US, THEM, AND YOU – AGAIN
Opening Prayer
You are an ever-present source of strength and hope in every trial I face, Father. Thank you for your promise to never lose your grip on me.
Read HEBREWS 10:26–39
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
26 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[a] and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”[b] 31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
32 Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering. 33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. 34 You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. 35 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.
36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. 37 For,
“In just a little while,
he who is coming will come
and will not delay.”[c]
38 And,
“But my righteous[d] one will live by faith.
And I take no pleasure
in the one who shrinks back.”[e]
39 But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
Footnotes
- Hebrews 10:30 Deut. 32:35
- Hebrews 10:30 Deut. 32:36; Psalm 135:14
- Hebrews 10:37 Isaiah 26:20; Hab. 2:3
- Hebrews 10:38 Some early manuscripts But the righteous
- Hebrews 10:38 Hab. 2:4 (see Septuagint)
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
Ask God for the grace and persistence to persevere until the end.
Think Further
Today’s reading is another strong warning, this time against intentional, ongoing sin by someone who has ‘received the knowledge of the truth’ (v. 26). That is, someone who has acknowledged the truth and validity of all that the writer has expounded in chapters 7–10 about the priesthood of Jesus and his sacrifice for sins. To deliberately continue to sin in the light of that acknowledgement is, according to verse 29, to trample the Son of God underfoot, to treat as unholy the sanctifying blood of the covenant, and to insult the Spirit of grace. Such people will fall into the hands of the living God, a dreadful thing.
Let us look again at the pronouns as we did in chapter 6. ‘If we deliberately keep on sinning,’ he begins (v. 26) and he ends with ‘But we [are not like that but] … have faith and are saved’ (v. 39). There is no suggestion that his readers are sinning in this way. Between these two ‘we’ statements are a series of ‘anyone’ statements, describing deliberate and persistent sin, and a series of ‘you’ statements describing the believers themselves. You were insulted and persecuted in the past and had your property confiscated, and yet you accepted all that joyfully because you knew you had ‘better and lasting possessions’ (v. 34). The writer concludes with a word of encouragement, ‘your confidence … will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that … you will receive what he [God] has promised’ (vv. 35, 36).
We need to clarify that this passage does not refer to someone ‘caught in a sin’ who can be restored gently.1 This is deliberate, persistent, willful rebellion against God, ‘outright apostasy.’2 It is equivalent to sinning ‘defiantly,’ for which the penalty was to be ‘cut off’ from God’s people.3
Apply
It is true to say that anyone worried that they may have committed such a sin, has almost certainly not – defiant sinners do not worry! Be encouraged with these words.
Closing prayer
Holy Spirit, I trust you to do the work that only you can. Continue to build faith in those who are persevering in Christ and convict those who need to acknowledge him as Lord.
1 Gal 6:1 2 FF Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Eerdmans, 1990, p261 3 Num 15:30,31
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