Useful Bible Studies > Hebrews Commentary > chapter 2
When we read the Book of Hebrews, it is hard to know where to pause. Each verse leads to the next verse. Each passage leads to the next passage. But certainly, the end of chapter 1 is not a good place to pause. In many Bibles, Hebrews 2:1 begins with the word ‘therefore’. In the original language, ‘therefore’ translates words that mean ‘because of this’. So we must use the things that we learned in chapter 1 to understand the start of chapter 2.
Hebrews 1:14 is about angels, God’s servants whom he sends from heaven. They come to help the people whom he will save. In Hebrews 2:2, the author declares how important their message was. Anyone who did not obey that message suffered the proper punishment.
A good example is what happened to Lot and his family (Genesis chapter 19). Lot was a good man who lived in a very wicked city, Sodom. Because Sodom had become so evil, God decided to destroy the whole city. But before he destroyed it, he sent two angels to save Lot, his wife, and his daughters.
The angels told Lot to leave Sodom at once. When he hesitated, the angels took him, his wife, and his daughters by the hand. The angels led them out of the city. Then the angels told them that they must run away. They must not stop, and they must not even look back.
So the angels saved Lot and his daughters when fire from heaven destroyed Sodom. But they could not save Lot’s wife, because she did not obey. She looked back at the city. Probably, she did that because she wanted to return there. And because she did that, she died with the inhabitants of Sodom. The Bible records that she became a column of salt (Genesis 19:26). Perhaps it means that salt from the explosion at Sodom covered her. There is much salt in that region, by the Dead Sea.
Clearly, the messages that angels brought were important. But now God’s Son himself has spoken to us. Servants may bring an important message. But when their master and king speaks, that is much more important!
So we certainly must not neglect the work that God’s Son did to save us. There is no other way to avoid the punishment for our evil deeds. We could never save ourselves.
Jesus himself warned about this. People who refused to accept his words would suffer an even worse fate than Sodom (Matthew 10:15). And he explained the reason in Matthew 11:23. God had done great and wonderful things by his Son. If the people in Sodom had seen such things, they would have decided to obey God.
The work of God’s Son is so wonderful that he can even save people as wicked as Sodom’s inhabitants!
Next part: The wonderful things that God does (Hebrews 2:4)
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© 2014, Keith Simons.