Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hebrews 10:32

But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions;

32 39. Words of appeal and encouragement

32. But call to remembrance the former days ] Rather, “keep in remembrance.” Here, as in Heb 6:9-12, he mingles appeal and encouragement with the sternest warnings. The “former days” are those in which they were in the first glow of their conversion.

after ye were illuminated ] The word photizein “to enlighten” only became a synonym for ‘to baptise’ at a later period. Naturally however in the early converts baptism was synchronous with the reception of the gifts of the Holy Spirit (see Heb 6:4). For the metaphor that “God hath shined in our hearts” see 2Co 4:6; 1Pe 2:9.

ye endured a great fight of afflictions ] Rather, “much wrestling of sufferings.” These were doubtless due to the uncompromising hostility of the Jewish community (see 1Th 2:14-16), which generally led to persecutions from the Gentiles also. To the early Christians it was given “not only to believe on Christ, but also to suffer for His sake” (Php 1:29).

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

But call to remembrance the former days – It would seem from this, that at the time when the apostle wrote this Epistle they were suffering some severe trials, in which they were in great danger of apostatizing from their religion. It is also manifest that they had on some former occasion endured a similar trial, and had been enabled to bear it with a Christian spirit, and with resignation. The object of the apostle now is to remind them that they were sustained under those trials, and he would encourage them now to similar patience by the recollection of the grace then conferred on them. What was the nature of their former trials, or of what they were then experiencing, is not certainly known. It would seem probable, however, that the reference in both instances is to some form of persecution by their own countrymen. The meaning is, that when we have been enabled to pass through trials once, we are to make the remembrance of the grace then bestowed on us a means of supporting and encouraging us in future trials.

After ye were illuminated – After you became Christians, or were enlightened to see the truth. This phrase, referring here undoubtedly to the fact that they were Christians, may serve to explain the disputed phrase in Heb 6:4; see notes on that passage.

A great fight of afflictions – The language here seems to be taken from the Grecian games. The word fight means properly contention, combat, such as occurred in the public games. Here the idea is, that in the trials referred to, they had a great struggle; that is, a struggle to maintain their faith without wavering, or against those who would have led them to apostatize from their religion. Some of the circumstances attending this conflict are alluded to in the following verses.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Heb 10:32-34

Ye endured a great fight of afflictions

The believing Hebrews exhorted

I.

THE SUFFERINGS TO WHICH THE APOSTLE ADVERTS. A great fight of afflictions. The term affliction is usually employed by us to denote bodily indisposition; but it is evident that the reference here is to persecution. The words, a great fight, show that these Hebrews had a severe struggle to maintain; and it would be well for us to contrast the sufferings of the early Christians with what we have to endure. In addition to this general representation, the apostle proceeds to enumerate some of the special evils which they had to encounter. By the term reproaches, we are given to understand that they were the objects of false and slanderous accusations, which has been the case with the people of God in all ages (Psa 69:20). This is a severe trial, especially to tender and sensitive minds. But what says the Saviour? (Mat 5:11-12). And what says the apostle? 1Pe 4:14-16). With reproaches the apostle again connects the term afflictions, or persecutions; and, from what is stated in the following verse, it is evident that the spoliation of their property is mainly intended. The notoriety connected with these proceedings added to their trials. Partly, whilst ye were made a gazing-stock, &c. The object of their persecutors was openly to expose them to scorn, and to excite public feeling against them. Then their own sorrows were enhanced by the warm sympathy they felt for their fellow-sufferers. Part]y, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. As believers, being united to Christ, partake of the fellowship of His sufferings; so, being united to each other, they cannot but share the afflictions which are accomplished in their brethren around them.

II. THE ENCOURAGING CONSIDERATIONS WHICH HE ADDUCES (verse 34).

1. The conduct of these persons demands our highest admiration. Simply to acquiesce without murmuring would have been no small matter; but to meet joyfully such a visitation, was strange indeed. When the harvest is suddenly blasted, the utmost we expect in the husbandman, after all his care and toil, is patient resignation; no one, under such circumstances, thinks of joy. But these persons took joyfully the spoiling of their goods–those goods including their earthly all.

2. They were influenced by the consideration of the treasure laid up for them in heaven, which the spoiler could not reach, nor aught else destroy. They knew that they had there a better and a more enduring substance than the possessions of this passing world.

(1) More satisfying.

(2) More enduring.

III. THE DUTIES AND OBLIGATIONS WHICH HE ENFORCES.

1. Confidence. This feeling is to be regarded as the fruit of faith, and is displayed by courage in the face of difficulties and oppositions. It includes freedom from bondage and fear, and also a prevailing persuasion of our acceptance with God.

2. Patience. This is another fruit of faith, and is not the least important of those things which are lovely and of good report. There are three things which call for the exercise of this grace. We have need of it

(1) In bearing provocation.

(2) In suffering affliction.

(3) In waiting under delays and disappointments.

In each of these senses the Hebrews had to exercise this grace, but especially in the latter. What the apostle exhorts them to cultivate is the opposite of that impatience which cannot wait; but he tells them that they would not have to wait long. For yet a little while, &c. The overthrow of the Jewish state would put an end to their power to annoy them. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted, think of this little while. Every wave is numbered between thee and the desired haven; and then the little while of time will be swallowed up in the unending ages of eternity.

3. Perseverance. Now the just shall live by faith–in the exercise of a calm and constant trust in God–but if any man draw back, My soul, &c. To draw back, after putting our hands to the gospel plough, is a sin highly aggravating in its nature, and, if persisted in, one that will be most awful in its results (2Pe 2:20-22; Heb 6:4-6; Heb 10:26-31). Some years ago there was a shipwreck in one of our channels. Among the passengers were a father and his son. They were a considerable distance from shore, but, as their lives were at stake, they resolved to make an effort to reach it by swimming. Before long, the son became very faint, and the father, perceiving it, cried out, Hold on! Hold on! Again and again did he repeat the words, Hold on! and he did not cry in vain. The youth was stimulated thereby; and at length, in spite of the roaring winds and boisterous waves, they reached the shore in safety. Now, what this shipwrecked father said to his fainting son would we say to those who have named the name of Christ, especially to the young disciple. By all the fearful consequences with which backsliding will be attended we bid you, Hold on! (Expository Sermons.)

The conflict of the light:

I. THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST IS NOT ONLY AN EXTERNAL REVELATION, IT IS ALSO AN INNER LIGHT. The first aspect it presents to us is of an objective revelation. Christs mission fulfilled and transcended all the hopes of the past. In His person and work we have the materials of the worlds illumination. He is the Sun of the spiritual universe. That revelation still advances. The historic work of Christ on earth is given in the volume of Revelation, closed in the first century. The work of Christ in the heavenly world, and in the hearts of men, constitute ever fresh gospels in that unending volume which contains the progressive manifestation of God. We are surrounded, then, on all sides, with this environment of light. But that light and the objects it reveals are not discovered by us until we are inwardly illuminated by the Holy Spirit. Then we are transformed by it, and become orbs of light enlightening the darkness about us. Only when these two conditions are met, is the spiritual world a reality to us.

II. THE RECEPTION OF THIS LIGHT BRINGS CONFLICT. We should expect the possession of Christ to bring gladness, peace, power; and so it does, but only as the effect of battle. The influx of light ever arouses opposition. Why is this conflict inevitable? It is because of the antagonism of the light and that which it expels. It is because there is a Divine necessity that truth and error should come into collision. It is because it is the destiny of the light to rule. It must be diffused. It exposes all that is withered, noisome, dead. The aim of the light is to fashion a different world altogether. The face of Nature is the work of light. And the light of Christ is spreading, rising, will prevail.

III. THE LIGHT THAT PROVOKES THE CONFLICT GIVES US FORTITUDE TO ENDURE AND CONQUER. All power is in the light. If we shut our eyes to any part of it, we are weakened, we are without the correlative energies that go with the light–fire, heat, electricity.

IV. THE MEMORIES OF THE PAST VICTORIES OF THE LIGHT SHOULD BE CHERISHED FOR PRESENT HELP. Call to remembrance. Is it dark with you now? Does your way lie through shadows? Remember that He turns the shadow of death into the morning. The twilight of doubt shall be followed by the dawn of certainty. The night of sorrow by the morning of joy. The evening of life by the noontide of heaven. The present darkness of the world shall be succeeded by the universal shining of the light of the gospel. (J. Matthews.)

Loss suffered joyfully

A missionary in India says: I rode to Nallamaram and saw some people of the congregation there, together with the catechist. The clothes of one of the women were rather dirty, and I asked her about it. Sir, said she, I am a poor woman and have only this single dress. Well, have you always been so poor? No, I had some money and jewels, but a year ago the Maravers (thieves) came and robbed me of all. They told me, she said, if you will return to heathenism, we shall restore you everything. Well, why did you not follow their advice? Now you are a poor Christian. Oh, sir, she replied, I would rather be a poor Christian than arichheathen. (W. Arvine.)

Unsuspected joys:

It is with wealth as with a water reservoir. When the drought has dried it up, you find in the deserted bed things that were lost years ago, and curious interesting things which but for this circumstance would never have been known. So, where it is a believing contented mind, it will discover, when the flood of fortune has drained away, in the deserted channel unsuspected sources of enjoyment and lost things, feelings which long since vanished, simple pleasures and primitive emotions which abundance had overflowed.

Joy in afflictions:

You dont know, Christian friends, how much harm some of you do by looking so gloomy and unapproachable. I remember one of my congregation telling me how, when she was a girl, she was nearly driven to shun the society of godly people by hearing the unhappy utterance of a friend of her fathers, who was reputed to be a good man, but who, more than once, groaned in the hearing of herself and other young people, Woes me! the more grace a man has, the more he has to make him miserable. Let the world know that there is a fountain of joy and gladness. (A. A. Bonar, D. D.)

Reproaches and afflictions

I. They endured a great fight of afflictions, PARTLY BY BEING A GAZING STOCK, BOTH IN REPROACHES AND AFFLICTIONS.

1. They were reproached. Thus they might be used either by words or deeds. For so to speak or do anything that tends to our disgrace is to our reproach. Perhaps they called them sectaries, heretics, apostates, innovators, seditious persons, and also did so account them, and in this respect did hate them. These reproaches in themselves were bitter and grievous, yet they were more grievous because of afflictions, for they afflicted them by scourging, imprisoning, banishing them.

2. Yet these were made still more grievous, because they did reproach and afflict them not so much privately as publicly, in open view, to make their shame and ignominy the greater. They brought them as it were upon a stage, and as into a theatre, where multitudes, even thousands, might gaze upon them, revile them, scourge them, and make a sport of their sufferings. Every one must take notice of them as base persons, troublers of the world, the refuse and scum of mankind, and abhor them.

3. This was part of their great fight, and a great fight it was, because naturally we much desire to preserve our credit, honour, and reputation, which to some high spirits which the world terms generous is dearer than life, for men choose rather to die than live in disgrace and lose their honour. And as we desire respect in the world and abhor ignominy and contempt, so we love our liberty, ease, and peace, and are very unwilling to lose them.

II. Partly they endured a great fight WHILST THEY BECAME COMPANIONS OF SUCH AS WERE SO USED.

1. Some part of the Church doth suffer sometimes and not another. The storm which fell upon them was past, yet another falls upon their brethren, and they are reproached and afflicted sad made a gazing stock as they had been.

2. They became companions of these, for they owned them, were grieved inwardly for their sufferings, and did relieve and comfort them. By doing thus they were exposed to the derison of others: their former sufferings might be called passion, this compassion.

3. This also made a part of the great fight: for Satans design in this was to strike a terror into them, and to let them know what a dangerous and restless condition they were in if they should continue to be Christians. And if he could not daunt and discourage them, yet he would at least grieve and vex them, for he knew the passion of their brethren would be their compassion, and that in their suffering they would suffer. (G. Lawson.)

Ye had compassion of me in my bonds

Compassion with sufferers

1. He cometh to particulars; and first, their compassion towards himself in his bonds is remembered by him. Then

(1) Compassion with sufferers, especially when it is manifested to the afflicted party for his comfort, maketh the compassionate person a partaker with the sufferer.

(2) Such compassion should be remembered by the sufferer thankfully, and recompensed by seeking their eternal welfare who have showed them such great kindness.

2. Another particular is, their joyful enduring the spoliation of their goods. Then

(1) When trial cometh of mens faith in Christ, such as mind to be constant must prepare themselves to quit their goods if God please so to honour them with employment.

(2) When we see we must lose our goods for Christs sake, or suffer any other inconvenience, we ought to do it cheerfully, and count our gain in Christ more than our loss in the world; seeing there is no cause of grief, if our eyes were opened, and our earthly affections mortified.

3. Their encouragement and cause of joy was the sensible feeling within themselves of the comfort of eternal riches in heaven keeping for them. Then

(1) It is the assurance of our heavenly inheritance which must make us ready to quit our earthly movables.

(2) Whoso getteth a heart to quit anything on earth for Christ, shall have better in heaven than he can lose here.

(3) God useth to give earnest of what He is to give, in sensible feeling of spiritual riches to such as believe in Him.

(4) When men can esteem of things heavenly, as they are, that is enduring goods; and of things earthly as they are, that is perishing movables; then shall they readily quit the earthly in hope of the heavenly. (D. Dickson, M. A.)

A better and an enduring substance

Heavenly possessions

I. THE APOSTLES BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THEM.

1. A better substance than anything on earth, in its moral character, social enjoyments, spiritual services.

2. More enduring.

II. THE CHRISTIANS CONSCIOUS INTEREST IN THEM.

1. Attainable.

2. Valuable.

3. Needful.

4. Will soon be realised. (Homilist.)

The heavenly substance

I. CHRISTIANS POSSESS AN INVALUABLE PROPERTY IN ETERNITY.

1. The state where our possessions are placed. They are in heaven.

2. The character by which our heavenly possessions are distinguished. We have property in heaven substantial and valuable–far superior to all the productions of the globe, and which is to last for ever.

3. The certainty with which the heavenly possessions are regarded–Knowing in yourselves. The Divine word informs us–and here let the heart rest in joyous confidence–that the blessing is prepared for all those who are believers in the Son of God.

II. THE CONSIDERATION OF THE PROPERTY POSSESSED BY CHRISTIANS IN ETERNITY OUGHT TO POSSESS A POWERFUL INFLUENCE UPON THEM IN TIME.

1. If we know that we have in heaven a better and an enduring substance, we shall not allow inordinate affection for the things of the present world.

2. If we know that we have in heaven a better and an enduring substance, we shall exercise patience and fortitude under the privations and sufferings of life.

3. If we know that we have in heaven a better and an enduring substance, our dispositions and thoughts will be imbued with the spirit of heaven, and testifying a growing meetness for its enjoyments. (J. Parsons, M. A.)

The Christians preference of heavenly riches

I. THE TRIAL THEY WERE CALLED TO ENDURE Was imprisonment and the spoliation of their property. You can all understand the misery that must attach to the violent invasion of your freedom and of your possessions. You know that such are among the heaviest sufferings of an external kind that human nature can experience; and that they require the highest degree of fortitude to sustain them with patience. But these were, in all probability, very frequent sufferings among those first disciples of Christ.

II. THE TEMPER OF MIND WITH WHICH THIS TRIAL WAS SUSTAINED. They exhibited a Christian generosity, crowned with a Divine devotion; they remembered their fellowsufferers, and forgot their own sufferings. And, what is much more remarkable, ye took joyfully the spoiling of your goods. Simply to acquiesce unmurmuring in such a dispensation of Providence as this; not to be driven by it to dissemble; not to flinch from an honourable adherence to truth; might have been thought all that could be expected of human nature. But joyfully to meet the severest of circumstantial distresses, rendered the more severe by its cruel injustice, this is an elevation to which Christian piety only can ascend!

III. THE PRINCIPLE WHICH CHERISHED AND MAINTAINED THIS DIVINE TEMPER: knowing in yourselves, etc.; not taking this prospect upon probable testimony, but relying on it as a certain reality.

1. In how many respects this heavenly substance is better than any that is of an earthly nature.

(1) It is better, in as much as earthly substance is merely the instrument of enjoyment: while heaven is enjoyment itself, essential felicity.

(2) Again, earthly objects have no power to satisfy the mind; they cannot tranquillise the heart: on the contrary, by an unhappy, tendency, they enlarge the desires which they gratify; they inflame the passions which they indulge, nor can they ever fill the vast vacuity which they are condemned to leave in an immortal mind.

(3) Earthly treasure can only enable its possessor to surround himself with superfluous pomp, to walk in a vain show; it can only gratify the taste and imagination, or catch the applause of the multitude: it has no power to come into contact with the soul; none to calm the perturbations of conscience, heal the corrosions of remorse, or give comfort to the dying.

2. This is also an enduring substance. Temporal wealth is extremely transient. Lessons:

(1) How much we are indebted to God for that kind of evidence of Christianity which arises from the sufferings of its first disciples!

(2) How ought we to magnify that almighty grace which enabled them to suffer!

(3) Let us apply their example for our own improvement. Piety must rise above the world in a holy superiority to its alluring pleasures. (R. Hall. M. A.)

The Christians inheritance and assurance

I. THE CHRISTIANS FUTURE INHERITANCE.

1. By contrast. It is designated substance, as opposed to shadow. All the pleasures and enjoyments of the world are a shadow; there is nothing solid or substantial in them. Afflictions are but a shadow (2Co 5:17). Our present existence is but a shadow (Jam 4:14). It is like an eagle in the air, like a ship in the sea, a flower on the earth; as a tale that is told, a watch in the night, a hireling accomplishing his day: man fleeth also as a shadow. Death is a shadow; there is no substantial evil in it to the Christian. But religion is a substance; the gospel is a substantial reality.

There is a most delightful promise in the book of Proverbs, where Christ is represented as speaking under the character of wisdom, I will cause them that love Me to inherit substance; I will fill their treasures. Heaven is all substance: its pleasures and enjoyments, its worship and devotions.

2. By comparison. It is called a better substance. It is better in comparison with the present state of our existence, because there is some good in this world. We must not despise Gods providential mercies, nor undervalue our temporal supplies. We should thank Him for the atmosphere that vivifies, but most of all for the air of holiness and the breath of devotion. We should thank Him for the bread which perisheth, but most of all for the bread of life, the hidden manna. We should thank Him for the water that quenches the thirst, refreshes, and purifies, and revives, but most of all for the streams of salvation, the water of which if a man drink he shall never die. We should thank Him for the use of our bodily limbs, but most of all if we have been taught to walk at liberty in Gods laws, and run in the way of His commandments. We should thank Him for the faculty of reason, but most of all if, by a spiritual perception, our senses are exercised to discern both good and evil. How much better will the enjoyments of heaven be than the highest degree of happiness realised by believers in a state of grace!

3. By continuation. It is an enduring substance. It is a city which hath foundations–a kingdom which cannot be moved–an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away–a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens–a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. When the angel of death shall spread his cloud over everything terrestrial, the celestial abodes shall shine forth with a grandeur which nothing can demolish, and which eternity itself will but increase.

II. THE CHRISTIANS PRESENT ASSURANCE.

1. Believers have a present title to this inheritance. They have the promise of it. The gospel is God in a promise; and the saints in glory are said to be inheriting the promises. They have the hope of it, which is no more nor less than the prospect of future good grounded on present evidence. They have preparation for it, being made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. They have a title to it, and this by virtue of their adoption.

2. They shall have the future possession. There must be the trial of faith, the exercise of patience, the sifting of your motives, the test of principles, and the examination and pondering of the heart.

3. They have inward assurance. Knowing in yourselves, &c. Assurance is a pearl that most want, a crown that few wear. It may be ascertained by the testimony of the Spirit, accompanied with the witness of personal experience. (Essex Remembrancer.)

A better and an enduring substance:

Knowing that ye have yourselves as a better and an enduring possession.

