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If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, ²⁷ but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. ²⁸ Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? ³⁰ For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” ³¹ It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

This is not the easiest passage in Hebrews, either mentally or emotionally, and its meaning is debated between sincere Christians. Is it possible for a believer to be saved and lost? It is beyond the scope of these daily devotional thoughts to go into all the details the arguments. But I will make two brief points:

1. These warning passages in the Bible should be taken seriously. We have all known people who once walked with Jesus and now do so no longer. Let those who think they stand take heed…! But the particular verses in our reading today seem to refer to more than what we might call ‘backsliding’. This looks like apostasy, where someone who has publicly confessed Christ now publicly disavows Him. (Remember the context, the author was writing to Jewish Christians who were tempted to go back from Christ to Judaism; from the church to the synagogue). But there is no salvation outside of trusting in Jesus. ‘The Message’ translation is helpful here, I think: If we give up and turn our backs on all we’ve learned, all we’ve been given, all the truth we now know, we repudiate Christ’s sacrifice and are left on our own to face the Judgment—and a mighty fierce judgment it will be! If the penalty for breaking the law of Moses is physical death, what do you think will happen if you turn on God’s Son, spit on the sacrifice that made you whole, and insult this most gracious Spirit? This is no light matter. God has warned us that he’ll hold us to account and make us pay. He was quite explicit: “Vengeance is mine, and I won’t overlook a thing” and “God will judge his people.” Nobody’s getting by with anything, believe me.
2. Although the warning is severe, the writer is confident of better things with regard to the recipients of this letter. We will see this in the remaining verses of chapter 10.

PRAYER: Lord, you have kept me going to this point. Thank you for your amazing grace. Please keep me going to the very end. Sometimes I feel the winds blowing strongly against me, and I see the waves around me. Lord, I can feel I am sinking. Help me to keep on walking with my eyes fixed on you.

And so, dear brothers and sisters^] we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. ²⁰ By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. ²¹ And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, ²² let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

²³ Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. ²⁴ Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. ²⁵ And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. (NLT).

The call is to everyone in the church to, in a very real sense, pastor the church. It is not just for leaders to encourage the members of the church in good behaviour. This is a ministry entrusted to every believer. But how can we meaningfully participate in this if we’re not there (or not there all that often)?

‘So, then, we are to come to worship God – not just in private, though private worship and prayer is enormously important, but in public as well. The danger of people thinking they could be Christians all by themselves was, it seems, present in the early church just as today, and verse 25 warns against it. This may well not be due to people not realising what a corporate thing Christianity was and is, nor yet because they were lazy or didn’t much like the other Christians in their locality, but because, when there was a threat of persecution…it’s much easier to escape notice if you avoid meeting together with other worshippers. Much safer just not to turn up.’ Tom Wright: ‘Hebrews for Everyone’, pp.116/117.

Well, safer physically maybe, but not spiritually.

One thing we clearly should not do in the light of Jesus’ ever-nearing coming is to give up meeting together.

Even before the pandemic, the pattern of church attendance was changing. It appeared to be the case that for increasing numbers of professing Christians in the UK, regular involvement was becoming once a fortnight, or even once every three or four weeks – once every so often. But the pandemic seems to have accelerated that direction of travel. For us, this is not about playing it safe in a hostile environment. It is primarily about personal preference and convenience: about how we choose to spend our week-ends. It doesn’t look or feel very much like New Testament discipleship, and I have to say it just isn’t healthy.

And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. ²⁰ By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. ²¹ And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, ²² let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

²³ Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. ²⁴ Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. 

The next two exhortations, found in verses 24 & 25, have to do with what we might call a person’s ‘churchmanship’. The Cross has implications for not only our vertical relationship with God, but also our horizontal relationships within the church.

Verse 24 challenges us with regard to the amount of thought we put into our church life. ‘The Message’ says:

Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out…

‘Every Christian needs the encouragement of every other Christian. Everyone who comes through the door of the place of worship, whether it be a house in a back street or a great cathedral in a public square, is a real encouragement to everyone else who is there. This is part of the way, along with an actual word of encouragement when necessary, in which we can ‘stir one another up’ to work hard at the central actions pf Christian living, ‘love and good works’ (a deliberately broad phrase to cover all sorts of activities.’ Tom Wright: ‘Hebrews for Everyone’, p.117.

And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. ²⁰ By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. ²¹ And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, ²² let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

²³ Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. (NLT)

In John 10:10a, Jesus says: ”The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy…”

It is because of the relentless and ruthless prowling activity of this ”thief” that we need to hold on tight to everything God promises us in Jesus. As at the beginning, in the garden, his approach will be to question God’s Word – to try to undermine it and get us to doubt it.

I read an article recently, written by a seasoned pastor for younger leaders. One of his pieces of counsel was: ‘Always act like the Bible is true.’ He said this, I believe, because he knows how regularly the enemy of our souls will try to get us to doubt it is so. We need to remember:

”Every word of God is flawless…” (Prov.30:5).

‘I have decided, I’m gonna live like a believer, turn my back on the deceiver, I’m gonna live what I believe.’ Amy Grant

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, ²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²² let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 

Biblical theology has practical implications. Look at the word ”since”, (coming twice in verses 19 & 21), and then the logical conclusion drawn out in verse 22.

Let us pray!

