Why is it a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31)?

The difference between these two scriptures is immense. David had fallen into sin in yielding to the temptation of Satan to number Israel; and, governed by will and pride, he had forgotten the ordinance that every man was to give a ransom for his soul when they were numbered, "that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them." (Exodus 30:12.) God, therefore, was displeased, but He loved His servant David, and He sent Gad, after the king had confessed his iniquity, to offer him one of three methods of chastisement — three years' famine, three months to be destroyed before his foes, or three days the sword of the Lord, even the pestilence, in the land. God could accept the confession of His servant's sin, and restore his soul, but governmentally He must deal with this flagrant transgression. It was to the offer, Gad was commissioned to make, that David replied, "I am in a great strait: let me fall now into the hand of the Lord; for very great are His mercies: but let me not fall into the hands of man." It is evident from these words that, if the Lord knew David, David also knew the Lord, apprehended the nature of the stroke about to fall upon him, and could count on "His mercies" in using the rod. In other words he accepted the chastisement, and preferred to receive it directly from the Lord's hand; and he thus could say, "Let me fall now into the hand of the Lord." But when we come to the epistle to the Hebrews, it is not a saint falling into temptation, but apostates, that were before the mind of the writer, those who had once been with the people of God, professors of Christianity, who had "sinned wilfully" after having received the knowledge of the truth for whom there remained no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation which should devour the adversaries. (vv. 26, 27.) It is such the writer warns that vengeance belongs to the Lord, that He will judge His people — all who profess to be such — and that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; for to fall into the hands of God in this way would involve irremediable destruction. It is one thing, therefore, to fall into the hands of the Lord, like David, for chastening, for governmental dealing, and another thing to fall into the hands of the living God for unmitigated judgment as His adversaries — and this is the difference between these two scriptures. E. D.

With the solemn announcement, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God," the words of warning close. "The living God!" A thought this is which has encouraged saints in their walk of faith in Old Testament times. Death cannot overcome the living God. A thought it is, on the other hand, to make one in danger of apostatising pause and quail. For who can outlive him, in whose hands apostates must find themselves, to be dealt with in unsparing judgment? To meet the living God in judgment must be awful indeed. But the writer will not close with that thought. He would speak words to strengthen the faith of his readers.

(Vv. 26-31). The Apostle has considered the danger of letting go our hope, slighting one another and forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. Now he warns us of the more serious danger of apostasy that assails the Christian profession. The wilful sin is apostatising 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 epistle. Such an one can be recovered. The apostate not only gives up Christianity, but he takes up some human religion, after having professed Christianity. He practically says, “I have tried Christianity, but I find Judaism, or Buddhism, or some other religion, better.” For such there is no more sacrifice for sin, only a fearful looking for of judgment. Such an one treats with contempt the Son of God, despises the sacrifice of Christ and insults the Spirit of grace.

The apostate must be left to God. It is not for us to take vengeance. God cannot trust us with vengeance. We are definitely told that vengeance belongs to the Lord. The apostate will find that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

A Warning. — Hence follows the solemn warning: "For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law, died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and has done despite to the Spirit of grace? For we know Him that has said, Vengeance belongs to Me, I will recompense. And again, The Lord shall judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (10:26-31). We quote the passage in full. Solemn words indeed they are, foretelling Divine judgment, with no hope of escape, if the condition here described becomes true of an individual. For it should be remarked that, whilst referring to some professed believers (25) who were not assembling themselves with the Christian community, the writer does not style them apostates. They might yet be recovered, though to all appearance they were in great danger of apostatising. God is patient. He desires not the perdition of the sinner, and would recover any such if possible (2 Tim. 2:25-26; Jude 22-23; Rev. 3:14-21). But if the course was a persistent one — sinning wilfully, the term implying the habit, not a temporary relapse, after the individual had received the knowledge of the truth (and by knowledge is here meant clear apprehension of the truth) — there was no sacrifice available. The truth — and by this Christian revelation is here described — had been before the individual, who had professed to accept it, and who now wilfully, persistently, and finally surrendered it by a relapse to Judaism. There was no sacrifice for sins for such a one. The only real one he had wilfully turned from, and had gone back to that which, by his profession of Christianity, he had once declared, and rightly, could never meet his case; for the blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sins. If Judaism could not meet his need, and if the sacrifice of Christ he had repudiated, where and how was he to get forgiveness of his sins? A sacrifice for sins was required. Those in Judaism owned that. Where could it be found if that of Christ on the cross was wilfully spurned? Again are we reminded that it is a question for the guilty creature of the perfect sacrifice of Christ or nothing.