I. THE TRUE POSSESSION. We own ourselves only on condition of being Christian men. For, under all other circumstances and forms of life, the true self is brought into slavery and dragged away from its proper bearings by storms, and swarms of lusts, and passions, and inclinations, and ambitions, and senses. A mans flesh is his master, or his pride is his master, or some fraction of his nature is his master, and he himself is an oppressed slave, tyrannised over by rebellious powers. The only way to get the mastery of yourselves is to go to God and say, Oh, Lord! I cannot rule this anarchic being of mine. Do Thou take it into Thine hands. Here are the reins; do with me what Thou wilt. Then you will be your own masters, not till then.

II. THE SUPERIORITY OF THIS POSSESSION.

1. It is better in its essential quality. The apprehension of union with God is the one thing that will satisfy the soul; the one thing which having, we cannot be wholly desolate, however dark may be our path; and without which we cannot be at rest, however compassed with succours and treasures and friends; nor rich, however we may have bursting coffers and all things to enjoy.

2. It is an enduring possession. These things, the calm joys, the pure delights of still fellowship with God in heart and mind and will–these things have in them no seed of decay. These cannot be separated from their possession by anything but his own unfaithfulness. There will never come the time when they shall have to be left behind. Use does not wear these out, but strengthens and increases them. The things which are destined to perish with the using belong to an inferior category.

III. THE QUIET SUPERIORITY TO EARTHLY LOSS AND CHANGE WHICH THE POSSESSION OF THIS TREASURE INVOLVES. When you strike away the false props, the strength of the real ones become more conspicuous. If we possess this true treasure which lies at our doors, and may be had for the taking, we shall be like men in some strong fortress, with firm walls, abundant provisions, and a well in the courtyard, and we can laugh at besiegers. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

A better house in heaven:

Zinzendorf became of age in 1721, and in the following year purchased the estate of Berthelsdorf, near his aged relative, the Baroness of Gersdorf, writing up over his dwelling, The tenant of this has a better house in heaven.

Meetness for heaven:

It is worth something to be in a readiness for mercy, for afflictions, for death, or for judgment, as those who are meet for heaven. The speech of Basil was noble, when Modestus, the prefect, threatened confiscation, torment, and banishment. He answered, He need not fear confiscation that hath nothing to lose; nor banishment, to whom heaven only is a country; nor torment, when his body would be crushed with one blow; nor death, which is the only way to set him at liberty. (C. Heywood.)

Heaven the right place for the Christian:

Heaven is as suitable for a saint as a lock is fitted to receive its key; and as the fashion of a lock might be inferred from the key, so may the glorious state be guessed at from the gracious man. He has, moreover, sips of sweetness, which give him no merely fanciful notion of the hill country, and he knows somewhat of what the full-blown flower must be as he gazes at the beauty of the bud; but he looks not that in the revelation of the glory the invisible should be only a reproduction of the visible; for he knows that the spiritual exceeds the natural even as the heaven is above the earth. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

No home beyond the grave

I have been told of a wealthy man who died recently. Death came unexpectedly to him, as it almost always does; and he sent out for his lawyer to draw his will. And he went on willing away his property; and when he came to his wife and child, he said he wanted them to have the home. But the little child did not understand what death was. She was standing near, and she said, Papa, have you got a home in that land you are going to? The arrow reached that heart; but it was too late. He saw his mistake. He had got no home beyond the grave. (D. L. Moody.)

The better substance

1. The happiness of the saints in heaven is substance, something of real weight and worth; all things here are but shadows.

2. It is a better substance than anything they can have or lose here.

3. It is an enduring substance; it will outlive time, and run parallel with eternity. They can never spend it; their enemies can never take it from them as they did their earthly goods.

4. This will make a rich amends for all they can lose and suffer here. In heaven they shall have a better life, a better estate, better liberty, better society, better hearts, better work, everything better.

5. Christians should know this in themselves. (Matthew Henry.)

Heavenward:

My horse invariably comes home in less time than he makes the journey out. He pulls the carriage with a hearty goodwill when his face is towards home. Should not I also both suffer and labour the more joyously because my way lies towards heaven, and I am on pilgrimage to my Fathers house, my souls dear home and resting-place? (C. H.Spurgeon.)

Heaven–a sustaining prospect:

One Palmer, of Reading, being condemned to die, in Queen Marys time, was much persuaded to recant, and among other things a friend said to him, Take pity on thy golden years and pleasant flowers of youth, before it be too late. His reply was as beautiful as it was conclusive: Sir, I long for those springing flowers which shall never fade away. When he was in the midst of the flames he exhorted his companions to constancy, saying, We shall not end our lives in the fire, but make a change for a better life; yea, for coals we shall receive pearls. Thus do we clearly see that, although if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable, yet the prospect of a better and enduring substance enables us to meet all the trials and temptations of this present life with holy boldness and joy. (C. H.Spurgeon.)

How to meet adversity:

If a heathen could say, when he saw a sudden shipwreck of all his wealth, Well, Fortune, I see thou wouldst have me to be a philosopher, should not we, when called to quit our movables, say, I see that God would have me to lay up treasure in heaven, that is subject neither to vanity nor violence? (John Trapp.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 32. But call to remembrance] It appears from this, and indeed from some parts of the Gospel history, that the first believers in Judea were greatly persecuted; our Lord’s crucifixion, Stephen’s martyrdom, the persecution that arose after the death of Stephen, Ac 8:1, Herod’s persecution, Ac 12:1, in which James was killed, and the various persecutions of St. Paul, sufficiently show that this disposition was predominant among that bad people.

A great fight of afflictions] A great combat or contention of sufferings. Here we have an allusion to the combats at the Grecian games, or to exhibitions of gladiators at the public spectacles; and an intimation how honourable it was to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, and to overcome through the blood of the Lamb, and their own testimony.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

But call to remembrance the former days: But is not so much adversative as copulative, adding another direction for their persevering in Christianity, even the revolving in their minds, and bringing again to thought, what was past, carrying in it both the act and the end of it. It is a practical remembrance which bettereth them, while recollecting their own days, and the time that was past.

In which, after ye were illuminated; in which they were convinced of the truth of the gospel, and received it in the love of it, and externally professed it, by being baptized into Christ, and by it made members of his church, Heb 6:4, and testified the truth of their being Christs.

Ye endured a great fight of afflictions; by their sufferings for him with patience and divine fortitude, willingly, cheerfully, valiantly: Ye have borne, and overcome by bearing, preserving your integrity, so as your faith was immovable, and strengthened you to endure the many and most violent assaults of the devil and his instruments, both within and without the church; who thought to force them from the faith, by the many evils which they inflicted. If they were patient in the enduring these at the first, how much more now, after so long a continuance in it Rom 8:18; 2Co 1:6-8; 2Ti 1:8; 1Pe 5:9.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

32. As previously he has warnedthem by the awful end of apostates, so here he stirs them up by theremembrance of their own former faith, patience, and self-sacrificinglove. So Rev 2:3; Rev 2:4.

call toremembrancehabitually: so the present tense means.

illuminated“enlightened”:come to “the knowledge of the truth” (Heb10:26) in connection with baptism (see on Heb6:4). In spiritual baptism, Christ, who is “the Light,”is put on. “On the one hand, we are not to sever the sign andthe grace signified where the sacrifice truly answers its designs; onthe other, the glass is not to be mistaken for the liquor, nor thesheath for the sword” [BENGEL].

fight ofthat is,consisting of afflictions.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

But call to remembrance the former days,…. The words may be considered either as a declaration of what they had done, and be read, “but ye do call to remembrance”, c. or as an exhortation to remember the days of their espousals, the times of their first conversion: and the apostle’s design in this is, to mitigate the terror the preceding words might strike them with and to aggravate the disgrace of turning back, when they had behaved so bravely in former times; and to encourage their faith and trust in God:

in which after ye were illuminated, by the Spirit of God, to see their impurity, impotence, and unrighteousness, and their lost and miserable state by nature; and to behold Christ and salvation by him; and to have some light into the doctrines of the Gospel; and some glimmering of the glories of another world. The Syriac and Ethiopic versions render it “baptized”; now such as are converted, and are brought to make a public profession of their faith, and submit to the ordinances of Christ, are, in common, immediately called to suffer reproach and persecution of one kind or another; so Christ, after his baptism, was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil: Satan is spiteful and malicious, and God suffers afflictions to befall his people to try their graces, and to inure them to troubles early, as follows;

ye endured a great fight of afflictions; meaning some violent persecution from their own countrymen, either at the death of Stephen, in which the apostle, being then unconverted; was concerned himself; or rather some other time of trouble, after the apostle was converted, to which he seems to have respect in 1Th 2:14, these Hebrews, being enlisted as soldiers under Christ, the Captain of their salvation, were quickly engaged in a warfare, and were called forth to fight a fight of afflictions, and a very great one; and which they endured with patience, courage, and intrepidity.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Call to remembrance (). Present middle imperative of , as in 2Co 7:15 “remind yourselves.” The former days were some distance in the past (5:12), some years at any rate. It is a definite experience of people in a certain place. Jerusalem Christians had had experiences of this nature, but so had others.

After ye were enlightened (). First aorist passive participle of in the same sense as in 6:4 (regeneration) and like “the full knowledge of the truth” in 10:26.

Conflict (). Late word from , to engage in a public contest in the games (2Ti 2:5), only here in the N.T. It occurs in the inscriptions. Cf. 2:10 for the benefit of “sufferings” in training.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

After ye were illuminated [] . See on ch. Heb 6:4.

A great fight [ ] . Aqlhsiv N. T. o, o LXX See on ajlqh strive, 2Ti 2:5. See Introduction, on the allusions in the epistle to persecution.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “But call to remembrance the former days,” (anamimneskesthe de tas proteron hemeras) “But you all remember those former days,” When you “suffered so many things,” Gal 3:4; When you walked out of the way, stumbled as young Christians, did wrong, but arose, confessed, and kept on keeping on, 1Jn 1:8-9. Recall the days of your first love, first affections, Joh 13:34-35; Joh 14:15.

2) “In which, after ye were illuminated,” (en hais photisthentes) “in which, after ye were enlightened,” In which days you all were indwelt by the Holy Spirit, when first you were brought out of darkness into light, Heb 6:4; 2Co 4:6; As a chosen people to do God’s work, 1Pe 2:9.

3) “Ye endured a great fight of afflictions,” (pollen athlesin hupemeinate pathematon) “You alI endured much (great) struggle of sufferings,” endured or preserved with much fortitude. The “ye” appears to be the saints, holy brethren, at Jerusalem, the church “ye,” to whom, as The Lord’s House, this letter was written, Heb 3:1-6; Php_1:29-30. Perhaps this alludes to the early persecutions of the Jerusalem church following Pentecost, . In addition to the harassment that the Jerusalem church endured there was a famine that caused much affliction in the early years of the church’s ministry, Act 11:27-30; Rom 15:25-27.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

32. But call to remembrance, etc. In order to stimulate them, and to rouse their alacrity to go forward, he reminds them of the evidences of piety which they had previously manifested; for it is a shameful thing to begin well, and to faint in the middle of our course, and still more shameful to retrograde after having made great progress. The remembrance then of past warfare, if it had been carried on faithfully and diligently under the banner of Christ, is at length useful to us, not as a pretext for sloth, as though we had already served our time, but to render us more active in finishing the remaining part of our course. For Christ has not enlisted us on this condition, that we should after a few years ask for a discharge like soldiers who have served their time, but that we should pursue our warfare even to the end.

He further strengthens his exhortation by saying, that they had already performed great exploits at a time when they were as yet new recruits: the more shame then would it be to them, if now they fainted after having been long tried; for the word enlightened is to be limited to the time when they first enlisted under Christ, as though he had said, “As soon as ye were initiated into the faith of Christ, ye underwent hard and arduous contests; now practice ought to have rendered you stronger, so as to become more courageous.” He, however, at the same time reminds them, that it was through God’s favor that they believed, and not through their own strength; they were enlightened when immersed in darkness and without eyes to see, except light from above had shone upon them. Whenever then those things which we have done or suffered for Christ come to our minds, let them be to us so many goads to stir us on to higher attainments. (191)

(191) “A great fight of affliction,” is rendered by Doddridge, “a great contest of sufferings;” by Macknight. “a great combat of afflictions;” and by Stuart, “a great contest with sufferings.” The last word may be deemed as the genitive case of the object, “a great contest as to sufferings;” or the word πολλὴν, may be rendered, “long contest as to sufferings.” Doddridge remarks that contest ὑπομέω is used to show the courage displayed. But “endure,” is in the case not the proper word, but “sustain,” If “endure” be retained, then we must give its secondary sense to ἄθλησιν, toil, labor, struggle; and so Schleusner does, “Ye endured the great toil of sufferings,” or, a great struggle with sufferings. — Ed

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Heb. 10:32. Illuminated.Enlightened, by the preaching of the Christian truth. (Compare 2Co. 4:6; 1Pe. 2:9.) At a later period the word became a synonym for to baptise.

Heb. 10:33. Gazing-stock.Lit. as one set on a theatrical stage.

Heb. 10:34. In heaven.An incorrect reading. R.V. has, knowing that ye yourselves have a better possession and an abiding one. Moulton thinks the translation should be, perceiving that ye have your own selves for a better possession and one that abideth. He points them to the tranquil self-possession of a holy heart, the acquisition of our own souls, as a sufficient present consolation for the loss of earthly goods, independently of the illimitable future hope.

Heb. 10:38. The just shall live by faith.A much-disputed sentence. In some manuscripts the word is found, which alters the idea of the clause. , would mean, But My righteous one shall live by faith. In the Hebrew of Habakkuk the word faith means faithfulness or fidelity; and that is probably the writers meaning here. He is commending steadfastness as opposed to defection from the faith. But the thought of faithful constancy to God is inseparably connected with trustful clinging to Him. A man lives indeed if he is faithful.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Heb. 10:32-39

The Inspiration of Experience.To have had the experience of the joys of salvation may increase our judgment if we fail, but it also increases our stability if we hold fast. There are times in life when looking back upon religious experiences that we have had in the past has a distinctly weakening influence on our religious life, making us morbid and depressed. But there are other times when such reviewing of the past is inspirational. We convince ourselves of the reality and power of our religion by remembering what it was to us in the beginning of our career, and what it has been again and again to us in the strain-times of life. The writer here thinks that reminding the Jewish Christians of their new-found joy, of their new-found faith in Christ, will materially help them to hold fast the confession of their faith, that it waver not. His plea is this: You have withstood severe suffering and persecution for Christs sake. You did not fail then, and why should you suffer yourselves to fail now?

I. The former experiences.The persecutions which arose about Stephen, in the very first months of the Christian history, scattered the first Jewish Christian Church, and brought persecutions on the members, which are indicated by the activity, energy, and unscrupulousness of Saul of Tarsus. It involved personal sufferings, open insults and reproaches, loss of property and work. And some of those to whom this epistle was addressed had actually come through all these bitter experiences, and had come through them well, holding fast. Ye endured a great fight of afflictions. The first flush of faith, and the glow and enthusiasm of first love, no doubt helped them very greatly over their difficulties then; but lengthened experience and settled principles ought to give them even a fuller power to withstand now. They should be far better able to stand a strain than they were in those days when they were first enlightened. But let them not forget that they had passed through this experience. It had been proved that they could hold their Christian faith through times of temptation, strain, and persecution.

II. The new afflictions.They were sufficiently like the old to make their former experience avail. They were sufficiently unlike the old to make a special demand for watchfulness. Persecutions were renewed, and they could but take many of the old forms; but the special peril of the hour was the enticement of subtle persuasions to fall back upon the older Jewish faith, the faith of their childhood. These persuasions came from those in close association with them, and became very serious trials of their faith.

III. The conditions of renewing the old victory of steadfastness.

1. The spirit of Christian endurance.
2. The realisation that, in having Christ, they had in themselves a better possession than could be taken away from them by any persecutions.
3. A holy boldness that would enable them to set a firm front against every foe, that would enable them to resist evil influence by attacking the evil.
4. The patience which could rise into persistency, be determined to know the will of God, and to stand by it.

IV. The reward of those who finally overcome.They receive the promise.

1. They are in a state of readiness for the Lords coming.
2. They realise the true life now, in keeping their faith, and living the life of faith.
3. They are conscious of the acceptance and favour of God, who finds His pleasure in them.
4. They receive the full salvation of the soulits emancipation from all bodily limitations, and full unfolding into the image of the risen and glorified Son of God. The mention of the life of faith, the life ruled and toned by a steadfast faith in God, prepares the way for the striking series of illustrations of the power of faith in life which are given in the next chapter.

SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES

Heb. 10:32. Admonished by the Past.But call to remembrance the former days. At different times and in various moods of mind we find ourselves variously impressed by the sameness, or by the diversity, of our human experiences. It may be true to say that, strictly, a past experience is never repeated; for if the thing that happens is the same, the attendant circumstances and conditions are not the same, and our personal states, in relation to the thing, are not the same. It is with examples taken from our own past as it is with the examples offered us in the blessed human life of our Divine Lord; we can copy neither in any minute detail. But we are not therefore shut off from following the example of our Divine Lord, nor are we prevented from being duly admonished and aided by our own past experiences. What we require to see is that all things enshrine principles, express principles in some one direction and with some precise limitation. We remember the thing, the incident, the conflict, the success or failure, for the sake of the principle which found expression in it, and may gain a new application to our new scenes and difficulties. There is a sense in which man can only progress by forgetfulness of the pastleaving the things that are behind. Let the dead past bury its dead. It is at once the mission and the weakness of the aged, their keeping us in touch with the past. But it is equally true that nothing is ever safely built upno truth, no character, no human life, nothing moralsave on the foundations of the past. It is the young mans mission and weakness that he imagines things are new, and wants everything to be independent of everything else. The point in relation to the past specially presented in this text is, that former experiences have put good principles, right motives, and good inspirations to the testperhaps to a severer test than they are ever likely to be subjected to again. They stood the test; they stood the test well: then you may safely trust those principles, motives, and inspirations in view of new emergencies.

Heb. 10:35-36. The Need of Patience.Patience is the ballast of the soul, that will keep it from rolling and tumbling in the greatest storms; and he that will venture out without this to make him sail even and steady will certainly make shipwreck and drown himself, first in the cares and sorrows of this world, and then in perdition.Hopkins.

Christian Patience.Results are slowly produced in the natural, the moral, and the spiritual worlds. Men who only gaze upon work, and have not to do it, are often impatient. Some of the early Christians were in danger even of apostasy through the want of patience amid the trials which they had to endure.

I. The need which there is of patience in Christian life and work.There are difficulties connected with our life and work common to all times.

1. The difficulty of fully understanding the gospel ourselves, and of making it understood by others.
2. The moral difficulties we have to encounter are even greater than the intellectual.
3. We need patience on account of the opposition which we have to encounter.
4. On account of the deep obscurity in which we labourobscurity applying to the results of our labour as well as to its design.
5. And on account of delay in the fulfilment of Gods promises.

II. The root from which patience will springconfidence or faith.The man who has no faith in the soil will not plough it; the man who has no faith in the seed will not sow it; and the man who has no faith in the return of the seasons will neither plough nor sow. So it is in spiritual things.

III. The reward with which patience shall at length be crowned.It hath great recompence of reward. Ye shall receive the promise.Absalom Clark.

The Promises call for Patience.The greatest part of the saints happiness is in promise. They must first do the will of God before they receive the promise, and after they have done the will of God they have need of patience to wait for the time when the promise shall be fulfilled; they have need of patience to live till God calls them away. It is a trial of the patience of Christians to be content to live after their work is done, and to stay for the reward till Gods time to give it them is come. We must be Gods waiting servants when we can be no longer His working servants.Matthew Henry.

Heb. 10:36. The Expectation of Future Blessedness.Whereas we have here the expression of receiving the promise, it is plain the promise must be understood objectivelythat is, that transcendent good that was promised; namely, that principally wherein all the promises do finally and lastly centre: which it is plain the apostle here most especially intends, as being eminently called the promise.

I. The business of a sincere Christian in this world is to be doing the will of God.By the will of God we are to understand the object of His will, or that which He willsnamely, the thing willed. Our duty willed by Him and not mere events, that must be understood to be the object of this will. Of this every sincere Christian must be the active instrument: it is the business of a devoted person, one given up to God in Christ. Such only are in an immediate capacity or promptitude to do the will of God intentionally and with their own design, though it be the undoubted duty of all who are naturally capable thereof.

