HEBREWS CHAPTER 10:32-39 

After the fourth great warning to the Hebrew Christians which we spoke of in verses 26-31, the first church of Jesus Christ, who had stood faithfully for 30-40 years, were then faced with the temptation of abandoning their living faith in Jesus Christ and loving community with one another. Their severe warning is immediately followed by fortifying words not to succumb the temptations set before them in VERSES 32-39. Where it is written, “But call to remembrance the former days… (when you received the supernatural light of the Gospel Covenant followed by your zealous behavior of the enlightened, and willingly suffering persecution and the forfeiting of this world’s goods)…knowing (having sure knowledge) in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better an enduring substance… (according to the received heavenly calling; {Hebrews 3:1} a great contrast with those who received the earthly calling where they were granted all Egypt’s booty, and not even a dog dared bark at them) {Exodus 11:7}…cast not away therefore your confidence, (let the mind be renewed in the sure hope of that calling and cause  humiliation and repentance)…which hath great recompense of reward…ye have need of patience, THAT AFTER YOU HAVE DONE THE WILL OF GOD (righteously by faith in Christ live) YE MIGHT RECEIVE THE PROMISE (the promise of His Son’s Coming again with reward)…if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him…who draw back unto perdition;” {destruction, ruin} (this is the similar threat with encouragement in continuance in righteous living with patience given by Christ to the Church of Ephesus just a few years later. “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.”  [Revelation 2:5]  

Is not this the warning’s design, that is, of the great loss of reward for the “faithless saved” (faithless Christian) to put the Christian back in mindful posture to ever be vigilant in his resolve to live a righteous life in order  “..to lay hold upon the hope set before us”? That we enlightened Christians might not be subject to any exacting recompense for our contrary doings against the will of God, and that being potentially very severe. Knowing this: the Father will not let His called children abuse their position. He will not hold them unaccountable for living a life like those unregenerate, whom He has promised severe eternal punishment. Is it not modern–day Christendom that takes the place of the Garden serpent and says: “Yea hath God really said..?….Ye shall not surely die…” (Genesis 3:1,4 and Hosea 4:9) “You are the loved children of God in Christ. Doesn’t the Word say, “for God has not appointed you unto Wrath”? That half-truth deceives Christians into a presumptuous mindset that causes them to willfully stop walking circumspectly before God, and to stray. The are in need of reminding, and sometimes by chastening, that Christians who walk unrighteously will not inherit the kingdom of heavens. (1st Corinthians 6:9-10, Galatians 5:21, Ephesians 5:5) 

The Hebrew Christians casting away their confidence equates to the removal of the candlestick/lampstand. (Revelation 2:5) The end result of their actions if they give up is that the power of sustaining grace is removed, righteous living spurred by faith and hope with testimony is lost, and with it the possibility of goodness and acceptability in His Kingdom Coming. “Christ is become of no effect unto you…..ye are fallen from grace.” [Galatians 5:4]   

Note as extremely important; the exhortation to not cast away our first works’ confidence and to repent shows the great efficacy of the believer’s repentance in the restoration of grace, (the Divine influence upon the heart) in the turning aside of the threatened and sure sore judgments. We should be able to find ourselves in all the warnings of Revelation 1-3 or in the warnings to the Hebrews. 

VERSE 37 “For yet, a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” WHAT IS THE CHIEF NEED OF THIS WORLD?….THE RETURN OF THE CONQUERING KING AND HIS GOVERNMENT. (Psalm 96:9-13)   

Revelation 1:19 “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter…” Christ breaks up the future time table in two parts until His Return.  “…the things which are (ongoing)…” that is to say the calling out of a people from the Gentiles: in bringing many sons unto glory, to be peculiarly known by God’s Name, in the Age of Grace and Mercy.  (Acts 15:14, Hebrews 2:10) That has not yet passed for two thousand years, as the prophetic history of the World is playing out, while the mysterious kingdom of heavens (Matthew 13:11) has been dynamically forming as Christ the Mediating Advocate and High Priest constructs His Body. Meanwhile the Father ever judges and administers His restraining sovereignty over the current, but defeated, incumbent government of this World, and that through the two angelic forces until Christ’s Kingly Coronation. 

