<p>10:38 <em>But My righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, My soul will have no pleasure in him</em>- This is a quotation from a prophecy about the Lord Jesus personally, &quot;My righteous one&quot;, who would overcome the wicked Babylonians, whom Paul in :37 has associated with the temple system. But as explained throughout chapter 10, all that is true of Him is true of us. We are in Him, in the Holiest. But as the Lord had the possibility of failure in His mortal life, so do we. The Father's soul had pleasure in Him because of His faithfulness unto death (Is. 53:10). But there was the possibility He could &quot;shrink back&quot;, just as there is for all those in Him. All the assurances of salvation mentioned in the argument so far are true of believers at the current moment in time; but it's not a case of once saved, always saved. We have to abide in Christ, patiently endure in faith.</p><p>The 'shrinking back' was in recoiling from the wonder of salvation by grace through faith, and returning to trust in the temple system for salvation. The same word is used of Peter shrinking back from these wonders because of Judaist pressure (Gal. 2:12).</p>