Hebreos 2:1

The meaning of "For this reason" is that since Jesus Christ is greater than the angels we should take the revelation that has come through Him seriously. If the Israelites received severe punishment whenever they disobeyed the Mosaic Law that God gave them through angels, the punishment for disregarding what God has give us through His Son will be even more severe. [Note: Ellingworth, p. 137.] Later in this epistle we learn that the original readers were slow to respond to Scriptural imperatives (Hebrews 5:11-12). They had not grown as Christians as they should have. The writer took this opportunity to exhort them to "pay much closer attention" (Gr. prosechein) to what their teachers had taught them and to what they had read in the Scriptures. This Greek word means not only to turn the mind to something but also to act upon what one perceives (cf. Acts 8:6; Acts 16:14). The readers were apparently regarding these things too lightly.

"God’s speaking is the basis for the writer’s own ’word of exhortation’ (Hebrews 13:22)." [Note: Ibid., p. 134.]

The writer illustrated their position. It is as though they were in a boat on a river or at sea. He pictured them moored at a dock or anchored. If they continued to neglect their attachment to the truth that does not change, the currents of their age might carry them away from it. They might drift away from the truth that they had heard (though not from their eternal salvation, cf. Hebrews 6:19). "What we have heard" is the antecedent of "it." This is a warning against apostatizing, departing from truth once held. All the warnings in the Bible against following false teachers are similar to this one in their intent. If we do not diligently remain in the truth-and to do so we must know it and remember it-we will depart from it. We live in a world that is striving to separate us from it. Satan also wants us to abandon it (cf. Genesis 3; Matthew 4).

". . . the [five warning] passages in question are concerned with the danger of apostasy." [Note: Stanley D. Toussaint, "The Eschatology of the Warning Passages in the Book of Hebrews," Grace Theological Journal 3 (1982):67-68. ]

However, this writer believed the apostates were all unbelievers.

". . . apostasy . . . [is] the central concern of the entire epistle." [Note: George E. Rice, "Apostasy As a Motif and Its Effect on the Structure of Hebrews," Andrews University Seminary Studies 23:1 (Spring 1985):33.]

"That church’s experience 2,000 years ago intersects our lives in this way: drifting is the besetting sin of our day. And as the metaphor suggests, it is not so much intentional as from unconcern. Christians neglect their anchor-Christ-and begin to quietly drift away. There is no friction, no dramatic sense of departure. But when the winds of trouble come, the things of Christ are left far behind, even out of sight." [Note: R. Kent Hughes, Hebrews , 1:48.]

". . . if you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?" [Note: C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 124.]