Hebrews 10:26
This might be a long letter but very worthy of reading it more than once. What you ask is not an uncommon question. I have been asked about this many times. You see, I was the first one to ask it regarding myself years ago. It was not until I understood the grace of God, did I see the truth, and I now offer the same for you to consider.
I want to start by telling you that you must understand the grace message of our Lord to get victory over these verses you speak of.
Hebrews 10.26-27 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.
Just reading a few verses out of context will doom the Christian to hell, or so it would feel. Or so it would seem. If we only read a few verses, as so many do, and not teach them in the context of the entire counsel of God, we do our selves much harm and a great injustice to the kingdom of God. I think this is why sound teaching is so very important for the Body of Christ.
In fact, today in class, when I heard the first few verses read, I thought to myself, I wonder if we are going to get into these next few verses?
Let's read what Paul was saying when he wrote these verses when taken out of context gives us so much fear.
First, in the book of Hebrews, Paul was writing to a group of Jewish believers who had come to understand that Jesus was the way of our salvation. They believed that real salvation was by grace and grace alone. No amount of doing or keeping the law would or could add anything to the finished work of Jesus on the cross for each of us who had accepted his sacrifice.
The real reason Paul was writing was that some of the Jewish believers were going back to the law to add to the grace of Jesus. They were saying, Yes, I know we are saved by Jesus, but don't we have to do more for God to FULLY accept us?Don't we have to keep the law in some small way for the blood of Christ to erase all of our present sin?
Paul address this behavior and calls our wanting to go back to "works" or seeing our failures as greater than the finished work of Jesus as sin. He says by thinking that your sin is greater than the power of the blood to forgive sin; you are really trampling the grace of God and saying that you must do something to add to this finished work. It is BY GRACE AND GRACE ALONE. NO AMOUNT OF SIN CAN SEPARATE YOU FROM THE LOVE OF GOD.
Ro 8:39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Not even sin can separate us from the love of God, Beloved. All our sin, past, present and future sin is all under the blood of the Cross. If God has cast your sin as far as the east is from the west, where is your sin?Look what this next verse in the book of Psalms says about our sin.
Psalms 103:11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. 13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; 14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.
Paul was afraid for their souls because they were going back to the law for more power to save them. This just cannot be. No amount of law keeping can do this. In fact, if we go back to the law, we fall from grace. For you see, it is his GRACE that keeps us, not our goodness. We fall from the grace when we look to ourselves to be good. There is nothing that we can go back to or go forward to, to add to the saving grace of God. You are as saved as you will ever be, Beloved. Jesus loves you just the way you are. Keep looking to his grace and his love for you.
Look at the book of Galatians; they were having the same trouble as the ones who Paul was writing to in the book of Hebrews. Note what Paul says here regarding this subject.
Ga 3:2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?
You see, here Paul was asking them how were you saved, by believing or by doing something. Were you saved by trusting Christ or by keeping the law and not sinning?No one can keep the law, Beloved, no one. You are not alone in this struggle. We all have fallen short. That is what the grace of God is for. It is for our salvation. Forgive me, God if I ever forget or think that what Jesus did for me was not enough. Consider these next two verses.
Ro 3:24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Eph 2:8 for it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-
JUSTIFIED - IS JUSTIFIED! The word means, just as if I had not sinned. You are not one who has fallen from grace nor have you sinned knowingly or willfully enough for the grace of God to not be able to cover that sin.
By really believing this wonderful mystery of the gospel, we find strength to over come sin. It is his strength (grace) that killed sin in our lives, not our strength.
Psalm 103.3 if you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared. I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.
Yes, who could stand?Not I. God loves you very much Beloved. He holds no record of wrong in you or towards you. He only has love for you. Isn't God good?
Let's read on in Hebrews, verses 28-29
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 a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
Paul is starting out his argument about the grace of God to a bunch of Jews who know the law. He quotes verse 28. Then he says, how much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
Wow! It must be a really bad thing to God for us to "…trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him..."
Yes, it is! But how do we trample the Son of God and insult the Spirit of Grace?It is not by sinning I can assure you of that. The only way to abuse God's grace is to not use it, to not believe it. If we think that we can go back and somehow prove our selves to be better because we are not sinning and have decided to keep the law better this year than we did last year, THEN AND ONLY THEN WE INSULT THE SPIRIT OF GRACE. By this kind of weak reasoning of the Word of God, we trample the Son of God under foot. Not by sinning. All our sin is gone forever. All our sin, past, present and future sin is all under the blood of the Cross. Beloved, this is the GREAT news I mentioned at the first of this letter.
You will find, as you seek to understand the grace of Jesus, that there is nothing you can do to cause God to hate you ever again. He laid all sin and the punishment for ALL sin on the back of Jesus. For when we doubt that Jesus really did do this for us, we fall from grace and have fallen to the law. You can rest in this wonderful news, Beloved. Jesus loves you very much.
Boy, I hate to bring up another group who was asking and having the same fears you were. Look at Romans the 6th chapter.
Romans 6.1 what shall we say, then?Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
The power in this verse is found in verse 2:…We died to sin…When God looks at you and me, he sees Jesus, NOT OUR SIN.IT IS ALL FORGIVEN. WE ARE FREE FROM OUR PAST.
