Hebrews 6:9-10 (ESV)
Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. [10] For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love that you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do.
Little things mean a lot, the old country song said, and that is true. And little words pack a big punch. When you are reading a piece of Scripture you would be foolish to simply skip over the little words that far too many people take for granted or simply do not notice.
Take the first word of Hebrews 6:10 for example. “For”- what does that little word tell us? It tells us that what the author is about to say is based on what he has just said. It tells us that if verse 9 were not true then verse 10 would not be able to be stated. So let’s have a look at verse 9.
“Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation”. Even though others have fallen away we are sure you will not because you are truly saved because we know that God is not unjust to forget your good works. Real salvation means that we have a just God who will not forget what we have done for Him. It means that He will not forget what He has done for us. The good works we do are the work of God as well (Eph. 2:10).
The justice of God ought to terrify people. The fact that He is just means that we will receive from Him what we deserve. But if we are in Christ by faith then His justice means that since Jesus has already borne the punishment for our sins He will not punish them again upon us. He is just. He counts us as being as righteous as Christ because He already counted Christ as sinful as us.
There is simply no way to come to grips with the mind warpingness of such things. The Gospel is simply unimaginably great. It tells us more about God than anything else in the Bible. It is off the scale in its stunning accomplishments.
That little word “for” that begins verse 10 takes us into the very eternal councils of God, where it was planned that He would save, through the death of the Son, a vast innumerable host of sinners. And when we come into that eternal plan, God is not unjust to forget us. He is accomplishing something that none of us fully understand. And it should make us bow and wonder and serve and live now for the praise of His glory.
O God what you have done. Help me not to get carried away with lesser things. And everything else is lesser. What a God.
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