Now the prophetic Book is primarily about the revealing of the Apocalypse after Christ has set aside His advocating robes as the High Priest and Mediator before the Father (as He can not be both Advocate and Judge at the same time) and has taken His long awaited investiture as King of kings and Judge of this World, in the heavens associated with this Earth,\. (Daniel 7:9-14,  Revelation 4:1–2)  The awful Day of the Lord has arrived; seen from the 4th chapter on, which detailing prophetic words are not in the things which are …but are in “…the things which shall be here after…” It is to this specific and short time, (Daniel’s 70th week of 7 years duration) that Hebrews 10 verse 37 points. “For yet a little while and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry”, for all these things will culminate rapidly.     

WHAT IS REALLY AT STAKE FOR A REDEEMED CHRISTIAN? It is the promised acceptance or rejection into the heavenly kingdom according to worthiness, to be manifest (not necessarily determined) at His Coming. Which holds forth the exclusive reward of the First Resurrection selection from out from among the dead and the selection of those caught up from among the living.  

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE? The purpose and effect of this is the unique change of body structure, into a spiritual being, that New Creature, where the “naked” soul, now eternally ever existing, is united with spirit & body and thereby made incorruptible. In that we must be made like Him in order that we might enter into His presence. (1st Timothy 6:16 describes the Glorified Jesus, “Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.” 

1st Corinthians 15:50 says, “…that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” (When we die, our soul is without our physical body and neither are we clothed yet so we are considered naked. In this state, we cannot be in His Presence. Incorruption cannot occur at death. It can only happen when we receive a glorified body which isn’t until the First Resurrection when corruptible is clothed with incorruption in the heavenly realm and thus we are only then able to be with Him in His glory, (Colossians 3:4, 1st John 3:1-3) and to bestowed by Him with power to assist in ruling His Kingdom. (See 1st Thessalonians 4:16–17, Revelation 3:21, 2:27, 20:4. These verses all show the sharing of authority which is given to the worthy at the First Resurrection.) To attain this “…prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”, Paul thought it worthy to lose all else “If by any means (no cost too great to bear) I might (implies he may or may not) attain (the great hope set before him, that which he held modestly) unto the (out/First) resurrection from the dead.” Philippians 3:11) Failure is possible. (Compare with Luke 20:35) 

WHEN WILL HE COME?… At any moment? No, not any moment but that precise moment that the Father reserves unto Himself. (Acts 1:7) Christ cannot come until His enemies ripen the time, (2nd Thessalonians 2:3) then He shall come and not tarry. And in the interim time, God answers to all the professional inquisitors, presumptuous speculators, the fearful impatient, as well the earnest seeker… “…the just shall live by fait.” or the Greek literally says, “..the just (righteous) by faith (keeping the prospects of loss or gain always before them) shall live.“ (live = so order their lives in this World) 

The modern Christian idea that merely believing in Christ and His sacrificial offering, equates to faith and makes one righteous in God’s eyes is terribly misguided and is a destructive heresy. (The subject of faith will be taken up in the next chapter; Hebrews 11). One who is living un-righteously cannot be living by faith. (These believe that having faith is having license.) To believe He is Coming, and to live like He is not; is faithless unrighteousness, subject to the warning’s punishment. “…that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; And he shall begin to smite his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunken; The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in a hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 24:48-51)  

One who is living righteously, that is to say according to Christ’s Commands in anticipation of His Coming is living in Faith. “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh. Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods” 

VERSE 38 says, “…but if he draws (shrinks) back… (this does not suggest a return back unto Egypt/the World, but the shrinking back from taking possession of the promised land/kingdom of heavens… “And there in Canaan we saw the giants… and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers…” (this is a picture of the faithless redeemed) [Numbers 13:32–33] “…your carcasses, they shall fall in this wilderness.” [Numbers 14:32] And again, this drawing back short–sightedness is seen in the 70 elders that went up the Mountain with Moses, who had experienced a taste of God’s glory, who then lost hope of his coming back, and returned down from the mount and willfully and willingly joined the unruly saved below and made a flesh–pleasing religion of their own, fit for their present happiness in the wilderness. Correspondingly, the vast majority God was not pleased with as they lost their lives in the wilderness short of His promises. (1st Corinthians 10:5) (This equates to those in Christendom who have tasted of His glory and then draw back joining themselves with the rest of unruly Christians who are happy in their wilderness. They succumb due to deception, peer pressure or because they are not willing to pay the price. They have drawn back and remain there unrepentant, for whatever reason, throughout their lives, their lives shall have been wasted and their soul will be lost, that is to the resurrection life in glory. The heavenly calling they will have fallen short of, and be locked out from as the unwise virgins… “…the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.” Though saved, having eternal life does not eliminate eternal loss of the heavenly kingdom, or severe and even long punishment after death (albeit not eternally for the justified/saved) as perdition’s punishment to them answers to reclamation, and has the morality of the adopted child of the family of the Father in view. The legality of to whom does he belong had been eternally settled at redemption. The King judges His family members and servants of His household in quite a different manner than enemy criminals whose punishment is of an eternal kind. (Luke 19:27) Yet they too, shall not escape, but fall under the universal just vindicating government of God. There must be just recompense for all these recipients of the eternal gift, who afterwards withheld their required faithfulness. (These have eternal life which is merely having eternal existence which falls far short of having eternal glory. These have resisted the promptings of the Spirit.) They must pay all that is yet due that they withheld from God. That is, wherever faithful service was shirked, debt to God thereby incurred, and was found at the judgment seat unforgiven. (See Luke 12:58-59 and  Matthew 5:25-26…“Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.”)  

