Our help is in the Name of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.
Beloved, grace and peace be to you from God our Father, and the Lord
Jesus Christ, through the mighty working of God the Holy Spirit. Amen
Psalm of praise: 145:1, 4, 5, 12
Confession of faith
Ten Commandments
Psalm 103:9
Prayer
Psalm 9:1, 7, 8
Baptism
Psalm 105:5
Scripture reading: Hebrews 10
Scripture text: Hebrews 10: 26
For if
we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the
truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, . . .
To be a believer in the real sense of the word is not for sissies! It
makes enormous demands on those who sincerely serve and want to serve
the Lord.
- This is why the Lord strengthens our faith and ensures us anew of
our reconciliation and sanctification through our Lord Jesus Christ’s
death on the cross.
- The Lord ministers this gospel to us time and again so that we
would live each day realising the magnitude of God’s grace.
He who realises the grace of God avoids committing sin
- He distinctly outlines the way in which he lives and clearly
distinguishes between right and wrong.
- Of course, no human being is perfect and everyone will still sin.
- The emphasis, however, is that we regard the grace of God in such
a way that we eliminate all calculated sins from our lives.
The Lord is not unrelenting when somebody goes wrong. He clearly
explains it in the instructions of the Old Testament:
- The instructions given through Moses clearly distinguish between
deliberate sins and sins not committed intentionally.
- From that we know that there are deliberate sins and sins we
commit unintentionally. The author of the letter to the Hebrew proceeds
from this.
- Hebrews 5:2 as well as Hebrews 9:7 mentions that there are
unintentional sins for which sacrifices are offered for forgiveness.“ . . . but into the second only the high
priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood,
which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the
people.” (Hebrews 9:7 ESV)
- On the other hand, according to Numbers 15:30, sins committed
intentionally were not forgiven at all. Such people had to be cut off
from their people. No sacrifices could be offered for reconciliation.
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. (ESV)
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.
In the New Testament these sins are
known as sins against the Holy Spirit. Listen how strongly Hebrews
6:4-8 puts it:
4 For it is impossible to restore
again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have
tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and
have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age
to come, 6 if they then fall away, since they are crucifying once again
the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. 7 For
land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a
crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a
blessing from God. 8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is
worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
Briefly it says that it is impossible that anyone who has sinned
against the Holy Spirit to come to repentance.
- Sins against the Holy Spirit can only occur when the Holy Spirit
has already enlightened a person.
We have all witnessed how the Lord affirmed his covenant with a child.
- The parents promised (= vowed) in the face of the Holy Trinity to
bring up this child in his honour.
- Parents who forget their baptismal vows and do not comply with
them, deliberately trespass against a promise they made to God under
the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.
- Knowledge absorbed by your mind does not leave your heart
untouched.
- The opposite is also true: The mind of him who knows and
professes God, is very much aware of what the Lord sees as good and
evil.
- The one who deliberately/intentionally commits sins, is
therefore a person who knows the truth.
- It can only be a person who has been taught by the Holy Spirit
what is right and what is wrong, and then deliberately acts against
this knowledge.
It is not a matter of this happening for the first time now. It has
always been the case
- The Lord associates the Old Covenant with the New Covenant
- Under the Old Covenant there was no sacrifice for these sins, and
likewise does the sacrifice of Jesus Christ not provide for such sins.
In brief:
- He who knows what is right and what is wrong and deliberately
acts contrary to the truth by living in sin, will face the severe
punishment of the Lord.
- He can be sure that he is going to suffer in the hereafter.
- Such people are subjected to the judgment of the Lord.
The divine judgment is described as a dreadful prospect of judgment and
a fire that will consume the adversaries. (See Isaiah 26:11).
- There is a time difference between the passage quoted from
Hebrews and the passage quoted from Isaiah.
- Isaiah refers to a specific judgment that was passed during
that period of time.
- Hebrews refers to the final judgment.
- These judgments probably belong together, as the one is a
prologue to the other.
Once again the author compares the times and the plan of God. What was
it like earlier?
- Under the Old Covenant it so happened that a person who
transgressed the commandments of Moses, and two or three witnesses
could vouch for it, was (Numbers 35:30; Deuteronomy 17:6).
- There was very little mercy for wilfulness.
- How will it be in the new dispensation? The Lord replies by way
of a question to us as believers:
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? (v. 29, also see Hebrews 2:3).
The punishment is worse, but not without reason.
- The Lord’s revelation is much clearer than in the Old Testament.
- The punishment in the new dispensation must be worse than the
punishment in the old dispensation, because the revelation of the New
Covenant is so much richer than that of the Old Covenant.
- The participants of the New Covenant should know that they may
not deliberately go against the will of God.
- In fact, the Lord makes an appeal to their insight so that they
cannot but admit that there is no other way.
Here the Bible links the trampling upon the blood of Christ and
contempt of the Holy Spirit.
- Deliberate sins are trampling upon the Son of God – Jesus Christ.
- At the same time it is a matter of rejecting the entire deed of
the Lord where the blood (death on the cross) of Jesus Christ obtained
propitiation and sanctification for us.
The essence of the New Testament is the blood of the Lord Jesus.
- The blood of Jesus is holy and sanctified, because it validated
the New Testament and brought about salvation for sinners lost in sin.
- It is obvious that rejection of the propitiation and
sanctification through the Lord Jesus Christ is contempt of the Holy
Spirit and his working in us.
- It boils down to this: one assaults God Himself when one assaults
the Redeemer and his work.
There is only one way in which this happens, and that is when a sense
of your sins is lacking. A believer may never fail to realise his sins.
This is exactly where continual soul-searching and daily repentance fit
in.
- Today our faith has again been strengthened by the baptism of a
child of the covenant.
- The Lord once again assured us that we completely partake in his
redemptive plan.
- It includes all the beneficial deeds of grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
- It also includes the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts.
Let us be obedient to the Lord, and let us always, with the wisdom of
the Holy Spirit, put to the test each occurrence in our lives.
- This is the only way that we shall not – like those of whom we
have been admonished –
- despise the blood through which we were sanctified; and
- sin against the Holy Spirit.
Therefore we should walk according to the Spirit, because a sacrifice
was offered for our sins.
- This is a sacrifice that completely reveals the full power of
God’s grace upon us.
- It is also a sacrifice that guides us to live a holier life each
day and not make room for any sins.
Amen
Closing prayer
Closing hymn: Psalm 146:1, 8
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Amen
Dr MJ du Plessis
Gereformeerde Kerk Bellville
Datum: 20 Julie 2003