Faithfulness and the Danger of Unbelief

Hebrews 3 is the reader’s first introduction to what will be a familiar tension in the book: conditional statements about the believer’s salvation status. This episode focuses on this tension, pointing out that conditional statements in Hebrews are not attached to breaking the laws of Torah, or any sins of commission or omission. The conditional statements are not about works in any regard, as though believers could lose salvation when they sin. Rather, the focus is on how a believer can fall into unbelief—how they can choose to not believe the gospel. The end result is that believers are eternal secure if they believe (do not reject the gospel), but no one who rejects the gospel and therefore does not believe it has eternal life.