In the ‘New Living Translation’ our passage reads:

And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. ²⁰ By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. ²¹ And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, ²² let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

We have been cleansed both inwardly and outwardly: washed by Christ’s blood internally, and by the waters of baptism externally

You may recall that in Acts 9:11, a man by the name of Ananias was commanded to go to the newly converted Saul of Tarsus with these words:

‘Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. 

The fact that he was praying was an indicator of his new spiritual state. It is always a mark of conversion. One of the most practical implications of experiencing the Cross is that we pray; indeed, that we have the desire to pray. It is as natural as breathing.

So…let us pray.

 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, ²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God…

“Christianity is not a cafeteria line where you say, “I’ll have a little salvation, but no Lordship right now.” Adrian Rogers

I have heard it said that people leave managers rather than companies. Good leaders inspire love, loyalty and respect, whereas bad ones send people in search of the exits.

As believers, we are not a law unto ourselves. We are a people under authority. But we are not an oppressed people; we are rather truly liberated. Because look at who is ”over” us (21): Someone who sacrificed His life for us, and who lives to represent us before the throne of God in heaven. He is our loving Lord.

“When Jesus is truly our Lord, He directs our lives and we gladly obey Him. Indeed, we bring every part of our lives under His lordship – our home and family, our sexuality and marriage, our job or unemployment, our money and possessions, our ambitions and recreations.” John Stott

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body…

 So, friends, we can now—without hesitation—walk right up to God, into “the Holy Place.” Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice, acting as our priest before God. The “curtain” into God’s presence is his body. The Message.

Just to recap: for centuries, only one person was allowed to go behind the curtain into the presence of God: i.e. the high priest on the Day of Atonement. But at the moment Jesus died ”the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” {Matthew 27:51). This was clearly a supernatural event, and the fact that the tear went ”from top to bottom” signifies the work of God. Hebrews now goes one step further in telling us that the most important curtain to be torn was the body of Jesus. Through Him we can now live in the presence of God. What happened in the temple on that most momentous day, is a picture of what was being brought to pass at the Cross.

Hallelujah! What a Saviour!

Let us (metaphorically) remove our shoes. We are on holy ground.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus…

Verses 11=18 read like this in ‘The Message’:

Every priest goes to work at the altar each day, offers the same old sacrifices year in, year out, and never makes a dent in the sin problem. As a priest, Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it! Then he sat down right beside God and waited for his enemies to cave in. It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people. By that single offering, he did everything that needed to be done for everyone who takes part in the purifying process. The Holy Spirit confirms this:

This new plan I’m making with Israel
    isn’t going to be written on paper,
    isn’t going to be chiseled in stone;
This time “I’m writing out the plan in them,
    carving it on the lining of their hearts.”

He concludes,

I’ll forever wipe the slate clean of their sins.

Once sins are taken care of for good, there’s no longer any need to offer sacrifices for them.

We now come into a section in which the practical implications of Christ’s ‘once for all’ sacrifice are drawn out. Here is the first in verse 19. Under the Old Covenant, only the high priest could enter ”the Most Holy Place” once a year. As we have seen, He had to first offer sacrifice for his own sins and then for the people. But no one else could enter that sacred place. If they tried, they would die. So let’s not lose sight of how revolutionary the truth of this nineteenth verse is. It’s not even that we can now all visit God once a year. It is rather that we have constant access to God’s presence. Furthermore, we can draw near to Him with ”confidence”.

‘The Message’ puts it like this:

So, friends, we can now—without hesitation—walk right up to God, into “the Holy Place.” Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice, acting as our priest before God. 

PRAYER: Lord God, I thank you that Jesus died for me. Help me to never take for granted the gracious privilege you have given that I can approach you, walk with you, have intimacy with you through Jesus’ precious blood.

¹⁴ For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

¹⁵ The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:

¹⁶ “This is the covenant I will make with them
    after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
    and I will write them on their minds.”

¹⁷ Then he adds:

“Their sins and lawless acts
    I will remember no more.”

¹⁸ And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.

Verse 14 beautifully and economically expresses the heart of our salvation experience.

First of all, we are saved because of the Cross. We are now in the era of the New Covenant, inaugurated by Jesus. He offered the one sacrifice of Himself, and it is enough; He is enough. There is no more need for that repetitive cycle of animal sacrifices dominaing the old era.

But there is the now and not yet involved in this salvation: the positional and the practical. When we come to Jesus by faith we are justified. We are ”made perfect forever”. This is the positional aspect. Now, in God’s sight, we are perfect: clothed in the perfection of His Son. He completely forgives our sins. It isn’t simply that He forgets them. Rather, He refuses to remember them.

But not only are we ”made perfect forever” when we come to trust in Christ; we also enter into a process in which we are ”being made holy”. We are justified now. We are being sanctified now. But we are not yet everything we are going to be at journey’s end.

Justification makes us perfect positionally; sanctification enables us to become who we are practically. We are being made holy.

So I can say, ‘I’m not what I want to be; and I’m not what I’m going to be; but, praise God, I’m not what I was.’

“The growth of trees and plants takes place so slowly that it is not easily seen. Daily we notice little change. But, in course of time, we see that a great change has taken place. So it is with grace. Sanctification is a progressive, lifelong work (Prov 4:18). It is an amazing work of God’s grace and it is a work to be prayed for (Rom 8:27).” John Owen