Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Hebrews 10:23

Hebrews 10:23. Thus forgiven and renewed and sprinkled with blood, washed as with water, heaven is ours, though only in hope (Romans 8:24), and what remains is that we hold fast the profession of our hope (the undoubted reading) without wavering. Those who refer the previous clause to baptism find here an argument for that view: ‘hold fast' the hope which you expressed when you confessed Christ in baptism, became conformed to Him in His death, and vowed to walk henceforth in newness of life (Romans 6:3-15; Colossians 2:12; Galatians 3:27) a good sense; and yet confession is generally used in this Epistle without specific reference to baptism (chap. Hebrews 4:14; Hebrews 3:1), and the change of reading from ‘faith' to ‘hope' points rather to the view that it is not chiefly the baptismal answer they are to remember, but the general hope in Christ which their daily life and speech have avowed to the world. Their hope is not to ‘waver,' but is to be stedfast (chap. Hebrews 3:14), neither allured by worldly pleasures nor frightened by persecutions, doubting neither the greatness nor the certainty of the reward.

For faithful is he that promised a common Pauline formula (1 Thessalonians 5:24; 1 Corinthians 1:9; 1 Corinthians 10:13, etc.). A lying god, a perjured god (chap. Hebrews 6:18), is not the God of the covenant or of the Bible.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Hebrews 10:23

Old Testament

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