Hebrews 10:27-28
"But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation (in other words, the Lake of Fire that is facing the lost, the unbelieving and all lawless ones) which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:"
Now you know you’ve heard me say it over and over. The Law was what? It was beggarly and it was cruel! The Law had no mercy. The Levitical Law was strict. And, consequently, when someone knowing that it said, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," went ahead and did it anyway, what did the Law demand? Death. Not with a spear, not with a sword, but how? By stoning, which was a slow torturous death. That’s what the Law demanded. Severe! That’s the word I was looking for. The Law was severe! It was merciless. And so this is what Paul is stressing. Now remember the Law of Moses was severe and yet it had none of the opportunities that this Gospel of Grace gives us. So if God permitted the Law to severely punish those who broke it, then how much more capable is He of consigning lost, unbelieving and lawless people to the Lake of Fire? Especially after Christ's resurrection and ascension from the dead to Life Eternal and our being in Him in this Newness of Life as God had planed for all mankind who would become receptive and remain in receptivity of His Divine activity in them.
So now remember, the Temple is still going even as all of our New Testament is written, except maybe the book of Revelation. And even that, I prefer to think, was written in the 60 to 70 AD as well. But you all know, that all of Paul’s letters and all the four gospels, and the little epistles following Hebrews were all written before 70 AD, when the Temple is destroyed. In God's condemnation of all the lawlessness of man called Judaism, and indeed all religion, especially since His Son was now sitting at His side and had bestowed on the Name above all names and was crowned with Glory and Honor because of His vicarious death as a Man among men, which means that we can become partakers of His essence as sanctified ones through His death.
Remember I made the point – isn’t it amazing how God forbid any empire to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple and the Nation of Israel until Paul’s letters were completed. Then within a couple of years after the completion of Paul’s epistles, the Temple has now become moot (of no count), so why worry about it. All the trappings of the old have been replaced by the New and Living Way. With those things promised of God by an Oath and the Covenant given to Abraham and his sons together with the New and Better Covenant of Grace now in force. All future activity of God is found in those who have become God ruled ones through the Spirit of His Son, Christ Jesus as in the beginning. We have not realized this fact because of the lack of men so ruled. Why? Because they have been distracted and fallen short by that distraction, they have turned lukewarm or even cold because of religion, the spirit of the world.
Well you see as soon as Paul’s letters were finished, then Temple worship had become moot, and obsolete and what does God permit? Titus to destroy both the Temple and the city and those Hebrews and Christian-Hebrews that scattered to the four winds are all who are left. I think it all fits in and just screams at us that these people should have been able to see that all the Old Testament promises had been fulfilled in Christ’s death, burial, resurrection and ascension back to Glory. It was all prophesied. And yet they never saw that. Just as those who by way of personal choice remain in darkness, unbelief and lawlessness, because of a hardness of heart. So always remember that, even though the Epistle of Hebrews is written to the Hebrew believers who were fighting this traumatic experience of being pulled back into their old religious system, yet Hebrews is just full of knowledge for you and I as believers.
But also remember there’s no obvious plan of salvation in the Epistle of Hebrews. You can’t take someone to Hebrews and lead them to the Lord, because those salvation Scriptures are not in there, at least not like the Roman Road or Ephesians, I Corinthians or something like that. But, it is so full of basic information and spiritual revelation that enhances our own trusting unto faith. All right, let’s begin with verse 29.
Hebrews 10:29
"Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, (or a common thing, I think is a better word) and hath done despite (insult, abuse, reproach, to do excessive violence to) unto the Spirit of grace?"
Now remember, we were looking at those previous verses of someone who willfully turned back and went into the religion of Judaism with its animal sacrifices. And then, the verse that, how that the Law, the Mosaic Law was severe, because there was no mercy. If someone was caught even picking up sticks on the Sabbath day, what was the punishment? Death! Now that’s severe. My we would never stand for something like that today, would we? But that’s the way the Levitical Law was, it was so severe! When the Law is severe and they rejected it then there was no doubt that God’s wrath would be placed upon them to their eternal doom. This doom is upon all forms of mans religion and religious actions by they governments, laws or whatever fashion they mat take. As they have only one source Satan.
If a religious system like Judaism prompted the wrath of God, then you see, How much sorer punishment, how much more God’s wrath can be poured out on those who have walked under foot the Son of God, the blood of Christ? Now you’ve heard me emphasize this; what’s the reason God consigned lost humanity to such an awful eternal doom? Because He’s done everything He could for them to prevent it. He’s done everything they needed to escape that eternal doom without lifting a finger. By just simply to receiving it and then believing what He had done. When they or we walk that under foot and we scorn it, then God is perfectly just in consigning them and us with them to that kind of a punishment.
So don’t ever listen to those kind of arguments such as, "Well, how can a just God send somebody to a Lake of Fire?" Well, He’s got every reason in the world to because He’s already done everything to keep us and them from it. All right, so: "How much sorer punishment, suppose you, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot." Now don’t lose the picture. They and we have literally walked under foot in scorn the Blood of the Covenant, that is His sacrificial Blood of the Cross and wherewith we were sanctified and we have considered it a common thing. I think that a better word than unholy thing is a "common thing". We’ve (they and us) considered it something common. No more different than the sand and the gravel that we walk on. And, we’re going to suffer for it. Now we can't isolate the Hebrew from ourselves because we're all now on a clear and level playing-field, like a football field. Now verse 30.
Hebrews 10:30
"For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people."
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