Hebrews 10:25: Never Forsake God's Worship

Introduction

It is March 2020, and the Coronavirus has the world in frantic chaos. This chaos ensued by civil magistrates giving lockdown orders that inhibited people from going outside of their homes, and they prescribed gathering limits of 20 people at the most. Magistrates ordered churches to not meet; some churches met anyway and were fined, or the ministers were arrested. However, most churches closed and moved to virtual worship, and some remain in this estate today. It is observed, therefore, that God’s Sabbath was desecrated by the vast majority of churches, even Reformed and Presbyterian churches. The question must be asked, why did God’s church neglect His Sabbath? The answer is, that many have a schismatic understanding of the Sabbath and the duties which God requires upon the Sabbath Day. First, the true doctrine of the Sabbath must be explained. The Sabbath, also known as the Lord’s Day, is the Fourth Commandment, wherein God commands the day to be remembered, sanctified, and rested from common vocational and recreational pursuits (Exodus 20:8). Next, God commands the day to be remembered, and this means that each week, the Sabbath is to be observed in its entirety. In accordance with remembering the weekly Sabbath, the Lord’s Day is to be sanctified, meaning that the Lord’s Day is to be only used for God in private worship, resting from work, acts of necessity and mercy, and most importantly the public worship of God's church in particular congregations. Public worship must be explained, hitherto are the essential elements of public worship: 1. corporate assembly of the saints, 2. singing the 150 Psalms, 3. prayer, 4. listening to God’s Word read, 5. listening with self-examination to the preaching of God’s Word, and 6. observing the Sacraments in thanksgiving. Therefore, each Christian is to commune with the saints in public worship, as is required in the sanctification of the Sabbath, hereunto he is to participate in each of the elements of worship. The Christian’s sanctification of the Sabbath will be further explained from Hebrews 10:25, defended against false doctrines, and applied to particular persons in the following pages.

Exegesis of Hebrews 10:25

God’s command for public worship is set forth clearly in Hebrews 10:25, as it is given in a manner of what God forbids and requires in the Fourth Commandment. The verse reads this way in the Authorized Version, “Hebrews 10:25: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” The first command in this verse is “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together”, and in the Greek, it is this, μη εγκαταλειποντες την επισυναγωγην εαυτων. The Lord puts emphasis on this command because He put the word, (μη- not), at the beginning of this sentence. With the emphases on what is forbidden, which is εγκαταλειποντες- meaning to forsake, abandon, or desert, the Lord severely warns the Hebrews to not forsake His day. Εγκαταλειποντες, is a double compound in its etymology, and this double compound of εγ-κατα-λειποντες adds great emphases to mean, utterly forsake. The act of forsaking comes in two forms, for one it is a complete apostasy, as 1 John 2:19 declares “They went out from us, but they were not of us”. The second form of forsaking is neglecting to commune with the saints on the Lord’s Day and other meeting times. The Hebrews were failing to επισυναγωγην. Επισυναγωγην means to gather together or to gather upon a place. Herein, the Lord is dealing with the Hebrew Christians breaking the Fourth Commandment, and these Christians broke this Commandment because they were persecuted and had great afflictions from the governing authorities, who imprisoned some of their brethren (Hebrews 10:32-34). Jehovah calls their utter forsaking of the communion of the saints “willful sin”, just as He says in verse 26. A sin that is done out of willful transgression is greater than a sin done in ignorance, for the willful transgression is done by a professing Christian who has had his mind opened to God’s truth, yet out of self-love he transgresses God’s Law. Another reason that these Hebrews forsook the assembly of the saints is that they endured persecution and became slothful in fulfilling their duties to God and man in His Law. A third reason is that during the persecution, some of those assembled in this congregation had or were considering apostatizing from Christ, and the Lord brings this forth out of verse 23. He says, “Let us hold fast the profession of our hope without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised.” Minister Archibald Mclean explains how churches are the chief profession of our faith, “It is by means of the public assemblies or churches of the saints, that the visible and scriptural profession of Christ's name is exhibited and kept up in the world, Rom. 1.8. 1 Thess. 1. 7, 8. and they are compared to golden candlesticks, or lamps, as diffusing the light around them, Rev. 1. 20.”

