Thank you for joining me again in our study of the epistle to the Hebrews. Our author is warning his readers (and us) of the danger of apostasy and its tragic consequences. Because this is such a serious issue, it is important for us to understand what apostasy is from a biblical viewpoint.
There are some who are concerned that they may have committed the “unpardonable sin” or have committed apostasy, so it is vital that we understand what our author is talking about. We are looking at Hebrews 10:26-31, but especially verses 26 to 29 to understand this issue of apostasy.
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?
So far we have seen that this sinful state of apostasy is deliberate (v. 26) and consistent (v. 26).
A third characteristic of the sin of the apostate is that it is committed in full knowledge of the truth, “if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth.”
Here is possibly the clearest and most concise scriptural definition of apostasy–receiving knowledge of the truth, that is, the gospel, but willfully remaining in sin. An apostate has seen and heard the truth–he knows it well–but he willfully rejects it.
What our author is talking about is the knowledge of the truth of the Gospel—that forgiveness of sins is through Jesus, through his death on the cross. It is not through animal sacrifices or a life of obedience to the law.
What our author is saying is that although every apostate is an unbeliever, not every unbeliever is an apostate. Unbelievers, some of them, have never heard a clear presentation of the Gospel. Many have never heard “the old, old story” and know nothing about Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection; they have heard no clear presentation of the Gospel. They are still sinners, guilty before God, because they have all received some knowledge about God from creation (Romans 1:19-20), but instead of responding positively they “suppressed the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18) “so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).
But, those people have never received the full light of the revelation that comes through the gospel. Apostates, on the other hand, have been exposed to the gospel, have received “the knowledge of the truth,” but now are turning their backs, deliberately and consistently, on it.
Do you remember that Jesus said when he went through Galilee preaching the Gospel and getting such meager response?
Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. (Matthew 10:15)
We are all held accountable for what we know. Those who know the truth and turn their backs on it have greater accountability than those who do not know the truth. The sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were great. But Israel’s sin is greater because they had more exposure to the gospel.
An apostate has received maximum exposure to the Gospel. He or she knows the facts. Perhaps, for a time, they displayed a measure of receptivity. He may have raised his hand at a meeting or she may have walked an aisle. He may have even been baptized, been associated with a church fellowship, even changed some behaviors.
His problem is not ignorance. He didn’t lack information on how to be saved or what to believe in. He lacks nothing intellectually. He has received “the knowledge of the truth.” One author has said, “An apostate can be bred only in the brilliant light of proximity to Christ.”
As we will see down in v. 29. An apostate is one who has heard the gospel, been exposed to the truth, but has turned their back upon the truth and upon Jesus Christ.
But why would a person who knows the gospel, has seen the light, has even experienced many of the blessings of the Holy Spirit, ever reject so wonderful a gift? What causes people to do that? In a sense, there is always just one cause, willful unbelief. Following our own wills often have no reason except that this is what we want to do. (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 274)
Apostasy is not new, nor is God’s attitude toward it. It is the most serious of all sins, because it is the most deliberate and willful form of unbelief. It is not a sin of ignorance, but of rejecting known truth. (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 270-1)
Calvin explains:
The apostle describes as sinners not those who fall in any kind of sin, but those who forsake the Church and separate themselves from Christ. . . . There is a great difference between individual lapses and universal desertion of the kind which makes for a total falling away from the grace of Christ.
It seems to be the same sin that Jesus calls “the unpardonable sin” in Matthew 12:32 and Mark 3:29. There Jesus is dealing with the Pharisees, who had heard Jesus’ teaching and seen his miracles, but instead of believing in Him, claimed that His miracles were attributable to the power of Satan. This passage happens at the turning point in the Gospels where Jesus begins to devote most of His time to His disciples, preparing them for their future ministry, because the nation, as a whole, had rejected Him.
The apostle John summarizes:
11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Apostasy doesn’t arise from the context of the pagan world; it arises from the context of the Christian church. It arises in the hearts of people who have been exposed to the Gospel and to the truth about Jesus Christ. Apostates are raised in the fertile soil of churches just like this one. It is not enough for you merely to hear the story of Jesus and His love, you must turn from your sin and embrace Him as your Savior. You must grab hold of Jesus and say, “I will not let you go until you save me.” When that is your heart desire, He will.