II. Patience, in the expectation of the blessedness of the heavenly estate, is very needful to every sincere and thorough Christian.Give some account of this patience. The natural constitution of the human soul disposeth it equally to covet and pursue a desirable good as to regret and shun a hurtful evil. The want of such a desirable and suitable good, understood to be so, is as truly afflicting and grievous as the pressure of a present evil. An ability to bear that want is as real and needful an endowment as the fortitude by which we endure a painful evil. Therefore it equally belongs to patience to be exercised in the one case as well as in the other. What does patience suppose, as it hath its exercise this way, viz. in the expectation of future blessedness?

(1) That blessedness, truly so called, be actually understood and apprehended by the expectants as a real and most desirable good to them.
(2) That the delay and deferring of this blessedness must be an afflicting and felt grievance: otherwise patience can have no place or exercise about it. Wherein does patience consist? It is an ability becomingly to endure. But its reference to God must be maintained. And this reference must be to Him as to the Author of it and the object of it. Patience is not only a rational temperament, it is also a gratuitous donation, a gift of the good Spirit of God. God is said to be the God of patience. A deference of His holy pleasure in ordering the occasions of such exercise is carried in the notion of it. It hath in it submission to the will of God. Consider patience in its peculiar effectthe work of patience. It gives a man a mastery and conquest over all undue and disorderly passions. It fixes the soul in a composed serenity; creates it a region of sedate and peaceful rest; infers into it a silent calm; allays or prevents all turbulent agitations; excludes whatsoever of noisy clamour; permits no tumults, no storm or tempest, within,whatsoever of that kind, in this our expecting state, may beset a man from without. Christ said, In your patience possess ye your souls. If you have not patience, you are outed of yourselves; you are no longer masters of your own souls; can have no enjoyment of yourselves; and, therefore, are much less to expect a satisfying enjoyment of Him. The temper of spirit it introduces is a dutiful silence. In reference to the delay of the blessedness we expect, we ought not to be without sense, as if it were no grievance. And we ought not to have an excessive sense of it which were peevishness or impatience.

III. The necessity of patience arises from a consideration of the principles from whence the necessity arises, and the ends which it is necessary unto.The principles are such as these: faith of the unseen state; hope; love; holiness, which includes hatred of the oppositesin; and a tendency to the improving and heightening itself. Where there is an inchoate holiness, there cannot but be a tendency unto consummate perfect holiness. As holiness includes conformity to the preceptive will of God, so it doth to His disposing will being made known. Therefore when we understand it to be His pleasure we should wait, the holy nature itself, which prompts us so earnestly to desire the perfection of our state, must also incline us patiently to expect it. The sovereign and supreme principle is the blessed Spirit of God Himself. He begets, raises, and cherisheth such desires after the blessedness of the heavenly state as makes this patience most absolutely necessary. Consider the ends which patience serves. The nearer and more immediateour doing the will of God; the remoter and ultimateour inheriting the promise. Patience conduces to our doing Gods will. Not that it is the proper principle of doing itactive vigour is that; yet the concomitancy of patience is requisite thereto. Two things God doth ordinarily will concerning the way wherein He conducts and leads on those that peculiarly belong to Him to the blessed end and consummate state He designs them to, the one whereof is also requisite to the other:

1. Their gradual growth and improvement in holiness and all dutiful dispositions towards Him, till they come nearer to maturity for glory, and a meetness for the heavenly state.
2. Their maintaining an intercourse with Himself in order thereto.John Howe.

Heb. 10:38. Drawing Back.As the fig tree began to wither so his gifts began to paire, as if a worm was still gnawing at them; his judgment rusts like a sword which is not used; his zeal trembleth as though it were in a palsy; his faith withereth as though it were blasted; and the image of death is upon all his religion. After this he thinketh, like Samson, to pray as he did, and speak as he did, and hath no power, but wondereth, like Zedekiah, how the Spirit is gone from him. Now when the good Spirit is gone, then cometh the spirit of blindness, and the spirit of error, and the spirit of fear, and all to seduce the spirit of man. After this, by little and little, he falls into error, then he comes into heresy; at last he plungeth into despair: after this, if he inquire, God will not suffer him to learn; if he read, God will not suffer him to understand; if he hear, God will not suffer him to remember; if he pray, God seemeth unto him like Baal, which could not hear. At last he beholdeth his wretchedness, as Adam looked upon his nakedness; and mourneth for his gifts, as Rachel wept for her children, because they were not. All this cometh to pass that the Scripture might be fulfilled: Whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken that which he seemeth to have.H. Smith.

Heb. 10:39. Shrinking Back and Keeping On.But we are not of them that shrink back unto perdition; but of them that have faith unto the saving of the soul. There is no more difficult work given to Christian teachers to do than to reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and gentleness. It is easy work, there is a certain personal gratification found in the work, of denouncing and condemning. The denouncer has a pleasant consciousness of moral superiority; but a man must have himself in noble restraint, and go well out of himself in pitiful interest in others, before he can rebuke wisely and effectively, and put compassion and Christly sympathy into his reproofs. The writer of this epistle had a very serious work of warning to do. It so thoroughly possessed him that it comes out into varied expression at every opportunity. It is like the ever-recurring refrain of a song or a piece of music. And he seemed himself to get almost weary of it, and to fear that it would be unduly wearying and depressing to those whom he addressed. So in this passage he tries hard to get into another mood, and to write trustingly and hopefully. The mood of our text is a cheerful one, but the cheerfulness is only gained through a struggle. The writer has evidently been greatly distressed by failures from the Christian profession. He has almost overwhelming impressions of the perils to which Christian professors were exposed in his days, more especially Christian professors who had come out of Jewish associations. He has every confidence and satisfaction in the sincerity and stability of those to whom he wrote, and yet he felt that he must warn them carefully, for a spirit of self-security might creep in upon them, and then the temptations, false teachings, and imperilling influences and associations would have every chance with them; for let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. The writers confidence in the people was partly based on the fact that he and they had already passed through a very bitter experience together, and they had acted nobly all through it, and come out nobly from it. He knew therefore how they could stand fast in the Lord. He bids them call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were enlightened, ye endured a great conflict of sufferings; partly, being made a gazing-stock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, becoming partakers with them that were so used. For ye both had compassion on them that were in bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions, knowing that ye yourselves have a better possession and an abiding one. It may be asked, If they had shown themselves so noble, why should their teacher have any such grave anxieties concerning them, and address such careful warnings to them? The answer is twofold:

1. In the very fact of their coming so well out of one time of strain lay a peril of unwatchfulness, and unpreparedness to meet a fresh time of strain. An army is never in such peril as in the hours succeeding a victory. A man is placed in the gravest moral peril immediately after he has gained a great moral success. It is so easy for a man to delude himself with the idea that one success guarantees continuous success; so easy to argue, I have stood, therefore I shall stand; so easy to fail to realise that life is a continuous moral battle, a series of surprises; our moral foes are skilful in assuming various devices, and the successes of our past form no guarantee whatever for triumph in the future, even our experiences but feebly preparing us for the strain-times that are before us. Froude reminds us that experience is like the stern-light of a ship, it does but cast its rays upon the way that has been taken. To moral victors the counsel must be given, Be not high-minded, but fear.
2. But the other answer is thisThe new peril to which they were exposed bore an altogether new character, and they might not be prepared for it. Their early experience had been one of active persecution. The government and society of the day had been arrayed against them. Some of them had been cast into prison, many of them had been despoiled of their goods, their characters had been maligned, and they had been hated of all men for Christs names sake. And such times of outward persecution and material peril have passed again and again over Christs Church. They are the times of which the most can be made in history, but they are not the times that bring the gravest peril to the spiritual life of the Church. That life has always survived its martyr ages. If there is a seeming exception to that always, it is found in the driving of evangelical religion out of France for generations by the persecutions which culminated in Black Bartholomews Day. But even in France evangelical religion did but hide its head awhile, waiting its opportunity to lift it high again in the latter days. The experiences of persecuting ages never fit men to meet all the forms of peril in which the Christian life may be placed, and they do us some injury if they start in us the impression that all strain upon the religious profession will take this outward form. These Jewish Christians would fail to see the new forms that temptation was taking, if they persisted in thinking that all temptation would follow the pattern of that which they had already gone through and overcome. The evils around them now were of a subtle character. They came even from the fact that they were not persecuted. They came from that easy-going spirit which comes when there is no evident call to watchfulness and enterprise. They came from their ability to put their Christian weapons aside on the shelf; they were losing the power to use them skilfully, and were disinclined to take them down when any foe appeared. And they came in the opportunity the leisure afforded for the influence of enervating and false teachings, and for the attraction of pleasurable but demoralising self-indulgences. When the sky is clear, the air dry, the sunshine warm, the atmosphere genial, the trees budding, and the flowers opening freely, when there is no warning of storm, and no mutter of distant war, then subtle pestilence may be stalking abroad, and secretly imperilling life and health. The Church has lost most in its times of apparent security. It has been drawn back rather than driven back. The ship will sail the great Southern Seas, safely outriding the great gales, and, if bruised, still sound, when it has been smitten with the lightnings, tossed with the tempests, and helplessly driven before the hurricanes; and then it will come out into smooth seas, and the blue shall reach from rim to rim, no more than a gentle breeze shall play upon the waters, and it shall feel restfully, peacefully, unwatchfully secure. But almost out of sight is yonder island, with its coral reef, over which the waves dash violently. That island is a source of new, unknown, subtle and well-nigh overwhelming danger to the ship. It has a strange attractive power upon the under-waters. Towards the reef the currents are setting, and they may seize the ship, and bear her secretly on, until at last, no hurried turning of the helm, no desperate hanging out of every yard of sail that the ship can carry, will save her; on, on she is borne, till they can hear the wild lashing of the waves upon the coral rocks, and soon the ship is crashed upon them, drawn back, and crashed again upon them, until the fragments of a hopeless wreck are borne over the reef to tell their tale of woe. Well, indeed, may we be warned of the perils that belong to quiet times of religious experience. Thenyes, then more especiallythere be many that shrink back to perdition. We may well thank our Bible Revisers for that very suggestive term shrink back. They seem to have caught the writers idea precisely. He evidently fears chiefly a spirit of religious sluggishness, donothingness, listlessness. He had the same kind of fear about his people that St. Paul had about Timothy. That quiet, studious, weakly-bodied young man was inclined to take things too easily, to let things go rather than battle with them. And this brought grave fears for him to his father in Christ; so he sent him this arousing message, Endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. And what this writer fears is not a determinedly going back from the faith of Christ, not an open and resolute apostatising, nothing disgraceful like the forsaking of Demas, or the violent enmity of Julian; but a drifting away, a shrinking back, a silent action of the current of worldliness, or a current of false teaching, which would take all the inspiration and sanctifying impulse out of the Christian faith, until the Church would but keep its name to live, and be dead. His point may be simply illustrated by the fish in a rapid stream. So long as they actively swim, let their life go out in energetic efforts, they can go up the stream, advance against the current. But peril lies in sluggishness. Cease to swim, and silent, ever-working forces act upon the fish; he shrinks back, he is borne downward, though he may think he keeps his place; presently he will feel the power of the downward swirl; it will be beyond his power of resistance, and over the great fall he is borne. It is thus with the Christian. He need only do nothing to shrink back unto perdition. Relative to the Christian life, we must accept of the world as a force, like a descending stream, ever bearing us downward. In the stream of the world we have to be, we must be. Against the stream we have to swim if we would reach the restful lake of the holy ones. Against the stream, always against the stream, day and night against the streamthat is how it must be with us. Relax one moment, the current seizes you, and ere you know it you have shrunk back a little way. Get into a listless, careless way in the religious life, and it is inevitable that downward you go. Perhaps you will even be so fascinated at first that you will quite enjoy the rest from toil and strain, and find all around so pleasant that you feel sure the end must be like the way. But what an awful delusion all that is! See which way are you moving? The lake of holiness and God is not that way. You are shrinking back, you are going down, the rapids are that way, the frightful fall is that way, the whelming waters are that way. Shrinking back is always unto perdition. There are two ways of living the Christian life. There is keeping on, and there is letting go. The keeping on folk are they who have faith (and let it inspire activity and effort) unto the saving of the soul. The letting go folk, who make no effort to follow on and keep up, are they who shrink back unto perdition. Would you be keeping on? Then you must mean to keep on, plan to keep on, master yourself, and master your circumstances, in order to keep on. Keeping on is never a matter of accident, it is always a matter of thought and effort. Keeping on the whir and whirl of machinery means persistent toil in renewing the fires, and replenishing the boilers. Would you be letting go? Then no resolve whatever is needed, you are required to make no effort, you simply need do nothing: cease to keep on, stop, and you will surely drift. You can only keep up to a level reached by persistently striving to reach a level beyond. The law of the garden is the law of the soul. Toil, weed, watch, culture, plant, put energy into it, wisely directed, well-adapted energy into it, and the garden will be an ever-increasing joy to you. But stop, be careless, leave it alone, cease to work at itthat is all you need dodo nothingit will soon be overgrown with weeds, a ruin and a disgrace. Toil, strive, watch, be active, enterprising, energetic, in the religious life, and beauty, power, joy, will abundantly respond to you. Let things go, let duty be done perfunctorily, and worship become formality; rest upon a past experience; want nothing higher or better; get through a religious life somehow, anyhow, with a wretched sort of lifeless hope that somehow all will come out right at last,you can picture that soul-garden; you do not need that I should picture it for you. It is evidently shrinking back unto perdition. The cultured place is fast becoming a wilderness. In the religious life there is one absolute and universal law always working: Strive, and you shall live; Cease to strive, and you shall die. Let the oars lie still on the rapid stream of lifethe oars of your souls boatyou need do nothing more, the stream of life will do its fatal work only too surelyyou will shrink back unto perdition. The truth may be illustrated in our several Christian spheres.

1. The Christian life demands anxious and continuous attention to personal culture. Flag in it, stop it, and your Christian character will soon shrink back.
2. The Christian life demands active endeavour to exert gracious personal influence, and to use in service entrusted talents and gifts. Persistently send out holy influences, and you will keep and enlarge your powers of influencing. Stop all effort to influence, and the very ability will fade away, as the blacksmiths muscle becomes flaccid when he ceases to wield the hammer.
3. The Christian life demands a persistency and continuity of attendance on Christian worship and means of grace. Begin to flag; do not go sometimes; become irregular; go when you feel inclined, not when you ought; and you will soon cease to get a blessing, and easily shrink back into indifference. But the writer of our text wrote hopefully, and we would speak hopefully to you. We must warn you faithfully; but we hope that you are not of them that shrink back unto perdition, but of them that have faith unto the saving of the soul.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 10

Heb. 10:33. A Gazing-stock.The Greek word here used means to expose to view as in a public theatre, which was commonly done in those days. The expression here is figurative, yet it was afterwards literally carried out, when Christians were exposed in the theatres, not only to opprobrium and insult, but made the victims of wild beasts, or assaulted by gladiators.

Heb. 10:36. Patience likened to a Jewel.I compare patience to the most precious thing that the earth producesa jewel. Pressed by sand and rocks, it reposes in the dark lap of the earth. Though no ray of light comes near it, it is radiant with imperishable beauty. Its brightness remains even in the deep night; but when liberated from the dark prison, it forms, united to gold, the distinguishing mark and ornament of glory, the ring, the sceptre, and the crown, said the wise Hillel. Her end and reward is the crown of life.Krummacher.

The Leaves teaching Patience.O impatient ones! Did the leaves say nothing to you as they murmured when you came hither to-day? They were not created this spring, but months ago, and the summer just begun will fashion others for another year. At the bottom of every leaf-stem is a cradle, and in it is an infant germ; and the winds will rock it, and the birds will sing to it all summer long; and next season it will unfold. So God is working for you, and carrying forward to the perfect development all the processes of your lives.H. Ward Beecher.

The Work of Patience.Patience is the guardian of faith, the preserver of peace, the cherisher of love, the teacher of humility. Patience governs the flesh, strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger, extinguishes envy, subdues pride; she bridles the tongue, refrains the hand, tramples upon temptations, endures persecutions, consummates martyrdom. Patience produces unity in the Church, loyalty in the State, harmony in families and societies; she comforts the poor, and moderates the rich; she makes us humble in prosperity, cheerful in adversity, unmoved by calumny and reproach; she teaches us to forgive those who have injured us, and to be the first in asking forgiveness of those whom we have injured; she delights the faithful and invites the unbelieving; she adorns the woman, and improves the man, is loved in a child, praised in a young man, admired in an old man; she is beautiful in either sex and every age.Horne.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

(32) In the last six verses the writer has enforced his exhortation by an appeal to the danger of falling away and the fearful consequences of unfaithfulness. From warning he now turns to encouragement, as in Hebrews 6; and here, as there, he thankfully recalls the earlier proofs which his readers had given of their Christian constancy and love. Let them call to mind and ever keep in remembrance what the grace of God had already enabled them to endure. (Comp. 2Jn. 1:8). As Theophylact has said, he bids them imitate, not others, but themselves.

Illuminated.Better, enlightened. It is important to keep the word used in the parallel verse, Heb. 6:4 (see Note).

Fight of afflictions.Rather, conflict of sufferings; for the last word has in this Epistle (Heb. 2:9-10) associations too sacred to be lost. The former word (akin to that used by St. Paul in 2Ti. 2:5 of the contests in the public games) recalls the intense struggles of the contending athletes; it occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Comp. Php. 1:27; Php. 4:3; (Php. 1:30; Col. 1:29; Col. 2:1; 1Ti. 6:12; Heb. 12:1.) This struggle they had manfully endured.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

32. Call to remembrance Our author now inspires them to well doing by their own past noble example.

Illuminated By the gospel of Christ shining into your hearts.

Fight A palestric term; an athletic combat or series of combats. A struggle with, or consisting of, afflictions.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘But call to mind the former days, in which, after you were enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly, being continually made a gazingstock, both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, becoming partakers with those who were so used.’

He writes to remind them how they have already endured suffering for Christ’s sake. For these people to whom he was writing were not fly-by-nights, here today and gone tomorrow. They had previously suffered for Christ and had endured. So he acknowledges how they had suffered persecution, and how in the past they had been continually mocked and treated as a spectacle, as something for men to gaze at, and how at times they had willingly shared in the sufferings of some who were being so used. Indeed he draws their attention back to it, to ‘the former days’, those days that they had experienced in the past. This endurance had earned for them great recompense of reward (34-35). Let them now not lose it.

‘After you were enlightened.’ That is, after they heard of Jesus Christ and recognised His uniqueness and had come to recognise that He was One sent from God, that the light that enlightens every man had come into the world (Joh 1:9), and had thrown in their lot with those who followed Him, being baptised and becoming, at least outwardly, members of the church of Christ.

‘You endured a great conflict of sufferings.’ The response of Christians to Christ had resulted in intense persecution by the Jewish authorities (compare Act 8:1-4; Act 9:1). It had begun in Jerusalem and no doubt extended spasmodically throughout the world wherever there were strong gatherings of Jews. Communication between Jerusalem and other large cities was constant, and Christian Jews began to be seen as apostates by the Jews. The persecution of Christians by Jews is drawn attention to in some of the letters to the seven churches (Rev 2:9; Rev 3:9). Many of the Jews, although by no means all, showed no pity, and at times denounced Christians to the authorities, aware of the suffering that might result.

Jews had special protection in the Roman empire which exempted them from having to partake in emperor worship, because of their unique belief in the one God. Instaed they had to offer sacrifices for him in the temple. Christians, who were seen as a sect of the Jews, thus for a time enjoyed similar protection, but certain Jews were angry at this and out of malice sought to emphasise to the authorities that Christians were not true Jews, and to draw attention to them so that they would be tried for ‘blasphemy’ and condemned.