Next, the Lord commands the Hebrews to exhort each other in greater and greater amounts. The Lord says, “but exhorting one another: and so much the more”. In this section of the verse, the Lord makes a strong contrast to those who forsook the Lord’s Day worship, for He begins this section with the word “but”. In the original, the word is αλλα, which statedly is a strong adversative conjunction. Αλλα as an adversarial conjunctive particle means: contrary, on the other hand, dissimilarly, and divergently. In this verse, it connotates the separation from what God has forbidden and what God requires. God forbids the Hebrews from forsaking the communion of the saints, divergently He requires them to παρακαλουντες. The contrast is between two participles in the sentence, with reference to the first εγκαταλειποντες (forsaking) and the second παρακαλουντες (exhorting). The word, παρακαλουντες, means to exhort, encourage to action, and to instruct to obey. In verse 25, the Apostle commands the Hebrews to encourage each other in the duties of public worship, which is the chief profession of Christ and His Kingdom. The duties required in public worship are singing the 150 Psalms, prayer, listening to God’s Word read, listening with self-examination to the preaching of God’s Word, observing the Sacraments with thanksgiving, and taking solemn oaths and vows. His command to the Hebrews to exhort themselves in public worship extends to the other jurisdictions of life too. The command for mutual exhortation also demands that the Hebrews encourage themselves to assemble together every Lord’s Day and their other meetings on other occasional days.

The command for mutual exhortation is strengthened by the next words, “so much the more”. The original is, και τοσουτω μαλλον- translated as, “and so much greater in this”. The Lord’s argument here stems from the lesser to the greater, and the foundation is the perpetual command of the assembly of the saints upon the Lord’s Day, and from there He urges them to gather together more vigorously, “as much as you observe the day coming close”. The Lord’s exhortation is tied back to the church assembly being the chief confession of Christ by His elect, and the Apostle states the gravity of this exhortation in Hebrews 3:12-15. The Apostle says, “12: Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. 13: But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14: For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; 15: while it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.” These previous verses are the base for “as you observe the day coming close”, which means that the Hebrews saw, therefore, the day drawing close heightens their need to exhort each other in the assembly of the saints. What is this day that is “coming near”? The day that was approaching the Hebrews then was the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Mosaic Covenant worship because of the destruction of the Temple. This great day of Jerusalem’s destruction is evidenced by verses 27-39, for in these verses the Lord deals with how the Jews rejected Christ, persecuted the church, and the prophesied destruction of God’s adversaries. In times of God’s judgments upon nations, great devastations, the church has a much greater need to fulfill her duties to the Lord, and the Lord requires this because in these times of desolation is when the church is in the most need for repentance because of her idolatries (Joel 2:1-17). These idolatries are exactly what the Lord warns the Hebrews about here, for He says: 1. “Let us hold fast the profession of our hope” (verse 23), 2. “For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of truth” (verse 26), 3. “Remember the former days, in which, ye were illuminated” (verse 32), and 4.“Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.” (verses 35-36). From all of these verses, it is inducted that Jehovah warns the Hebrew Christians to remain faithful to the Lord and His commands in spite of the then nearing judgment on the Jews in A.D. 70.

The Doctrine of Public Worship

Now that the text has been explicated, it is necessary to draw out the doctrine of public worship which the text so aptly brought forth. First, public worship by its essence must be the assimilation of the saints. Without the gathering of the saints, there is no public worship, either private or family worship. God plainly declares that the gathering of His people is what public worship is. In the Old Testament, God uses several words to designate this. The first is: עֲצָרָה- meaning an assembly or gathering (Deuteronomy 16:8). The second word is, מִקְרָא- meaning a convocation, and gathering on Sabbath and certain sacred days, (Exodus 12:16; Leviticus 23:3; Numbers 28:1). For the New Testament, there are three words, and the first is ἐκκλησία- meaning an assembly, a called-out gathering, and an ingathering of Christians, (James 5:14). Secondly is, συνάγω- meaning to gather an assembly, to congregate together, or to collectively gather together (Acts 20:7). Thirdly is, ἐπισυναγωγή- meaning an assembly together, a gathered group, and gather up as an assembly (Hebrews 10:25). Theodore Beza in his Novem Testamentum Annotations says concerning 1 Corinthians 16:2, “But I have read the verse in one ancient codex, τήν Κύριακήν, to wit, that has been explained, and it is clear from Acts 20:7 that it was customary for the saints to assemble at that time.”

The first element of public worship is, prayer. Prayer is a chief part of worship, for God commands it everywhere in His Word. God commands that families pray together (1 Peter 3:7). However, the Lord also commands that each particular congregation of the church to pray together, as this is an element of the compositional parts of public worship (1 Timothy 2:8). Prayer is to be done by the men of the church, and especially the minister, to which 1 Timothy 2:8 speaks on, βουλομαι ουν προσευχεσθαι τους ανδρας εν παντι τοπω επαιροντας οσιους χειρας, translated as: “I determine, therefore, the men should pray in every place lifting up pious hands”. There are several particulars expressed in this text, 1. Only men should pray in public worship, 2. Men must pray with reverence toward God, and 3, Men in every church are to pray. For the first point, the Lord is specific on who He commands to pray in worship, and this means that the church is to be assembled for this prayer to happen. On this, the Lord says later on that “every place” means particular assemblies of the church (1 Timothy 3:15). The other points will not be elaborated on because this section of the paper is about the elements of worship, not the manner.

