Hebrews Part 9

INTRO: We have come to the second chapter of Hebrews. One of the major tasks of preaching on a book is outlining the book so one understands the thought flow. Let me just mention for those of you who keep your outlines, in several messages I gave the capital A points in your outline as "The Evidence of Superiority." That title should always be capital B.

But as to outlining this book, one of the things to keep in mind is chapter 13:22 which says:

22 And I appeal to you, brethren, bear with the word of exhortation, for I have written to you in few words.

This book is an exhortation. The writer gives the ground for which he says something and then he draws a practical exhortation. There are five warning passages and they all occur in the exhortation sections of the book. We will meet the first exhortation in this message.

These warning passages create huge difficulties for Calvinists and the OSAS position. Let me give you the four main views of these warning passages in Hebrews.

-First is the hypothetical view. I looked at a lot of definitions on the meaning of "hypothetical" and still found it hard to define. Here is one definition: "based on situations or ideas that are possible and imagined rather than real and true." Usually they begin something like this, "What if…" Or "Suppose that…" When the hypothetical explanation is used to explain these warning passages what is meant is that what is warned about won't happen in real life. It is just hypothetical.