As we have made our way through the book of Hebrews, the single New Testament book devoted to the topic of Christians who are tempted or actually do fall away from the faith, I naturally have been led to sadly contemplate those Christians I have known who have fallen away.
These, tragically, were people I loved, whom I greatly valued, and who often had a profound impact on my own faith.
For instance, I think of Mark, the friend who sincerely, in my own interest, pursued for Jesus Christ, and won me to Christ along with hundreds of others. I often find myself wondering if I could return the favor somehow, if I could somehow restore him to Christ. And I wonder what he could have done, what could anyone have done to prevent the tragic shipwreck of his faith, and his family as a result.
I think of Jim, a co-pastor, who at that time I regarded as my very best friend, a man of highest character. How could he have fallen from grace, how could have abandoned Christ—what could he or anyone have done to have prevented his fall?
And I think of an extremely bright and talented young youth pastor, and leader in our church, who had such a wonderful family, What could have been in his case.
And other leaders in our church, one I led to Christ, who served shoulder-to-shoulder with me, who was a great encouragement in his spiritual growth, but who has now turned aside.
And sometimes, I wonder, whose next?
And what can I do, what could they do to prevent this tragic outcome to the spiritual lives?
It’s to that end that the Holy Spirit has written this sobering book of Hebrews, and we come this morning to the most severe of the perhaps five warning passages we find in the book, the section from Hebrews 10:26-39. And it’s clear what the Holy Spirit wants me to do to prevent that from happening to any of you this morning—He wants me to preach this difficult passage. He wants me to tell you that there are three things you ought to do to prevent this awful outcome for your spiritual and eternal lives:
Consider the consequences, remember the joy, and keep the faith.
Now before we jump into the passage this morning, I’d like you to imagine what kind of circumstance might cause you to question your faith—what kind of awful circumstances might lead you to abandon your faith in Christ.
After all, Jesus, in the Parable of the Sower, admits that apostasy, or people falling away from the faith would be a regular experience of the Christian life. And he gives five different reasons why people will be falling away from the faith: the worries of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the desire for other things, affliction, or persecution because of the Word. What kind of terrible thing—the loss of a mate, the loss of children, terrible disease, unanswered prayer, what desires for other things might cause you to abandon your faith in Christ?
And then consider the antidote. First, Consider the consequences. And the consequences are dire.
The writer tells us not to fall away or you’ll pay on Judgment Day.
The reason these Jewish believers in Christ were considering falling away was persecution. Remember, they were thinking about reverting to Judaism, and the Old Testament sacrifices of bulls and goats which could never take away sins. But the writer has already made the point, only Christ’s sacrifice pays for sins once and for all people and all time.
And so he says in verse 26, “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving a knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.”
Now the first thing we need to notice here is exactly what kind of falling away we’re talking about here. It is no temporary departure from the faith. It is not a Christian who has merely backslidden for a while. The kind of falling away or apostasy that the writer is talking about is a full, willful, permanent decision to abandon both the profession and the practice of following Christ.
First, the use of the present tense here indicates that this is a continuous, persistent and repeated decision to fall away from Christ. It is permanent. “If we go one sinning” indicates the person refuses to repent, he is determined to continue in his abandonment of Christ.
Second, especially emphasized in the original is that it is an intentional, or willful sin. It is not accidental or unintentional. The person who is being talked about here willfully, deliberately determines he is not going to follow Christ any longer. In the Old Testament, in Number 15:29-31 there were two kinds of sins. There were unintentional sins, and there were sacrifices to cover those sins. And then there were defiant sins, intentional sins, and there was no sacrifice for them. This is that kind of sin. The person being described here doesn’t just fall into falling way, he intentionally, deliberately and defiantly decides to abandon Christ and the sacrifice He made for sins. As this verse indicates, there is no sacrifice for sins, that, therefore remains for him to claim.
Third, the kind of sin being talked about from the context, is abandoning Christ. Here, it’s abandoning Christ for a return to Judaism. However, the general principle is if you deliberately and persistently and willfully abandon Christ, then no sacrifice remains for you sin.
And fourthly, this decision to abandon Christ comes after you have received a full knowledge of the truth. You truly know all about Christ, and you know the consequence. The Greek word for knowledge here means not a passing acquaintance, but you have a full and complete knowledge of Christ, and despite that you’re abandoning Him.
