Hebrews 10:26 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

Navigator

Hebrews 10:26

Comments

There are various different evidences of true faith of saving faith, but here there is one in two parts set forward for our consideration. The first part is conscientiousness: a conscientious concern to please the Lord. It is a paramount mark of true conversion. Is there a conscientious concern about righteousness and holiness, a desire to avoid sin, and to grow in grace? Does it only survive the initial seeming experience of conversion and then disappear? Yes, we are to be happy as Christian people, happy in the Lord, but ever careful and conscientious. Wilful sin is the opposite of this carefulness and conscientiousness. When a person can sin lightly, easily with no restraints, when sin is desired, and when we plan to sin and repeat sin, then conscience does not speak. Now sometimes the interpreter will look at these verses and say this case is so serious that what is in the inspired writer's mind is a person who has gone completely away from God, and renounced the faith, and become an enemy. This is a person who demonstrates no true conversion, because he has become an opponent of the faith and completely turned his back on it. But I don't believe that is the correct way of looking at the passage. The words seem severe but this is not about a Jewish person who is converted goes back to Judaism and now hates and persecutes the Christian messengers. No, although this might include such, it also includes someone who imagines he or she is a Christian believer and even continues to worship, but who shows no concern or conscientiousness about sin, about righteousness, and about progress in this Christian walk. This person is in a settled state, comfortable with their sin, even resentful that they have been challenged about these things. If you are described here, Calvary no longer moves you. We preach of Calvary and Christ and his suffering and death in taking the punishment of sin for us, but it no longer reminds you of your debt to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In no longer melts you and humbles you.The passage says, there is no other sacrifice. According to Christ in his famous parable, he is the last messenger of God to your soul. If you never had true saving faith despite your profession and Calvary does not move you, then there is nothing left between you and judgement, between you and hell. Calvary – that is the last messenger of God to the soul.

Application

Do we practice self-examination? Those in mind in this passage do not like the idea of being challenged or encouraged to examine their hearts. They do not ask themselves, ‘What have I done today? How have I offended my God? How have I strayed from the mark? What should I have been doing that I have ignored and neglected?’ Do we examine ourselves privately before the Lord? And we become haughty people indifferent people. Daily self-examination is guaranteed to keep us humble and meek before the Lord, and sensitive to temptation so that we resist it.

Questions

This is not to be confused with a person who is a backslider. We distinguish between someone who is a false believer, and someone who is a backslider. It is possible, though it is a terrible thing, for any Christian to become a backslider. They may be a phase of rebellion in that person's life. This is not the same thing. The difference is that the backslidden Christian is never fully happy, is never really comfortable. The backslider may sin, may offend the Lord but not easily, not comfortably, conscience may from time be covered up and suppressed, or may not be functioning normally at all, and yet a backslider is not a happy living as an unbeliever, is not comfortable in the world and has constant spasms of anguish and shame, and even times of despair. Conscience although smothered and locked up, rather like John Bunyan's conscience in holy War, sometimes breaks free and roars and the backslidden person is troubled. Nor is this the same as the believer who has not gone wilfully into sin, but has stumbled and been overpowered maybe by a period of foolish neglect of prayer and daily reading of the word, and whose private devotions have been reduced to almost nothing. In a greatly weakened condition the believer has stumbled at some temptation and fallen, although never planning to do that. So we must distinguish between the person in Hebrews 10 and the true convert. Of course, we cannot readily tell these things – this message is to individuals to help them assess their own lives. We cannot go around saying, ‘I think that person is a backslider; I think that person is apostate altogether; I think that person is genuine’; these are so often hidden from us.

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Hebrews 10:26 Commentary and Bible Study