We do not know sufficient about these first readers to know where they lived, nor enough about their times to know what persecutions occurred in different places and situations. We do know from Suetonius that ‘Jews’ (which would include Christian Jews – Act 18:1-2) were driven from Rome in the days of Claudius, and from Tacitus that Nero persecuted Christians severely at the time of the great fire in Rome in order to turn attention from himself. But local rulers would also have had a part in local, spasmodic persecutions, and both Petrine and Pauline letters, and Revelation 2-3, indicate times of tribulation for the churches. We know from Acts how local situations could so quickly produce such activity. And to refuse to acknowledge, by an offering, the divinity of the emperor and of Roma (deified Rome), could in times of local enthusiasm lead to trouble.

‘Partly, being made a gazingstock, both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, becoming partakers with those who were so used.’ Such persecution was partly the result of themselves being directly persecuted, becoming a spectacle in men’s eyes and having to face constant reproach and even actual physical affliction. This was sometimes the direct result of being arrested by the authorities and sometimes due to the fact of becoming hated for their beliefs (wrongly understood) and vilified by ordinary people, with all kinds of accusations being hurled at them. Did they not look forward to the end of the world with only Christians surviving, thus clearly intending the destruction of all who were not Christians? Did they not gather in secret meetings to engage in infamy and even, it was rumoured, to eat a son of the gods who had become a man (the Lord’s Supper)?

And they had not only faced it themselves, they had also at times stood alongside those who suffered worse than they did, sharing in their afflictions too, revealing thereby their love for their brothers and sisters. This would include visiting those who were left behind when their menfolk were dragged away, and supporting them physically and encouraging them, thus drawing attention on themselves as Christians, and also visiting in prison those arrested, taking them food and comfort. And they also no doubt assisted fellow-Christians who were particularly in danger and in hiding. They had clearly shown great courage and love in this regard, ‘things that accompany salvation’ (Heb 6:9).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

A Call to His Readers So As To Ensure That They Will Not So Fail ( Heb 10:32-39 ).

He now reminds them of what they had suffered for Christ’s sake in the past, and the compassion that they had revealed for fellow-sufferers in those persecutions. Now they must not give up heart but must patiently endure as they did then, recognising that Christ is coming again and that in the meantime God’s righteous ones must live by faith.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

A motive of Christian patience:

v. 32. But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions,

v. 33. partly, whilst ye were made a gazing stock both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used.

v. 34. For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.

Here is another excellent point made by the author in order to give his exhortation the proper force: But recall the former days, in which, after being enlightened, you endured much wrestling with sufferings, partly by being held up to reproaches and afflictions, partly by becoming associates of those that fared in that way. The eagerness and fervency of the first love is always an appropriate argument in stirring up new enthusiasm in the hearts of Christians everywhere. This was true also of the Jewish Christians. In the first years after their conversion, after they had just received the knowledge of the truth, after they had been fired by their love for their Savior, they endured the persecutions of their fellow-countrymen and of their rulers cheerfully, Act 8:1; Act 12:1. They considered it an honor to be held up before men with scorn and ridicule, with reproach and contempt. It may often have been a bitter wrestling with afflictions to which they were utterly unaccustomed, their own flesh and blood being a dangerous ally of the enemies and very often ready to give up the apparently unequal fight. But so strong was their faith in those years, so fervent their love, that they not only endured all such afflictions of derision and scorn, but also, in a measure, openly defied the adversaries by associating with those who fared the same way; they sympathized with those who were imprisoned, and welcomed the violent seizure of their possessions. This the author thankfully acknowledges in his own case: For indeed you had sympathy with those in bonds (including myself), and you endured the confiscation of your possessions cheerfully, knowing that you for yourselves have a better and lasting possession in heaven. That is the attitude of the believers at all times. Being united with their fellow-Christians by the most intimate bonds of faith and love, they rejoice with them that are happy, but also have compassion with those that are obliged to bear persecutions and tribulations. And so far as this world’s goods are concerned, their loss may be borne all the more cheerfully, since their true possessions are above, such riches as are beyond the reach of robbers and tyrants, Mat 6:20; Luk 12:33.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Heb 10:32. After ye were illuminated, The Hebrews, to whom this epistle was addressed, were Christian converts, long since illuminated, (ch. Heb 5:12 Heb 6:4.) had suffered great persecutions, and seem not yet to have been free from them. What were the particular persecutions hinted at, we are not positively told; but the words former days imply a series of troubles which they had met with, and most probably very many insults from private persons. The words a great fight, contest, or conflict of afflictions, (, ) alludes to the athletic contests in the Grecian and Roman games, especially those of the gladiators, and gives us a high ideaof their courage and bravery. By this term, says Theophylact, he declared their courage and bravery; and doubtless, when he was encouraging them to hold out by their own example, it was veryproper for him to choose aword which carried with it praise and commendation.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Heb 10:32 . ] after ye were illumined, i.e. after ye had recognised Christ as the Saviour of men, and ranked yourselves among His confessors. Comp. Heb 6:4 .

] a word of the later Greek style, in the N. T., however, a , combines with into a single idea: contest of sufferings . Chrysostom: , . , , .

] to sustain , here with the subsidiary notion of stedfastness and unweariedness.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

Heb 10:32-39 . There follows after the warning an arousing. Mindful of the Christian manliness which the readers had displayed in former days, they are not to lose Christian joyfulness, but rather with patience to persevere in the Christian life; for only quite a short time will now elapse before the return of Christ and the coming in of the promised fulness of blessing. Comp. Heb 6:9 ff.

Theodoret: , , . , .

Of the facts themselves, of which mention is made Heb 10:32-34 , nothing further is known from other sources. That the author, as Bleek, II. 2, p. 707, thinks possible, had before his mind “the whole first period of the Christian church at Jerusalem, in which the church still held firmly together, and particularly the persecutions which preceded and followed the martyrdom of Stephen,” is hardly to be supposed. For only in a very indirect way could praise be bestowed upon the recipients of the Epistle to the Hebrews for their behaviour under these afflictions, seeing they formed a second generation of the Palestinian Christians, who, according to Heb 12:4 , had as yet been spared persecutions having a bloody termination.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

III
A speedy entrance into blessedness awaits those who endure to the end; of which the readers inspire a hope by the steadfastness which they have already evinced

Heb 10:32-39

32But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight [struggle] of afflictions; 33Partly, whilst ye were made a gazing-stock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used [that so walked]. 34For ye had compassion of me in my bonds [sympathized with those in bonds, ]16 and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that [that for yourselves]17 ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. 35Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. 36For ye have need of patience [steadfastness, ], that, after ye have done [or, by doing=ye may doand] the will of God, ye might 37[may] receive the promise. For yet a little while [a very little], and he that shall come [he that cometh, ] will come, and will not tarry. 38Now the just [But my just one]18 shall live by faith, but if any man [and if he] draw back, my soul shall have [hath] no pleasure in him. 39But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving [procuring, preserving] of the soul [of life].

[Heb 10:32., Be calling, or, keep calling to remembrance, as a habit; so Pres. tense; not Aor. , call to remembrance, as a simple act., struggle, contest, requiring exertion; not , fight, battle., sufferings, not afflictions () as in next verse.

Heb 10:33. , on the one hand (lit., as to this indeed):, Pres. Part, being habitually made a spectacle, , Aor. being made, or becoming, as a single fact. , of them who so walk, i. e., in reproaches and afflictions.,

Heb 10:34. , ye sympathized with the prisoners.. , knowing that ye have for yourselves; not, as E. V., knowing in yourselves.

Heb 10:35., characteristic, as one which hath=because it hath.

Heb 10:36., of patient endurance. . E. V. (In order) that after ye have done the will of God, ye may receive the promises. So Moll substantially, after fulfilment of the will of God, ye may receive, etc. Alford: that ye may do the will of God and receive=that doing the will of God, ye may receive. De Wette: durch Erfullung, by fulfilment of, by doing the will, etc. The sentence will equally well bear either of the three constructions: 1. that, after doing the will, ye may receive; 2. that, doing the will, ye may receive=ye may do the will and receive; 3. that doing the will ye may receive=that, by doing the will, ye may receive. Either, too, here makes perfectly good sense. For although Alfords rendering, ye may do and receive, is entirely admissible, and may be the right one, vet his reason for rejecting the first, is scarcely decisive, viz. No endurance, or patience would be wanted, when they had done the will of God, to receive the promise. True, but endurance or patience would be wanted to bring about that state of things in which they, after having done the will of God, might receive the promise. For such, is the character of the sentence that the endurance might have reference exclusively to the participal clause, or to the finite verb, or to both together, and nothing but the connection could determine which.

Heb 10:37. , , more emphatic than a little, as E. V.; a little, a very littlethe repeated being a sort of double diminutive, aliquantillum. , he that cometh; not, as E. V., he that shall come; nor, as often rendered in the gospels, he that should come.

Heb 10:38. , but my righteous one ( here being guaranteed by the best authorities). , and if he shall have shrunk back, timidly drawn back (lit. , lower sail, take in sail, then, shrink back from danger, as often in the classics). Eng. ver. supplies (with many) , if any man, contrary to the spirit of the passage, although, if the exigencies of the connection required it, it would be quite defensible grammatically. (with Middleton and Scholefield) is, I think, to be supplied at Joh 8:44, with , although the commentators generally decline to receive it. Here the reference of to the , is only one more among many passages of like import in this Epistle.

Heb 10:39. , we do not belong to back-sliding. , for, or unto the procuring, gaining, preserving of the soulor of our life in the sense, of Mat 10:39, he that findeth his life ( ) shall lose it. And so better, I think, with Moll, Do Wette, etc., than soul, with Luther, Stier, Alford, etc.K.].

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Heb 10:32. But calling to mind, etc. is usually constructed with the Acc. of the remembered object, the simple with the Gen. , enlightened, denotes conversion to Christianity as a translation from the power of darkness into the realm of light, so that the truth has found recognition and efficient action in the soul, and Christ is not merely believed in and praised as the Light of the world, but shines in the soul, as the Sun of Righteousness,Excellently Chrys., in regard to the conflict of suffering; (he does not say temptations, but struggle, a term of high eulogy).The is by some referred to walking in steadfastness, by most to walking in affliction. The latter only is admissible, in the subordination of the two clauses, to , as exhibiting the different modes of their manifested endurance. The in the second division can only refer to the characteristic mentioned in the preceding. The , found in the New Testament only here, is thoroughly classic.

Heb 10:36. After fulfilling the will of God.Beng. erroneously refers the Aor. Part, to the previously mentioned Christian acts of the readers immediately after their conversion. [Grammatically considered, the passage might bear this, although I think the Perf. Part, would then be more natural. At all events, the undoubtedly refers to acts hereafter to be done under the influence of the . But even then, whether the better rendering is, after doing, or by doing, or by two co-ordinate verbs, may do and receive, is doubtful. Substantially, they would here amount to the same thing; though in other cases of like construction, the difference might be important. But then the context would generally decide the right construction.K.]. The will of God is here not as Heb 10:7 ff. Gods purpose and counsel of redemption, whose fulfilment became the great end of the life of Christ, but the will of God, as required to be fulfilled by the Saints, not, however, in its most general character, as a simple rule of life (Thol., and others); nor as restricted to the sanctification which is effected through the sacrifice of the Son (Bl.); but in special reference to steadfast endurance unto the end (Theophyl., Ln., Del.).

The promise () is here, as in several other places, the substance of the promise, the thing promised.

Heb 10:37. For yet a littlehow little time, etc.The words =a little, how very, very little! which form one of the very few instances in which the superlative is expressed in Greek by repetition, are probably taken from Isa 26:20; and in their connection with are in our passage, like , Joh 14:19, better regarded as an independent Subst. clause than as an Acc. of determinate time employed to introduce the freely cited passage, Hab 2:3-4. The original text runs: If it delays (viz., the vision) wait for it; it comes, it comes, it will not linger. The subject is the overthrow of the Chaldean world-dominion by the judgment of Jehovah. The Sept. itself suggests the turn of the passage, so as to apply it to a person by the rendering , which our author makes still more concrete by adding the def. article. The original then adds: Lo! his soul is puffed up, is not upright within him (the Chaldean); the Sept., on the contrary; If he timidly draws back, my soul hath no pleasure in him (, used originally of lowering the sail, then of timidly shrinking back). On this follows the clause: But the righteous will live, , (Cod. Vat.); or, But my righteous one will live, (Cod. Alex.). Grot, supplies , De W. . Calvin carries the fact that the passage aims not to be a direct and proper citation, but simply a free application of the original, to the extent of putting the concluding clause into the mouth of the author, and understanding by the soul, not of God, or (as c.) of Christ, but of the author. With Grot., Carpz., and others supply or . It is better taken in the strictly classical Gr. construction of a Gen. of belonging. The allusion to , and the contrasted shows that is not, with Luth., Calv., etc., to be taken of the soul; while still we are not, with Ebr., to refer it to temporal bodily life in escaping from the impending destruction of Jerusalem, but, of eternal life, corresponding to the expression, 1Th 5:9, .

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. A second inducement to follow the admonitions of Heb 10:19-25 lies in the encouraging remembrance of the steadfastness evinced under previous sufferings; a steadfastness which is still to be maintained in faith, and which is accompanied by great promises that will be perfectly fulfilled at the re-appearing of Jesus Christ.

2. Conversion to Christ, inasmuch as it introduces into the soul the true light of life, gives, indeed, to the believer, through the beams of this gracious luminary, the certainty of reconciliation, and, along with the acknowledgment of the truth, at the same time, an experience of salvation; whence come at once quiet to the heart, repose to the conscience, and peace to the soul. But as even the converted man still remains in the world, there arises, ere long, a great and perpetually recurring struggle amid sufferings. By insults and afflictions, endured partly in their own persons, and partly by sympathy with those companions in faith who pursue their Christian walk amidst like circumstances of suffering, the children of God are made a spectacle of derision to the world.

3. In the case of apostasy the sacrifices already offered would have been offered in vain; and the sufferings hitherto endured, would have been endured to no purpose. He, on the contrary, who remains steadfast in the appointed conflict of suffering, not merely receives an experimental testimony of the power of faith, but also acquires thereby courage and strength, and the invigoration of hope, and final victory.

4. The assurance of imperishable and inalienable possessions, not only aids us in relation to the loss of our earthly goods, but renders believers even joyful sufferers under acts of violence, and willing sharers in the sufferings of the oppressed. For suffering for the name of Jesus, and on account of a conscience that owes allegiance to God, is an honor and a favor (Act 5:41; 1Pe 2:20).

5. The recompense of reward comes as certainly as the Lord Himself, who is already on the way. But as the securing of life is certain to those who persevere in the faith, equally certain is the destruction of those who timidly draw back. Faith thus, in its abiding confidence in the Lord, is the essential condition of the attainment of salvation, of which the coming of the Lord is the essential means. But believers are strengthened in their conflict of suffering, and in their waiting for the fulfilment of the promises of God, particularly by the assurance and clear view, that the period of waiting for the dawning of glory is a vanishing span of time.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The aid and comfort derived from the remembrance of conflicts and suffering that in former times have been victoriously endured in faith.To begin in faith, but not to endure, leads to useless sacrifices, vain hopes, and fruitless sufferings.The attainment of the promised blessings must be preceded by the fulfilment of the Divine will: but this cannot take place without a living faith, that proves itself in suffering.The proving of ones faith in ones own and in others sufferings.A manifold struggle of sufferings is allotted to Christians in this world; but along with this, a great promise, and a rich reward.How the loss of earthly goods is borne, and replaced by more exalted and permanent possessions in heaven.Why life is not gained without faith.

Starke:Christians are Gods combatants, and must be in perpetual conflict; hence, they also expect the wreath of honor which the heavenly calling holds out to them.What is to comfort us in all trouble and persecution? The hope of eternal blessedness in heaven.Trouble and persecution are badges of the Christian; where they do not bear these in themselves, there is something wanting in their Christianity (2Ti 3:12).Christians are under obligation not merely to sympathize with the wretched, but, as far as possible, to help them.Observe the characteristic of the kingdom, and of the members of the kingdom of Christ; which is to do good and to suffer evil. It is wonderful, but salutary; it must serve for great good (Psa 109:5).In disease, pain, and suffering, confidence in our gracious God is better than all medicines; it is a tried means, and must bring aid.Mark it, soul! it is not enough to have well begun the struggle; thou must also complete it, and arm thyself accordingly with patience. For he who falters, in him the Lord hath no pleasure; nay, he draws back to his condemnation.A Christian must not by impatience make his cross heavier than it is, but in quiet and hope will be his strength, Jer 30:15.The suffering of the present time is brief and light, 2Co 4:17; Isa 54:7; Psa 30:6; we must not, therefore, allow the time under the cross to seem to us long.The faith that brings salvation is no dead thing, but a living essence, and productive of life, Gal 2:20.Ah! this should be our greatest care in the world, to save our soul, and all the more, that we are in imminent peril of losing it.

Rieger:Who shall be the persons with whom we in our time hold and seek fellowship, is a point that must involve important consequences, reaching down to the day of Jesus Christ.He who does the will of God, and awaits with patience the promise, has contentment on earth, and yonder, as the end of his faith, salvation.

Ahlfeld:The righteous will live by faith. We consider: 1, the nature and quality of faith; 2, the righteous by faith; 3, the blessing of faith.

Heubner:The longer we practice, the easier becomes the conflict.There are secret trials, but also public sufferings; the latter are all the more bitter, inasmuch as they take place before the eyes of those who have no sympathy.On moments hangs the blessedness of eternity.The expectations of a faithful teacher are powerful stimulants; they inflame our zeal.

Hedinger:Impatience destroys all the fruit of the Cross.

Footnotes:

[16]Heb 10:34.Instead of the lect. rec. , found in D***. E. K. L. (but recognized even by Este as an expanded gloss on the erroneous of Orig. Exhort, ad mart., 44) we are to read after A. D*., whoso testimony is the more important, as B. and C. are here defective. Sin. however, has the lect. rec.

[17]Heb 10:34.Instead of the illy attested lect. rec. we are either with Sin. and many minusc. to read , or better, with D. E. K. L., : with this accords best also the circumstance that is wanting in A. D*., 17, but on the contrary is found in D***. E. K. L.

[18]Heb 10:38.After we are with Sin. A. Vulg., etc., and the Cod. Alex, of the Sept. to retain . In D*., the two Syriac and other ancient versions and most MSS. of the Sept., it stands after . The Rec., without reason, omits it entirely. The failure of this pron. in the Heb. text does not decide for the Gr. text.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

DISCOURSE: 2314
THE BENEFIT OF PAST EXPERIENCE

Heb 10:32. Call to remembrance the former days.

TO take a retrospect of our past lives, is the duty of every child of man. Without a frequent revision of the past, no man can repent, no man believe, no man be saved. We must be sensible of our guilt and helplessness, before we can ever come aright to Christ for mercy and grace; and such a consciousness of our need of him can proceed from nothing but self-knowledge, the fruit of much self-examination and of a diligent inquiry into our own state. But it is not in this general view that we are now to consider the subject before us. The words were addressed to those who had been illuminated with Divine truth, and had endured a great fight of afflictions in the service of their Divine Master. It is to such therefore that we propose chiefly, if not exclusively, to limit our attention, whilst we notice the exhortation,

I.

As given to the Jewish converts

They were subjected to cruel persecutions throughout the world: and they were in danger of yielding to intimidation, and of making shipwreck of their faith. To fortify their minds and encourage their hearts, he bids them call to remembrance the former days.
These days deserved remembrance
[They had been days of heavy trial to all who had embraced the Christian faith. Every convert was an object of hatred and contempt both to Jews and Gentiles. No reproaches were too bitter to cast upon the followers of Christ, no injuries too heavy to inflict upon them. Their persons were assaulted, their property destroyedtheir lives menaced, and in many instances sacrificed to royal edicts, to popular fury, or to legal form. The community of interest which all felt in the welfare of the whole body, greatly augmented the sufferings of every individual. Wherever one member suffered, all the members suffered with it.
Yet in the midst of all these afflictions, the believing Jews, as a body, had maintained their steadfastness, and held fast their profession. They had not only submitted to the loss of all things for the sake of Christ, but had taken joyfully the spoiling of their goods; rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for the Redeemers sake.
To this measure of firmness they had attained by keeping their eye steadily fixed upon the heavenly state, where their portion was, and where an infinitely better and more enduring substance was treasured up for them. They had no doubt but their trials would be richly recompensed in the eternal world; and therefore they made light of all that they possessed below; reckoning that the sufferings of this present time were not worthy to be compared with the glory that should be revealed in them [Note: Rom 8:18.].

