¹⁴ For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end, ¹⁵ while it is said, “Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me.”

Superiority of Christ over the angels is the first theme of the book of Hebrews. We saw that in Hebrews 1-2. The second theme, in which we find ourselves now, has to do with the superiority of Christ over Moses. Seeing this comparison chronologically, under Moses Israel failed to enter the Promised Land (equated in Hebrews with “rest”). They had failed to heed God’s warning against hardening their hearts. Christians too, must take heed.

Parenthetically, our passage quotes Psalm 95, which itself reflects back on a dark period of Israel’s history – a quote of an allusion to an historical event—so the warning is to latter day Israel during the time of the monarchy and prophets as well as a warning to the Christians of the 1^st century. Indeed, the warning is to God’s people throughout history.

This verse is used by some to “prove” a person once saved may forfeit his salvation by not holding fast. Certainly a genuine Christian is here in view, and the writer includes himself in the “we.” However, if this verse means a Christian could lose his salvation, then we can never be sure we are saved until we die, at which time it would be determined whether we held fast until the end. We would be left holding on to our own hope that somehow our meritorious “work” enables us to be saved in the end. This leaves us with serious questions about the nature of our relationship with God, whether it is conditioned by grace alone through faith, or whether some effort is required on our part. A gift that has strings attached is not free, it is not biblical grace.

There is another more likely interpretation that fits well with the overall security of the believer as taught in other passages (see Romans 8, for example). The evidence or proof that we have become genuine Christians is our holding fast from the beginning to the end. The English word “if” in the passage renders the Greek word “eanper,” which means “if indeed” or “supposing that.” The writer is not calling into question the believer’s salvation (we might say “eternal security”), but is appealing to the readers “assurance” which comes from observing the progress of their lives. Jesus often taught that a person’s life example gives evidence of the nature of their relationship to Him (see John 13:35, Matt 7:16). He is separating out the genuine from imitation. True believers should continue to hold fast, by heeding the lessons learned from ancient Israel.