Hebrews 10:26-31

IIThe heaviest and inevitable judgment of God falls upon apostasy from acknowledged Christian truth

Hebrews 10:26-31

26For if we, sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more [a] sacrifice for sins, 27But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and [a] fiery indignation, which shall [the glowing fervor of a fire that is about to] devour the adversaries. 28He that despised [set at naught] Moses’ law died [dieth] without mercy under two or three witnesses: 29Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing [common, unhallowed, κοινόν], and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? 30For we know him that hath [om. hath] said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord.14 And again, The Lord shall [will] Judges 15:0 his people. 31It is a, fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

[Hebrews 10:26.—ἑκουσίως γάρ, for voluntarily, ἑκουσ, emphatically standing before the Part.—ἁμαρτανόντων ἡμῶν, we sinning, in case of our sinning—the present Part. denoting an habitual and abiding state; but nothing seems to require us to transfer it, with Alf., to the actual day of judgment. It seems much more forcible, as well as more natural, to refer it to the condition, in the present life, of one who has completely apostatized from God.—μετὰ τὸ λαβεῖν, after receiving.—τὴν ἐπίγνωσιν, the recognition—more than the mere γνῶσις—the knowledge to which the mind has been consciously directed, and borne, as it were, its attestation.—ἀπολείπεται, there remaineth as a logical result: καταλείπεται, there is left behind as a historical fact, see Hebrews 4:1; Hebrews 4:4.

Hebrews 10:27.—Πυρὸς ζῆλος ἐσθίειν μέλλοντος, an indignation, or, fervor of fire that is about to devour.

Hebrews 10:28.—ἀθετήσας τις, any one, after setting at naught.

Hebrews 10:29.—ὁ καταπατήσας, who trampled on—κοινόν, common, that of a common man (De W., Del., Alf., etc.), or (as Thol., Lün., Moll, etc.),=ἀκάθαρτον, unclean, impure.—K.].

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Hebrews 10:26. For if we sin wilfully, etc.—That the reference here is not to deliberate and heinous sins in general, but to apostasy from Christianity after regeneration, is clear from the entire phraseology. Ἑκουσίως stands in contrast with ἀγνοοῦντες and πλανώμενοι, Hebrews 5:2 : the pres. ἁμαρτανόντων marks habitual in contrast with transient denial: the apostasy is preceded by the ἐπίγνωσις τῆς , at once a theoretical and practical recognition of the truth, and deliberate and conscious embracing of it, and is followed by a failure of any further expiatory sacrifice, and instead of it (ἀπολείπεται, as Hebrews 4:6) an ἐκδοχή, whose fearfulness is heightened by the rhetorical τὶς. Πυρὸς ζῆλος is not to be taken as a single conception=fiery zeal or jealousy (Luth., etc.), since the following Part, takes the case of πυρός, which is treated as a person, as at Hebrews 12:29 God Himself is called πῦρ καταναλίσκον. Ἐσθίειν points not to a destroying=annihilating, but to the sensible conscious suffering of the fiery infliction. The expressions remind us forcibly of Isaiah 26:11 in the Sept. The words in Hebrews 10:28 refer evidently to Deuteronomy 17:6, which refer in like manner not to the transgression of individual commandments, but to a breaking of the covenant, and abandonment of God for idol-worship. Hence the ground for the following parallel.

Hebrews 10:29. Of how much sorer punishment think ye, etc.—Δοκεῖτε lays the decision regarding the case, about which there can be no doubt, on the judgment of the readers: ἀξιωθήσεται represents God as Him who weighs the greatness of guilt, and hence awards the τιμωρία according to the facts of the preceding (Aor. Part.) sins. The words ἐν ᾧ ἡγιάσθη (as read uniformly except by A. and Chrys.) designate the blood of the covenant as that whose sanctifying influence—i.e., an influence which, in virtue of the atonement and purification, consecrates to a true covenant fellowship with God and His people—had been already experienced. Hence κοινόν here, doubtless, denotes impurity (Vulg., Luth., Grot., Thol., Ebr., Lün., Riehm, etc.), not commonness (Pesh., It., Œcum., Theophyl., Bez., Schlicht., Beng., Bl., De W., Bisp., Del., etc.). By πνεῦμα τῆς χάριτος Bl., De W., Lün. understand the Holy Spirit as the gift of grace; but more correctly acc. to Hebrews 13:9; Hebrews 13:25 (comp. Zechariah 12:10). Böhm., Del., Riehm, etc., understand it as the efficient principle of grace. The first citation is from Deuteronomy 32:35; the second from Deuteronomy 32:36 (repeated Psalms 135:14). In both passages the sentiment is, that Jehovah, by His judicial sway, will vindicate the rights of His people against His enemies. This meaning of the original is also here to be maintained, since τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ denotes in the conception of the writer the church of God of the New Covenant (Del.), which is overlooked by Bl., De W., Lün., who understand the words of a judgment upon the people, instead of for them. The first citation deviates from the Heb. text, and still more from that of the Sept.; but accords with Romans 12:19, which contains also the λέγει κύριος that is wanting in the original. Hence Bl., De W., Del., Reiche infer that the citation was taken at second hand from Romans; while Meyer (Romans 12:19; Romans 12:3 d ed.) regards the paraphrase of Onkelos, Lün., on the contrary, a current proverbial form of the expression, as the common source of the citation both here and in Romans.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The most immediate inducement to follow the injunctions that in their rightful claim have just been laid down, is the great danger of apostasy from Christ, and the fearfulness of its consequences.