Such were their former days, immediately after the light of divine truth had shone into their hearts; and]
The recollection of them would be of singular utility to them at this time
[From a review of their past experience, they would see, that, though the difficulties which they now had to sustain, or which they were daily expecting to encounter, were formidable, they were not new, nor insupportable, nor unprofitable. They were not new; since they were no other than what had come upon them from the beginning: and consequently were not to be regarded as strange and unlocked for [Note: 1Pe 4:12.]: nor were they insupportable; for every convert had already borne them for a long period; and consequently might, with the help of divine grace, support them still: nor were they unprofitable; since the effect of them had been to drive the sufferers to prayer, and to bring down into their souls an increase both of grace and peace. In a word, the tribulations which they had already endured, had wrought patience, and experience, and hope; and therefore, instead of trembling at the prospect of future trials, it became every believer to hold fast the profession of his faith, and, together with that, the rejoicing of his hope firm unto the end.]

What we have spoken sufficiently shews the scope of the Apostles advice as given to the Hebrews to whom he wrote; and having ascertained that, we are prepared to consider it,

II.

As applicable to ourselves

That there are many amongst ourselves, who, through the tender mercy of our God, have been illuminated with divine truth, we firmly believe: and to a certain extent the same consequences have followed, and do still follow, a profession of the Gospel in these latter times, as in the days of old. To all of you then who have been illuminated, we would offer the same advice as the Apostle did to the Hebrew converts, persuaded that it will be profitable,

1.

For our humiliation

[Call to remembrance the former days, when first ye received the knowledge of the truth, and see whether there was not much in your experience then which may justly operate for your humiliation now. You then saw and bewailed your lost estate both by nature and practice, and gladly fled for refuge to the Lord Jesus Christ, as to the hope set before you in the Gospel. Having obtained a view of him as your Redeemer and your all-prevailing Intercessor, you rejoiced in him with joy unspeakable, so that you seemed to be come as it were into a new world. Then the cares and pleasures of this life appeared to you as empty vanities, that were scarcely worth a thought: and then, whatever you were called to suffer, whether of loss or shame, for Christs sake, appeared to you rather a ground of joy than of sorrow, insomuch that you took joyfully the injuries that were inflicted on you, and rejoiced that you were counted worthy to sustain them for Jesus sake. Nothing intimidated you; nothing was suffered to retard your progress. With the world under your feet, and heaven in your eye, you went on cheerfully, and made your profiting daily to appear.
But now perhaps your love has grown cold; your delight in the word of God and prayer has abated; your exertions in the pursuit of heavenly things have languished; and the power of divine grace upon your souls has visibly declined. Now prudence has not merely regulated (for that it ought to do) your zeal, but has greatly abated, if not altogether superseded, it. Now the cares of this life have regained an ascendant over you: the frowns of the world, which once were disregarded, are become formidable in your eyes; and the fear of suffering loss in your worldly interests damps all your ardour. Now, instead of being altogether crucified to the world, and living only unto God, as in former days, you can scarcely be distinguished, except by an outward profession, from those who were never yet irradiated by the light of Gospel truth. Is this an uncommon case? Would to God it were! But what we see in the Church of Ephesus of old is yet visible, wherever the Gospel has been long preached. Of them the Lord Jesus says, Thou has borne, and hast had patience, and for my names sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen; and repent, and do the first works [Note: Rev 2:3-5.]. So then say I to you: Call to remembrance the former days: remember what you once were, and what your former works: and let the view of your declension fill you with shame and sorrow and contrition. Be afraid and tremble, lest the Lord withdraw from you the light with which you have been illumined; and beg of him to return in mercy to your souls, and to strengthen in you the things which remain, and are ready to die [Note: Rev 3:2.].]

2.

For your encouragement

[It may be that either outwardly from men, or inwardly from Satan, you are strongly tempted at this time, and need to have a word of consolation and encouragement spoken to your souls. If this be the case, Call to remembrance the former days. Trials have not for the first time come upon you now: you have in a greater or less degree experienced them from the time that ye were first illuminated. Who is it then that strengthened you to bear them at that time? Is he not still as able and as willing to help you as ever? Is not the grace of Christ as sufficient for you now as in former days? And does he not deserve as much at your hands now as he did formerly? If you rejoiced in doing and suffering for him years ago, is there not the same reason that you should do so now? If there was a need that you should be in heaviness through manifold temptations formerly [Note: 1Pe 1:6.], may there not be the same occasion still? and if the trial of your faith was precious to you heretofore, yea more precious than gold, because you knew it would be found to your praise and honour and glory, as well as to the praise and honour and glory of your Lord, at his appearing [Note: 1Pe 1:7.], should it not be alike precious now? If too an assured prospect of a better and an enduring substance in heaven once made all earthly things appear to you so light, that you could take joyfully the loss of all of them in the prospect of it, is it not of equal value now? or do you think that, when you shall have obtained the enjoyment of it, you will regret the sacrifices which you made with a view to it? Then I say, Continue to walk by the rule whereto ye have attained [Note: Php 3:16.]; and look to yourselves that ye lose not the things which ye have wrought, but that ye receive a full reward [Note: 2 John, ver. 8.].]

Let me improve the subject in a more particular address
1.

To those who have never yet been illuminated by the Gospel of Christ

[How painful should the review of former days be to you! O! the seasons you have lost! the mercies you have abused! the guilt you have contracted! How differently have your lives been spent from what they would have been if you had been Christians indeed! You would have been fleeing from the wrath to come, and would have so made your light shine before men, as to condemn the world around you, even as Noah did when he built the ark: and you would have found in Christ such peace as passeth understanding, and such joy as should have infinitely overbalanced all that you could ever do or suffer for him. But of persecution for righteousness sake you know nothing; and still less of that high attainment of glorying in tribulation for the sake of Christ. Look back then to the days that are past, and be confounded before God because of your impiety: and pray that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened, and that you may yet be brought out of darkness into the marvellous light of his Gospel. Be thankful to God that the light yet shines around you: and, while ye have the light, be careful to walk in the light; and give glory to the Lord your God before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness. But, if ye will not hear this admonition, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore and run down day and night, because of the awful judgments that await you [Note: Jer 13:16-17.].]

2.

To those who, though illuminated by the Gospel, are not walking in the enjoyment of the Divine presence

[This may arise from temptation and spiritual bondage, or from sloth and carnality, and worldly-mindedness. If it have arisen from the former, God forbid that I should break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax: let me rather hold up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees, and encourage the fearful heart. Well I know that the soul of a righteous man may be bowed down with spiritual distress, and be so sore troubled under the hidings of Gods face, as to be deaf to the voice of consolation. Such was the state of David at one time [Note: Psa 77:2-4.]; and the remedy to which he betook himself was precisely that which is recommended in my text. I considered, says he, the days of old, the years of ancient times. I call to remembrance my song in the night [Note: Psa 77:5-10.]. Then comparing his present painful experience with that which he had formerly enjoyed, he acknowledges, that all his present doubts and fears were the result of his own infirmity. And then, to prevent the return of any such distressing apprehensions, he adds, I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember thy wonders of old [Note: Psa 77:11.]. Thus then do ye: call to remembrance the experience of former saints, and your own also at more favoured seasons: and then bear in mind that, though you change, God is the same, and that with him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

But if, as in too many instances is the case, your darkness arise from a relaxation of your diligence, and an indulgence of worldly or carnal affections, I must change my voice, for I stand in doubt of you; and would have you also stand in doubt of yourselves, till it be clear that Christ is formed in you of a truth. If you are drawing back from God in secret, beware lest he leave you to yourselves to go back to everlasting perdition. To have run well for a season, will be of little avail, if you do not press forward in your heavenly course. The threatening denounced against backsliding Ephesus lies in full force against you; and you will do well to take heed to it. I will come unto thee quickly, says Christ, and will remove thy candlestick, except thou repent. Oh, return from all your backslidings with penitential sorrow and a lively faith; so shall your backslidings be healed; and so iniquity shall not be your ruin!]

3.

To those who are walking steadfastly in their Christian course

[Are you under trials? Every day brings you nearer to the termination of them: and your Lord and Saviour is just ready to set the crown of victory upon your head, and to put you into full possession of that better and enduring substance that awaits you. Look up to heaven and see the myriads that are now around the throne. Whence came they? They all came out of great tribulation, and washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God [Note: Rev 7:14-15.]. And therefore shall you soon join their company, and unite with them in songs of praise to God and to the Lamb for ever. Only be faithful unto death, and God will give you a crown of life, according to that sure word of promise, To him that overcometh will I give to sit down with me upon my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father upon his throne. He is faithful who hath promised, who also will do it in its appointed time.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

(32) But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; (33) Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. (34) For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. (35) Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. (36) For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. (37) For yet, a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. (38) Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. (39) But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

I beg the Reader with all possible attention to observe, in confirmation of all that I have been saying, that the Holy Ghost is all along in this Epistle comforting the Church, when drawing the line of distinction between the real regenerated believers in Christ, and mere nominal professors. An high flaming profession men may make, as is stated Chapter the Sixth, where there is not an atom of grace. But God the Spirit graciously teacheth his people how to estimate their different characters, by the testimonies the Lord hath given them. And I pray the Reader to observe how sweetly he comforts them, by bidding them to mark the ground, which by grace they had trodden.

But call to remembrance (saith the kind Remembrancer of Jesus) the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great sight of afflictions. As if the Lord had said, do ye not see, and know, the certainty of your high calling in Christ Jesus? Have ye not got the richest testimonies of your new birth character? When ye were once illuminated, did ye not desire, as babes in Christ, to be fed with the sincere milk of the word, that ye might grow thereby And though things are low with you in the present leanness of soul, so that when ye ought to be teachers, ye have need to go over again the first principles of the Oracles of God; yet, call to remembrance the former days. There was a time, when your zeal provoked very many. Ye were made a gazing stock yourselves; and ye were companions of them that were so used. Yea, ye took joyfully the spoiling of your goods; from the well-grounded confidence that ye then had, that if the Lord permitted the enemy to turn ye out of house and home, he would the sooner take you to himself in heaven. Cast not away therefore your confidence which hath great recompense of reward. Look forward! Jesus will soon come! And in the mean time the just shall live by faith. As to those who draw back from a mere profession, this is, as was before known. They draw back from lip-confession only, for they never had more, head-knowledge is no heart-renewing. Not falling from grace, for they never were in grace, but falling from natural attainments, for they never rose higher. In such, the Lord Jesus hath no pleasure. But his children, his redeemed, the gift of his Father, the purchase of his blood, and the conquests of his Spirit; though they fall, yet not fall away, for the Lord upholds them with his hand: Psa 37:24 . Though they faint and draw back in the day of adversity, yet draw not back unto perdition, for they are still of them that believe to the saving of the soul! Reader! what saith your personal experience to these things?. Hath the Lord the Holy Ghost regenerated you from the Adam – fall of a nature once dead in trespasses and sins? Can you look back to the wormwood and the gall of that fallen state? Can you call to remembrance, as the Lord here bids his people, the former days, after ye were illuminated? No man that hath passed from death to life can be at a loss to know the saving change. True! you have cause to lament great leanness of soul. There is indeed in the best of men, but too much reason to be humbled to the dust before God, for the small attainments and little progress made in divine life. But the salvation of the Church doth not spring from any holiness wrought in us, but from the work of Christ wrought for us. Not in our brokenness of heart, but in Christ’s bruised and broken body on the tree. It is indeed blessed, yea, very blessed, to feel and enjoy all the gracious effects of the precious finished salvation of Christ; but all we feel in the lively actings of faith, are but effects, and not the cause. He is the sole Author and Finisher of salvation. It is a sad consideration, that so many of God’s dear children, in the present day, live below their privileges, by living upon what passeth from the work of God the Spirit within them, instead of living wholly upon what Christ is to them; and that their sanctification is in Him, Joh 17:19 ; 1Co 1:30 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

32 But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions;

Ver. 32. But call to remembrance ] q.d. You cannot utterly fall away, as those above mentioned; forasmuch as you have given good proof already of the reality of your graces.

After ye were illuminated ] Till they had a sight of heaven they could not suffer; but no sooner out of the water of baptism, but they were presently in the fire of persecution.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

32 34 .] As in ch. Heb 6:9-12 , so here, the Writer turns from solemn exhortation and warning to encouragement arising from the conduct of his readers in the past . This their firmness did not look likely to end in apostasy: and accordingly by the memory of it he now cheers and invigorates them. , . , , , . Thl.: and Thdrt., . .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

32 .] But (in contrast to these fearful things which have been spoken of) call ever to mind ( , stronger than the simple verb call over in your minds, one by one: this meaning seems legitimate when a plural follows: and present , as implying a constant habit. The verb may be indicative, but is from the whole cast of the sentence, much more likely imperative) the former days (the accus. after is as good Greek as the gen.), in which when (first) enlightened (see on , note, ch. Heb 6:4 ), ye underwent (scil. with fortitude: which though not implied in the word, signifying mere endurance, yet often is in the context: cf. Xen. Hiero 7. 4 (Bl.), , , ) much (‘multum magnumque:’ when used with words whose sense admits intensifying, strengthens, as well as repeats, the idea) contest ( tells its own meaning, from , , as ‘certamen,’ a struggle or contest: and in this sense it occurs in reff.) of sufferings (the gen. may be either subjective, implying that your contest consisted of sufferings; or objective, that it was waged with sufferings, as the foe to be contended against: the former perhaps is the more probable from what follows: cf. , Heb 10:34 ),

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Heb 10:32 . As in the parallel passage in chap. 6, the writer at Heb 10:9 suddenly turns from the presentation of the terrifying aspect of apostasy to make appeal to more generous motives, so here he now encourages them to perseverance by reminding them of their praiseworthy past. As Vaughan remarks, the thought is that of Gal 3:3 . . “But recall the former days, in which after being enlightened ye endured much wrestling with sufferings”. , “remind yourselves,” as in 2Co 7:15 . See Wetstein’s examples, where the genitive not the accusative follows the verb, and M. Aurelius, Heb 10:31 . . [as in Thucyd., vi. 9 .] days separated from the present by some considerable interval, as is implied in Heb 5:12 . They are further described as as in Heb 6:4 ; equivalent to “receiving the knowledge of the truth,” Heb 10:26 . It was the new light in Christ, shed upon their relation to God and on their prospects, which enabled them to endure much wrestling or conflict with sufferings. in the next generation came to mean “martyrdom,” as in Mart. of S. Ignatius , chap. 4. [For the genitive cf. “certamina divitiarum,” Hor. Epp. , i. 5 8.] What these sufferings were is described in two clauses, they were partly in their own persons, partly in their sympathy and voluntary sharing in the suffering of others, , For the distributive formula, “partly,” “partly,” see abundant examples from the classics in Wetstein. See also Plutarch’s Them. , Heb 10:4 . It may be rendered “as well by,” “as by”. , “made a spectacle,” [ , Theophyl., cf. 1Co 4:9 ], literally true of the Christians who were expose to wild beasts in the amphitheatre. See Renan’s L’Antchrist , pp. 162 ff., “A la barbarie des supplices on ajouta la drision”. But here it was not by lions and leopards and wild bulls they were attacked, but , “reproaches and distresses,” “opprobriis et tribulationibus” (Vulg.). is frequent in LXX, and several times in the phrase . In this Epistle it occurs again in Heb 11:26 and Heb 13:13 , and cf. 1Pe 4:14 . Some who have not directly suffered persecution in these forms suffered by sympathy and by identifying themselves with those who were experiencing such usage, . Cf. Phi 4:14 . Farrar renders well, “who lived in this condition of things”. In what sense they became is immediately explained; they sympathised with those who were imprisoned and welcomed the violent seizure of their possessions. , as always, must here be rendered “For indeed,” “for in point of fact,” proving by more definite instances that they had become partakers with the persecuted. They had felt for the imprisoned, as was possibly alluded to in Heb 6:10 , and as they are in Heb 13:3 exhorted still to do. Cf. Mat 25:36 , which probably formed a large factor in the production of that care for the persecuted which characterised the early Church. They had also suffered the loss of their goods. , the violent and unjust seizure, as in Mat 23:25 , Luk 11:39 . occurs in Lucian and Artemidorus. See Stephanus. That which enables them to take joyfully the loss of their possessions is their consciousness that they have a possession which is better and which cannot be taken away. [for ]. If the true reading is then the meaning is easy “knowing that you have for yourselves”. If we read , this may mean, as Davidson, Westcott and others suppose, “knowing that you have yourselves a better possession”. But this seems not very congruous with the writer’s usual style. It is more likely that the writer uses the emphatic “you yourselves” in contrast to those who had robbed them and now possessed their goods. So von Soden. Or it may mean “ye yourselves” in contrast to the possession itself of which they have been deprived, ye yourselves however stripped of all earthly goods.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Heb 10:32-39

32But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, 33partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. 34For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. 35Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

37For yet in a very little while,

He who is coming will come, and will not delay.

38But My righteous one shall live by faith;

And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.

39But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

Heb 10:32 “remember the former days” This is a present middle imperative, possibly referring to Heb 5:12.

“after being enlightened” This was used of the unbelieving group in Heb 6:4. I do believe there are two groups being addressed.

1. those Jews who have seen the power of God in the lives and testimonies of their believing friends

2. the believing Jews still worshiping in a synagogue setting.

The “you” of Heb 10:32-36 is contrasted with Heb 10:26-31 (as is Heb 6:9-12 with Heb 6:4-8).

“endured” This is a metaphor from an athletic contest (cf. Heb 12:1-3; Heb 12:7).

“great conflict of suffering” This probably refers to the persecution which befell the Church, but not the synagogue, because Judaism was a legal religion under Rome, but Christianity was not. This paragraph seems to imply they helped others who went through the persecution and thereby shared some of the reproach (cf. Heb 10:33-34; Heb 6:10).

Heb 10:34 “to the prisoners” Some Christians had been imprisoned, but not the recipients of the letter. They were believers, but not fully identified with the church. This may corroborate the view that they were Jewish believers still attending a synagogue (see Introduction, Recipients).

The KJV has “in my bonds,” which many commentators have used as evidence to establish Paul’s authorship. However, there are several possible manuscript variations: (1) “in bonds” (P13, A, D*, and the Vulgate and Peshitta translations); (2) “on the bond” (P46, , and the Greek text used by Origen); and (3) “on my bonds” , D2, K, L, P and the Greek text used by Clement of Alexandria).

“accepted joyfully the seizure of your property” This is a sure evidence of our hope in Christ and our inheritance in Him (cf. Heb 9:15; Heb 11:16; Heb 13:14; Mat 5:12; Luk 6:22-23; Rom 5:3; Rom 8:17).

“better” See full note at Heb 7:7.

Heb 10:35-36 These verses document the need of the believing group (1) not to throw away their confidence (cf. Heb 3:6; Heb 4:16; Heb 10:19) and (2) to endure (cf. Heb 12:1-3). In many ways this sounds like the message to the seven churches of Revelation 2-3 (cf. Rev 2:3; Rev 2:5; Rev 2:7; Rev 2:10-11; Rev 2:13; Rev 2:16-17; Rev 2:19; Rev 2:25-26; Rev 3:2-3; Rev 3:5; Rev 3:10-12; Rev 3:20). True faith is a persevering faith (cf. 1Jn 2:19). God’s covenant promises must be received and held. See Special Topic at Heb 4:14.

