Hebrews 10:26

A solemn Warning of the Peril of Wilful Apostasy

26. For if we sin wilfully) The word "wilfully" stands in contrast with sins of weakness, ignorance and error in Hebrews 5:2. If the writer meant to say that, after the commission of wilful and heinous sins, "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins," this would not only be the most terrible passage in Scripture, but would do away with the very object of Redemption, and the possibility of any Forgiveness of Sins. It would, as Kurz says, "be in its consequences truly subversive and destructive of the whole Christian soteriology." But the meaning rather is "If we are willing sinners," "if we are in a state of deliberate and voluntary defiance to the will of God." He is alluding not only to those sins which the Jews described as being committed presumptuously "with uplifted hand" (Numbers 15:30; Psalms 19:13; see. Hebrews 6:4-8; Hebrews 12:16-17), but to the deliberate continuity of such sins as a self-chosen law of life; as for instance when a man has closed against himself the door of repentance and said "Evil be thou my good." Such a state is glanced at in 2 Peter 2:20-21; Matthew 12:43-45.

after that we have received the knowledge of the truth Rather, "the fullknowledge of the truth." Something more is meant than mere historical knowledge. He is contemplating Christians who have made some real advance, and then have relapsed into "desperation or the wretchlessness of unclean living."

there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins Lit., "no sacrifice for sins is any longer left for them." They have rejected the work of Christ, and it cannot be done for them over again. There is one atoning sacrifice and that they have repudiated. He does not say that they have exhausted the infinite mercy of God, nor can we justly assert that he held such a conclusion; he only says that they have, so long as they continue in such a state, put themselves out of God's covenant, and that there are no other covenanted means of grace. For they have trampled under foot the offer of mercy in Christ and there is no salvation in any other (Acts 4:12).