The second element of worship is the reading of the Scriptures. The public reading of God’s Word is vital for God’s people, and it is emphatically commanded for the minister to read the Scriptures (1 Timothy 4:13). The verse in the original is, εως ερχομαι προσεχε τη αναγνωσει τη παρακλησει τη διδασκαλια. It is translated as: “Until I come, give full attention to the reading, the exhortation, and the teaching”. Puritan George Walker says this about the minister's duty to read the Scriptures, “The third sort of public duties are the holy ordinances of God, which tend properly to beget and increase holiness, and to teach Christians Gods holy worship and fear, to wit: the public reading and expounding of the word of God, and preaching and Catechising on the Ministers part, and on the peoples part reverent attention and hearing of the word of God.”

The public preaching and hearing of God’s Word is the third duty of public worship. For the minister, preaching the Word of God is His chief duty. The Lord says, ταυτα υποτιθεμενος τοις αδελφοις καλος εση διακονος ιησου χριστου εντρεφομενος τοις λογοις της πιστεως και της καλης διδασκαλιας η παρηκολουθηκας (1 Timothy 4:6). This verse is translated as, “Declaring forth these things to the brethren, you shall be a good servant of Jesus Christ, training up through the words of the faith and the pure doctrine that you have closely followed”. From this text and countless others, the minister’s duty every Lord’s Day is to “Declare forth” and “train up” the brethren, and he is to only do so “through the words of the faith” and “pure doctrine”. The minister’s “declaring forth” has the meaning of declaring authoritatively and in an expounding manner so that God’s people know exactly what to believe concerning God and the duties that God requires them. The minister is to “train up”, and this word means to nourish to maturity, so the minister’s preaching of the Word is to provide the instruction and correction for the brethren to grow into mature Christians. The minister is to teach “the words of the faith”, and this is God’s Word, in both the Old and New Testaments (Acts 20:7).

The fourth element of public worship is, singing the 150 Psalms. The Lord commands that Christians sing only the 150 Psalms in public worship. Ephesians 5:19 says λαλουντες εαυτοις ψαλμοις και υμνοις και ωδαις πνευματικαις αδοντες και ψαλλοντες εν τη καρδια υμων τω κυριω. It is translated as, “Speaking to yourselves through Psalms, hymns, and Spiritual songs, chanting and psalming in your heart to the Lord.”. On this verse, the Puritan Nathaniel Holmes says, “Christians under the Gospel, and New Testament, have commended, yea commanded to them the singing of Psalmes in public and private both by precept and pattern, Ephes. 5.19.”

The fifth and final element covered here is the right administration of the Sacraments. The Sacraments are baptism and the Lord’s Supper, to which it is the duty of the minister to administer the Sacraments to the assembled saints. The minister’s duty is set forth in Matthew 28:19 and 1 Corinthians 11:23. Matthew 28:19 says, πορευθεντες ουν μαθητευσατε παντα τα εθνη βαπτιζοντες αυτους εις το ονομα του πατρος και του υιου και του αγιου πνευματος. The translation of the verse is, “As you have been going through, therefore, disciple all of the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit”. The Lord Jesus gives the emphatic command to the Apostles to Christianize the nations, and as the Lord conquers the nations with His gospel, He commands that the Apostles and now ministers to baptize the believers with their children. The discipling of the nations also means the administration of the Lord’s Supper in the assembled saints, as seen from Acts 20:7. Here is the conclusion for this section on the elements of worship.

The Polemic of Public Worship

Today, the Lord’s Day and public worship are vehemently abominated and forsaken by professing Christians and even those who call themselves Reformed and Presbyterian. It is very saddening and angering seeing many ministers teach heretical doctrines about the Sabbath and its sanctification, specifically in public worship. God’s worship has also been blasphemed by civil magistrates tyrannically advising or ordering churches to close. These sins must be refuted, which will be done here.

Objection 1. One does not have to go to gather with the saints on the Lord’s Day to have church, but he can do online or virtual church, especially during a calamity.

