Messianic Jews 2:1-4
Letter to the Messianic Jews

In my last post, we learned about Yeshua, the Son of God in Messianic Jews 1:5-14.   In this post, we explore Messianic Jews 1:2-1-4 ~ Yeshua, the Son of Man ~ Part 1. This passage concern’s a warning against rejecting God’s revealed Word. Woe to those who do not hear and act upon the revelation of the Lord.

“¹ Therefore, we must pay much more careful heed to the things we have heard, so that we will not drift away. ² For if the word God spoke through angels became binding, so that every violation and act of disobedience received its just deserts in full measure, ³ then how will we escape if we ignore such a great deliverance? This deliverance, which was first declared by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard Him; ⁴ while God also bore witness to it with various signs, wonders and miracles, and with gifts of the Ruach HaKodesh which He distributed as he chose.” ~ Hebrews 2:1-4 (CJB)

The readers of this book are advised not less than five times to pursue the truth themselves actively and not drift away through complacency, apathy or neglect (here and Messianic Jews 3:6b-4:16; 5:11-6:12; 10:19-39; and 12:1-13:22).

If the Messiah is just another angel, there is little reason to take His Gospel seriously. But because He is God’s Son and “much better than angels” from our previous study, therefore, we must pay much more careful heed to the things we have heard.

Although angels are inferior to the Messiah, and in the end even inferior to saved human beings (1:14), nevertheless their role is not negligible because, through angels, God spoke a word, the Torah [Judaism recognized the intermediary role of angels at Mount Sinai. ^“you! [speaking to the Jews]~ who receive the Torah as having been delivered by angels — but do not keep it!” Acts 7:53 (CJB).] In the Torah, every violation and act of disobedience received its just deserts, that is, the Torah specified the sanctions for violations of its laws. The actual punishments are meted out on earth through judgments of b’tei-din (Jewish courts) and acts of God; the final distribution of just deserts, as foretold in the Tanakh (see especially Daniel 12:3), will be at the Last Judgment (as we learned in our last study of Revelation 20:11-15).

How will we escape the condemnation pronounced in the Torah for our disobedience (compare Galatians 3:10-13) if we ignore the deliverance called great because it spares us the terrible sentence we richly deserve? The implied answer, of course, is that we won’t; because there is no other way to escape it (Acts 4:12).

Yeshua both initiated this deliverance and was the first to declare it. By referring to those who heard Him as having confirmed the Besorah to us, the writer indicates that neither he nor his readers knew Yeshua personally during His earthly lifetime, which many contend would eliminate Sha’ul as the writer since he saw and heard directly from Yeshua.

Gifts of the Ruach HaKodesh are the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit found predominately in 1 Corinthians 12:4-31, Romans 12:6-8, Ephesians 4:11.

Barclay offers these interesting insights into this passage: [1]

For most of us, the threat of life is not so much that we should plunge into disaster, but that we should drift into sin. There are few people who deliberately and in a moment turn their backs on God; there are many who day by day drift farther and farther away from him. There are not many who in one moment of time commit some disastrous sin; there are many who almost imperceptibly involve themselves in some situation and suddenly awake to find that they have ruined life for themselves and broken someone else’s heart. We must be continually on the alert against the peril of the drifting life.

The writer to the Hebrews ends this paragraph by stating three ways in which the Christian revelation is unique.

• It is unique in its origin. It came direct from Jesus himself. It does not consist of guessings and gropings after God; it is the very voice of God himself which comes to us in Jesus Christ.
• It is unique in its transmission. It came to the people to whom Hebrews was written from men who had themselves heard it direct from the lips of Jesus. The one man who can pass on the Christian truth to others is he who knows Christ “other than at second hand.” We can never teach what we do not know; and we can teach others of Christ only when we know him ourselves.
• It is unique in its effectiveness. It issued in signs and wonders and manifold deeds of power. Someone once congratulated Thomas Chalmers after one of his great speeches. “Yes,” he said, “but what did it do?” As Denney used to say, the ultimate object of Christianity is to make bad men good; and the proof of real Christianity is the fact that it can change the lives of men. The moral miracles of Christianity are still plain for all to see.

In my next post, we’ll explore the Kingdom C0nferred on Yeshua in Messianic Jews 2:5-9 ~ Yeshua, the Son of Man ~ Part 2

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[1] Barclay’s Daily Study Bible (NT) by William Barclay.