The hymn “I Love to Tell the Story,” speaks of our passion in sharing the gospel. The song goes through the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in verses 4-6 and ends with a commission to tell the world this wonderful news. This message needs to be the single most defining characteristic of every evangelical church—that God’s Son so profoundly loved this world that He willing gave up His life to save every sinner who would believe in Him.
This is a story we should love to tell. But if we are to give due regard to the totality of God’s Word, we must remember that this is not the only story that God has given us to tell. To be more precise, it may be better to say it’s not that we’ve been given another story to tell. Rather, the story we have has a dark side as well.
It is the old, old story of apostasy, of turning our backs on God, of falling away from the gospel and its saving benefits. That is truly a vital issue. It is the difference between life and death, between heaven and hell.
Jonathan Edwards, America’s foremost theologian and pastor during the First Great Awakening in the mid-18th century once preached a famous sermon entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” It wasn’t because he was an angry, cantankerous preacher, but it was because he loved his people and desired their true salvation.
He was less concerned with God’s wrath than with his grace, which was freely extended to sinners who repented. Jonathan Edwards gave his people a whiff of the sulphurs of Hell that they might deeply inhale the fragrances of grace.
It is just as important for us to understand and take seriously the wrath of God against sin and unbelief, as it is for us to understand and appreciate the sweetness of God’s grace towards unbelieving sinners.
Divine wrath is righteous antagonism toward all that is unholy. It is the revulsion of God’s character to that which is a violation of God’s will. Indeed, one may speak of divine wrath as a function of divine love! For God’s wrath is his love for holiness and truth and justice. It is because God passionately loves purity and peace and perfection that he reacts angrily toward anything and anyone who defiles them. J. I. Packer explains it this way:
“Would a God who took as much pleasure in evil as He did in good be a good God? Would a God who did not react adversely to evil in His world be morally perfect? Surely not. But it is precisely this adverse reaction to evil, which is a necessary part of moral perfection, that the Bible has in view when it speaks of God’s wrath” (Knowing God, 136-37).
This concern joins his heart with that of the author of Hebrews some 1700 years earlier. “The stakes were identical—heaven or hell. And the symptoms, though not identical, were similar as well—a declining regard for the church’s authority, a willfulness to define one’s relationship to the church in one’s own terms, and, in some cases, quitting the church altogether” (R. Kent Hughes, Hebrews, Volume 2, p. 40).
I hope you’ve come to love and appreciate the book of Hebrews. It is a great book filled with deep theological truths that impact our lives today. But we’ve come to discover that woven throughout this epistle are five of the strongest warning passages in the Word of God—warnings concerning possible apostasy and the dreadful doom that is its consequence.
And it can be argued that the warning before us in our passage today is the most severe. Here we read of a frightening judgment, a rage that rises zealously, of enemies consumed, of punishment severe, of vengeance that is dreadful. Most astounding of all, God is the subject of these severe actions.
That passage is Hebrews 10:26-39.
26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 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? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. 35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. 37 For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; 38 but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” 39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
While the holiness of God requires that He show His wrath against all sin, it is obvious from this passage that the sin that most powerfully arouses God’s wrath is not adultery, or homosexuality, but the sin of apostasy.
The danger is real and our author even includes himself by saying, “if we go on sinning deliberately…” The thought seems to be closely connected with the preceding verse, suggesting that if we forsake our fellow-Christians, it may easily lead to our forsaking Christ.
From this passage of Scripture we will discover the answers to four very important questions for all of us.
First, who is the apostate?
Second, what is his or her doom?
Third, why is this doom so severe?
Finally, how can the apostate be certain of such doom?
So first, what is an apostate?
It is important for us to answer this question. Some of us, hearing these words, begin to tremble with fear. Am I an apostate? Maybe because you have a sensitive conscience or because you see a pattern of sin in your life, you wonder whether you yourself are an apostate. This passage causes you to sweat and shake.
If you are a serious-minded Christian, I know that you are aware that you continue to sin. I don’t have to do anything to convince you of that. You are aware that although you are a saint in God’s eyes, you still sin in your everyday practice. There are occasions when you surprise yourself. There are times when you become deeply discouraged that you have not conquered certain sins. Paul acknowledged that he was still a sinner late in his life. Although he had matured and become holy enough to encourage others to imitate his life, he still called himself the “foremost” sinner (1 Timothy 1:15).
This tendency to give in to sin is captured in one of our favorite hymns Come Thou Fount. One of the choruses goes
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, oh take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above
If you feel troubled about your sins, or your tendency to sin, I want to put you at ease. You are NOT what this passage is talking about.
Apostasy is not the same as the struggle with sin that all genuine Christians endure (cf. Romans 7:15-25). Apostasy is not the counting of my sins, tallying them up and discovering that I have failed the test this week.
We all struggle with sin, and the more we grow in our relationship with Christ—in our understanding of God’s holiness and our own sinfulness—the more conscious we are of the fight. In part, this is what defines us as a Christian. We are actively fighting for holiness.
Every Christian, at times, falls prey to sin and yields to temptation. Is that not true? What is also true is that every authentic believer really desires to be righteous (Romans 7:22-23). Every authentic disciple hates his sin, repents of his sin, is offended at his sin.
This is not the case with an apostate.
Notice what verse 26 says…
For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
Four things characterize the apostate in this verse:
First, his sin is willful, it is purposeful, it is deliberate. The word translated “deliberately” means “purposefully.” It is to sin with intention, in willful, outright defiance. The Old Testament identifies this as the “high-handed sin,” the sin that displays outright contempt for God’s authority and His Word. Numbers 15:30-31 describes…
30 But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native or a sojourner, reviles the LORD, and that person shall be cut off from among his people. 31 Because he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be on him.”
Notice the very severe consequences for the person sinning “with a high hand,” that he “shall be utterly cut off” shows just how serious an issue this is. God is telling Moses that there are no offerings for these sins done in defiance of God’s law. This represents a brazen attitude, an arrogance, a cockiness of heart and expresses an open defiance of God.
We know what deliberate, defiant sin is. R. Kent Hughes tells about his two-year-old grandson, Joshua Simpson, who climbed up on the kitchen counter to get at a forbidden stick of gum. But, alas, his father appeared several inches from Joshua’s face, saying, “Joshua, you may not have the gum. If you eat that gum, I will spank you!” Joshua looked at the gum, then at his father, and back at the gum. Then he took the gum, slowly unwrapped it as he watched his dad, and put it in his mouth. Joshua got his spanking! But there was more, because a few minutes later he returned and took another stick, climbed down, ducked behind a corner to unwrap it—and got another spanking. The boy is a sinner, and so are we all.
“The sinner with a high hand feels no guilt; therefore the offense is not sacrificially expiable. The one who sins defiantly may not feel the guilt of his violation, but he is nonetheless guilty before God and man.” (Dennis Cole)
Willfully (hekousiōs) carries the idea of deliberate (NIV) intention that is habitual. The reference here is not to sins of ignorance or weakness, but to those that are planned out, determined, done with forethought. The difference between sins of ignorance and sinning willfully is much like the difference between involuntary manslaughter and first-degree murder. Hekousiōs is habitual. It is the permanent renunciation of the gospel, the permanent forsaking of God’s grace. (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 273)
In a sense, every sin is a “willful sin.” But here, the writer to the Hebrews spoke of something much more severe and relevant to these discouraged Jewish Christians who contemplated a retreat from a distinctive Christianity and a return to Judaism with its sacrificial system. This is turning your back on Jesus.
“It has nothing to do with backsliders in our common use of that term. A man may be overtaken in a fault, or he may deliberately go into sin, and yet neither renounce the Gospel, nor deny the Lord that bought him. His case is dreary and dangerous, but it is not hopeless; no case is hopeless but that of the deliberate apostate, who rejects the whole Gospel system, after having been saved by grace, or convinced of the truth of the Gospel.” (Clarke)
Our text is talking about deliberate, intentional sin. In fact, the word “deliberately” stands first in the Greek for emphasis.
This stands in sharp contrast to our woke culture today, which rewards people for blatant expressions of sin and lays guilt on anyone who would pass judgments upon such individuals by calling what they do evil.
Whatever the apostasy is it is not inadvertent or accidental. It is not an expression of vulnerability to weakness. Rather, it expresses the very desire of the heart, a willful expression of rebellion.
Psalm 19 distinguishes between sins of ignorance and sins of deliberation.
12 Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. 13 Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
There are “errors” and “hidden faults,” and then there are “presumptuous sins.” All of these are sins we are accountable for, but there is a progression here. David Guzik identifies these stages of temptation and sin.
- It goes from passing temptation to chosen thought (errors).
- It goes from chosen thought to object of meditation.
- It goes from object of meditation to wished-for fulfillment.
- It goes from wished-for fulfillment to planned action (secret faults).
- It goes from planned action to opportunity sought.
- It goes from opportunity sought to performed act.
- It goes from performed act to repeated action.
- It goes from repeated action to delight (presumptuous sins).
- It goes from delight to new and various ways.
- It goes from new and various ways to habit.
- It goes from habit to idolatry, demanding to be served.
- It goes from idolatry to sacrifice.
- It goes from sacrifice to slavery.
All along this continuum the Holy Spirit – and hopefully our conscience – say, “No – stop!” All along this continuum, we are given the way of escape by God (1 Corinthians 10:13), if we will only take it. Yet if we do not, and we end up in slavery to sin, it legitimately questions the state of our soul (1 John 3:6-9).
David was concerned enough to ask God to keep him from presumptuous sins. Charles Spurgeon says, “Will you just note, that this prayer was the prayer of a saint, the prayer of a holy man of God? Did David need to pray thus? Did the ‘man after God’s own heart’ need to cry, ‘Keep back your servant?’ Yes, he did.”
We all do. And that, again, is why we need the fellowship of the saints, so that we will not develop “an evil, unbelieving heart, leading [us] to fall away from the living God” (Heb. 3:12).
Second, we see another characteristic of the apostate in that his or her sin is continual. If we deliberately “go on sinning” or “keep on sinning.” The sin of the apostate is both deliberate and durative.
This is not to be confused with the ongoing sin that every believer fights with as residual sin that lies in his mortal body. This, rather, is the person who has settled permanently in a rigid disposition of disobedience.
Apostasy is not the person who commits one of the really big sins, like David did with adultery and murder. Nor are we to think of apostasy as that period of time in the life of a real Christian when he has yielded to some form of temptation. Yes, that is serious, but it is not apostasy.
Apostasy is characterized by an unmoved, settled determination and by a consistent habit of persisting in the same sin over and over again. It is consistent sinning with a defiant attitude.
Grace Still Amazes 