Hebrews: The New Covenant Administration of Christ Max A Forsythe (c) Anno Domini 2005

From the Pulpit at Pilgrim's Rest Presbyterian Church in America

A Fearful Thing
For the Lord’s Day:  the 17^th of April 2005 

Hebrews 10: 26-31

Introduction:  Many false revivals no doubt have begun with the reading and application of this text.  No doubt, the many vestiges of penitent ritualism sprung from an all too literal application of the one sin described here to the many sins commonly known and experienced by saints in every time and place.  With that said, I am by no means trivializing the habits of sin.  As we all should know – there are weaknesses of enough kind to infatuate the mind and habits of any and every believer.  The Church of the High Middle Ages defined seven deadly sins, which according to their dogmas had to be regularly confessed and atoned for again and again.  Penance and rituals were contrived to solicit absolution and a good conscience.  F.F. Bruce notes that this historic development might well have been considered an institution that “differed but little in principle from the Old Testament institution of the day of atonement.”

As we read this passage today, I do not wish to burden any of you who count on the blood of Jesus Christ – with any unnecessary distress.  It is fairly obvious that the one sin that is being stressed here is not a common garden variety of sinful indulgence.  Calvin points out that these are not sinners who have fallen in any kind of ordinary way, but only “those who forsake the Church and separate themselves from Christ.”  F.F. Bruce explains that “the context suggests that something much more serious is in [the Apostles] mind than what Paul calls being ‘overtaken in any trespass’ “

Commentator Raymond Brown applies this description to former members “who had not been given or had not responded to the encouragement of their fellow believers.  They began by drifting away from the moorings of truth, then they neglected to ‘meet together’; gradually they had been lured from spasmodic doubt to a persistent apostasy which expressed itself not only in unbelief, but in violent opposition to Christ and his people.”

Development:  So let us begin our analysis of the one sin outlined here with verses twenty-six and seven:  “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.”  The key words here are “sinning deliberately.”  Commentator John Brown notes that “the word ‘sin’ here is plainly used in a somewhat peculiar sense.  It is descriptive not of sin generally, but of a particular kind of sin, - apostasy from the faith and profession of the truth, once known and professed.”  And finally, John Owen comforts us with the knowledge that “this sinning deliberately does not refer to those times of spiritual darkness that may press down on our minds, even though they are evil and dangerous.  To sin deliberately happens when people through choice and from an evil heart of unbelief depart from the living God.”

These are the deliberate people who oppose the church, the doctrines and the substance of faith given once for all in and through the scriptures.  These are the very liberals who have captured denomination after denomination and reimaged any remnants of a gospel in a Jonathan Livingston Seagull parody of New Age self-esteem and personal achievement.  These are the pathological and perverse personalities that would live any which way they choose and in order to salve their conscience – so oppose every vestige of Judeo-Christian ideas of what constitutes right and wrong.  This is a determined apostate!

The “adversaries” here and thought the New Administration of the Covenant are all of those who particularly oppose and persecute the church of Jesus Christ.  For these crème de la crude – the Apostle tells us that their hope, if we may call it that: is of a particular hellish variety.  He makes three points perfectly clear about their final end.

        1.        There is no longer any viable sacrifice for their sin.
2.        There remains only a fearful expectation of divine judgment.
3.        There will be a final fury of fire that will consume the adversaries of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Unless any of you here today are consummate liars and double dealing hypocrites – none of you should fear this label.  Some of my commentators entitle this section a Fourth Admonition, meaning that the warning here is comparative in nature, just to make certain there are no sympathetic ears to this perennial problem of wolves slipping in with the sheep and thereby diverting the Church of the living Christ towards becoming a temple of Satan.

In verses twenty-eight and nine we find a second comparative statement contrasting the two economies of the Old and New Covenant:  “Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.  How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?”

According to the laws of Israel, which were incorporated in the Old Covenant records – a Jewish court required two or three witnesses for any capital case.  Only then could the criminal be convicted and executed.  If you think that is a consistent application of God’s Law – how much more the Apostle questions, will be the fate of those adversaries of the God of heaven and earth.  Look carefully at the charges, and relax – by your presence here on a regular basis you proclaim the real gospel.  The people being described support the opposite extreme. 