Apostates reject the light they have been given, the truth they have been shown, because they love their sin (John 3:19). So just because you attend a church that teaches the Bible, you go to Sunday School or you memorize verses in AWANA, even if you go to a Bible college or get a seminary degree, that does not automatically make you a child of God.
Gospel knowledge, when disregarded and not acted upon, is fuel for greater condemnation. So it is not unbelievers who have never heard that are in view here, nor true believers in Jesus Christ, but make-believers—people who look and smell like Christians, but they are not actively trusting Jesus Christ for salvation. Ultimately, they are trusting in themselves.
Fourth, the apostates sin consists in the rejection of Christianity and Christ.
Did you notice that verse 26 begins “For if we go on sinning…”? That little word “for” connects us back to vv. 24-25 to show us that this condition of apostasy is linked back to the tendency of some to neglect assembling together. People first turn away from the church fellowship, then from the Gospel. The “sinning” begins by forsaking meeting together.
No one wakes up one morning and thinks, “Today I think I’ll become an apostate.” Rather, they say, “I don’t think I’ll go to church today. I work six days a week and need a day off. We stayed out late and its hard to get the kids up in time. Beside, I don’t really get much out of it.”
When they stop going to church, they are a step away from turning their backs on Jesus Christ. This person, in v. 27 is called an “adversary.” Because they turned their backs on God, God has turned against them.
Verse 29 describes the sin of the apostate as “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?”
Where did all this begin? By becoming casual about pursuing Christian fellowship, by treating Christian community as optional, something to do when there are no other good options.
An apostate is educated in the gospel. He has heard about the Son of God, knows that His blood sacrifice is necessary and has experienced some of the grace of the Holy Spirit. However, while he possesses a clear knowledge of the Gospel, he has not experienced the transforming power of the Gospel. In essence, he has been inoculated over time and now turns his back upon it and renounces it. A few weeks, or months or maybe even years of association with a church is ultimately rejected.
We’ve seen it happen, haven’t we. Today it is called “deconstructing” your faith, rejecting what you once believed in. And while it is always important to examine ourselves and what we believe, we need to do it in line with the truth of God’s Word rather than accepting what the culture is currently identifying as “truth” or “the right side of history.”
Apostasy, according to one Puritan, is “perversion to evil after a seeming conversion from it.” It is “the dog returning to its vomit.” The classic illustration of this is Judas Iscariot. For roughly three years he was exposed to God’s greatest expression of His mercy, love and truth in the person of Jesus Christ, and yet ultimately he repudiated the light that had been given to him and chose instead the darkness.
Listen to how the apostle John (1 John 2:19) speaks of an apostate:
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
Where did they go? It doesn’t really make much difference. An apostate is defined in terms of who you leave rather than in where you end up.
Thus, to summarize, an apostate is one who has tasted the benefits of the gospel—learned the truth about the Son of God and the blood sacrifice He made (v. 29) and then deliberately and consistently turned their back on it.
In the words of v. 29, they “spurned the Son of God,” “profaned the blood of the covenant” and “outraged the Spirit of grace.”
The January 1991 issue of Harper’s Magazine carried a reproduction of an anti-Christian tract entitled Dear Believer, a “non-tract” published by the Freedom from Religion Foundation of Madison, Wisconsin. The tract variously attacked creation and miracles and then God himself, finally coming to Jesus and saying:
And Jesus is a chip off the old block. He said, “I and my father are one,” and he upheld “every jot and tittle” of the Old Testament law. He preached the same old judgment: vengeance and death, wrath and distress, hell and torture for all nonconformists. He never denounced the subjugation of slaves or women. He irrationally cursed and withered a fig tree for being barren out of season. He mandated burning unbelievers. (The Church has complied with relish.) He stole a horse. You want me to accept Jesus, but I think I’ll pick my own friends, thank you.
I also find Christianity to be morally repugnant. The concepts of original sin, depravity, substitutionary forgiveness, intolerance, eternal punishment, and humble worship are all beneath the dignity of intelligent human beings.
This tract captures the emotion of the word “trampled,” which is a singularly powerful expression for disdain—as, for example, when the swine find your pearls and “trample them underfoot and turn to attack you” (Matthew 7:6; cf. Matthew 5:13; Luke 8:5). Figuratively, the metaphor portrays taking “the Son of God”—the highest accord given to Christ in Hebrews—and grinding him into the dirt. It is a complete devaluing of the person of Jesus Christ. It is a denial of His deity. Thus, turning away from Christ is an attack on his person.
Sam Storms says…
Worse than denial, this is to treat Jesus and his identity as God incarnate and his atoning death on the cross with utter contempt. It is to say that Jesus as the Son of God who died for sinners is worthless, on the same level as garbage on the ground that one would consciously crush under one’s feet.
One commentator strings together a series of phrases to describe this despicable attitude toward Jesus. It is a “sneering rejection of Jesus,” a “rebellious denial” of him, a “supercilious contradiction” of his superiority to everything in the Old Testament, a “callous abandonment” of our great High Priest, and a “contemptuous repudiation of him who uniquely is the Son of God, eternal, incarnate, crucified, risen, and glorified” (Philip E. Hughes, 422).
Second, apostasy is an attack on Christ’s work, for the one who has done this “has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified” (v. 29). Hebrews 9 is especially a lyrical song about the superiority of Christ’s blood. Because Christ’s blood was nothing less than his divine life willingly offered, it could do what no animal’s blood could do—namely, take away sin and bestow a clear conscience.
Oh, precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
The sort of apostate pictured here had at one time professed faith in Christ, listened to the Word preached, and celebrated the Lord’s Supper. Those initial acts “sanctified” him. As elsewhere in Hebrews, the idea of being sanctified refers to the initial act of being set apart for God. But his faith, such as it was, was not internal and was not genuine, and now he consciously rejects Christ’s work. “Jesus’ blood,” he says, “is common, just like any other man’s. There is nothing special about it.” And, in fact, “it was implied that his blood was unclean as being that of a transgressor.” This would be tantamount to saying that Jesus deserved to die, because, like us, he was just a miserable sinner.
Third, having rejected the person and work of Christ, he also rejects the person and work of the Holy Spirit, as verse 29 concludes: “and has outraged the Spirit of grace.” This is the only place in the New Testament where the Holy Spirit is called “the Spirit of grace” (but cf. Zechariah 12:10), and what a beautiful and fitting title it is. He enlightens our minds, he seals our hearts in adoption, he regenerates us with spiritual life, and he grafts us into the Body of Christ—all effects of grace. We ought to make note of this lovely ascription and use it devotionally. The Spirit of grace—the Holy Spirit of grace—gives and gives and gives!
Since the Spirit’s primary work is to testify of and glorify Jesus Christ, when we trample underfoot the Son of God and count His blood as worthless and unclean, it enrages the Holy Spirit. He or she has in effect spit in the face of God and dishonored, disrespected, and insulted everything we know to be true of the Holy Spirit.
To “outrage the Spirit of grace” is an immense act of hubris and arrogance (the Greek verb for “outraged” comes from the noun hybris). What had happened is that the Holy Spirit had come to the apostate, witnessed to him about spiritual reality, and courted his soul, but the apostate rejected the Spirit’s witness with outrageous arrogance. Such persons deliberately close their eyes to the light, just as the Pharisees had done when they attributed the Spirit’s works of mercy and power to Beelzebub—and thus their condemnation is the same:
Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. (Matthew 12:31, 32)
To reject the gracious work of “the Spirit of grace” thus renders one irremediably lost.
“Taken cumulatively, the three clauses in v 29 define persistent sin (v 26a) as an attitude of contempt for the salvation secured through the priestly sacrifice of Christ. Nothing less than a complete rejection of the Christian faith satisfies the descriptive clauses in which the effects of the offense are sketched” (William Lane, Hebrews 9-13, p. 295).
Grace Still Amazes 