2. The penitent sinner may indeed, with resigned spirit, choose rather to fall into the hands of God than of men, 2 Samuel 24:14; Sir 2:18. But the covenant-breaker and apostate, who has come into a hostile and radical gainsaying of the truth which he had before acknowledged, cannot be again renewed to repentance, Hebrews 6:4-8, and cannot possibly henceforth obtain forgiveness of sins. The offerings of the law bring no true propitiation; self-originated offerings have not even the character of type and of promise. If the only true atoning sacrifice, the Son of God and His blood, have in view of the earlier experience of its sanctifying power, been rejected as useless, and the Spirit of grace spurned and scorned, not only is there nothing to replace the sacrifice thus rejected and dishonored, but this itself can no longer exercise a saving influence upon him who has made wilful and wanton wreck of all the previous influences of grace.

3. The distinction of peccatum deliberatum and ignorantiæ is a less fixed and rigid one than is commonly supposed: there is in sinning a knowledge of the right, which the sinner refuses to allow to assert itself. The veil of the lying excuse which is drawn over the conscience would fain lift itself, but is held fast with convulsive power. Such a character of the inward struggle and gainsaying of truth must we particularly insist on when Christian truth, once attested by the Holy Spirit, is, in an apostasy which has grown out of lesser acts of infidelity, not only denied, but blasphemed. The conflict regarding objective truth becomes all the more fierce in proportion as there is, at the same time, a conflict against the truth which still in a measure asserts itself within the bosom of the apostate (Thol. comp. Stud. und Krit., 1836, Heft. 2).

4. Rightfully and justly after such an apostasy, nothing remains to be expected but judgment, which will be executed by God with the full living energy of His holy nature, just as inevitably as His undeceiving word has infallibly declared it; and its fearfulness will stand proportionate to the richness of the grace, and the fulness of the revelation, of the New Covenant.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

To the greatness of the grace which has been received we find standing in direct relation the guilt of apostasy, and the fearfulness of the punishment.—The hands of God reach through time and eternity, and to apostates bring no less of terror and destruction, than comfort and assistance to believers.—The judgments of God come slowly but surely; yet they are preceded by the proffer of grace and the announcement of punishment upon the despisers.—He who turns the grace of God into wantonness has nothing further to hope from His compassion.—The looking for of the Divine judgment, without faith in the expiatory sacrifice of Jesus Christ, is a foretaste of damnation.—The wrath of God burns as hotly as His love, and strikes no less surely than justly.

Starke:—Were there to be another sacrifice, there must also be another Messiah; and God must lay through Him an entirely new foundation for salvation; must institute an entirely different economy for attaining it; and must consequently, at the same time, Himself take away the way which has been disclosed, and the foundation which has been laid, through Christ. Inasmuch, therefore, as this is absolutely impossible, it is also equally impossible that any one should be saved out of Christ; and that any other propitiatory sacrifice should be made on his behalf.—Not only is the judgment of God terrible in itself, but terrible is also the tormenting fear and foretaste of it which the ungodly feel in themselves as a hell even upon earth.—Great sins deserve great punishments; he therefore who allows himself in their commission must not be surprised that he receive his reward (Jeremiah 2:19).—Against the apostate there are three witnesses: the Father, who hath given to him His Son; the Son, whose blood he tramples under foot; and the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of grace, to whom he does despite.—Seest thou the apostate and ungodly walking secure, believe that he will not remain unpunished; God does all precisely at the right time; he will thus speedily remember him (Nahum 1:2).

Hahn:—According to the greatness of His grace, is the severity with which God visits His wrath upon the contempt of it.

Rieger:—To the Lord Jesus is ascribed a long-suffering patience (Hebrews 10:13), but to believers a hopeful waiting (Hebrews 9:28): unbelievers, on the contrary, fall into a fearful apprehension, wherein many a word of God that had been heard without fear, returns with terrible power.—The unfruitful vine before every other tree is given as food to the fire (Ezekiel 15:6-7); and thus abused love and neglected grace awaken all the greater wrath.—It is a great deception of our hardened and insensible heart that the death-punishments threatened in the law, stoning, etc., affect us more than the sorer punishment which takes effect only in the realm of the future and invisible.—“He who eats my bread, tramples me with his heel,” is the just complaint of Jesus in regard to His betrayer.

Heubner:—There is a more subtle and a more open apostasy.—The abandonment of the only Saviour and Propitiator takes us out of the reach of propitiation.—The apostate suffers a twofold punishment; first, in awaiting it, and then in the actual experience.—We hear in this case an earnest testimony to the guilt of careless and unprincipled changes in religion.

Menken:—In that the Lord judges His people He will avenge and deliver them.—Vengeance is a prerogative of the Divine majesty. This we are not to assume, but rather to refrain from all private vengeance, and, feeling the love of Jesus Christ, are to commend to the Divine compassion those who in thought and act oppose themselves to Christianity, and who are our enemies for the Gospel’s sake; and this all the more from the fact that they who from this cause, hate, calumniate and abuse us, unless they cease from their unrighteousness, will not escape the Divine retribution.

Footnotes:

Hebrews 10:30; Hebrews 10:30.—The words λέγει κύριος are wanting, indeed, in Sin. D*. 17,23*, 67**, and most ancient translations, but have the authority of A. D. E. K. L. Philox., and are added by a later hand in Sin. Comp. Expos, of Hebrews 10:29, conclusion.

Hebrews 10:30; Hebrews 10:30.—Instead of the lect. rec. κύριος κρινεῖ, we are to read κρινεῖ κύριος after Sin. A. D. E. K. 31, 73, which MSS., except Sin. and A., have also ὅτι preceding, as Sept., Deuteronomy 32:36; Psalms 135:14. In the Sin., the change has been introduced by the corrector.