There are many dangers to which Christian men are liable; but the apostle singles out one to which they were specially exposed,—hardness of heart, impenitence, obduracy. It is to Christian men that he addresses the warning. This hardening implies such things as these—
(1.) A losing our first love.—When iniquity abounds, the love of many waxes cold. The affections get dull and blunted.
(2.) Losing the edge of our conscience.—The conscience ceases to be sensitive and tender. It does not shrink from sin as it used to do.
(3.) Callousness as to truth.—We get so familiarized with truth, that it ceases to affect us. It loses its power over us.
(4.) Insensibility to sin.—Our own evils are not felt as they used to be; sin itself is not so hated and shunned as formerly.
Thus our whole man gets hardened; our feelings become dull; and spiritual things no longer tell upon us. Great is our danger of becoming hardened; greater still our danger after we have become hardened. Oh, beware of sliding back and sliding down; beware of coldness and indifference. Keep your whole man ever on edge; let not hardness creep in.
This process of hardening is accomplished through the deceitfulness of sin, or rather of ‘this sin,’ that is, the sin of unbelief spoken of in the previous verse. All sin hardens. The sight of it hardens; connivance at it hardens; indulgence in it hardens. But especially is this true of unbelief. There is nothing so hardening as unbelief; and one great reason for this is, that there is nothing so deceitful. It does not look a great sin; nay, sometimes not like sin at all, but like modesty and humility. It pretends to be jealous for God; to be conscious of personal unworthiness; to be unfit to venture on a hope of acceptance. Thus it deceives. It makes us think that no sin which is the sin of sins. It actually hides itself; palliates its own enormities; veils its hatefulness under the name of humility. In all these ways it contrives to destroy faith, to cherish itself, and so to harden the heart.
Let us then specially beware of unbelief and its deceitfulness. Let us be on our guard against the hardening process, which it effects. Let us dread the evil heart of unbelief which leads us away from God. That which leads us away from God must harden; that which denies the love of God must harden; that which separates the word and promise of God must harden. Have faith in God, if you would preserve a soft and sensitive heart.
-Taken from Light & truth: Bible Thoughts and Themes, Vol. IV, The Lesser Epistles, 1870.
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