Letter to the Hebrews Volume 113

 We 'the Just' Must Live by Faith Part 5

Hebrews 10:30-31 For we know Him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto Me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God. KJV Note: CEV=Contemporary English Version

The writer of Hebrews now goes back again once more into the chronicles of the earlier Hebrew people by quoting the words written by Moses documenting the Words of the Lord God (Deuteronomy 32:35) that He spoke against His own people who followed after foreign gods, as it is written, "For we know Him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto Me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge His people." (Hebrews 10:30) (KJV). As we wrote in the previous study/commentary of the retribution of God the Father, so now we see Him declare said retribution Himself with these words written in Hebrews 10:30. The English word 'Vengeance' is translated by the Greek word ekdikēsis meaning vindication, retribution: punishment. The English word 'recompense' is translated by the Greek word antapodidōmi which means to requite (good or evil): - recompense, render, repay. In other words, this is the only option left for God the Father for every soul who neglects so great a salvation that is found only in our Lord, Master, and Savior Jesus Christ, just as this same writer of Hebrews declared to us very early on in this letter to the Hebrews with these words, "We must give our full attention to what we were told, so that we won't drift away. The message spoken by angels proved to be true, and all who disobeyed or rejected it were punished as they deserved. So if we refuse this great way of being saved, how can we hope to escape? The Lord Himself was the first to tell about it, and people who heard the message proved to us that it was true. God Himself showed that His message was true by working all kinds of powerful miracles and wonders. He also gave His Holy Spirit to anyone He chose to." (Hebrews 2:1-4) (CEV). "God is the God of justice. He is patient, but He will punish." (Robertson's Word Pictures). The writer of Hebrews puts it this way, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God." (Hebrews 10:31) (KJV). Time for we human beings is critical, for we watch people lose their lives (here on the earth) through war, disease, famine, murder, old age, etc., however, with God (the creator of time) He dwells or lives in eternity (which is timeless, that is, endless) and to Him one day is like 1,000 years and 1,000 years like one day (2 Peter 3:8), therefore, when we see injustice go on for 20 or 30 or 40 years without any retribution, it is not ever going on without the sure and certain judgement of God coming to it. The man or woman (the soul) that has been moved by, motivated by, and made to tremble by the Gospel of Christ and has walked up to the door of salvation and instead of opening up his or her inner man or inner woman to the Lord Jesus Christ, as it is written, "Listen! I am standing and knocking at your door. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will eat together." (Revelation 3:20) (CEV), instead they have turned away and went after other gods, such as astrology, witchcraft, sorcery, spiritualism, evolution, and a myriad of other none gods or false gods; so they have nothing to look forward to but what was just declared earlier by this same writer of Hebrews in verse 27 with these words, "They are God's enemies, and all they can look forward to is a terrible judgment and a furious fire." (Hebrews 10:27) (CEV). Here is what Adam Clarke had to say of Hebrews 10:31, "To fall into the Hands of God is to fall under His displeasure; and He who lives for ever can punish for ever. How dreadful to have the displeasure of an eternal, almighty Being to rest on the soul for ever! Apostates, and all the persecutors and enemies of God's cause and people, may expect the heaviest judgments of an incensed Deity: and these, not for a time, but through eternity."

Here is what Alexander MacLaren had to say of Hebrews 10:30, "All men admit in theory that a self-centred life is a blunder. Jesus Christ has all moralists and all thoughtful men wholly with Him when He says, 'He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life shall find it.' There is no such way of filling a soul with enlargement and blessedness and of evolving new powers and capacities as self-oblivion for some great cause, for some great love, for some great enthusiasm. Many a woman has found herself when she held her child in her arms, and in the self-oblivion which comes from maternal affections and cares has sprung into a loftier new life. Many a heart, of husband and wife, can set its seal to this truth, that the blessedness of love is that it decentralises the soul, and substitutes another aim for the wretched and narrow one that is involved in self-seeking. And even if we do not refer to these sacred heights of maternal or of wedded love, there are many other noble counterpoises to the do-grading influence of self-absorption, which all men recognise and some men practise. Whoever has once tasted the joy and rapture of flinging himself into some great enthusiasm, and has known how much fuller life is when so inspired than in its ordinary forms, needs no words to convince him that the secret of blessedness, elevation, and power, if it is to be put into one great word, must be put into this one, 'self-oblivion.' But whilst all these counterpoises to the love of self are, in their measure and degree, great and noble and blessed, not one of them, nor all of them put together, will so break the fetters from off a prisoned soul and let it out into the large place of utter and glad self-oblivion as the course which our text enjoins upon us when it says: If you wish to forget yourselves, to abandon and lose yourselves, fling yourselves into Christ's arms, and by faith yield your whole being, will, trust, purposes, aims, everything - yield them all to Him; and when you can say, 'We are not our own,' then first will you belong to yourselves and have won your own souls. There is nothing except that absolute departure from all reliance upon our own poor powers, and from all making of ourselves our centre and aim in life, which gives us true possession of ourselves. Nothing else is comparable to the talismanic power of trust in Jesus Christ. When thus we lose ourselves in Him we find ourselves, and find Him in ourselves. I believe that, at bottom, a life must either spin round on its own axis, self- centred and self-moved, or else it must be drawn by the mass and weight and mystical attractiveness of the great central sun, and swept clean out of its own little path to become a satellite round Him. Then only will it move in music and beauty, and flash back the lustre of an unfading light. Self or God, one or the other will be the centre of every human life."

If you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and His amazing healing power, pray this from your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ (you speaking directly to Him), Dear Lord Jesus, I confess to You that I am a sinner and I need Your forgiveness. I believe You shed Your Blood and died for my sins. I believe that You rose from the dead proving that You alone are God. I repent of my sins. I want to turn from my sins. I ask You Dear Lord Jesus to come into my heart and take control of my life. I want You to be my Lord, Savior, and my God. Amen...


Sincerely in Christ,


Clifford D. Tate, Sr.


Author of “Silent Assassins of the Soul - Are you Broken by Pornography and Masturbation? You can be Restored by the Lord Jesus Christ and brought into Deliverance, Freedom, and Victory! A Guide for Men and Women in the Enemy’s Crosshairs” e-book available now @ Amazon Kindle, @ Apple I Bookstore for IPod, Barnes and Noble for Nook, Reader Store for Sony Reade, Kobo, Copia, Gardners, Baker and Taylor, and eBookPie…