For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.
Hebrews 10:26-33
One of the passages I have talked and debated about the most with my friends and family is Hebrews 10:26-33. I grew up in your traditional Pentecostal family, which came with the belief that you could lose and or give up your salvation.
For my family, this was their go to passage that proved to me that you can indeed give up your salvation. Their argument was always convincing. But we know that it is not solo scripture, but sola scripture. We know that we must take all of scripture into account when interpreting a particular passage.
In today’s day and age, we are in the throngs of the “ex-vangelical” movement. We are seeing celebrities such as Rhett and Link, Joshua Harris, and others who are now saying that they are, “no longer Christians.” So not only do we have this “trouble passage,” but we also have a cultural movement that seems to drive home that people can lose their salvation, or at the very least, choose to give it up.
To the untrained, it seems to be becoming impossible to believe in the doctrine of the preservation of the saints.
Is this passage telling us that a true believer truly can lose their salvation?
It seems that the key to reading this while also confidently maintaining your position of preservation of the saints is how you interpret, “received the knowledge,” and, “after you were once enlightened.”
The author of Hebrews seems to understand he is writing to a mixed audience of believers and unbelievers. So, very wisely, he is not assuming that they are all saved. So, when we see these phrases, we can interpret it in a different way than salvation.
If we were raised in the church, then we are well acquainted with the Gospel. We are aware of the facts. We are enlightened to the reality that Jesus is Lord. We may even believe that it is true. We might have even received this knowledge and know it is true.
However, we are not saved just by knowing the fact that Jesus is God.
We must be transformed from the inside by the Gospel. The people who the author is describing seem to be people in this category, just like all the people who are apostatizing from the church today. They may leave the physical body, but they are not leaving the true Body. These people have no excuse. They are left in a worse position than those who are ignorant. Like the Pharisees, they know the truth, but reject it.
Resources consulted:
John Calvin’s Commentary on Hebrews