Hebrews 10:23

(1.) With a true heart, without any allowed guile or hypocrisy. God is the searcher of hearts, and he requires truth in the inward parts. Sincerity is our gospel perfection, though not our justifying righteousness.

Those who begin to waver in matters of Christian faith and practice are in danger of falling away. (3.) The motive or reason enforcing this duty: He is faithful that hath promised. God has made great and precious promises to believers, and he is a faithful God, true to his word; there is no falseness nor fickleness with him, and there should be none with us.

Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering,.... Either in the grace or doctrine of faith, or in the profession of both; See Gill on Heb 4:

THE Apostle is drawing certain inferences from the Covenant of Grace upon which he has been enlarging. He shows that God has made a Covenant with His people by which they are effectually preserved. "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord, I will put My Laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more."

4:14.) profession--Greek, "confession." our faith--rather as Greek, "our hope"; which is indeed faith exercised as to the future inheritance. Hope rests on faith, and at the same time quickens faith, and is the ground of our bold confession (1Pe 3:15).

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

THE Apostle is drawing certain inferences from the Covenant of Grace upon which he has been enlarging. He shows that God has made a Covenant with His people by which they are effectually preserved. "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord, I will put My Laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." He shows that by this Covenant the fear of returning to our old sin is removed and the guilt of our sin is forever put away. He bids us, therefore, be bold in our approaches to God. As pardoned men, upon whom there is no sin, he bids us exercise the freedom of near access to God, who has accepted us in Christ. Then he tells us that since we are put in such a blessed position—a position which is altogether unique—it becomes us to hold fast to what we have received. Since the glorious Gospel has done so much for us, let us never quit it. Since it has brought us into a condition which angels might envy, let us never think of leaving it. Let us not dream of giving up that Divine principle which has worked us such blessedness, but, "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering." I pray God the Holy Spirit to bless these words as we shall think them over. May He make this evening's meditation a means of establishment to us that, while we hold fast the profession of our faith, the blessed Truths of that faith may also hold us fast as an anchor holds a ship! Never was there a time in which this was more necessary. That exhortation, "Let us hold fast," might well be written on the cover of every Christian's Bible. We live in such a changing age that we need all to be exhorted to be rooted and grounded, confirmed and established in the Truth of God. I shall call your attention, first, to this point—what we have.

Let us hold fast the profession of our faith - The word ὁμολογια, from ὁμου, together, and λογος, a word, implies that general consent that was among Christians on all the important articles of their faith and practice; particularly their acknowledgment of the truth of the Gospel, and of Jesus Christ, as the only victim for sin, and the only Savior from it. If the word washed above refer to Christian baptism in the ease of adults, then the profession is that which the baptized then made of their faith in the Gospel; and of their determination to live and die in that faith. The various readings on this clause are many in the MSS., etc. Της ελπιδος την ὁμολογιαν, the confession of our Hope; D*, two of the Itala, Vulgate, Erpen’s Arabic, and the Ethiopic. Ὁμολογιαν της πιστεως, the confession of Faith; one of the Barberini MSS. and two others. This is the reading which our translators have followed; but it is of very little authority. Την επαγγελιαν της ελπιδος, the promise of Hope; St. Chrysostom. Την ελπιδα της ὁμολογιας, the Hope of our Profession; one of Petavius’s MSS. But among all these, the confession or profession of Hope is undoubtedly the genuine reading. Now, among the primitive Christians, the hope which they professed was the resurrection of the body, and everlasting life; every thing among these Christians was done and believed in reference to a future state; and for the joy that this set before them, they, like their Master, endured every cross, and despised all shame: they expected to be with God, through Christ; this hope they professed to have; and they confessed boldly and publicly the faith on which this hope was built. […]