The real issue in security is not struggling believers, but the multitude of modern western church members who have no evidence of faith in their lives. Easy believism, coupled with an overemphasis on security, has filled our churches with baby Christians at best and lost people in Christian clothing at worst! Discipleship and the call for radical holiness are missing in a materialistic, capitalistic, decadent, modern western culture. Salvation has been turned into a product (a ticket to heaven at the end of a self-centered life or a fire insurance policy against ongoing sin) instead of a daily, growing, personal relationship with God. The goal of Christianity is not only heaven when we die (product), but Christlikeness now!! God wants to restore His image in mankind so that He can reach fallen humanity with His free offer of salvation in Christ. We are saved to serve! Security is a by-product of a life of service and discipleship.

SPECIAL TOPIC: PERSEVERANCE

Heb 10:36 This verse is stated with a contingency!

“the will of God” See Special Topic at Heb 13:21.

“you may receive what was promised” This refers to the promises of the new covenant in Christ (i.e., Heb 9:15)!

Heb 10:37-38 This is a quote from the Septuagint of Hab 2:3-4, but with the last two clauses reversed for emphasis.

“He who is coming” The Hebrew Masoretic Text has “it,” but the Greek Septuagint makes it personal, which implies the Messiah.

Heb 10:38 “shall live by faith”

SPECIAL TOPIC: Believe, Trust, Faith, and Faithfulness in the Old Testament ()

“my” There is Greek manuscript confusion as to the antecedent of this personal pronoun. It is related to either “righteousness” or “faith.” Our author uses the ambiguity of MT and LXX translations to emphasize (1) the Messiah’s coming and (2) the need for believers’ faithfulness.

In the ancient Greek uncial manuscripts A & C, “my” relates to righteousness. In the LXX, Peshitta, and ms D*, “my” relates to faith. In P13, Dc, Hc, K, P and the Textus Receptus “my” is omitted (following Paul’s omission in his quote from Hab 2:4 in Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11).

The “if” in the second part of the verse is a third class conditional sentence, which means potential action.

Heb 10:39 The author summarizes his confidence in his readers’ perseverance (cf. Heb 6:9-12)!

“of those who shrink back” This is an allusion to Hab 2:4 in the LXX “if he should draw back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” The issue in Hebrews for believers is faithfulness to the end. The great danger is “shrinking back.”

The interpretive question in this verse is to whom does the phrase “those who shrink back” refer.

1. Israelites in Habakkuk’s day

2. the two groups of Heb 6:1-12, one Jewish and the other believing Jews; the unbelieving group have shrunk back from clear gospel witness to destruction

3. believers in general who do not hold out to the end in faithfulness

The context of the book as a whole and Heb 6:9-12 supports #2.

“destruction” This term is often used of those who do not have eternal life (cf. Mat 7:13; Php 1:28; Php 3:19; 2Th 2:3; 1Ti 6:9; 2Pe 2:1; 2Pe 2:3; 2Pe 3:7). This is not to be understood as ultimate annihilation of the unbeliever, but the loss of physical life. The same metaphorical use is abundant in the OT. One of the mysteries and pain of Hell is its eternal aspect (cf. Dan 12:2; Mat 25:46).

NASB”but of those who have faith to the persevering of the soul”

NKJV”but of those who believe to the saving of the soul”

NRSV”but among those who have faith and so are saved”

TEV”Instead, we have faith and are saved”

NJB”we are the sort who keep faith until our souls are saved”

The opposite of “shrink back” is faithfulness. This quote from Habakkuk is used in a different way than Paul uses it in emphasizing the need for initial faith apart from works (cf. Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11), while Hebrews uses it for continuing faith. This statement sets the stage for the role call of faithful in chapter 11. This role call shows that faith often causes persecution, even death. It emphasizes that these OT believers, even amidst great difficulties (cf. Heb 10:32-33) continued in faith! The author of Hebrews asserts his confidence that his believing readers will also continue in faith to the end.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

call to remembrance = keep ever in mind. Greek. anamimnesko. See 1Co 4:17.

after ye were = having been.

illuminated. Greek. Photizo. See Heb 6:4 and compare App-130.

endured. Greek. hupomeno. Same word in Heb 12:2, Heb 12:3, Heb 12:7.

fight. Greek. athlesis. Only here.

afflictions. Greek. pathema, as Rom 8:18.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

32-34.] As in ch. Heb 6:9-12, so here, the Writer turns from solemn exhortation and warning to encouragement arising from the conduct of his readers in the past. This their firmness did not look likely to end in apostasy: and accordingly by the memory of it he now cheers and invigorates them. , . , , , . Thl.: and Thdrt., . .

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Heb 10:32. , remember) The Imperative. He subjoins consolation.-, being enlightened) i.e. immediately after , i.e. Christian baptism, ch. Heb 6:4. In baptism, Christ is put on: Christ is the light; therefore the light is put on in baptism. Enlightening denotes that further accession to the force and power of the Spirit, pre-existing for us from the Old Testament, which is gained from the vigour of the New, in the case of those who were baptized. This was the first entrance into Christianity: baptism was the means of salvation in the case of those who were properly fitted for it. I am of opinion, that these divine ordinances, even in theory, are not so highly esteemed as they ought to be. In the very baptism of Christ, His holy human nature was magnificently enlightened. He was previously the Son of God; and yet the power of the Divine testimony to His Sonship, at His baptism, long affected Him in a lively manner. But, as man consists of body and soul, so divine ordinances have this double relation. We must, therefore, make no separation [between the ordinances and the grace], nor [on the other hand] is the glass to be taken for the liquor which it contains, nor should the sheath be grasped instead of the sword.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Heb 10:32-34

EXHORTATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT

TO THE HEBREW CHRISTIANS, ON THE

GROUND OF THEIR PREVIOUS ENDURANCE

Heb 10:32-34

Heb 10:32 —But call to remembrance, etc.-We are here reminded of the very happy and encouraging turn which our author gave to his argument in the sixth chapter. Having there treated of the alarming state of the apostate, he reminded his readers that though sadly delinquent in some respects, they were, nevertheless, still far removed from the sin of apostasy. God, he says, is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which ye have showed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister. And just so he proceeds in this instance. Having presented to the Hebrew brethren the awful doom of those who reject Christ and the great salvation purchased through his blood, he next encourages them by referring to their first love, and reminding them how heroically they had endured their former afflictions.

Heb 10:32 —After ye were illuminated,-That is, after they had been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of him who is himself the light of the world (Joh 8:12), the Sun of righteousness that has risen upon the nations (Mai. 4:2). Those who follow him cannot walk in darkness. See notes on Heb 6:4.

Heb 10:32 — Ye endured a great fight of afflictions.-These afflictions were such as occurred after the martyrdom of Stephen, when there was a great persecution against the Church which was at Jerusalem. (Act 8:1 Act 12:1-3, etc.) All these, the Hebrew brethren of Jerusalem and Palestine had borne patiently and even heroically, as faithful soldiers of the cross. And now the Apostle would have them be consistent, and persevere in like manner even to the end.

Heb 10:33 —Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock, etc.-The object of the Apostle in this verse, is to particularize and further illustrate the very severe nature and character of their former trials and afflictions; and also to remind them still further of the great readiness of mind with which they had endured them. They not only bore with patience and Christian fortitude the severe trials to which they themselves were subjected by their persecutors; but they also, it seems, voluntarily became the companions of others who were suffering in like manner. To be made a gazingstock (theatrizomenoi) is to be exposed to public abuse and insult, as criminals often were in the Greek and Roman theaters. (Act 19:29; 1Co 4:9.) Speaking of these barbarous exhibitions, Seneca says in his seventh epistle: In the morning men are exposed to lions and bears: at midday, to their spectators. Those that kill are opposed to one another; and the victor is detained for another slaughter. The conclusion of the fight is death. The word reproaches (oneidismoi) has reference to the reproachful epithets which were heaped upon the Christians by their persecutors; and the word afflictions (thlipseis) denotes the various sufferings and calamities which they endured. All these they had borne with patience and Christian fortitude; and they had even voluntarily become the companions or partners (koinonoi) of those who were suffering from like reproaches and afflictions. This they did, no doubt, by contributing of their means for their support and comfort ; and by doing all in their power to alleviate and remove their sufferings.

Heb 10:34 —For ye had compassion of me in my bonds,-Or rather, according to the above critical note, For ye sympathised with them who were in bonds. This reading is, on the whole, best sustained by both the internal and the external evidence; and it is therefore preferred by Grotius, Bengel, Semler, Wetstein, Michaelis, Gries- bach, Scholz, Kuinoel, Bleek, Knapp, Ebrard, Delitzsch, and Moll, as well as by the authorities cited in the above note. It is proper to add, however, that the reading of the Textus Receptus is supported by the Codex Sinaiticus and several other valuable manuscripts. It is therefore a satisfaction to know that the difference of these readings does not materially affect the sense of the passage; the obvious purpose of the writer being in either case to praise and encourage the Hebrews on account of their former sympathy for those who were in bonds and afflictions.

Heb 10:34 —And took joyfully the spoiling of your goods,-This may refer (1) to the losses which the Hebrews sustained in consequence of their becoming Christians; just as it sometimes now happens even in our own day. When a Jew, says Ebrard, shows himself determined to become a Christian, he is disinherited by his relatives; his share of the property is withheld from him; his credit and every source of gain, withdrawn; and he falls into a state of complete destitution. This same kind of injustice was extensively practiced in primitive times by both Jews and Gentiles. But (2) it is probable that the Apostle refers here more particularly to the heavy losses of property which the Hebrew Christians had incurred in times of persecution. In either case, they bore all joyfully, just as the Apostles rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus. (Act 5:41.)

Heb 10:34 —Knowing in yourselves, etc.-Or, according to the most approved reading, Knowing that ye have for yourselves a better possession, and one that is enduring. Some valuable manuscripts, as D, K, L, etc., retain the phrase in heaven (en ouranois). But whether these words are spurious or genuine, the sense of the passage is in either case manifestly the same, as it is, no doubt, to the heavenly inheritance that our author here refers. See 1Pe 1:4. The Hebrews, it seems, had joyfully submitted to being robbed of their earthly possessions; because, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they had constantly in view the heavenly country, and also the city which had the foundations. (Heb 11:10 Heb 11:16.) Thus, observes Delitzsch, the sacred writer raises the hearts and minds of those whom his previous language might have depressed. He had led them to the brink of a terrible precipice of negligence and apostasy, down which they seemed in danger of falling; and now he leads them back from it to the contemplation of their own steadfast and favored past.”

Commentary on Heb 10:32-34 by Donald E. Boatman

Heb 10:32 –but call to remembrance the former days

They had had days of strife, battle and victory over sin, and these should be remembered. Early days of Christian experience, a reminder of past faithfulness, should encourage me to strive again.

Heb 10:32 –in which after ye were enlightened

Enlightment is of Christ.

Joh 8:12 : I am the Light of the world, He that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness, hut shall have the Light of life.

Gods word casts the light for men to follow.

Heb 10:32 –ye endured a great conflict of sufferings

Probably the persecution that broke out after Stephens death.

Act 8:1; Act 12:3.

The persecution by brethren of loved ones is the most severe.

Jesus prophesied that brethren would deliver up brethren.

Mat 10:21-22.

Heb 10:33 –partly being made a gazing-stock

Exposed to public shame is meant. The meaning or use of the word partly should be considered.

a. Some suggest: This suffering took place partly while they were being made a gazingstock.

b. Likely not all had endured the same suffering.

In Greek and Roman theaters, criminals were often publicly abused and insulted. Act 19:29 and 1Co 4:9.

Heb 10:33 –both by reproaches and afflictions

Reproaches were the unkind words heaped upon the Christians, The unbelievers treated the Christians as they treated Christ. Afflictions refers to those various sufferings and calamities which they endured.

Heb 10:33 –and partly becoming partakers with them that were so used

If they as individuals had not suffered, they had helped financially those that had been persecuted, This may be alluded in Heb 6:10.

Heb 10:34 –for ye both had compassion on them that were in bonds

King James version: For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, makes it personal.

a. The difference appears in some manuscripts.

b. The difference doesnt affect the meaning.

1. In either case he praises them for their faithfulness.

2. Paul had endured all that is named, so if they had helped Paul only, they had shared.

This is the commendable thing about the Hebrews, as seen in Hebrews 6.

Heb 10:34 –and took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions

The early church was scattered, Acts 8, which no doubt meant possessions were taken from them. Those whose treasures are in heaven do not sorrow for earthly losses.

Heb 10:34 –knowing that ye yourselves have a better possession and an abiding one

Our possessions cannot be spoiled.

Mat 6:19 : lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust consume; 1Co 9:25 : They do it to obtain a corruptible crown; 1Pe 1:4.

Everything here is temporary, while in heaven everything is abiding.

Study Questions

2021. The Christian should be girding for battle, What kind of a soldier would he be if he lost his courage?

2022. Is boldness the same as cocksureness?

2023. Is there room for haughtiness in this boldness?

2024. What apostle had boldness?

2025. What is meant by recompense?

2026. Is it evident that the Christian will be rewarded?

2027. Did Jesus ever warn concerning working for a losing cause?

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

, , , , , , , , , .[9]

[9] VARIOUS READINGS. Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann, and Tischendorf, agree in reading , prisoners, instead of , my bonds. See Heb 13:3. , inserted in the textus receptus, and deemed a very probable omission by Griesbach, is rejected by Lachmann and Tisehendorf. The authority for it is D*** E J K, and both the Syriac versions. ED.

Heb 10:32-34. But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; partly whilst ye were made a gazing-stock, both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.

The words in their coherence, intimated in the adversative , but, have respect unto the exhortation laid down verse 25. All the verses interposed contain a dehortation from the evil which they are warned of. Hence the apostle returns unto his former exhortation unto the duties recommended unto them, and perseverance therein against all the difficulties which they might meet withal, wherewith others were turned unto destruction. And the present argument which he makes use of unto this purpose is this now mentioned. And there are in the words,

1. A direction unto a means useful unto the end of his exhortation: Call to remembrance the former days.

2. A description of those days which he would have them to call to mind:

(1.) From the season of them, and their state therein, after they were enlightened;

(2.) From what they suffered in them, a great fight of afflictions, which are enumerated in sundry instances, verse 33;

(3.) From what they did in them, verso 34, with respect unto themselves and others;

(4.) From the ground and reason whereon they were carried cheerfully through what they suffered and did, knowing in yourselves.

FIRST, There is first the prescription of the means of this duty, , which we have well rendered, call to remembrance. It is not a bare remembrance he intends, for it is impossible men should absolutely forget such a season. Men are apt enough to remember the times of their sufferings, especially such as are here mentioned, accompanied with all sorts of injurious treatment from men. But the apostle would have them so call to mind, as to consider withal what supportment they had under their sufferings, what satisfaction in them, what deliverance from them, that they might not despond upon the approach of the like evils and trials on the same account. If we remember our sufferings only as unto what is evil and afflictive in them, what we lose, what we endure and undergo; such a remembrance will weaken and dispirit us, as unto our future trials. Hereon many cast about to deliver themselves for the future by undue means and sinful compliances, in a desertion of their profession; the thing the apostle was jealous of concerning these Hebrews But if withal we call to mind what was the cause for which we suffered, the honor that is in such sufferings outbalancing all the contempt and reproaches of the world; the presence of God enjoyed in them; and the reward proposed unto us: the calling them to mind will greatly strengthen us against future trials; provided we retain the same love unto and valuation of the things for which we suffered as we had in those former days. And these various events we find exemplified every day. Some who have endured trials, and come off from them, do grow immediately more wary, as they suppose, and more cold really as unto the causes of their sufferings. The remembrance of what was afflictive in their trials fills them with fear of the like exercise again. Hence they grow timorous and cautious as to all duties of religion and the worship of God, which may expose them unto new sufferings: and then some of them by degrees fall absolutely off from attendance unto them; as it was with some of these Hebrews. Such as these call to mind only that which is evil and afflictive in their sufferings; and taking the measure thereof in the counsel or representation made of it by flesh and blood, it proves unto their damage, and ofttimes unto their eternal ruin. Others who call to mind, with their sufferings, the causes of them, and the presence of God with them therein, are encouraged, emboldened, and strengthened unto duty with zeal and constancy.

Obs. 1. A wise management of former experiences is a great direction and encouragement unto future obedience.

Secondly, As to the object of this duty, the apostle so expresseth it, Call to mind the former days. It is uncertain what times or seasons the apostle doth peculiarly intend. Besides those continual hazards they were in from their adversaries, and the occasional sufferings that they were exposed unto, they seem to have had some special seasons of persecution before the writing of this epistle. The first was in the stoning of Stephen, when a great persecution rose against all the church, and extended itself unto all the churches of Christ in that nation; wherein our holy apostle himself was highly concerned, Act 8:1; Act 9:1; Act 22:19; Act 26:10-11. And the other was on the occasion of this apostle himself; for upon his last coming to Jerusalem, after his great successes in preaching the gospel among the Gentiles, the whole body of the people was filled with rage and madness against him and all the other disciples. There is no doubt, although express mention be not made of it, but that at that time the rage and cruelty of the priests and the multitude did put forth themselves unto a general persecution of the church. And this season he seems to reflect upon in particular, because he mentions his own bonds at that time, and their compassion on him. However, certain it is that all the churches of Judea had suffered those things here mentioned from their countrymen, as the apostle himself declares, 1Th 2:14. At this present time they seem to have had some outward peace. The occasion whereof was the tumults and disorders which were then growing in their whole nation. Their own intestine discords, and the fear of outward enemies, by which they were shortly utterly destroyed, diverted them from prosecuting their rage for a season against the church. And it may be some began to grow careless and secure hereon; as we are generally apt to do, supposing that all will be serene when one or another storm is over. These, therefore, the apostle doth press unto such a remembrance of former trials as might prepare for those they were to expect; for, as he tells them, they had still need of patience, Heb 10:36.

SECONDLY, There is a description of those former days,

First, From their state and condition in them, the days in which they were enlightened, or rather, in which having been enlightened The mention of this their illumination being in a tense of the time past, manifests that their enlightening did precede those days of their sufferings. But yet the expression is such as argues a nearer conjunctionor concurrence between these two things, their illumination and these days of affliction; the one followed as it were immediately on the other? This enlightening was that work of Gods grace mentioned 1Pe 2:9, their translation out of darkness into his marvellous light. They were naturally blind, as are all men; and peculiarly blinded with prejudices against the truth of the gospel. Therefore when God by his effectual call delivered them out of that state of darkness, by the renovation of their understandings, and the removal of their prejudices, the light of the knowledge of God shining into their hearts is this illumination, the saving, sanctifying light which they received at their first effectual call, and conversion to God. This spiritual change was presently followed with days of affliction, trouble, and persecution. In itself it is, for the most part, accompanied with joy, delight, zeal, and vigorous actings of faith and love, 1Pe 1:8. For,

1. God did usually grant unto believers some secret pledge and sealing of his Spirit, which filled them with joy and zeal, Eph 1:13.

2. Their own hearts are exceedingly affected with the excellency, glory, and beauty of the things revealed unto them, of what they now see perfectly, whereunto they were before in darkness; that is, the love and grace of Christ Jesus in the revelation of himself unto them.

3. All graces are new and fresh, not yet burdened, Clogged, or wearied by temptations, but are active in their several places. Hence frequent mention is made of and commendation given unto the first love of persons and churches.

This was the state and condition of those Hebrews when the days of trial and affliction came upon them; it was immediately after their first conversion unto God. And it is usual with God thus to deal with his people in all ages. He no sooner calls persons to himself, but he leads them into the wilderness. He no sooner plants them, but he shakes them with storms, that they may be more firmly rooted. He doth it,

1. Utterly to take off their expectations from this world, or any thing therein. They shall find that they are so far from bettering their outward estate in this world by cleaving unto Christ and the church, as that the whole rage of it will be stirred up against them upon that account, and all the things enjoyed in it be exposed unto ruin. This the Lord Christ everywhere warned his disciples of, affirming that those who are not willing to renounce the world, and to take up the cross, do not belong unto him.

2. For the trial of their faith, 1Pe 1:6-7,

3. For the glory and propagation of the gospel.

4. For the exercise of all graces.

5. To breed us up into the military discipline of Christ, as he is the captain of our salvation. They who pass through their first trials, are Christs veterans on new attempts.

