Hebrews 10:25

Hebrews 10:25. Not forsaking (the original is stronger not deserting, not leaving in the lurch) the assembling of yourselves together a phrase found only here and in 2 Thessalonians 2:1, ‘Our gathering together unto Christ.' The reference is not chiefly to the meetings of the Church as a Church, but to all the meetings of Christian brethren whereby brotherly love and kindly.service are promoted as the manner of some is an expression which shows that it is not of apostasy as yet the writer is speaking, but only of the indifference which comes perilously near it and is often its forerunner but exhorting one another comforting, strengthening, entreating, is the meaning of the term, both by word and by example. This is part of the pastor's work (Romans 12:8; 2 Timothy 4:2; Titus 1:9), but not exclusively. All who have knowledge are to admonish one another (Romans 15:14). The same precept has been given before (Hebrews 3:12-13), and now it is enforced by the fact that ‘the day' was seen to be approaching, the briefest description of Christ's coming to judgment, found only here and in 1 Corinthians 3:13: the day of days, the last of time, the first of eternity. And yet, as this day was seen to be approaching, the immediate reference is probably to the destruction of Jerusalem, of which there were signs already in the earth and the sky the day so long foretold (Luke 21:22, and with its signs, Hebrews 8:12); the day which was to end the Jewish Church and State, and to punish that people for their rejection of the Messiah and their persecution of His followers; though perseverance unto the end (Matthew 24:13) was the only way of escaping the calamities that were coming upon their nation, and the still more dreadful calamities which await those who, having been once enlightened, apostatize from the Christian faith. ‘The day of the Lord' is at once the day of complete salvation and the day of final judgment; and the expression may be used in a lower sense it is the day of great delivering mercy, and it is the day of decisive judgment, and the day of our death.