There evidently had been ground for the extreme warning given us in chapter 6 also; and of course the danger of apostacy is always real among those who name the Lord’s name. Only those who become partakers of divine nature by grace surmount the difficulties and overcome the world through faith. Yet here as before the actually bright side is not forgotten, but enlarged in for the comfort of those who held fast.
“But call to remembrance the former days in which, when enlightened, ye endured much conflict of sufferings, partly being made a spectacle by both reproaches and afflictions, and partly also having become partakers with those thus conversant. For ye both sympathized with those in bonds, and accepted with joy the plundering of your goods, knowing that ye have for yourselves a better substance and abiding. Cast not away therefore your confidence, since it (the which) hath great recompense. For of endurance ye have need, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise. For yet a very little while he that cometh will be come and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrink back, my soul hath no pleasure in him. But we have no shrinking back unto perdition, but faith unto soul winning” (verses 32-39).
Relaxation is ever a danger for soldiers when on service, as Christians always are here below; and those who had been Jews were exposed to it as much at least as Gentile brethren, which we may see for those last in 1 Cor. 4 and 15. The Hebrew believers had begun well; they are here urged to continue enduring the fierce conflict of the enemy. All the old English versions save that of Rheims (1552) narrow their sympathy according to the Text. Rec. to the bonds of him who now wrote; but the better reading seems to be “the prisoners” i.e. of the Lord in general. To some of feeble faith this is no small trial; to others the plunder of their property. These saints had shone in both respects. “In heaven” appears to be a copyist's addition, as is “in” (ἐν) just before. Still the great guard is against casting away their confidence or boldness of soul, the root within of outward suffering as of service. Patient endurance is needed as ever, of which the love of Christ is the spring, glory with Him the cheer along the road, where the will of God is for us to do, as it was done by Him perfectly. The recompense assured is inseparable from His advent; which here as elsewhere is kept immediately before the Christian.
The application of Habakkuk's words is modified in accordance with our hope by the same divine Spirit Who inspired the prophet. “For the vision is for a time, and it shall shoot forth at the end, and not in vain: though he should tarry, wait for him; for he will surely be come and will not delay.” So runs Hab. 2:3 in the Sept. Christ's first coming and work give occasion for the beautiful and true modification in our paraphrase, while the prophecy abides in all its undiminished force for those who received Him, and others like them up to the end. For the Christian the known person of Christ shines; He is all. Death is in no sense our hope, but the coming of the Bridegroom, not the mere fulfillment of the vision. If we depart to be with Him meanwhile, it is far better than remaining here absent from the Lord. Present, or absent, we are still waiting, as He is, Who will surely be come and not tarry. Times and seasons have do with “the day of the Lord,” when execution of divine judgment comes on the world, not on the dead yet, but the quick. “The coming or presence of the Lord,” as the hope of the heavenly saints, is altogether independent of the revelation of earthly events, as it is before their accomplishment; and therefore is that hope precisely the same for us now as for those in apostolic times.
Christendom fell away, though never so much as in the last century and half, into the dream of the church triumphant, not suffering, and of a worldwide victory for the gospel during the Lord's absence. All distinctive truth and heavenly hope are surrendered by an error as stupendous for principle as for practice. For it levels the N. T. to the footing of the O.T., and obscures, where it does not destroy, the characteristic force of both. The result for thoughtful minds, we say not for believers, is an enormous impulse given, both to superstition, which in its blindness seeks to amalgamate Judaism and Christianity, and to rationalism, which has no faith in the word of God, and no divinely given perception of either, as Christ is little to both.
But the language of the prophet in the verse (4) that follows is also turned to suited and serious use: “It he should draw back, my soul hath no pleasure in him; but the just one shall live by faith in (of) me.” It is plain that in this epistle the order is adapted to the object in hand, which is not to enforce justification by faith as in Rom. 1:17, nor to set aside the interpolation of the law in opposition to grace as in Gal. 3:11, but to insist on faith as the power of life, and this too practically, as in all else: of which the chapter that follows is the weighty and interesting illustration.
If the true reading here is, as it appears to be on adequate authority, “my just (or righteous) one,” it is excellent sense, as testifying God's appreciation of the one who walked in faith and righteousness—of the power of his life. In contrast is “his soul which is lifted up,” instead of dependent on God and His word. Like Cain, there was no uprightness in him, but evil works and hatred, the end of which is drawing back to perdition: nothing more offensive to God. The notion for which Delitzsch very improperly contended, that “thy righteous one” is the necessary subject of the sorrowful supposition that here follows, is quite unfounded, as ought to have been plain from verse 39 which encourages every believer. Never does the Holy Spirit lead such an one to a doubt; but many a professor does draw back to his ruin. W. K.