Obs. 3. Saving illumination is the first-fruit of effectual vocation.

Obs. 4. Spiritual light in its first communication puts the soul on the diligent exercise of all graces.

Obs. 5. It is suited unto the wisdom and goodness of God, to suffer persons on their first conversion to fall into manifold trials and temptations.

This was the state of the Hebrews in those days which the apostle would have them call to mind. But the words have respect unto what follows immediately, Which ye endured. The description of their state and condition, namely, that they were enlightened, is interposed for the ends we have spoken unto. Wherefore the season he would have them call to remembrance is described,

Secondly, By what they suffered therein. This, as was observed, he expresseth two ways: first, In general; secondly, In particular instances.

The First is in these words, Ye endured a great fight of afflictions.

1. That which he would have them to mind is affliction.

2. The aggravation of it, it was a great fight of afflictions.

3. Their deportment under it, in that they endured them.

1. We render this word by afflictions, although, by the particulars mentioned afterwards, it appears it was persecutions from men that the apostle only intended.

And if we take afflictions in the ordinary sense of the word, for chastisements, corrections, and trials from God, it is true that mens persecutions are also Gods afflictions, with the special end of them in our trials; we are chastened of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. God used them as his furnace and fining pot, for the trial of their faith; which is more precious than gold. And under all persecutions we are to have a special regard unto the immediate hand of God in such afflictive trials. This will keep us humble, and in a constant subjection of our souls unto God, as the apostle declares, Hebrews 12. But the word in the original is , which is properly sufferings; the same word that the apostle useth to express the sufferings of Christ, Heb 2:10; Heb 5:8. It is a general name for every thing that is hard and afflictive unto our nature, from what cause or occasion soever it doth arise. Even what wicked men undergo justly for their crimes is what they suffer, as well as what believers undergo for the truth and profession of the gospel. Materially they are the same, 1Pe 4:14-16. It is therefore the general name of all the evils, troubles, hardships, distresses, that may befall men upon the account of their profession of the truth of the gospel. This is that which we are called unto, which we are not to think strange of. Our LORD Jesus requires of all his disciples that they take up their cross; to be in a continual readiness to bear it, and actually so to do as they are called. And there is no kind of suffering but is included in the cross. He calls us, indeed, unto his eternal glory; but we must suffer with him, if we desire to reign also with him.

2. Of these trials, afflictions, persecutions, they had . That labor and contention of spirit which they had in their profession, with sin and sufferings, is expressed by these words; which set forth the greatest, most earnest, vehement actings and endeavors of spirit that our nature can arise unto. It is expressed by in this place, and by , 2Ti 4:7, , . See 2Ti 2:5; 1Co 9:25. The allusion is taken from their striving, wrestling, fighting, who contended publicly for a prize, victory, and reward, with the glory and honor attending it. The customs of the nations as then observed are frequently alluded unto in the New Testament. Now there was never any way of life wherein men voluntarily or of their own accord engaged themselves into such hardships, difficulties, and dangers, as that, when they contended in their games and strivings for mastery. Their preparation for it was a universal temperance, as the apostle declares, 1Co 9:25, and an abstinence from all sensual pleasures; wherein they offered no small violence unto their natural inclinations and lusts. In the conflicts themselves, in wrestling and fighting, with the like dangerous exercises in skill and strength, they endured all pains, sometimes death itself. And if they failed, or gave over through weariness, they lost the whole reward that lay before them. And with words which signify all this contest, doth the Holy Ghost express the fight or contention which believers have with sufferings. There is a reward proposed unto all such persons in the promises of the gospel, infinitely above all the crowns, honors, and rewards proposed unto them in the Olympic games. No man is compelled to enter into the way or course of obtaining it, but they must make it an act of their own wills and choice; but unto the obtaining of it they must undergo a great strife, contention, and dangerous conflict. In order hereunto three things are required:

(1.) That they prepare themselves for it, 1Co 9:25. Self-denial and readiness for the cross, contempt of the world and the enjoyments of it, are this preparation; without this we shall never be able to go through with this conflict.

(2.) A vigorous acting of all graces in the conflict itself, in opposition unto and destruction of our spiritual and worldly adversaries, Eph 6:10-18; Heb 12:3. He could never prevail nor overcome in the public contests of old who did not strive mightily, putting forth his strength and skill both to preserve himself and oppose his enemy. Nor is it possible that we should go successfully through with our conflict, unless we stir up all graces, as faith, hope, trust, unto their most vigorous exercise.

(3.) That we endure the hardship and the evils of the conflict with patience and perseverance; which is that the apostle here specially intends.

3. This is that which he commends in the Hebrews, with respect unto their first trials and sufferings, , ye endured, and bare patiently, so as not to faint or despond, or to turn away from your profession.They came off conquerors, having failed in no point of their conflict. This is that which they were called unto, that which God by his grace enabled them to, and through which they had that success which the apostle would have them to call to remembrance, that they might be strengthened and encouraged unto what yet remained of the same kind. This hath been the lot and portion of sincere professors of the gospel in most ages. And we are not to think it a strange thing if it come to be ours in a higher degree than what as yet we have had experience of. How many ways God is glorified in the sufferings of his people, what advantages they receive thereby, the prevailing testimony that is given thereby unto the truth and honor of the gospel, are commonly spoken to, and therefore shall not be insisted on.

Heb 10:33. Partly whilst ye were made a gazing-stock, both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly whilst ye became companions of them that were so used.

Secondly, Having mentioned their sufferings and their deportment under them in general, he distributes them into two heads in this verse. The first is what immediately concerned their own persons; and the second, their concernment in the sufferings of others, and their participations of them. This distribution is expressed by and , on this hand, and on that. The whole of their sufferings was made up of various parts, many things concurred thereunto; they did not consist in any one trouble or affliction, but a confluence of many of various sorts did meet in them. And this, indeed, is for the most part the greatest difficulty in sufferings: many of them come at once upon us, so that we shall have no rest from their assaults. For it is the design of Satan and the world on these occasions to destroy both soul and body; and unto that end he will assault us inwardly by temptations and fears, outwardly in our names and reputations, and all that we are or have. But he that knows how to account all such things but loss and dung, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, is prepared for them all.

1. What refers unto the first part is their suffering in their own persons; and herein he declares both what they suffered, and the manner how. That which they suffered was reproaches and afflictions; and for the manner of it, they were made a gazing-stock unto other men.

(1.) The first thing wherein they suffered was reproaches, , a great aggravation of sufferings unto ingenuous minds. The psalmist, in the person of the Lord Christ himself, complains that reproach had broken his heart, Psa 69:20; and elsewhere frequently he complaineth of it as one of the greatest evils he had to conflict withal. It is that kind of reproach which proceeds from malicious hatred, and is accompanied with contempt and scorn, and vents itself in all manner of obloquies or hard speeches, such as those mentioned Jud 1:15. And the nature of it is fully declared by the prophet Jeremiah, Jer 20:8-10. And there are two branches of reproaches:

[1.] False accusations, or charging of men with things vile and contemptible, such as will expose them unto public scorn and rage: They shall say all manner of evil against you falsely; They speak evil of you, as of evil-doers. So they reproached the person of Jesus Christ himself. They said he was a malefactor, an evil-doer, a seditious person, a glutton, a wine-bibber, a seducer, one that had a devil; and thereby stirred up the rage, hatred, and contempt of the people against him. So they reproached the primitive Christians among the Pagans, namely, that they were atheists, confederating themselves for adultery, incest, murder, and sedition; under which notion they slaughtered them as beasts of the field. And the like reproaches have been cast on the professors of the gospel in all ages.

[2.] Those reproaches consist in the contempt that is east upon what is true, and what in itself is holy, just, good, and praiseworthy. They reproached them with their faith in Christ, with their worship of him, in owning his authority. This in itself was their honor and their crown. But as it was managed with hatred and blasphemy, as it was confirmed by the common consent of all, as it received strength and countenance from their sufferings, wherein they esteemed them punished for their sins and impieties, it added unto their distress. For men thus to be traduced, aspersed, and charged, partly with things infamous, base, vile; partly by contempt and scorn cast on what they do own and profess; by their friends, neighbors, relations, and the multitude of the people; in order to their further hurt and ruin, that they may be looked on and judged as persons meet to be destroyed, not suffered to live on the face of the earth: it is a great suffering, and difficultly to be endured and undergone.

Therefore all those that make profession of the name of Christ and the gospel ought to look and provide for such things.

[1.] Take heed of so much softness and tenderness of nature, that may give too deep a sense of reproach, scorn, and shame, which may give too deep an entrance unto these things into your minds; being such as will weaken them in their duties. This ordinarily is a frame and disposition of mind that lies at the next door to virtue, to modesty, to humility, and the like; but in this case it lies at the next door to diffidence, despondency, and carnal fear. We are in this case to harden our countenances, and to set our faces as a flint and adamant, so as to despise all reproaches and scorns on the account of our profession.

[2.] It is required that we do not put too much value on our names and reputations in the world. A good name is better than precious ointment, it yields a good savor; but it is so only with these two limitations:

1st. That it be obtained by things that are really good and praiseworthy; for some have made their names famous and acceptable to the multitude by ways and actions that have really nothing praiseworthy in them. And,

2dly. That they be good men who esteem their name to be good. Laudari volo, said one; sod a viro laudato. To have a good report amongst an evil multitude is of no advantage. Yet are some men very tender herein: they would be praised and spoken well of by the many; at least they would not be spoken evilly or contemptuously of. But if we have not an under- valuation of our names and reputations universally, in respect unto Christ and the gospel, if we are not contented to be made as the filth and offscouring of all things, it will greatly disadvantage us in the time of sufferings And therefore in the providence of God frequently it falls out, that if there be any thing that is unto us as the apple of our eye, of all we should be tender of our names and reputations in, this shall he peculiarly attempted and reproached.

[3.] That they do not think that any new thing befalls them when they are reproached; no, not when the reproaches are new, and such as never were cast on any that went before them; for the stores of reproaches and false accusations in the treasury of Satan and hearts of wicked men will never be exhausted.

[4.] Know that where reproach goes before, persecution will follow after, in the course of the world. It thunders in reproaches, and falls in a storm of persecution. These sufferings consisted in afflictions; these afflictions did partly ensue upon and partly accompany these reproaches. For those who endeavor to bring men under contempt by reproaches, will not fail to reproach them under their sufferings Therefore do we render the particle

by both, referring both the reproaches and afflictions unto their being made a gazing-stock.And the word is o a large signification, denoting every thing that is evil and grievous to us in any kind. But as it is distinguished from reproaches, it denotes suffering in their persons or enjoyments; an instance whereof he gives in the next verse, in the spoiling of their goods.

(2.) The manner of their suffering of these things: it is said they were made a gazing-stock, . It is properly spoken of them who were brought on the public stage or theater in any city, and there exposed unto all sorts of evils and punishments And it was the way of the highest and most capital punishment. For when guilty persons were east unto beasts to be devoured, it was in the theater, where they were made a spectacle unto the people, or a gazing-stock. But the apostle limits the suffering of the Hebrews unto reproaches and afflictions;they had not yet resisted unto blood. So at Ephesus they drew Gaius and Aristarchus into the theater, with an intention to destroy them, Act 19:29.

But yet neither doth it necessarily follow that those spoken of were actually or solemnly carried into any theater, there to be reproached, then destroyed. But because the theater was the place where persons were publicly exposed to be looked upon with scorn and contempt, the word is used to signify mens being so exposed and made a spectacle, in any place, on any occasion. And this is the meaning of the phrase used by the apostle, 1Co 4:9. No more is required hereunto but that they were publicly, and in the sight of all that had occasion or opportunity to behold them, exposed unto these things. So was it with them, when they haled men and women out of their meetings; who being dragged or driven in the streets, were committed some of them into prisons, Act 8:3 : then were they loaded with all manner of reproaches, and made a gazing-stock to all that were about them. This way and manner of their suffering was a great addition to it and an aggravation of it. It requireth excellent actings of faith and spiritual courage to carry ingenuous persons above this public contest. But their cause and their Example were sufficient to support them, and enable them unto this duty.

Obs. 6. All temporary sufferings, in all their aggravating circumstances, in their most dreadful preparation, dress, and appearance, are but light things in comparison of the gospel and the promises thereof.

Obs. 7. There is not any thing in the whole nature of temporary sufferings, or any circumstance of them, that we can claim an exemption from, after we have undertaken the profession of the gospel.

This was the first part of the contention with sufferings which those Hebrews had undergone.

2. The other part of their sufferings was, that they became the companions of them that were so used. They not only suffered in themselves, in what they gave occasion unto by their own profession of the gospel, and practice of its worship, but also came into a fellowship of sufferings with them that were so used as they were. And we may consider,

(1.) Who those were that were so used.

(2.) How they became their companions in that condition.

(1.) . The word signifies the way, manner, and course of our conversation in the world. And in that sense the sufferings of these persons is included as the effect in the cause. They so walked in the world as to be exposed to sufferings, We take the word in a passive sense, and render it so used, used after the same manner which you were.It is also used for to be tossed, overturned, oppressed; which is the sense of it in this place. But the apostle writing unto the whole church of the Hebrews, we may inquire who they were who were used in this manner with them; for they seem to be distinguished from them unto whom he wrote. And,

[1.] It is not impossible but the apostle might have respect unto those that were sober and moderate amongst the Jews themselves. For things were now come unto that confusion in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, that all such persons were continually exposed unto the violence and rage of robbers, oppressors, and seditious villains. The Christians, being of the same conversation with them, were not known by the multitude, nor distinguished from them. It is not therefore unlikely that they might suffer with them in those public violences; which being not immediately for the profession of the gospel, they are said in what they so underwent, to be made the companions of others. Or,

[2.] Respect may be had unto the sufferings of Christians in other places up and down the world, which they heard of, and were in no small measure affected with. But this was not peculiar unto the church of the Hebrews, and so not likely to be peculiarly ascribed unto them. Or, [3.] It may be respect is had unto some that had suffered amongst themselves at Jerusalem, or in other places of Judea, who were their countrymen, yet belonged not unto the stated church of Christ in the place unto which he wrote at present. And this hath countenance given it from the next verse, where it seems to be given as an instance of their being made companions of them that suffered, in that they had compassion of the apostle himself in his bonds, and such was the condition of others.

But I am rather inclined unto a double distribution of things and persons in the text, both included in the and the . That of things is actual suffering, and a participation of the sufferings of others. That of persons is this, that all those unto whom he wrote did not actually in their own persons suffer the things which he speaks of, but some of them did so suffer, and the rest of them were companions with them that did so suffer. And for the most part it so falls out in the fiercest persecution of the gospel. All individual persons are not called forth unto the same actual sufferings; some in the providence of God, and through the rage of men, are singled out for trials; some are hid or do escape, at least for a season, and it may be are reserved for the same trials at another time. So it may be said of the whole church, that they endured a great fight of afflictions, while some of them were a gazing-stock, etc., and others of them were companions of them that were so used.

Obs. 8. It is reserved unto the sovereign pleasure of God to measure out unto all professors of the gospel their especial lot and portion as unto trials and sufferings, so as that none ought to complain, none to envy one another.

(2.) Hence it appears in what sense those who suffered not in their own persons were made companions of them who did so, whereby the whole church partook of the same troubles. :

[1.] They were made so by their common interest in the same cause for which they suffered;

[2.] By their apprehension that the same sufferings would reach unto themselves, seeing there was the same cause in them as in others;

[3.] By their sorrow, trouble, and compassion, for the suffering of the members of the same Head and body with them; [4.] By all duties of love and affection which they discharged in owning and visiting of them;

[5.] By the communication of their goods and outward enjoyments unto them, who had suffered the loss of their own: so were they made their companions.

Heb 10:34. For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.

Thirdly, Having distributed the of believers into two heads; 1. What they underwent, some of them at least, in their own persons; and, 2. What befell them with respect unto others suffering in the same cause with themselves; in this verse the apostle gives an especial instance of each kind, only he inverts the order wherein he had before laid them down. For whereas he first mentioned what they suffered in themselves, and then what they accompanied others in, here he insisteth on the latter of them in the first place, they had compassion of him in his bonds; and of the former in the second place, and took joyfully the spoiling of their goods. But he adds unto both the frame of their minds in what they did and suffered: as unto others, they were their companions in sympathy and compassion; and as unto their own losses, they them took joyfully.

Of the First the apostle gives,

1. An instance in himself, Ye had compassion of me in my bonds. And this he affirms as a proof and confirmation of what he had spoken before concerning their being made companions of them that suffered. This is expressed in the introductive particles , for even you had, as for examples sake.I have proved before the apostle Paul was the author of this epistle, and this very passage is sufficient to confirm it. For who else could there be whose bonds for the gospel were so known, so famous among the believers of the Jews, as his own? For the other persons whom some would needs fancy to be writers of this epistle, as Luke, Barnabas, and Clemens, there is nothing in the Scripture or ecclesiastical story of any of their bonds in Judea, whereof it is plain that he here speaketh. But the sufferings of our apostle in this kind of bonds and imprisonment were peculiar above any other apostles whatsoever. Hence he styles himself in particular, Phm 1:1, the bondman for Christ; and gloried in his bonds as his peculiar honor, Act 26:29. An ambassador in bonds, Eph 6:20. So Php 1:7; Php 1:12-16; Col 4:3, which he desired the church to remember him in, Col 4:18; 2Ti 2:9. Wherefore, his bonds being singularly and above all others so known, so famous, so useful, such a subject of the churchs prayers, and of their faith, having been begun and long continued among those Hebrews, and being spoken of by him as a matter known unto them all, it is unreasonable to suppose that any other is intended.

Obs. 9. Of what sort or kind the sufferings of any that God employs in the ministry of the gospel shall be, is in his sovereign disposal alone. And in this apostle, unto whom, as being the apostle of the Gentiles, God had designed more work, and travelling up and down the world, than unto any of the others, it may be unto them all; yet God was pleased that much of his time should be spent in bonds and imprisonments. But although the principal reason hereof must be left hid in the wisdom and sovereign good pleasure of God, yet we may see that two inestimable advantages did redound unto the church thereby. For,

(1.) His bonds being first at Jerusalem, and afterwards at Rome, as Act 23:11, the two capital cities and seats of the Jews and Gentiles, and he being called out to plead the cause of the gospel openly and publicly, the report of it was carded all the world over, and occasion given unto all sorts of men to inquire what it was that a man remote from the suspicion of any crime did suffer such things for. I no way doubt but that multitudes by this means were brought to make inquiry after and into the doctrine of the gospel, which otherwise would have taken no notice of it. See Php 1:12-16. And,

(2.) During his confinement under those bonds, the Holy Ghost was pleased to make use of him in writing sundry of those blessed epistles which have been the light and glory of the gospel in all ages. Wherefore, let every one of us be content and rejoice in what way soever God shall be pleased to call us to suffer for the truth of the gospel For although it may seem outwardly to be of the greatest advantage thereunto, which is the only thing we would desire, that we might enjoy our liberty, yet God can and will make them subservient unto his own glory; wherein we ought to acquiesce.

2. He expresseth the concernment of these Hebrews in those bonds of his:

, they suffered together with him therein. They were not unconcerned in his sufferings, as being satisfied with their own freedom, as is the manner of some. Now, compassion consists in these things.

(1.) A real condolency, grief, and trouble of mind, for the bonds of others, as if we ourselves were bound.

(2.) Continual prayers for their relief, supportment, and deliverance; as it was with the church in the case of Peter in his bonds, Acts 12.

(3.) A ministration unto them, as unto the things that may be outwardly wanting; as many did to Paul, Act 24:23.

(4.) The owning and avowing of them, as not being ashamed of their chains, bonds, or sufferings, 2Ti 1:16-17.

(5.) A readiness to undergo hazards, difficulties, and dangers, for them who are called thereunto, Rom 16:4. It is not a heartless, fruitless, ineffectual pity that the apostle intends, but such a frame of mind as hath a real concernment in the sufferings of others, and is operative in these and the like duties towards their good. These things are required in us towards all those who suffer for the gospel, according as we have opportunity for their exercise. Where this is wanting, we can have no solid evidence of our being one with them in the same mystical body. The remembrance of this frame, and the discharge of all those duties towards them who have suffered, are of singular use to prepare our minds for, and to confirm our hearts in our own sufferings, when they do approach.

