Maintaining Our Bold Confession to Remain Connected to Jesus

David W Palmer

In Hebrews 3, the Holy Spirit explains that not only are we Jesus’s partners, but also his “house,” if …

(Hebrews 3:6 NKJV) But Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.

(Hebrews 3:14 NET) For we have become partners with Christ, if in fact we hold our initial confidence firm until the end.

From this we see that the condition for being “His own house”—in other words, the place he resides on earth—is that we “hold fast” our “confidence and the rejoicing of hope firm to the end.” That is, if we hold to it firmly and do not “drift away from it” (Heb. 2:1 BSB). 

This time, our English word, “confidence,” is translated from a different Greek word (to the one translated, “confidence,” in Heb. 3:14). It means: “all outspokenness, that is, frankness, bluntness, publicity; by implication, assurance” (Strongs G3954). Putting this meaning into the verse reveals that to remain in Christ, being his house, and living as Jesus full-time partners on earth, we need to hold firmly to our frank, blunt, assured confession of our covenant, God’s word, and our faith in it. The same word is used in the following passage, but this time translated as, “boldly”:

(Hebrews 4:16 NKJV) Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

The Holy Spirit’s message here is that we not only need to live on earth with a bold, frank confession of God’s word; we also need to speak that same bold, frank—even blunt—confession of God’s word when we “come boldly to the throne of grace.”

Later in Hebrews, the Holy Spirit expands on this using the same word, translated this time as “boldness”:

(Hebrews 10:19 NKJV) “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.”

Jesus’s precious blood—spilled on behalf of our new covenant—guarantees our access to the “Holiest.” What’s more, it gives us access to (partnership in) Jesus’s own righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21). This means that in Christ, we have just as much right to be at God’s throne as Jesus does. This is why the Holy Spirit says we have “boldness” to enter the holiest “by the blood of Jesus.” In other words, because of Jesus’s innocent, righteous blood—representing his complete success in paying for sin and making us completely righteous in him—we can come respectfully and humbly, but boldly confessing God’s own word to him, right into his own holy place; this is our faith in action.

The Holy Spirit also uses this word when he exhorts us again not to throw away our bold, confident, blunt, and unashamed confession of God’s word—anywhere at any time:

(Hebrews 10:35 NKJV) “Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.”

The context in which the Holy Spirit places this directive is between his exhortation to enter the holiest boldly, and his instruction on living by faith. Faith, boldness, and frank confession of God’s word are linked. To remain in full partnership with Jesus, and to be his permanent abode on earth, we need to hold on to our faith tenaciously, and not to throw it away. When we keep our confidence as he exhorts us to, it has “great reward.” Plus, we must remember that all of this revelation and teaching about our confession is prefaced by the Holy Spirit’s declaration that Jesus is the High Priest of our confession:

(Hebrews 3:1 NKJV) Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus.