Worse Than Death

Not only does an apostate deny the person of Christ, but he also denies the work of Christ. Verse 29 says that he “has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him.”

An apostate is a believer who turns his back on the work of Christ. He no longer considers the sacrifice of Jesus as a complete, final, unique work. It’s nothing special.

And the apostate is one who has also, according to verse 29: “insulted the Spirit of grace.”

He wants nothing to do with the workings of the Holy Spirit in his life. He has turned his back on the things of Christ. He has deserted the Christian faith. And it’s possible for a true believer in Christ to do that—to abandon the gospel that he once embraced.

I mentioned that Charles Templeton was a preacher who was more popular than his good friend, Billy Graham. Well, even though Templeton was a successful, established, much-in-demand evangelist, he felt the need for formal theological training. Doubts were creeping into his life, and he began to question his faith. And so in 1948 he decided to enroll in Princeton Theological Seminary. And while he was there, his doubts became more acute. He graduated from Princeton and continued in the ministry. But slowly his confidence in the Word of God began to erode until finally he got to the point where he no longer believed in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Templeton renounced his Christianity and became an agnostic. He even wrote a book in 1995 entitled Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith.

It is possible for a believer to abandon the faith. It happens today and it happened 2,000 years ago. I remind you that the writer of Hebrews is addressing a congregation of Hebrew Christians who were tempted to jettison their faith in Christ. The threat of persecution caused them to seriously consider returning to their former religion of Judaism.

But if they did that, the writer of Hebrews tells them at the end of verse 26, “ … no sacrifice for sins is left.” In other words, the Levitical sacrifices that they were thinking of going back to won’t do them any good. Animal sacrifices won’t forgive their sins. And they surely won’t take away their sin of apostasy.

Well, if a Christian does renounce his faith in Christ, what will happen to him? What can he expect?

A believer who abandons the faith will face the temporal discipline of God.

That last phrase leads us to the third issue that the writer of Hebrews presents. Namely, …

3. THE PUNISHMENT

Starting in verse 26, we read: “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.”

If a Christian renounces the faith, he can expect God’s discipline in his life. But what kind of discipline?

Well, I don’t believe that the punishment is a loss of eternal salvation. God will never send a Christian to hell—even one who is an apostate. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”