Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Hebrews 10:38 - 10:38
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
These words, The just shall live by faith, are taken out of the prophet Habakuk, and are three times made use of by St. Paul, in his epistles, Rom_1:17; Gal_3:11, and in this place. By the just man, understand a justified man; by the life which he lives, understand a life of sanctification and of glorification, a life of grace and holiness, and a life of glory and happiness.
Learn, That whatever life the believer lives, after a more excellent manner, and for more excellent purposes and ends than other men, he lives that life by the help and assistance of his faith. In the following words, But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
Observe, 1. The crime supposed, if any man that has embraced Christianity, shall, either for sufferings feared or felt, draw back from his holy profession. The word siginifies to sneak and slink away out of fear; and the apostle means by it, a quitting our profession of Christianity for fear of suffering.
Learn hence, That in and under great, sharp, and long trials, persons are in danger of drawing back from that profession of the gospel wherein they are engaged.
Observe, 2. The sentence pronounced upon this crime, My soul shall have no pleasure in him; that is, God will be exceedingly displeased with him, and punish him very severely; intimating, that apostacy from the profession of God's true religion, is a sin highly provoking to him, and will be most severely punished by him.
Here note, That these threatenings imply, that there is a possibility of the saints falling away, considered in themselves; but not that they are ever totally deserted by the Holy Spirit, and left under the reigning power of sin. These threatenings are intended to awaken their care, and have a singular influence on their preservation.
From the whole learn, That backsliders from the gospel are, in a peculiar manner, the abhorrency of the soul of God: If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.