Verse 37, 38, 39

For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the Just shall live by Faith: but if any man draw back, my Soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back to perdition: but of them that believe to the saving of the Soul.

The substance of the Apostolical exhortation, as has been often observed, is the constancy of the Hebrews in their profession against persecutions and temptations. To this end he commends to them the necessary use of confidence and patience, as those which would carry them through their difficulties, and support them under it. But those graces are not the root whereon constancy and perseverance do grow, they are all branches of it. They do not give strength to the soul to do and suffer according to the mind of God, but they are the way whereby it does exercise its strength which it has from another grace. It is faith from where alone all these things do spring. This the Apostle knowing, he reserves the declaration of its nature, efficacy, and power to the close of this argument. And such an ennarration of the nature and efficacy of it he intends, as will certainly effect the great work of carrying them through their difficulties, even all that they may be called to, because it has done the same in all true believers from the foundation of the world. Therefore, as is usual with him, in these verses, he makes a transition to the consideration of faith itself, whereinto he resolves the whole exhortation to constancy in profession.

And there are three things in these three verses. (1.) A proposal of the object of faith, which is the coming of Christ with the circumstances of it, v. 37. (2.) The necessity and efficacy of faith on that proposal, with the certain ruine of them that are strangers to it, confirmed by prophetical testimony, v. 38. (3.) The judgment of the Apostle concerning these Hebrews, as to their faith, and the sincerity of it; from where he proceeds to declare its nature, and confirm its efficacy, v. 39.