Refutation 1. It must first be acknowledged that he who says that one can do church online abominates the Sabbath, since he has created his own way of worshipping God, which his idol is the online device used because it is a superstitious attempt to gather in the public worship of God, therefore it is a nameplate of idolatry (Deuteronomy 12:30). It is an insignia of idolatry because God has not instituted His church to practice this rite of worship. To the contrary, God commands that His saints assemble together on the Lord’s Day, which is emphatically seen in the Greek and Hebrew words when God talks about a gathering of His people. One example is, ἐπισυναγωγή- meaning an assembly together, to gather together upon, and gather up as an assembly (Hebrews 10:25). In Hebrews 10:25, God says, την επισυναγωγην εαυτων- “the ingatherment of yourselves”, thus by God’s natural order it is the people of God coming together in one place for His worship. God’s natural order of gathering points to His positive command in Hebrews and other places on His church gathering in worship.

Objection 2. Civil magistrates may order churches to not assemble, especially in a calamity, as per their authority and the duties of the people to submit to them in Romans 13.

Refutation 2. Civil magistrates have no authority to command churches to not gather or how many can gather, for Christ is the King and Head of His church, and the church is to obey Him alone regarding how she worships (Ephesians 1:22-23). It is God who gave the Sabbath Commandment, and no civil official can remove or change any of God’s commandments (Deuteronomy 4:2). The civil magistrates pretend that they have this authority because of Romans 13:1-2, and many ministers falsely teach that magistrates do have this authority. This is the same Erastian heresy that the Covenanters fought against. Romans 13:1-7 is a prescription by God for civil magistrates and the inferiors under them First, the Lord calls the magistrates εξουσιαις υπερεχουσαις- “superior authorities” (Romans 13:1), which designates a hierarchy of superiors to inferiors. The superior authorities are those in the office of the civil magistrate, not Emperor Nero, for the Lord uses the plural. The magistrate’s duty is την μαχαιραν φορει- “He clads the sword” (Romans 13:4). The magistrate’s bearing of the sword means that he is to handle civil cases. What type of civil cases is he to handle? They are, δε το κακον ποιης- “but you who would do evil”- (Romans 13:4). Thus, he is God’s servant to handle cases where God’s Law is broken, and it is concluded that he does not have the authority to close churches, for that violates the Fourth and Fifth Commandments emphatically. When the civil magistrates make laws that cause people to sin or are arbitrary, Christians must disobey them, but obey God (1 Corinthians 10:20-22).

Objection 3: Pastors and sessions can cancel public worship in times of immense danger to the saints.

Refutation 3: Pastors do not have the authority to cancel public worship at any time, for ministers and sessions have delegated authority from the Lord Jesus to only teach and command what He has commanded (Matthew 28:20). The Fourth Commandment is perpetual, thus making weekly public worship perpetual, and to cancel public worship for danger is forsaking the assembly of the saints (Hebrews 10:25). When ministers and sessions cancel public worship, they break the Fourth and Fifth Commandments because they have usurped an authority that they do not have, the authority of Christ. Many will say, “The Sixth Commandment tells us to not murder, so to gather with the saints is recklessly putting their lives in danger.” The First Table of God’s Law takes preeminence to the Second, for this reason, God brought the desolation at hand because of rebellion against Him (Deuteronomy 28:15). In times of great plagues, either literal or figurative, God commands for His saints to assemble more, call repentful fasts, repent of all false worship, and for ministers to repent of leading God’s people astray (Joel 2:15-17; 2 Samuel 24:18-25).

Application

1. The Lord’s Day is to be sanctified by everyone, and it is the Christian’s duty to assemble with the church in public worship upon the Lord’s Day. In doing so, each Christian must participate in every element of public worship: prayer, singing of the 150 Psalms, reading the Word, preaching and hearing the Word, observing the Sacraments, and fellowship (Acts 20:7).

2. In times of great ungodliness and calamity, ministers with their sessions, should call for more assemblements of the saints because that is the “as you see the day coming close”. Ministers much more so, must strengthen the saints under their shepherding rod, the Lord Christ, and prepare them for the days of persecution (Jude 17-23).

3. In times of great desolation and confusion, ministers must be the first ones into the battle, declaring and exhorting the saints in God’s Word (Ezekiel 2). Ministers must not cower down in faltering fear, but stand fortified defending the flock from tyrannical persecutions (Jerimiah 23:4).

4. Ministers and sessions must never close public worship, for they in doing so violate the Fourth and Fifth Commandments, and any that did close must repent of this because they caused God’s church to forsake its assembling together (Hebrews 10:25).

5. Fathers and husbands must make sure that their families are at every assembly of public worship, for they are held to higher standards because they are superiors. If a father or husband did keep his family from public worship, he must repent of making his family forsake God’s worship (Nehemiah 13:17).

6. It is the duty of ministers and men to confront those churches and pastors that did close, by calling them to repent from their desolating the saints in not having public worship (Hosea 2:2).

Works Cited

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