An illustration of this can be found, again, in the response of the 12 disciples to Jesus on the night he was betrayed. 11 disciples fell away temporarily, almost accidentally, because they didn’t have a full knowledge of the situation—they didn’t know Jesus was dying for their sins and would be raised from the dead. And so they were restored from a temporary apostasy, a short term falling away. Judas, on the other hand, deliberately betrayed Jesus, never repented, continued in his unrepentant state to the end, and was lost. Judas is an example of the willful sinner or apostate who knew full well what he was doing was wrong, was never saved, and died unrepentantly, and therefore was lost. The other disciples were caught off guard, momentarily lost faith, but were repentant and restored. Whatever you do, you don’t want to follow Judas’ example, and abandon Jesus willfully and unrepentantly.
Because the end of verse 26 provides us with the first of the consequences. For such a person, “there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” Now this is huge. This is the whole ball of wax when it comes to heaven, the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. If there is no sacrifice for sins, there is no forgiveness of sins. If there is no forgiveness of sins, then you pay for your own sins. Since there is no substitute to suffer for your sins, you, as the sinner must pay for your sins. And clearly, this means that the result of falling away completely, willfully and permanently way from Christ is to experience God’s wrath, or hell. In my view, the logic and the Scripture, leads to this inescapable conclusion.
Now let me note here once again, I don’t think the book of Hebrews teaches that a true believer can lose his salvation. Rather, if someone who appears to be a true believer abandons his faith, what he demonstrates is that He was never saved in the first place. This is evident from Hebrews 3:6 and Hebrews 3:14, the latter of which I will quote here: “For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.”
So if someone, no matter who they are, or how long they have followed Christ, abandons the faith, then, according to this verse, and others, they were never truly saved in the first place. They are just simply ultimately showing the true colors by falling away.
So the consequence of falling away from Christ, is no forgiveness of sins. The inescapable result is that you pay for your own sins, and that is clearly stated in verse 27: “There no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.”
Whoa! This is just what we did not want to hear. Hell is the outcome for the person who willfully and permanently abandons Christ having had a full knowledge of what He was doing.
Now there are many scholars, including my mentors at Dallas Seminary, who want to say that this is only the assurance of a loss of reward, a loss of the privilege of inheriting the kingdom with Christ. But the language simply does not allow for this. Is anyone really terrified by the prospect of losing a reward? I don’t think so. What absolutely terrifies us, or me at least, is the prospect of spending eternity in hellfire. And that is precisely what is being described here.
The terrifying expectation of judgment is precisely this: “The fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.” In other words, the judgment anticipated on those who fall away is that there will be a fire—always something associated with God’s retributive judgment—that will literally eat, or consume, the adversaries, the enemies of God. He or she who rejects Christ’s sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins invites God’s judgment upon his or her sins—namely the fires of hell that consume him or her as the enemy of God.
The fact that this is speaking of spiritual or eternal destruction, eternal death, or hell is re-enforced by the following two verses, which assures us of the certainty of God’s judgment upon such sinners.
It’s a typical Scriptural and Jewish argument from the lesser to the greater—the lesser being the kind of judgment that occurred when the lesser Covenant, the Old Covenant was violated when compared to the kind of judgment that will occur when the greater Covenant, the New Covenant is violated.
Verse 28: “Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified?”
So what was the punishment for someone who violated the first covenant. It was immediate physical death on the testimony of two or three witnesses. So what would then be the greater punishment for the ultimate violation of the New Covenant—trampling under foot the Son of Good, making profane or common His blood that established the covenant, and insulting the Holy Spirit of God’s grace? It would be a greater punishment. In other words, not just physical death. Certainly not just loss of spiritual reward. It would be spiritual and eternal death. Again, the inescapable conclusion that deliberately, defiantly, and permanently falling away from Christ results in the eternal experience of hell.
Whoa! Not something we were hoping for, but when you consider the nature of the sin—treating God’s Son with absolute contempt, trampling Him under foot, disregarding, dishonoring, the precious blood of Christ, and insulting the Holy Spirit who graciously brought you to Christ—the latter is tantamount to blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, is likely the unpardonable sin. The judgment is fully deserved, and God’s justice is served.
