Shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?

The word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward. That word is the law of Moses, which was delivered by angels to Moses and through Moses to Israel. That law is a lovely divine revelation of God and what man must be in relationship to his neighbor and to God. It had a shadow of good things to come, a promise of what God would do in Christ to fulfill his covenant and abolish the laws of ordinances. How lovely! No wonder then that he who despised the law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. That was just. No one could find fault with that. Sin against the lovely requires an ugly punishment.

How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation as has been manifested to us in the person of the Son of God by the everlasting gospel? Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who has trodden underfoot the Son of God and counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing and has done despite unto the Spirit of grace?

Many, many stripes in comparison to the heathen. The lot of the heathen is terrible. What did God do to Sodom and Gomorrah and to Tyre and Sidon? But what did they have? They had the manifestation of God in creation. Christless revelation. It is enough. In the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, they will be without excuse for holding the truth under in unrighteousness. The heathen do not escape! Look around and see God’s judgments in the earth! The heathen prosper in their sin. God gives them over to a reprobate mind, and they have sin upon sin. And they die and are punished everlastingly in hell. Why? The truth of God was manifested unto them, even his eternal power and Godhead!

The lot of the one who neglects so great salvation will be worse than the lot of unbelieving Israelites too! Certainly, they received the revelation of the oracles of God, a sure word concerning what they must believe and for what they must look. All who despised that word perished without mercy!

But how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? The crime expressed in these words is almost beyond description. The one who neglects so great salvation has the Son of God come to him. The Son of God gives himself to be crucified in front of him. The Son of God speaks to him of the full and free forgiveness of sins; of wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; of the life to come; and of the hope of glory.

If you neglect that, you count that word of the Son of God as nothing. But a man who does that cannot stay there. The word of the one who speaks in the house of God as a Son is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword: it divides, pierces, exposes, hardens, and enrages the neglectful hearer. And the Word—who always comes in a form in which man can kill him—allows himself to be trodden underfoot, and the Spirit who brings that Word allows himself to be insulted and mocked. Is there a worse crime?

The men of Israel who perished in unbelief and without mercy beneath the word of angels will shake their heads at that man. Nay, more, the men of Sodom and Gomorrah will rise up to condemn him. For if so many mighty words and deeds as the mighty words and deeds of the gospel had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented long ago.