How Shall We Escape If We Neglect So Great A Salvation?

How Shall We Escape If We Neglect So Great a Salvation?

—Hebrews 2:3

My wife, Susie, and I are fortunate enough to own a home. Recently, we had to replace some wooden eaves that were beginning to show signs of rot. The roof wasn’t leaking yet, but we wanted to make sure it didn’t. We call this preventive maintenance.

I own a car, and about every six months I take it to the dealership for a checkup and oil change.

I have a body, and every year in December I go in for a complete physical examination. I’ve learned that when something goes wrong with my home or my car or my body, it generally does so because of one thing: neglect.

If a little preventive maintenance is good for the physical matters of life, how much more imperative is it for the spiritual matters! The writer of Hebrews asks a penetrating and probing question: “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” (2:3). The question is not addressed to those who flat-out reject the salvation claims of Christ, but to those who, perhaps with good intentions, simply procrastinate and neglect their spiritual health and well-being. It is closely akin to the question asked of us by our Lord in Mark 8:36: “For what will it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” How many times have we heard the worn out, but true, old adage, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”?

A GREAT PROVISION

At issue here is salvation and whether we will spend eternity with God or apart from Him. God has provided forgiveness and salvation to whosoever will come to Him in repentance and faith. It is the free gift of eternal life. It is of little wonder then that the writer uses two qualifying words when speaking of this salvation. First, he describes it as “great.” But there is more. He speaks of it as “so” great a salvation.

Our salvation is “so great” because of its origin: it is great because of the great love that made our salvation possible in the first place. Paul wrote that we who were dead in our sin have been saved “because of [God’s] great love with which He loved us” (Ephesians 2:4). Our salvation is also great because God’s great love not only prompted it, but He also provided it for us. God’s great love is always accompanied by His great mercy: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him” (Psalm 103:11).

Our salvation is not only great because of its origin but also because of its outcome. Our salvation is accompanied by great blessings of love, joy, peace, and so much more. Our gracious God has made a great provision for our “so great a salvation.”

A GREAT PERIL

While salvation is a great provision, it comes with a great and potential peril. We will either escape or encounter that peril depending on our response to God’s gift. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” There are three words that describe the response of every person toward the gospel: reject, accept, or neglect.

Some individuals have flat-out rejected the gospel message. They have consciously and deliberately refused the gift of eternal life. I have personally spoken to many people along life’s pathway who have rejected the message of salvation and said no to the claims of Christ.

Other people have accepted the free gift of eternal life offered them through Jesus Christ our Lord. They have heard the gospel message, believed it, received it by faith, repented of their sins, and trusted in His finished work to save them. Though undeserving, I thank God each morning that I am counted among these.

Finally, some individuals see themselves in a sort of spiritual no-man’s land. They have neither rejected the gospel, nor have they accepted it. They are among the vast throng who have neglected the divine offer of salvation; they have simply put off the decision for the present. They are deceived into thinking there will always be adequate time to name Jesus as their Savior and Lord before they die.

The writer of Hebrews warned that our hearts can become hardened (Hebrews 3:8). The apostle Paul added that those who continue to neglect Jesus’ invitation to eternal life can become “past feeling” (Ephesians 4:19). The Greek word found here is the same from which we derive our English word callus. I have a callus on my hand that has become so hardened I can stick a pin into it and not even feel any pain. That skin is “past feeling.” And this same kind of callus can appear on a human heart that continues to neglect the call of the gospel. Every time God calls us to decide and we postpone our decision, the callus on our heart gets a bit thicker. As He continues to call us unto Himself, and we continue to neglect the call, our hearts can become so hardened that, like the callus on my hand, there comes a time when we no longer can sense Him. We are “past feeling.” When this happens, it doesn’t mean He no longer is knocking on our hearts, but it does mean we will no longer be aware. That hardened heart is the great peril of neglect. No wonder the writer of Hebrews asked, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” (2:3).

Perhaps there is someone reading these words at this very moment who would never put off paying their bills or running their business or studying for class. Somehow, tragically, some think it is different with the spiritual matters of the soul. Hell is full of people who had good intentions of one day seriously considering and even accepting Jesus’ invitation, but they never seemed to get around to making spiritual matters a priority.

God offers you and me salvation . . . And not just salvation, but great salvation . . . And not just great salvation, but so great a salvation! How shall we escape . . . if we neglect it?

Q & A: “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” There is no escape from eternal separation from God if we neglect the salvation Jesus offers us. Only three roads lie before us. You can take the road less traveled and accept the gospel. You can take the road some travel and flat-out reject it. Or, tragically, you can continue on down the road and neglect the gospel to your own eternal peril. If so, what will it profit you, even if you gained the whole world, to lose your own soul in the end? Remember, not to decide is to decide! Call on God . . . right now. Say with Simon Peter, “Lord, save me.” For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved” (Romans 10:13).