<p>3:6 <i>But Christ, as a Son over his own house- </i>As explained above, the Messiah was to &quot;over&quot; His own house / family because He, on God's behalf, was the maker of it. Moses was a servant set over a household, but the Lord's household was made by Himself with God's manifestation through Him. We are that household.</p><p><i>Whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope, remaining firm to the end</i>- Clearly enough, we must endure to the end to be saved (Mt. 10:22). We can, by implication, leave the household of Christ. We need to assess any exit from a church community in that light; for so often, disaffected individuals leave a local community and go nowhere, to then fade away in their faith. &quot;Hold fast&quot; is the same word used for the &quot;good ground&quot; 'keeping the word' in their hearts (Lk. 8:15). Without a written New Testament, they would have needed to quite literally remember and mentally keep hold of the word preached. They were to hold fast s.w. the confidence they had at the beginning (:14), in those heady days when thousands of Hebrews were baptized in Jerusalem. They were confident of salvation; but with the passing of the years, that joy which came from being confident of the outcome of the judgment seat had subsided. Whether we are still joyfully confident of &quot;the hope&quot;, the <i>elpis</i>, the firm assurance, is what is finally the litmus test for our faith. We will be confirmed as the Lord's &quot;house&quot; at &quot;the end&quot;; He shall eternally be the master over the family which we have no joined, but which shall be eternally solidified, as it were, at the last day.</p>