Two quotations are added from the book of Deuteronomy (Deut. 32:35-36) in confirmation of the doctrine of a special judgment on the gainsayer and apostate (verse 30). The Lord will judge His people. He stands already before the door in readiness to visit the great house of His profession and deal with it in uprightness according to its state. To fall into the hands of the living God, when He comes armed for vengeance to destroy His adversaries, is, indeed, a fearful thing (verse 31). It will not be thus with them who now, with a full sense of their own weakness, know by faith the power of that hand to keep them fast for ever (John 10). The living God is the desire of His children. Their faces are towards His tabernacles. There may be fainting, and many a harmful digression by the way. But every one of those whom He has taught to build their souls on Jesus will surely see His face in rest with everlasting joy (Ps. 84:7).

Then, in verse 26, it is as though he said, If you do not hold fast - if you will give up, and abandon this perfect sacrifice, then there remains nothing further; there is no year of atonement to come round again with a new offering; but just as those who believe are eternally perfect, so he who refuses is left remediless. It was he who despised Moses' law who died without mercy, and not he who broke it; so it is he who counts the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and does despite to the Spirit of grace, that shall be counted worthy of a sorer punishment; not he who fails. "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins"; such is the gracious provision for failure through infirmity - advocacy, righteousness, and propitiation. But if a man, after having seen all the grace and fulness that are in Christ, deliberately choose sin as his portion; and, rejecting the blood of the new covenant as insufficient, turns back again, then he must take the consequence. God's grace is His last resource, so to speak, for winning man. If that does not suffice, judgment must take its course; and "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." On this ground the position is at once that of "adversaries," and we know Him that hath said, "Vengeance is mine, I will recompense." "Let us, therefore, hold fast our confidence, which hath great recompense of reward"; and let us remember that we shall "have need of patience; but yet a little while, and he that shall come, will come, and will not tarry."

Who can describe the awful terror of those words: "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire"? Who can exaggerate the dread of the irresistible judgment of the Great White Throne? No wonder when the kings of the earth and all men, both great and small, think the day of the Lord has come, and the time for the visitation of His fierce wrath, that they cry to the mountains and hills to fall upon them and cover them! "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." He is a silent God. Day by day the heavens pass silently over our heads, and night after night the silent stars look down upon us no voice from them. We travel the earth over, we witness evidence of God's presence in sea and shore, in the storm which breaks the rocks asunder and bows the trees of the forest before it, but we hear no voice of the living God. Men have come to believe that He is not a living God. They would fain think that He is removed so far from His creation that He can never again visit it. But our God does not slumber, though He is silent. The time is coming when He shall rise to shake terribly the earth, and who can describe the awful scene when the living God shall call men to answer for all their sin?

To contemplate the judgment of God is surely appalling to poor creatures like ourselves; though at best we have very little sense of the terrible nature of that judgment. Think of what it was to our Lord when in the Garden that bitter cup was presented to Him. He who best knew the terrible nature of that judgment feared it most (Heb. 5:7). It is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God in the day in which He takes vengeance upon the evildoer (Heb. 10:31).

It is needless to say that there is no contradiction between these scriptures. The difference in the circumstances will explain the difficulty. David, although a man after God's heart, had fallen into sin, and now convicted, and confessing his guilt, the Lord offered to him the choice of one of three methods of chastisement. The Lord's name had been dishonoured by His anointed king, and the Lord must publicly vindicate it; and thus He sent the message to David through the prophet Gad. David's reply was, "Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man." None but a real saint, one who had had to do with God in the past, and had learned in measure what He was in His tenderness and mercy, could have used this language. It was as knowing the Lord that David, in his penitence, said, "Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord." In the epistle to the Hebrews the apostle had been supposing the awful case of sinning wilfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, and for such, he declares, "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins," etc. In other words, he deals with those who might become apostates, those who had made a confession of Christianity, but who, never having been really converted, might publicly abandon their profession, and thus tread under foot, before men, the Son of God, and count the blood of the covenant wherewith they were sanctified (for they had been Jews) an unholy thing, and do despite unto the Spirit of grace. It is for this class - once professors, but possibly now avowed apostates - that the apostle says, "For we know Him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." The Lord may, and does, chastise His people, when they turn aside from His ways, but however heavily His rod may fall upon them, they will surely confess with David that His mercies are great. He will also, sooner or later, deal with professors and apostates, and for them His rod will be one of vengeance and "recompense" for their high-handed rebellion, and then they will learn, when, alas! it is too late for repentance, that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

Further, it is the assembly of the living God. The God who dwells in the midst of His people is not like the dead idols that men worship, that can neither see nor hear. That our God is living is a truth of blessed but solemn import, but one we can easily forget. Later the Apostle can tell us that we can “both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God” (1 Timothy 4:10). The living God is a God that delights to support and bless His people; nevertheless, if the holiness that becomes His house is not maintained, God may make manifest that He is the living God in solemn governmental dealings as with Ananias and Sapphira, who experienced the truth of the words, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).