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So Great Salvation By Arlen L. Chitwood
Contents & Foreword
Contents
Foreword 1. Heirs of Salvation 2. Because of the Angels 3. God Has Spoken 4. The World to Come
Foreword
“So great salvation” in Hebrews 2:3 is not the salvation that we presently possess. Rather, it is a future salvation; and it is clearly set forth as such in the immediately preceding context, in the text itself, and in the context that immediately follows.
The immediately preceding context (1:1-14) has to do with Christ exercising the rights of the firstborn during the coming Messianic Era and with Christians exercising these same rights as companions, co-heirs with Him. It has to do with that time when God will bring His firstborn Son (the One Who is to exercise the rights of primogeniture), the “Heir of all things” (Hebrews 1:2), into the inhabited world (vv. 1:2, 5, 6); and it has to do with those redeemed individuals who are to appear as His companions, inheriting with Him in that day (vv. 9, 14).
The text itself (2:1-4) begins by referring back to material in chapter one (2:1a), and the warning has its basis entirely in this introductory material. The salvation in Hebrews 2:3 is the same as the salvation in verse fourteen of the introductory material. That is, coming into possession of “so great salvation” (2:3) is the same as inheriting salvation (1:14); and inheriting salvation (or realizing “so great salvation”) is the same as realizing the rights of the firstborn, inheriting as companions with Christ (God’s Firstborn, His “appointed Heir of all things” [1:2, 5, 6, 9]).
Then the context which immediately follows (2:5ff) has to do with rulership in the inhabited world to come (2:5) when many sons will be brought unto glory to realize the rights of the firstborn with God's firstborn Son, Jesus (2:10). In short, it has to do with man, after 6,000 years, finally being brought into the position for which he was created in the beginning. Christ, “the second Man,” “the last Adam,” will take the kingdom and ascend the throne, along with numerous companions from among those whom He has redeemed.
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