19 Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
This has been the writer’s main purpose: To assure believing Jews that Jesus’s blood was the ultimate sacrificial offering that allows us to enter the holy place with confidence, and that He is the high priest now.
We should now exercise our free right to enter unwaveringly into the Most Holy Place. This is to the very Throne of God Himself, not to some symbolic representation of it.
God lives there — in the Most Holy Place — which was called “
heaven itself” in 9:24. He dwells there with “
those of a humble spirit” (Isaiah 57:15).
Under the old way, only the HIGH PRIEST could enter the SYMBOLIC Most Holy Place, and only at SET TIMES. Now, we can ALL enter the REAL Most Holy Place with at ANY TIME! If this doesn’t communicate the superiority of Christ over the Law, nothing will!
This entrance is through Christ’s blood, which is how He Himself entered (see 9:12).
In the Old Testament times, under law, obedience to God required men to offer a slaughter sacrifice. Now Christ — perfect obedience in bodily form — became the slaughter sacrifice.
No longer is there a symbolic perfection, requiring some further symbolic action (animal sacrifice) to bring one to a symbolic Throne of God. Perfection is now both complete and real, and a true meeting with God at His genuine throne is possible!
22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; 24 and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, 25 not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
This confidence we have frees us up to:
- Draw near with sincere hearts, not counterfeit ones
- Have full assurance because we have clean hearts, consciences, and bodies (in Greek this can mean “selves”)
- Hold onto our hope unwaveringly (because Jesus is faithful)
- Stimulate each other to love and good deeds
- Encourage each other
In V.24, the Greek word translated to “stimulate” is not gentle. It is only used one other time in the Bible, and there it is translated “provoke” (Acts 15:39). It comes from a word meaning “sharpen,” like sharpening a sword. The point here is to actively provoke each other to love others and do good, to keep each other from becoming slothful in living out our faith. This writer wants us to be in each other’s lives, not assuming that because “he” or “she” claims Christ that everything is just fine, not acting as if a mere confession of faith is all Jesus sacrificed Himself for. We have unlimited access to the throne of God, and that is only because our hearts, consciences, and even our very selves have been changed. Let’s help each other live like it!
V.25 instructs us to encourage each other even more as we see The Day approach. [“The Day” must mean Christ’s return, though it is not spelled out here]. We can only encourage others if we get together with them. This verse is not particularly about Sunday “church” meetings – it is about daily fellowship with others who share our faith. See 3:13 and its context, which tells us to encourage each other daily and makes us responsible for each other’s faithfulness to God.
What sort of encouragement does the writer have in mind here? He tells us in the next verses...
26 For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.
This verse, like 1 John 3:9 (which is similar in many ways), is challenging to interpret out of its context simply because its surface meaning conflicts with our experiences and the rest of what we know in the Bible. By its “surface meaning” I mean what it sounds like the first time you read through it quickly without pausing to examine the author’s complex statement. That surface meaning to most, I think, is that if a Christian willfully sins, he or she is lost forever. And that’s just not true.
All sin is willful. No one sins without intending to. So unless these verses mean that any Christian who commits a sin is forever banished from salvation and can only expect God’s wrathful judgement, we must dig a little deeper to get at the writer’s point.
Let’s look at some key words:
“WE” - Must mean either “believers” or “people”
“Willfully” – The Greek here literally means “not under compulsion” (used only here and 1Pet 5:2)
“Knowledge of the truth” - Can mean knowledge that something is sinful or knowledge about how we are saved
“No longer remains” - Can mean the opportunity is lost or that it no longer remains in the individual’s mind
“A terrifying expectation” - Can mean in reality or in the individual’s mind
Fortunately the writer helps us through this maze in the next few verses by telling us more about what type of individual he is thinking of:
28 Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
This is likely a reference to the law specified in Deuteronomy 13:6-10, which says that the person who turns away from the law and follows after other gods is to be put to death. Two or three witnesses was the typical way in that system to establish the truth of someone’s guilt.
29 How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
Just as the guilty party in Deuteronomy willfully abandoned the Law to follow other gods, so also the guilty party in our passage willfully does three things:
- Tramples on the Son of God
- Regards the very blood of Christ that sanctified him to be unclean.
- Insults the spirit of grace
Note that the most basic meaning of the Greek verb translated as “regard” is “to lead.” When it refers to a thought process it means “to make a conscious, reasoned decision” the way a leader would.
The person who does the thing the writer describes above just has to be a previously a genuine believer – a Christian as we would say it. For one thing, the whole unregenerate world tramples Jesus under foot, regards his blood as unclean, and insults the spirit of Grace. If you think the writer is talking about a non-Christian, you have no choice but to conclude that no one can be saved. More importantly, v.29 says this person has been sanctified (i.e., set apart, made holy). He is not an “almost believer.”
Do you see who this guilty party is now? It is a sanctified believer who, for whatever reason, very intentionally and with determination turns his back on everything he knows to be true. He decides to walk away, to go on his own, to no longer remain faithful to Christ.
That person, v.29 says, will be punished even more severely than the person the Deuteronomy passage described.
So let’s circle back now to vv.26-28. For this willful sinner – who knew the truth and yet intentionally turned his back on it – “there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins...”
Of course there is no more sacrifice for his sins – he has turned Christ’s sacrifice away, and the sacrifices of the Law are useless.
“... but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.”
That’s it. That’s all there is for such a person, and it’s got to be even worse for him that for an unbeliever because he already knows the truth.
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 terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
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