God promises to judge people in this way. These are promises none of us want to claim, but they are the promises of God in God’s Word in the Old Testament nonetheless, as verse 30 assures us: “For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” from Deuteronomy 32:35 and “For the Lord will judge His people” from Psalm 135. And then He summarizes His point in verse 31: “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
Indeed. The fear of God here is one antidote to fall away. Fear God, and eternal hellfire, and you’ll think again before you abandon Christ. The fear of God will keep you from falling away if nothing else will. It is the beginning of wisdom, and the end of wisdom in this case. Consider the eternal consequences for yourself, and I might mention, the consequences for others who depend on you. Though not mentioned in this passage, what will your falling away from Christ mean to your family, your friends, and especially your children? Will they fall away from Christ also, as a result. Will your selfish, rebellious, defiant decision destroy not only your eternal future, but their faith and future as well?
Consider the consequences.
Second, Remember the joy. Remember the love and the joy of sacrificing and caring for and being there for each other.
Now these believers had long experience of following Christ. And they had suffered previously, suffered greatly, but with great joy.
Verse 32-34: “But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.”
He’s saying you guys experience great joy from being there for each other, loving each other through bad times and good, suffering for Jesus and rejoicing that there was a great heavenly reward for doing so. They had experienced the truth of “By this shall all men know you are my disciples by your love for one another.” They had experienced the joy of a committed love for Christ and one another as Jesus had said, “No greater love has a man than He give His life for his friends” in John 15:13. They had experienced the joy of sacrificing, and giving for Christ and other’s sake—It is more blessed to give than to receive. Don’t forget the joy and the love that you experience from loving each other, being there with and for each other and suffering for Christ those many years ago. Don’t give up the reward that was promised by Jesus for suffering for His name. You’ll lose all that if you abandon Jesus, and abandon Jesus’ people.
Remember the joy and the love of being there for each other, and being there for Christ, the quality of joy and love you can experience in no other fellowship on earth. You’ll lose it all if you abandon Jesus.
And finally, endure because of your confidence in the great reward that will be yours for doing so. Maintain your confidence in the great reward.
Verse 35: “Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.” What is that great reward? It’s heaven! It’s eternal life. It’s the kingdom of God! It is being co-heirs with Christ in the Kingdom. It is the reward Jesus assured—the great reward that is ours, that we can rejoice over because we have been willing to suffer for Christ’s sake.
Now the Holy Spirit assures us that that reward is coming—the Kingdom which we pray for every time we engage in the Lord’s prayer is coming in just a little while, comparatively, as we think of years in relationship to eternity.
Verse 36: “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised”—yes, the Kingdom that is coming when the King comes.
And then the writer combines two Old Testament passages from Isaiah 26:20 and Habakkuk 2:4 to tell them that their faith is the bridge between the present distress and their future glory:
Verse 37; “For yet in a very little while, he who is coming will come, and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith, and if He shrinks back (falls away) my soul has no pleasure in Him.”
How can we live under otherwise intolerable circumstances for Christ? By living by faith. When we live by faith in what is promised, what is to come, we do not live by sight, what we are experiencing now. We persevere, we endure, knowing that better times are to come.
And with that vital word of encouragement about maintaining your faith in the promises of God for eternal and glory in the Kingdom to come, He assures them that he believes the best about them—that they will not be among those who shrink back to destruction (total ruin, judgment) but those who will have faith unto the preserving, in other word, the saving of their souls. Yes, salvation is in the balance here. We endure, we persevere, we preserve the soul. We shrink back, we fall away, destruction awaits.
Preserve you’re your faith in God’s promises, and that will result in endurance to the saving of your soul.
Jeanie and I were discussing this challenging passage the other day when she had some comments on the pain involved in childbirth—and of course, Amanda had just had our sixth grandson. So the experience of childbirth was on her mind.
And she made this statement. No woman would think of enduring the pain of childbirth of there were not a great reward that would be theirs as a result. The reason women endure the incredible pain is for the even more incredible gift of a precious baby who is all their own.
It’s because of our faith, our assurance, our confidence, that there is a great reward that will be our as a result of persevering in the faith.
Want to endure in the faith. Consider the consequence of not doing so, remember the joy, and be confident of the reward.
