Hebrews 10:25 (NASB) ... not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging [one another;] and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
Hebrews 10:25 (NASB) ... not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging [one another;] and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
That is why I think gathering with other believers is important, but not a requirement. And you’re better off if you do it.
I belong to a small church, just under 300 members.
I run the video board that displays scriptures and music lyrics. Music can be considered entertainment, we call it “Praise”. Music is what got me thru the door the 1st time, and had me return the 2nd time. By the 3rd time the way the pastor delivered the message had me going back after that. I am not a fan of the “Fire & Brimstone” style. I prefer you tell me a story and break it down so I understand it and fully grasp the meaning.
Down the road is a mega church with more that 20x our members. I tried them, I prefer the smaller group where you know everyone’s name. We do things together outside of Sundays.
House Church is our key, we have gatherings in several different member houses and that is where you get the true fellowship, you have people there that will walk with you while you are on your walk. We call the Sunday gatherings a meeting of House Churches, which it really is.
Now, the mega church down the road, they also do House Churches. I have nothing against them. I have friends that belong to them. I guess we all have our own tastes.
Heb. 10.25 isn’t about assemblies of local churches. Consider:
Heb. 10.24-39
We now notice a passage used nearly universally to admonish Christians for not attending every service of their local church. While the problem the Hebrews author addresses may certainly include an abandonment of collective religious service, I believe we’ll see it is so much more significant than that.
We first consider Heb 10.24-25:
24 and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works; 25 not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day drawing nigh.
Notice the three times the author says, “let us” to his readers: “Let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith” (v22); and “let us hold fast the confession of our hope”(v23). Both of these are in contrast to shrinking back out of regard to the persecution they were suffering from their Jewish countrymen. Then in v24 he says, “let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works, not forsaking our own assembling together.”
Usually, this assembling is taken to be the weekly local assemblies. This assembling could certainly include those local assemblies, but as we’ll see, this position drastically shortchanges the teaching of this passage.
The word for assembling here is episynagogue, an emphatic form of synagogue, an assembling. It is generally translated “gathering.” The gathering of Jews scattered by the various captivities of Old Covenant Israel, along with Gentile Christians now obeying the gospel in the New Covenant age was an important theme in Messianic prophecy. In Isa. 11.9-12, a passage quoted by Paul in Rom. 15.12 as fulfilled in his taking the gospel to Gentiles in his missionary journies. Isaiah foretold the gathering of Gentiles and Jews by the Messiah in the last days of the Mosaic age. Likewise, in Isa. 49. 5-7, and 56.6-8, Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would gather Old Covenant Israelites.
In Hos. 1.10-11, Hosea foretold that the sons of Israel would be gathered together by the Messiah, as is evidenced by quotations of these passages as fulfilled in I Pet. 2.10 and Rom. 9.24, 26. In Jn. 11.47-52, the leaders of the Jews, confronted by Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the dead, reasoned:
47 The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many signs. 48 If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. 49 But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, 50 nor do ye take account that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. 51 Now this he said not of himself: but, being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation; 52 and not for the nation only, but that he might also gather together into one the children of God that are scattered abroad.
This “gathering” of scattered Jews, some of whom had become Gentiles, was much more significant than weekly assemblies some think are the topic in Heb. 10.24-25. This was the gathering that the prophets foretold that the Messiah would accomplish in Israel’s last days. This is the very gathering that Jesus stated he wanted to accomplish in Mt. 23.37:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Yet the Jews in the main wouldn’t have it. Again, in Mt. 24.31, Jesus said:
And he shall send forth his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
This gathering was not assemblies of local congregations of Christians, but the Messianic gathering of Jews and Gentiles into the one body of Christ.
This is the great assembling (a singular assembling, not weekly assemblies) the Hebrew Christians were in danger of abandoning in Heb. 10.25. When the Hebrews author spoke of forsaking this assembling, he said they were doing it “as ye see the day drawing near.” Popularly, “the day” is taken to be the first day of the week, Does the first day of the week fit the author’s exhortation to do so “so much the more as ye see the day drawing nigh? Do any of us exhort each other more on Fridays than we do on Tuesdays? Have we ever even conceived of it? There’s a much greater day in the context:
26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries.
It’s evident that “the day” the Hebrews author refers to is a day having a certain fearful expectation of judgment; it’s a day where a fierceness of fire shall devour the adversaries, i.e., unbelieving Jews. Why wouldn’t it be the day of the Lord of Malachi 3.4, the “great and terrible day of the Lord” foretold by Joel and quoted by Peter in Ac. 2.20? Why wouldn’t it be “the great day of God, the Almighty” of Rev. 16.15 against the harlot city (v19), “wherein their Lord was crucified” (11.8), Old Covenant Jerusalem, the head of “the perverse generation” of Ac. 2.40?
The author of Hebrews continues:
28 A man that hath set at nought Moses’ law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: 29 of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
One who abandons weekly assemblies doesn’t necessarily at all count the blood of the covenant as unholy, nor does he despise the Holy Spirit. However, the Jewish Christians addressed in Hebrews contemplated avoiding persecution were doing those very things!
Moreover, in vv. 30-31, the author of Hebrews says:
30 For we know him that said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
It is particularly interesting that v30 is quoted directly only from Dt. 32.35, and v31 is quoted only from Dt. 32.36. This is significant because Deuteronomy 32, the song of Moses, deals with the final end of Old Covenant Israel, as we saw in the chapter on imminent judgment in the gospels!
As a matter of fact, consider Dt. 32.34-36, and notice the similarity of that passage with our current text:
35 ‘Vengeance is Mine, and retribution, In due time their foot will slip; For the day of their calamity is near, And the impending things are hastening upon them.’ 36 “For the LORD will vindicate His people, And will have compassion on His servants; When He sees that their strength is gone, And there is none remaining, bond or free.
This “day of calamity” is “the day” the Christians in Hebrews could see approaching. It was the day when the righteous would be vindicated and the ungodly would be destroyed. This is also the context of Heb. 10.37, our present text:
For yet a very little while, He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry.
Certainly the Hebrews author is speaking of then imminent coming of the Messiah, the coming spoken of by Malachi, John the Baptist, and Jesus himself in Mt. 16.27-28 (in the lifetime of some of his disciples), and Mt. 24.30, 34 (in his generation). Surely Jesus did come in judgment on Jerusalem in literally a very very little while (mikron hoson hoson), and wasn’t speaking of a coming still future to us. That would be over 2000 years of tarrying!
In conclusion on this passage, the author is speaking of persecuted Jewish Christians on the verge of abandoning the way of Christ with his last days Messianic gathering of Jews and Gentiles foretold by the prophets as the great day of the Lord (spoken of by Malachi, John the Baptist, and Jesus) was just on the horizon, probably less than five years away.
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