Jesus Is Better Week 3 | Hebrews 2:1-4

By Darren Nguyen

Comparing Apostasy Under the Old and New Covenant

In the text this week, the author of Hebrews shares the first of five warning passages against apostasy, a decisive turning away from the faith. You might think to yourself, “Wait, I thought it was once saved, always saved?” or, “Is it possible to lose your salvation?” The key questions of the nature of our salvation and whether or not one can lose it have sparked many debates all throughout church history, extending into the modern day as we see people we know and love leave the church. These questions are not new by any means and Jewish rabbis and scribes wrestled with them long before Jesus’s ministry began on earth. This article seeks to examine the concept of apostasy under the Old and New Covenant to tackle one core question: Can you really lose your salvation?

Apostasy Under the Old Covenant

The Old Covenant, or the Mosaic Covenant, is an agreement between God and His people, the Israelites. The central statement of the covenant is found in Exodus 19:4-7. God said, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” One could certainly view the covenant as conditional because of the “if” and “then” language, but unfortunately it is not that simple. The promise is plain, but it requires complete obedience by the Israelites, and there was not a single Israelite who could keep the entire law.

So if no Israelite could keep their end of the covenant, what was the point of the covenant? The point of the covenant was to reveal God’s nature through the Israelite nation. Either Israel would represent God and his nature to the other nations through their adherence to the law, or God would reveal his nature through his discipline of the Israelites (or lack thereof). The covenant ultimately could be viewed through a lens of grace. Through grace, the Israelites were delivered from Egypt. There was nothing that the Israelites did nor was there anything inherent to their nature that made them deserving of God’s mercy. If their deliverance from Egypt was through grace, then a greater grace was given to them through the establishment of the Old Covenant. Though the Israelites disobeyed the Law and removed their covenantal blessings through their disobedience, in grace God still allowed them to continue on in the Law rather than rejecting them outright.

Because no Israelite could keep the covenant, apostasy under the Old Covenant was not a failure to adhere to the Law but instead a decisive rejection of God’s grace. Jewish rabbis and scribes understood that despite one being circumcised and joining themself to God’s people, that did not mean that the individual was saved. Salvation as shown through Abraham, is dependent on one’s faith rather than his or her adherence to the Law, for Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness before his circumcision (Romans 4:10). One’s continuation in the Old Covenant was a sign of their faith, accepting God’s grace and understanding that although they could not fully keep the Law, they wanted to live in God’s grace. Through a decisive rejection of the Law, an apostate Israelite demonstrates not just a general unfaithfulness that removes the covenantal blessings of God but also a hardened heart that does not desire to receive the grace of God and therefore rejects fellowship and relationship with God. Oftentimes, these apostate Israelites would still consider themselves to be a part of the Israelite nation despite their decisive unfaithfulness.

Let’s look at an example of apostasy under the Old Covenant. A great example is the golden calf narrative in Exodus 32. The Israelites had just agreed to the covenant in Exodus 24 and while they were waiting for Moses to come back from Mt. Sinai with the codified law, Aaron collected the gold from the Israelite camp and made it into a golden calf, saying, “This is your god, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” The Israelites not only knew that they weren’t supposed to make idols and have other gods before God (only the second thing God said to the Israelites when establishing the covenant) but they also took the exact words of God and spit them back out at him, for God said in Exodus 20:2, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” The Israelites did not merely break the law, but they had decisively rejected God and his grace. The Lord said in Exodus 32:9, “I have seen this people [the Israelites], and behold, they are an obstinate people.” A key characteristic of their apostasy was their hardened hearts towards God.

You could relate this passage to Deuteronomy 13 where the Law says that the punishment for apostasy is death. For it says in Deuteronomy 13:5, “The false prophets or visionaries who try to lead you astray must be put to death, for they encourage rebellion against the Lord your God, who redeemed you from slavery and brought you out of the land of Egypt. Since they try to lead you astray from the way the Lord your God commanded you to live, you must put them to death. In this way you will purge the evil from among you.” The punishment of death might seem extreme and unjust. Shouldn’t these people (and the apostate Israelites in Exodus 32) be given the opportunity to repent? One of the primary issues with apostasy under the Old Covenant was that the apostate Israelites most often continued in fellowship with the Israelite nation. As a result, these apostate Israelites influenced others and encouraged them to apostatize and rebel against God. If nothing bad had happened to them, then clearly it would be okay to reject God and the Law because they’re still God’s people and under his covenant, right?

God makes it abundantly clear that it wasn’t the adherence to the Law that made the Israelites righteous because they couldn’t fully keep the Law. Therefore, it was their faith that brought them salvation under the Old Covenant (Romans 4:5). Apostasy under the Old Covenant then was the willful decision to no longer submit to God and the Law and instead follow the ways of the other nations, oftentimes mixing other religious practices with partially keeping the Law so they could still be considered an Israelite but not because of their faith in God.

Apostasy Under the New Covenant

The New Covenant is best summarized in Jeremiah 31:33-34. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

We can see four promises made by God to his people. First, God will put his law in his people and write it on their hearts. Second, He will be their God, and they will be his people. Third, God will cause knowledge of himself in his people. Finally, God will forgive their iniquities and remember their sins no more. God accomplished all of these things through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and we can have union with Christ under the New Covenant by grace through faith. Under the New Covenant, God does not require complete adherence to the Law. Instead, we have received freedom from the Law and can walk freely in Christ, knowing that all of our sins are completely atoned for. Our salvation is through faith alone and our works in faith do not contribute to our salvation at all because the price has been fully paid on the cross.

If our salvation is fully dependent on the work that God has done, is it possible then to apostatize and lose our salvation? The answer is yes and no. If it weren’t possible to apostatize, the author of Hebrews would not share five warnings in the letter against the danger of apostasy. At the same time, our salvation is fully dependent on Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Even the faith that leads to our salvation is given to us as a gift from God (Ephesians 2:9). You could never sin badly enough to put your salvation into jeopardy. You might be thinking to yourself, “But I know some people who were once Christians and aren’t anymore. Are they saved?” The truth is, you can’t renounce Christianity, decisively rebelling against God and still be saved. 1 John 2:19 says of these people, “These people left our churches, but they never really belonged with us; otherwise they would have stayed with us. When they left, it proved that they did not belong with us.” We can and should hope that these people have their hearts softened by God so that they may receive the Gospel.

Apostasy then under the New Covenant is just like that under the Old Covenant. It’s a decisive rejection of God’s grace by someone who once considered themselves to be a part of God’s people. The means of salvation between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant are both faith. Under the Old Covenant, this faith was expressed through works (keeping the Law) that didn’t contribute to salvation. In a similar manner, under the New Covenant this faith is expressed through works (mortifying sin and pursuing righteousness) that don’t contribute to salvation. The purpose of these works then is to bring believers into deeper fellowship with God and express God’s nature and character to the rest of the world, bringing him glory.

Why Does This Matter to You?

The author of Hebrews shares warnings about the dangers of apostasy not to scare you or make you lose assurance of your salvation. He wants to bring you to examine your own heart because the stakes are that high. For he says at the beginning of Hebrews 2, “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard [the Gospel], lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels [the Old Covenant] proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?”

In the church, people often drift away from the faith rather than turn away suddenly. Part of being in covenant relationship with others in the church body is to continuously exhort one another knowing that Satan is discouraging all of God’s people in their pursuit of God each and every day. May we preach the gospel to one another everyday to remind ourselves of God’s love, grace, and the amazing work he has done for us so that we will never be in danger of drifting away from the great message that we have heard.