Bob Coker
This might be a long letter but very worthy of reading it more than once. What you ask is not an uncommon question. I have been asked about this many times. You see, I was the first one to ask it regarding myself years ago. It was not until I understood the grace of God, did I see the truth, and I now offer the same for you to consider.
I want to start by telling you that you must understand the grace message of our Lord to get victory over these verses you speak of.
Hebrews 10.26-27 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.
Just reading a few verses out of context will doom the Christian to hell, or so it would feel. Or so it would seem. If we only read a few verses, as so many do, and not teach them in the context of the entire counsel of God, we do our selves much harm and a great injustice to the kingdom of God. I think this is why sound teaching is so very important for the Body of Christ.
In fact, today in class, when I heard the first few verses read, I thought to myself, I wonder if we are going to get into these next few verses?
Let's read what Paul was saying when he wrote these verses when taken out of context gives us so much fear.
First, in the book of Hebrews, Paul was writing to a group of Jewish believers who had come to understand that Jesus was the way of our salvation. They believed that real salvation was by grace and grace alone. No amount of doing or keeping the law would or could add anything to the finished work of Jesus on the cross for each of us who had accepted his sacrifice.
The real reason Paul was writing was that some of the Jewish believers were going back to the law to add to the grace of Jesus. They were saying, Yes, I know we are saved by Jesus, but don't we have to do more for God to FULLY accept us?Don't we have to keep the law in some small way for the blood of Christ to erase all of our present sin?
Paul address this behavior and calls our wanting to go back to "works" or seeing our failures as greater than the finished work of Jesus as sin. He says by thinking that your sin is greater than the power of the blood to forgive sin; you are really trampling the grace of God and saying that you must do something to add to this finished work. It is BY GRACE AND GRACE ALONE. NO AMOUNT OF SIN CAN SEPARATE YOU FROM THE LOVE OF GOD.
Ro 8:39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Not even sin can separate us from the love of God, Beloved. All our sin, past, present and future sin is all under the blood of the Cross. If God has cast your sin as far as the east is from the west, where is your sin?Look what this next verse in the book of Psalms says about our sin.
Psalms 103:11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. 13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; 14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.
Paul was afraid for their souls because they were going back to the law for more power to save them. This just cannot be. No amount of law keeping can do this. In fact, if we go back to the law, we fall from grace. For you see, it is his GRACE that keeps us, not our goodness. We fall from the grace when we look to ourselves to be good. There is nothing that we can go back to or go forward to, to add to the saving grace of God. You are as saved as you will ever be, Beloved. Jesus loves you just the way you are. Keep looking to his grace and his love for you.
Look at the book of Galatians; they were having the same trouble as the ones who Paul was writing to in the book of Hebrews. Note what Paul says here regarding this subject.
Ga 3:2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?
You see, here Paul was asking them how were you saved, by believing or by doing something. Were you saved by trusting Christ or by keeping the law and not sinning?No one can keep the law, Beloved, no one. You are not alone in this struggle. We all have fallen short. That is what the grace of God is for. It is for our salvation. Forgive me, God if I ever forget or think that what Jesus did for me was not enough. Consider these next two verses.
Ro 3:24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Eph 2:8 for it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-
JUSTIFIED - IS JUSTIFIED! The word means, just as if I had not sinned. You are not one who has fallen from grace nor have you sinned knowingly or willfully enough for the grace of God to not be able to cover that sin.
By really believing this wonderful mystery of the gospel, we find strength to over come sin. It is his strength (grace) that killed sin in our lives, not our strength.
Psalm 103.3 if you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared. I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.
Yes, who could stand?Not I. God loves you very much Beloved. He holds no record of wrong in you or towards you. He only has love for you. Isn't God good?
Let's read on in Hebrews, verses 28-29
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 a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
Paul is starting out his argument about the grace of God to a bunch of Jews who know the law. He quotes verse 28. Then he says, how much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
Wow! It must be a really bad thing to God for us to "…trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him..."
Yes, it is! But how do we trample the Son of God and insult the Spirit of Grace?It is not by sinning I can assure you of that. The only way to abuse God's grace is to not use it, to not believe it. If we think that we can go back and somehow prove our selves to be better because we are not sinning and have decided to keep the law better this year than we did last year, THEN AND ONLY THEN WE INSULT THE SPIRIT OF GRACE. By this kind of weak reasoning of the Word of God, we trample the Son of God under foot. Not by sinning. All our sin is gone forever. All our sin, past, present and future sin is all under the blood of the Cross. Beloved, this is the GREAT news I mentioned at the first of this letter.
You will find, as you seek to understand the grace of Jesus, that there is nothing you can do to cause God to hate you ever again. He laid all sin and the punishment for ALL sin on the back of Jesus. For when we doubt that Jesus really did do this for us, we fall from grace and have fallen to the law. You can rest in this wonderful news, Beloved. Jesus loves you very much.
Boy, I hate to bring up another group who was asking and having the same fears you were. Look at Romans the 6th chapter.
Romans 6.1 what shall we say, then?Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
The power in this verse is found in verse 2:…We died to sin…When God looks at you and me, he sees Jesus, NOT OUR SIN.IT IS ALL FORGIVEN. WE ARE FREE FROM OUR PAST.
Bob Coker
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