It is here we shall stop a moment and speak to the confusion surrounding His Coming in modern–day Christendom. A great key to a seeker’s understanding, where he may connect all the seemingly contradictory Scriptures, is the little known agricultural typology of the Old Testament of First-Fruits. “When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: (Leviticus 23:10–11, Exodus 22:29, Revelation 14:4) This was an offering of the early ripened grain unto God before the Harvest of the entire field was ready. (The first fruits of the Harvest is a picture of the watchful Christians who are ripened/ready  who are taken up into the 1st Heaven to be with Christ while the remaining Christians who were not ready have to endure much of the long, hot summer and need to be ripened by the heat of the sun and blistering wind of the tribulation in order to be ready to be harvested at the end-time Harvest right before Christ’s visible Coming at the end of the final 7 year period.) 

Christ’s Coming Presence/Parousia is developed and realized in the anti-type in two phases. 1) the Parousia in the invisible heavens associated with this World where He will receive His investiture as King (Revelation 4:2, 2nd Kings 6:17) where and then it is written there is war and He then will cast down its wicked spirit occupants to Earth. (Ephesians 6:12 with Revelation 12:7-9) This, His first Coming Presence will then also realize the ripened First-Fruits offering of sons unto God caught up into that heavenly place now vacated by the angels, (which answers to the heavenly calling of Hebrews 3:1) as living overcomers securing the promise of Revelation 3:10. “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”  

This is His first Coming Presence to the invisible heavens associated with this Earth. And then around 3 ½ years later, comes the great Harvest when He will raise the now ripened faithful in the field of the earth and those faithful out from among the dead in Hades to join Him in the air (Revelation 14:12, 14-16 and 1st Corinthians 15, 1st Thessalonians 4:16–17) to the same heavens related to the earth, to the marriage supper of the Lamb Revelation 19:7-9). And He and His Bride will then shortly manifest upon the earth where every eye shall then see Him (and them) Revelation 1:7, 19:11-21) and He will destroy His enemies among mankind and cast the fallen angels into the Pit in Hades for a thousand years, and the Anti-Christ and False Prophet into Hell/lake of fire forever. 

It is in the two raptures, (first-fruits and harvest raptures) and the first resurrection out from among the dead that these alone will discover the salvation of the soul…the great recompense of reward. For those who will at last have completed the doing of the will of God shall receive what He has promised. The merely saved Christians will experience the sad and frightening discovery that they are found not worthy, and fall short of “…the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2nd Thessalonians 2:14) The question of drawing back into perdition; (which answers to all the warnings) now confronts the fearful, un-instructible, unwise virgins, the slothful servant, the religiously presumptuous. It is the man who did once walk by faith turning back to walk by sight. It is the man of faith returning to works, so abandoning grace for law as the ground of dealing with God, giving up Christ to follow Moses, forsaking the heavenly and substantial for the earthly, the shadowy. 

*TWO ways may the Greek word psuche can be translated according to context: life or soul. 

“Whosoever shall seek to save (preserve acquire for one’s own) his *life (or soul) shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his *life (or soul) shall preserve (save) it.” Here in Luke 17:33, it is clearly life as it was Lot’s wife who lost her life.  

Both meanings are used in the warnings of the Gospel, such as in 1st Corinthians 11 to physical life or here in Hebrews 10:39, the physical life can be applied but the context is the loss of heaven’s reward after this life, so it is soul–ical loss.  

**IT SHOULD BE MADE CLEAR also THAT THE WORD PERDITION/DESTRUCTION /RUIN is used to express different degrees…The word itself does not determine the state or degree, but the context.