For where we sin wilfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains any sacrifice for sins,
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and heat of fire about to devour the adversaries.
This verse warns the person who has known the Christian message and then walks away from it on purpose. Two questions decide how we read it. What is the deliberate sin of the previous verse? And who are the "adversaries" the fire consumes?
The word "for" ties this verse to what comes just before — a call not to give up meeting together. One writer traces the line from that small neglect to the disaster described here.
It is a serious thing to read "not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some," so close to apostasy. But so it is. The habit is not only unworthy of Christians but dangerous... Little as the beginning seems to some, it is the beginning of a great and possibly fatal evil.
The sin here is not a believer's slip but a complete break. One writer draws the line by naming what the person does next.
The deliberate sin is turning away from the Christian faith. The Apostle is not speaking of a backslider who may go back into the world, like Demas, of whom we read in another letter. Such a person can be recovered. The apostate does more than give up Christianity. After professing it, he takes up some human religion. In effect he says, "I have tried Christianity, but I find Judaism, or Buddhism, or some other religion, better."
Another writer sets the law of Moses beside grace, and finds one exception.
For Israel under the law, deliberate sin had no remedy. The law allowed none. Under grace there is a perfect resource for all sins — "the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin." Only one deliberate sin is now without resource: turning away from Christianity. That is, giving up Christ and His sacrifice.
Nothing is left because there is no second offering to fall back on.
If they left Christianity, what other divine provision was there that could help them before the throne of God?... "There no longer remains a sacrifice for sins." That solemn statement shuts the door against everything besides the sacrifice of Christ... The language is decisive, so no one should mistake what lies ahead. No sacrifice remains. So a sacrifice was needed. Why speak of none remaining, if men could get to heaven without one?
The verse does not say the fire consumes weak Christians. It names a class, and one writer insists on the difference.
The sacrifices were still going on at Jerusalem, but there was no reality any more in anything there. They are not failing saints but adversaries. As such, they must expect a worse judgment than under the law of Moses — worse in proportion to the greatness of what they despised.
Earlier in the letter, Christ appears "a second time... to save those who are eagerly waiting for him." Here that same forward look holds something else.
No sacrifice then remains. At the close of the ninth chapter we saw the believer waiting for the Saviour from heaven. In place of that there is nothing but "a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries." The future is one of terror. Nothing can soften the dreadful doom awaiting those who have lined up on the side of the adversaries of God.
It might seem strange that such severity belongs to an age of good news. One writer answers that the good news is what makes it severe.
We do live in a day when the good news of God's grace is preached. But it is just that fact which increases the severity of the judgment... Grace makes known to us things of infinite greatness. To despise them is a sin of infinite greatness — far graver than despising the law of Moses with its holy demands.
The person frightened by this verse is usually the one it does not describe.
Their state is wholly in contrast with the apostate boldness described in this chapter as well as in Hebrews 6. There is nothing really in common. The apostate is as self-satisfied as he is scornful toward Christ. He hates the truth all the more because he once professed it. The tried and shaken believer condemns himself without sparing, and wants faithfulness to Christ above all things. The great remedy, valued by few, is confidence in His grace — a fuller sense of His work in judging sinful flesh, not forgiveness of sins only. He is also the believer's advocate when he fails.
- One sacrifice — Christ's offering is the only one God appointed; give it up and there is no other to fall back on.
- One sin — the deliberate sin here is giving up Christ altogether. A believer's failure has a remedy; this has none.
- One side — the verse counts those who quit not as failing saints but as adversaries, and the fire falls on them.
- One prospect — instead of waiting for the returning Saviour, they have only a fearful expectation of judgment.
- One caution — a backslider can be recovered, and the believer who condemns himself is not the person this verse pictures.