Their position is something like the old Puritan linguistic understanding of the word “ain’t”.   You see, in the scriptures, the divine name as translated as “I AM,” therefore in the Puritan mind, the exact opposite could be considered a form of sin and therefore not to be spoken aloud.  After all, the ancient Hebrews spoke not the divine name, but even pointed it with different vowels so as to not let it be read in the original.  This is where the King James word “Jehovah” came into use, and thereby the Jewish tradition was accidentally carried on.  If any of you have ever read Cal Thomas’ column in the Jewish paper which makes it available on the web – you will notice that even the word “GOD” is carefully edited to something less.

The Apostle Luke reports the words concerning the people being described in our passage from Hebrews:  “I tell you my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do.  But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell.  Yes, I tell you, fear him!”  (Luke 12: 4-5)  In that description, we may better appreciate the worthy punishment of those who confirm a three fold denial outlined by the Apostle to the Hebrews:

        1.        The Son of God has been spurned.
2.        The blood of the covenant has been profaned
3.        The Spirit of grace has been outraged.

These are by all intents and definitions: blasphemy of the worst kind: a common enough crime on the atheistic edges of our culture today.

Verse thirty explains the wrath of God towards the ones being defined in our text today:  “For we know him who said, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’”  Both of these passages are from the “Song of Moses” in Deuteronomy 32. This warning is not confined to the Old Covenant people alone, but also for any and every person who comes into the organized church under the New Covenant as well.  F.F. Bruce notes that “this certainly means that He will execute judgment on their behalf, vindicating their cause against their enemies, but also that, on the same principles of impartial righteousness, He will execute judgment against them when they forsake His covenant.”

Application:  Now, it is time to apply the texts we have been reading and attempting to understand.  I have already prepped you twice and even thrice to wince not at the harshness of the revelation of God’s wrath against those who oppose Him and His will.  For those of you who have paid particular attention, you may remember two injunctions specifically – but what of the third?  The third was in our final installment of Psalm 26.  The last two verses there especially, but in fact the whole of that psalm should encourage us all who belong to Christ.  And how should we be encouraged – simply in this fact:  the charges read today have no application to those who believe in God’s word and live their lives before His face day to day. 

To prove this point of encouragement, let us consider carefully the thirty-first verse:  “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”  Remember the old Disney cartoon about Bre’r Rabbit who when caught by Bre’r Fox pleaded that he not be thrown into the briar patch.  You can roast me, you can toast me, but please … he pleaded – don’t throw me into that there briar patch!  And after the fox delighted in casting him there, Bre’r Rabbit called back that the briar patch was where he had been born!

It is indeed a fearful thing for the one class of sinners so definitely condemned in our text today.  They will not do well in the hands of the living God!  But, even as David learned in Psalm 26, he could cast himself upon the divine judgment and because of grace he had nothing to fear.  In another place, David knew this text exceptionally well.  That is in 2 Samuel 24: 10-17.  In that passage, David was to be punished for taking a census of his military might without thereby giving the people an opportunity to give gifts to the support of the Lord’s house.  David’s choices for punishment included:

        1.        a three year famine in the land
2.        three months of being chased and harried by his enemies
3.        three days pestilence throughout the land

He chose the latter pleading his anguish and distress: “Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.”

One final point this morning, last week we read several charges of what we were to be as the Church of the Living Lord.  This week, we see the great divide between mankind, those elect of all the earth and those especially who would savage the church because of their opposition to the God of heaven and earth.  And that which they would fear the most, it is our most precious reward, because even if we are sinners but redeemed – we are safe in the hands of Him who died for us and who will call us home to be with him forever and ever in due time.  May we count it all grace that we are His and He is ours.  Amen.

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PREACHING RESOURCES

 Brown, John.  A Geneva Series Commentary:  Hebrews.
Brown, Raymond.  The Bible Speaks Today:  The Message of Hebrews.
Bruce, F.F.  The Epistle to the Hebrews.
Owen, John:  Commentary on the Book of Hebrews.
The Holy Bible:  English Standard Version.

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