Secondly, He minds them of their deportment under their own sufferings: they took joyfully.

1. That which they suffered in was their , their outward substance, and present enjoyments It is extended unto houses, lands, possessions, whatever rightfully belongs unto men and is enjoyed by them. But it is especially applied unto things of present use, as the goods of a mans house, his money, corn, or cattle, which are more subject to present rapine and spoil than other real possessions, lands or inheritances These are the things of mens present supportment, without which ordinarily they cannot live nor subsist. And therefore, in persecutions, the enemies of the gospel do usually fall on these in the first place; as supposing that the loss of them will reduce their owners unto all sorts of extremity, especially when they have no pretense or warranty as yet to destroy their persona They will take from them the bread that they should eat, the clothes that they should wear, the beds whereon they should lie, whatever is of use unto them and their families And this must needs be a sore trial unto men, when not only themselves, but their relations also, their wives and children, some perhaps in their infant age, are reduced unto all extremities.

2. The way whereby they were deprived of their goods was , it was by rapine and spoil. What pretense of law or constitution of the rulers they who did it had for what they did, I know not, but the way of execution was with savage rapine and spoil, as the word signifies They violently tare away from them what they did enjoy: not aiming to take all the spoil merely unto their own advantage, wherewith yet the minds of some cursed enemies are influenced, but at the satisfaction of their rage and malice in the ruin of the saints of Christ. This, it seems, had been the state of things with these Hebrews, which had now passed over for that season, but in all probability would quickly again return, as the warning here given them by the apostle did plainly intimate. And it is the way of the world in such persecutions, after they have vented their rage and malice for a while, and satisfied themselves with their own cruelty, to give over until some new cause, pretense, or new instigation of the devil, sets them at work again.

3. The frame of mind in the Hebrews as unto this part of their suffering is, that they took their losses and spoils with joy. Nothing doth usually more affect the minds of men than the sudden spoiling of their goods, what they have labored for, what they have use for, what they have provided for themselves and their families. We see in ordinary cases what wailings and lamentations do accompany such occasions. But these Hebrews received and accepted of this rapine of their goods, not only patiently and cheerfully, but with a certain peculiar joy.

4. The ground hereof the apostle declares in the close of this verse, Knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.

Some copies of the original, and some ancient translations, as the Vulgar Latin, read the words . And I suppose the difference arose from the order of the words in the text, or the placing of not immediately after , but interposing between them. Hence the words may be rendered as we do, knowing in yourselves that ye have a better substance; or as they lie in the original, knowing that ye have a better substance in yourselves. In this latter way it is evident that there is no place for that addition, in heaven, which is necessary in the former. For it is not proper to say, knowing that ye have in yourselves in heaven; though it be most proper to say, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven. I confess I should absolutely embrace the latter reading, knowing that ye have in yourselves, and so leave out that, in heaven, for evident reasons, did not the authority of the most ancient copies and translations of the best note require the retaining of it. However, I shall open the words according to both readings.

(1.) Knowing that we have in ourselves. The things which they had lost were their goods, or their substance, as they are called, Luk 15:13. Unto these he opposeth the substance; which of what nature it is he declares in comparison with those other goods. Those other goods were so theirs as that they were without them, things liable unto rapine and spoil, such as they might be, such as they were deprived of; men could and men did take them away. But this substance is in themselves, which none could take away from them, none could spoil them of. Such is the peace and joy that our Lord Jesus Christ gives unto his church here below, Joh 14:27; Joh 16:22. And if the substance here intended be that which was in themselves, in opposition unto those external goods, which they might be and were deprived of; then it is that subsistence in the soul and unto the experience of believers which faith gives unto the grace and love of God in Christ Jesus, with all the consequents of it here and for evermore. This is that which comforts believers under all their troubles; this fills them with joy unspeakable and full of glory, even in their sufferings. This will make them to take joyfully the spoiling of their goods, when they lay it in the balance against them. In this sense expresseth an assurance arising from experience, as the word is often used. They knew they had it in themselves, from the powerful experience which faith gave them of it. So the whole of it is intended and at large explained by the apostle, Rom 5:1-5. Faith gives us justification before God, access unto him, and acceptance with him; and therewithal gives joy and rejoicing unto the soul And this it doth in an especial manner under tribulations and sufferings, enabling men to take joyfully the spoiling of their goods; for it stirreth up all graces in such a condition unto their due exercise, issuing in a blessed experience of the excellency of the love of God, and of his glory in Christ, with a firm and stable hope of future glory. Yea, and by these things doth the Holy Ghost shed abroad the love of God in our hearts; which will give joy in any condition. And this substance hath both the qualifications here assigned unto it.

[1.] It is , better, more excellent, incomparably so, than the outward goods that are subject to rapine and spoil. And,

[2.] It is , abiding, that which will not leave them in whom it is, can never be taken from them. My joy shall no man take from you.

Obs. 10. Faith giving an experience of the excellency of the love of God in Christ, and of the grace received thereby, with its incomparable preference above all outward, perishing things, will give joy and satisfaction in the loss of them all, upon the account of an interest in these better things.

(2.) If we follow the ordinary reading, and retain those words, in heaven,

the whole must be somewhat otherwise expounded; for it is not the grace of faith, but hope, that is expressed. And,

[1.] That expression, knowing in yourselves, declares the evidence they had of the grounds whereon they rejoiced in the spoiling of their goods It was manifest and evident unto themselves. The world looked on them under another notion. They took them and declared them to be persons who deserved all manner of evil in this world, and such as would perish for ever in that which is to come. So they did to Christ himself, when they reproached him with his trust in God when he was on the cross. In this case the apostle doth not direct them unto any outward defense of themselves, but only unto the uncontrollable evidence which they had in themselves of future glory. And this they had,

1st. From the promises of Christ;

2dly. From the testimony and witness of the Holy Ghost

3dly. From the experience which they had of the beginnings and first-fruits of this glory in themselves.

Faith in and by these means will give an infallible evidence of heavenly things, secure against all opposition; and in all these things it works by hope, because it respects things that are future.

[2.] This substance is said to be in heaven. It is there prepared, there laid up, there to be enjoyed. Wherefore it compriseth the whole of the future state of blessedness. And it is well called substance, as it is also riches, and an inheritance, and a weight of glory; for in comparison of it, all other things temporary have no substance in them.

[3.] They are said , to have this substance; not in present possession, but in right, title, and evidence. They knew in themselves that they had an undeniable title unto it, which none could deprive them of, but that they should certainly enjoy it in the appointed season. Wherefore they are said to have it,

1st. Because it is prepared for them in the will, pleasure, and grace of God. It is your Fathers good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

2dly. Because it is purchased for them by the blood of Christ; he hath purchased, or obtained eternal redemption.

3dly. It is promised unto them in the gospel.

4thly. It is secured for them in the intercession of Christ.

5thly. Granted unto them in the first-fruits.

6thly. All this is confirmed unto them by the oath of God. The first-fruits they had in possession and use, the whole in right and title; and continual application of it was made unto their souls by the hope which will not make ashamed.

[4.] How this substance is better than outward enjoyments, and abiding, needs not to be explained, they are things in themselves so plain and evident.

This twofold interpretation of the words is so far coincident and agreeing in the same sense in general, that we may draw our observations from both or either of them; as,

Obs. 11. It is the glory of the gospel, that it will on a just account, from a sense of an interest in it, give satisfaction and joy unto the souls of men in the worst of sufferings for it.

Obs. 12. It is our duty to take care that we be not surprised with outward sufferings, when we are in the dark as unto our interest in these things. This may often fall out through our carelessness, negligence, and want of keeping our garments about us in our walk before God: they rejoiced, as knowing they had in themselves; which otherwise they could not have done.

Obs. 13. Internal evidences of the beginnings of glory in grace, a sense of Gods love, and assured pledges of our adoption, will give insuperable joy unto the minds of men under the greatest outward sufferings.

Obs. 14. It is our interest in this world, as well as with respect unto eternity, to preserve our evidences for heaven clear and unstained, so that we may know in ourselves; which is the ground of this great duty.

Obs. 15. There is a substance in spiritual and eternal things, whereunto faith gives a subsistence in the souls of believers. See Heb 11:1.

Obs. 16. There is no rule of proportion between eternal and temporal things. Hence the enjoyment of the one will give joy in the loss of the other.

Fuente: An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews

call: Gal 3:3, Gal 3:4, Phi 3:16, 2Jo 1:8, Rev 2:5, Rev 3:3

after: Heb 6:4, Act 26:18, 2Co 4:6

ye endured: Heb 12:4, Act 8:1-3, Act 9:1, Act 9:2, Phi 1:29, Phi 1:30, Col 2:1, 2Ti 2:3-13, 2Ti 4:7, 2Ti 4:8

Reciprocal: Dan 11:32 – shall be Act 11:23 – and exhorted Eph 1:18 – eyes 2Th 1:5 – for 2Ti 1:10 – and hath Heb 6:11 – unto Heb 11:25 – Choosing Heb 11:27 – endured Jam 1:12 – the man 2Pe 1:12 – I will not

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE BLESSING OF REMEMBRANCE

But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions.

Heb 10:32

Remember the circumstances under which the temptation to fall away assailed the Hebrews. Christianity was no longer a new thing; there were long-continued hardships from unbelieving countrymen. The Lord had not yet come, as He had foretold, for the punishment of His enemies. The perilous times He had spoken of were upon them. Many of His followers were offended, many turned back and betrayed their brethren, iniquity abounded, and the love of many waxed cold. This Epistle was a trumpet blast to waverers, appealing to their reason, affection, fear, conscience.

The memory of early Christian life should encourage us to steadfastness. The writer of this Epistle reminds them

I.Of their early spiritual enlightenment.

II.Of what after their enlightenment they were able to do.

III.Of the hope which accompanied this.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Heb 10:32. Illuminated means to be enlightened by the Gosnel. Soon after these people became Christians they were persecuted by the unbelivers of both Jews and Gentiles. Paul terms this experience with afflictions as a fight, and of course it would be a “fight of faith” (1Ti 6:12).

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Heb 10:32. Call to remembrance (rather, call up and keep in remembrance) those former days in which, when first enlightened (as in chap. Heb 6:4), ye endured, without losing heart or hope (so the word implies), a great fight (a manifest struggle) of suffering, i.e consisting in suffering, not with suffering as your foe (Heb 10:34, where it is said that they suffered with those that were bound).

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Our apostle here proceeds to a new argument to persuade Christians to perseverance drawn from the consideration of their former sufferings for christianity:

“Since ye were illuminated, that is, baptized into the Christian faith, ye endured courageously afflictions, a fight of afflictions, yea, a great fight of afflictions.”

Learn hence, That the wisdom of God oft-times permits and suffers persons, at their first conversion, to fall into manifold trials and temptations: Carnal relations now first scoff, then frown, and at last cast off. The world hates them, marks them out for persecution, loads them with calumny and slander.

But observe, farther, The apostle directs them to call to remembrance their former sufferings: He doth not mean the remembrance of what was bitter and afflictive in their sufferings, but the cause for which they suffered, and the presence of God enjoyed by them in and under their sufferings: This would encourage, embolden, and strengthen unto duty:

Learn hence, That a wise management of former experience is a great direction and encouragement unto future obedience.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Believing To The Saving Of The Soul

Just as he did in chapter 6, the writer turned to encourage the Hebrew brethren. He wanted them to remember the days of persecution they previously endured. This was because they had turned from being children of darkness to being children of light. They had become the subjects of public insults and reproaches, or reproachful names. They also endured afflictions, including several kinds of abuse. They had even become friends with those who were suffering such trials, knowing it would mean like sufferings for themselves. Milligan says verse 34 should begin, “For ye sympathized with them who were in bonds.” Not only did they do that, but they also joyfully endured the losses which they had to suffer for being Christians. The reason they were able to endure all of these earthly losses was the heavenly reward awaiting them ( Mat 6:19-21 ).

The writer did not want them to become afraid and cast away their only hope. That hope was the way to receive the promised reward of heaven. Patient endurance in times of trial would cause them to continue in God’s will. It also would allow them to receive the promise of eternal life ( Heb 10:32-36 ; Gal 6:9 ).

The Hebrew brethren had apparently cried out asking, “How long will our suffering last?” In answer, the writer quotes from Isa 26:20 and Hab 2:3-4 . God promises those who will patiently wait an imminent end to the suffering. This could well refer to the coming of Christ at the destruction of Jerusalem, as in verse 25. This coming is one of providence, not necessarily a literal, physical coming. Historians tell us unbelieving Jews were taken captive or slain on that day, but the whole congregation of the Lord’s church at Jerusalem had left the city and escaped unharmed. The just man will be justified by his faith.

However, the one who has been just, but has drawn back from the faith will not please the Lord. The writer then encouraged his readers by saying he and they were not members of that group which would turn from the faith. Rather, they were of the group that is strong in the faith which is able to save the soul. They were of the group that would keep on believing till salvation “to the uttermost” ( Heb 7:25 ) has been received ( Heb 10:37-39 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

Heb 10:32-34. But As if he had said, I trust you will be preserved from so terrible a ruin; and in order that you may, I exhort you to call to remembrance the former days To look back upon past events, which, if duly considered, may be very instructive, and may prove the means of establishing you in your resolution of adhering to the gospel. In particular, reflect on what you have suffered, and how you have been supported and delivered, that you may not despond upon the approach of similar evils, but may still trust in God and persevere in his service; in which, after you were enlightened With the knowledge of God and of his truth; ye endured Courageously sustained, through Gods help; a great fight of afflictions A grievous persecution from your unbelieving brethren, and great and various troubles and distresses, on account of your faith in, and profession of, the gospel; and therefore you should not fall off now at last, lest you lose the fruit of all these sufferings. There were various persecutions of the Christians in Judea, particularly the great persecution after the death of Stephen, Act 8:1, and Herods persecution, Act 12:1. But perhaps the apostle here refers to the persecution in Judea, mentioned 1Th 2:14, in which the believing Hebrews showed great love to their suffering brethren, Heb 6:10. Their enduring this persecution with fortitude and patience, the apostle calls here , a great combat, in allusion to the combats in the Grecian games. Partly, &c. Both in respect of your own sufferings and of your sympathy with others in theirs; while ye were made a gazing-stock , made a public spectacle, or openly exposed, as in a theatre. See on 1Co 4:9. By reproaches Cast on you as atheists, or enemies to the true God, for deserting the institutions of Moses; and afflictions Which befel you on that and other accounts; and partly while ye became companions of them that were so used In pitying, owning, visiting, and relieving them who were treated in the same cruel manner. For ye had compassion on me Ye sympathized with all your suffering brethren, and with me in particular; in my bonds Both at Jerusalem and at Cesarea; and ye took joyfully For the sake of him who died for you; the spoiling of your goods The loss of your property; knowing in yourselves Or, rather, knowing that you have for yourselves; in heaven Laid up for you there; a better, than any which you lose, and an enduring substance Even unspeakable and eternal riches, glory, and felicity, when all the possessions of earth have perished, and all its sorrows have come to a perpetual period.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

ARGUMENT 13

GODS PREACHERS, THEATRICIANS.

32, 33. Remember the former days, in which shining you endured a great fight of affliction both being theatrical actors, in reproaches and tribulations, and being the companions of those thus exposed. Where the English says gazing-stock, the Greek is theaizomenoi i.e., theatrical actors are constituting a theatrical stage. I dictate these pages in San Francisco, Cal., during the morning; meanwhile I preach afternoon and night in the Peniel Mission. attending the church services as an auditor on Sunday mornings. Last Sunday, at 11 A.M., I attended service in a large edifice with an audience of about two hundred and an eloquent sermon, setting forth the optimistic views of the age, assuring us that the world was fast growing better in every respect. While he preached to two hundred in an auditorium competent to seat two thousand, I was reliably informed that a theater within two squares, at the same time, had an audience of three thousand. The pastor complained of the absence of his members, stating that one hundred had utterly skedaddled away, leaving neither trace nor track. In the afternoon of the same day the audience of our sanctification meeting was packed and overflowing. In this vast wicked metropolis of the great Pacific, churches are decimated and theaters crowded. We have the solution in the testimony of Apollos, given in this paragraph, i.e., that the gospel meetings in the apostolic age affected the people just like a free theater. Our holiness camp meetings are thronged with countless multitudes, meanwhile those held on unspiritual lines are very meagerly attended. They while away a whole week with a handful of people, waiting for Sunday to come and bring out the picnic crowd. When fiery baptisms copiously fl on the people, flooding them with rhapsody, casting out all the dumb devils and giving all the ready utterance of the Spirit, a lively sensation and thrilling enthusiasm characterize the meeting, affecting the unspiritual rabble just like a theater. The theater is the devils great meeting, running vigorously the encircling year. We can only compete with the devils theory by the Lords theory, i.e., red-hot Holy Ghost religion, characterized by lightning convictions, sky-blue conversions, sun- burst sanctifications, and showers of blessings rain down from heaven on the saints of God. In no other way can we possibly compete with the devils theater, saloon and race-track. The churches are everywhere fighting the holiness movement, meanwhile it is their only antidote for spiritual death and numerical decimation.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Heb 10:32-34. As in ch. 6, the writer turns from solemn warning to encouragement, based on the past record of his readers. He reminds them of the valour they had shown in the days immediately succeeding their conversion (Heb 10:32, after ye were enlightened). Like strong wrestlers they had stood up to persecution, content to be themselves the object of popular contempt and hatred, while they bravely assisted their fellow-sufferers (Heb 10:33). They had relieved their brethren who were thrown into prison, and had borne the confiscation of their wealth with joy, in the assurance that they had wealth of another kind which made them richer than those who robbed them (Heb 10:34). In our ignorance of the community to which the epistle is addressed, the nature and occasion of this persecution cannot be determined. It is noteworthy that there is no allusion to actual martyrdom; and this has been held by many to exclude Rome, which had suffered the terrible persecution under Nero in A.D. 64. But it is possible that the epistle is written to a new generation of Roman Christians which had grown up in the interval.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

Verse 32

Illuminated; converted,–brought into the light of Christ’s kingdom.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

10:32 {11} But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions;

(11) As he terrified the fallers away from God, so does he now comfort them that are constant and stand firm, setting before them the success of their former fights, so stirring them up to a sure hope of a full and ready victory.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

3. The encouragement to persevere 10:32-39

The writer concluded his warning by reminding his readers of their former faithfulness when tempted to encourage them to endure their present and future tests (cf. Heb 4:12-16; Heb 6:9-20).

"The juxtaposition of Heb 10:26-35 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 Heb 10:25 and a general tendency to avoid contact with outsiders observed elsewhere in Hebrews (see . . . Heb 5:11-14)." [Note: Lane, Hebrews 9-13, p. 297.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

In the past the original readers had proved faithful in severe trials of their faith. They had stood their ground when others had encouraged them to abandon it. They had withstood public shame and persecution for their faith. They had also unashamedly supported other believers who had undergone persecution in the same way.

"In the world of the first century the lot of prisoners was difficult. Prisoners were to be punished, not pampered. Little provision was made for them, and they were dependent on friends for their supplies [including food [Note: Moffatt, p. 154. Cf. Guthrie, p. 222.] ]. For Christians visiting prisoners was a meritorious act (Mat 25:36). But there was some risk, for the visitors became identified with the visited. The readers of the epistle had not shrunk from this. It is not pleasant to endure ignominy, and it is not pleasant to be lumped with the ignominious. They had endured both." [Note: Morris, p. 110.]

They had also been willing to suffer material loss because they looked forward to a better inheritance in the future (cf. Luk 21:19). Moreover they had done this joyfully, not grudgingly.

"The eternal inheritance laid up for them was so real in their eyes that they could lightheartedly bid farewell to material possessions which were short-lived in any case. This attitude of mind is precisely that ’faith’ of which our author goes on to speak." [Note: Bruce, The Epistle . . ., p. 270.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)