the fourth type of soil represents true believers who “have faith to the preserving of the soul” (Heb. 10:39). The rocky soil and the thorny soil both make a profession of faith for a while but eventually, they “shrink back to destruction.” In other words, genuine saving faith endures trials and bears fruit. The amount of fruit will vary (“some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty,” Matt. 13:23), but there will be observable evidence of a transformed heart. True believers may fail under pressure, as Peter did when he denied Jesus. Every believer struggles daily against sin, not always victoriously. But if God has changed the heart and if His saving life is “in the vine,” the person will repent, endure in faith, and bear fruit unto eternal life. (https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-31-enduring-faith-hebrews-1032-39)
The apostates had also been enlightened, but their lack of endurance revealed that their hearts had not been changed. They did not ever truly put their trust in Jesus Christ, turning their backs on their own efforts and fully relying upon His work in their behalf.
So our author is drawing their minds back to the days just after they had been enlightened and he reminds them that they had “endured a hard struggle with sufferings.” Every part of that sentence hurts. Their conversion had resulted in hard times. This is what makes the “joy” of verse 34 so amazing.
Phillips notes, “the author does not ‘recall’ his readers’ attention to the ‘good old days’ where faith seemed easy. It is not the times when things go well that really define our Christian lives. The really significant times, the periods that make up the highlights of our own histories, are those of trial and difficulty and danger” (Richard D. Phillips, Hebrews: Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2006), 380).
In the former days, after the Hebrew Christians started to see the glory of Christ and to shine with the glory of Christ, they also started to suffer for Christ. That is the paradox of the Christian life—the more faithful we are to Jesus Christ, the more we will suffer hardship.
This was a challenge to recall how they had marvelously stood unmoved some fifteen years earlier during the persecution under the Roman Emperor Claudius in A.D. 49. A famous quotation from the historian Suetonius indicates the character of the Claudian persecution: “There were riots in the Jewish quarter at the instigation of Chrestus. As a result, Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome” (Life of the Deified Claudius, 25.4). Historians believe “Chrestus” is a reference to Christ and that the riots and expulsion occurred when Jewish Christians were banished from the synagogue by the Jewish establishment. No one had been killed (cf. 12:4), but it was nevertheless a wrenching time of humiliation and abuse.
They had endured a “hard struggle.” Our word “athletic” comes from the Greek word translated “struggle.” It was like a hard-fought athletic contest, with Satan vying for their souls. They were not passive, but engaged in this suffering, seeing it as a contest for God’s glory.
The persecution was like a hard-fought athletic contest viewed by a partisan crowd. There was nothing passive in their display. In fact, they showed superb spiritual athleticism as they stood their ground! (R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word: Hebrews, vol. 2, 52)
The word translated “endured” is a reference to war and means “to stand one’s ground” or “to remain on the battlefield” instead of running away in cowardice. In an athletic contest, it involved remaining in the fight or the race, even though every fiber of your body is screaming, “give up.”
Such athleticism is a beautiful thing in the eyes of God and the church—as it was, for example, in the life of Hugh Latimer, the great English Reformer. On one notable occasion Latimer preached before Henry VIII and offended Henry with his boldness. So, Latimer was commanded to preach the following weekend and make an apology. On that following Sunday, after reading the text, he addressed himself as he began to preach:
Hugh Latimer, dost thou know before whom thou art this day to speak? To the high and mighty monarch, the king’s most excellent majesty, who can take away thy life if thou offendest; therefore, take heed that thou speakest not a word that may displease; but then consider well, Hugh, dost thou not know from whence thou comest; upon whose message thou art sent? Even by the great and mighty God! who is all-present, and who beholdeth all thy ways, and who is able to cast thy soul into hell! Therefore, take care that thou deliverest thy message faithfully.
He then gave Henry the same sermon he had preached the week before—only with more energy! Latimer was superb! And his memory is a great treasure of the Church.
Here our writer is calling for a similar remembrance of those storied days when the little church had been magnificent—“But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings.”
It is encouraging to note the intensity and repetition of the conflict. It is of great intensity. The word is polus meaning “much, great, strong, severe, hard, deep, profound.” They were enduring an intense profound struggle with sufferings (pathema).
That “suffering” was a struggle that came many different ways. They had been “publicly exposed to reproach and affliction.” They were “partners with those so treated” – including the writer to the Hebrews himself (“you had compassion those in prison”). They also had faced economic persecution (the “plundering of your property”). But the point is that they had faced these things, and had endured them. They could take a look at their past endurance, and be encouraged to keep standing strong in the future.
The story line in the book of Acts demonstrates the early Christians were exposed to open shame, persecution and derision (Acts 4:15-18; 5:17-18, 40-41; 8:1; 9:1-2; 12:1-5; 13:50; 14:19; 16:19-24, 37-39; 17:5-8, 13; 18:2; 19:9, 23ff; 21:27-39; 28:16-17, 30). Stephen’s martyrdom in Acts 8 is an excellent example of this kind of persecution. James the brother of John was murdered by King Herod (Acts 12:1-2).
When he says that they were sometimes “publicly exposed to reproach and affliction,” he uses the theatorizo, from which we get “theater.” This uses the same ancient Greek word as in 1 Corinthians 4:9 “God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men.” The idea is to be made theater for a watching world. They were ridiculed and taunted as a theatre of the absurd.
This may be the primary way we face persecution in the U. S. today—public ridicule. This happens through Hollywood and social media quite often.
The word “reproach” pertains to one’s character. They slandered you. They dragged your name through the mud. They accused you of horrific sins that you have not committed. They ridiculed you for your faith. This is the same word he will use in 13:13 to describe the “reproach” that Jesus himself endured. It’s our author’s way of saying that these believers had so identified with Jesus that they endured the same sort of public humiliation to which he was exposed.
Along with that, the “affliction” they endured was of the nature of being squeezed and pressured. The word “affliction” pertains more to maltreatment of one’s body. They beat you, they deprived you of shelter and food, and then they threw you into prison without justifiable cause. Persecution was one thing, but sardonic, smiling, rung-dropping insults made it even more devastating.
Sam Storms notes:
Evidently the non-Christian world surrounding them saw this light in their lives and hated it and did everything they could to snuff it out. Jesus told us to expect this to happen. In the Sermon on the Mount, and virtually in the same breath, Jesus said, “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16), but he also declared, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt. 5:11). So not everyone gives glory to the Father when they see Christians shining.
We don’t know what provoked this persecution. It may be that these Christians simply stopped engaging in the sinful activities that formerly characterized their lives. They stood out in a crowd and said No, and this offended those with whom they used to run wild. Or perhaps their vocal testimony to the glory of God as revealed in Jesus and his atoning sacrifice was deemed “politically incorrect” and the civil authorities took action to silence them.
This was just part of the suffering they were facing.
Grace Still Amazes 