Are We Neglecting a Great Salvation?

An Exposition of the Book of Hebrews

Neglect. How do you feel when you’re neglected? Maybe it’s an experience you’ve had at work. You’ve worked hard and made meaningful contributions in your workplace, yet you feel like you have no value there and no hope for an opportunity to advance within the company or organization where you work. You’ve become something less than the status quo because you’re convinced your absence or departure would have no effect on the status quo. Maybe you’ve experienced this in a friendship where you seem to be “the disposable” friend. As a pastor, I’ve seen neglect take root in marriages as other relationships or commitments rise above love and devotion to a spouse. Sometimes substitutes for love and devotion come into the marriage, but over time, the money from hard work or the stuff money brings or whatever the substitute may be fails to satisfy the deeper need for love and devotion. Eventually, the substitutes only serve as a bitter reminder of what’s missing, of what has been neglected. And for many, neglect brings a great distance in the relationship that can’t be bridged. More often than not, neglect is attitude and action toward something precious that is lost through neglect. In other words, neglect can be dangerous, especially in our life in Christ.

The book of Hebrews is well known for its warning passages and the challenge of interpreting those passages. I’m not going to address those challenges here beyond making an assertion about the first warning passage in Hebrews 2:1–3. But before I make the assertion, let’s briefly consider the passage first. The text reads, “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” The concern raised here is that the readers have been at least somewhat inattentive to the message of God’s new covenant in Christ, and there is a risk of drifting away from the truth of the message if they continue such a half-hearted trend. The author of Hebrews (hereafter referred to as “the author”) shows his concern by noting that the old covenant message was reliable, and disobedience to it brought God’s justifiable retribution upon the transgressors. And if that’s true as a consequence of the old covenant, then “how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?”