For we, wilfully sinning after the receiving the full knowledge of the truth, no more for sins does there remain a sacrifice  but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery zeal, about to devour the opposers…(Hebrews 10:26)

This notoriously difficult and controversial passage reads this way in the NIV.

 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 

 The critical word here is ‘wilfully’, which many translations have as ‘deliberately’.  The word is Greek is ἑκουσίως hekosios which is an adverb deriving from the verb ἑκών hekon meaning to do of one’s own free will or accord, to act voluntarily and under no duress.  It is describes a deliberate choice, and here in lies the difficulty.  Surely, once convicted of sin by the indwelling Spirit of truth, the Paraclete, all sin is knowing and therefore a deliberate act of disobedience?

Thus, on the say-so of this passage, taken in isolation, none would be saved and that cannot be the case.  As Paul helps the Gentile church to understand, salvation necessarily comes to the enemies of God:

 …God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!  For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!  Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.               (Romans 5:8-11)

But this is not simple a retrospective act of God, because if once justified salvation could be jeopardised by one further sinful act, then there is no salvation.  As Paul writes of himself:

For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.  So I find this law at work: although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. (ibid 7:18-20)

This is the struggle of the redeemed man or woman, not the unredeemed; the regenerate soul not the unregenerate; because how else would Paul know to do ‘good’? Or how would he know sin lives in him? And Paul, himself was a Jew, and addressed the advantages of being so.  After all, the Law of Moses identified the areas of sin, defined sin, so to speak.

So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.  Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognised as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. (ibid 7:12-13)

But in the case of the letter to the Hebrews, another Jewish Christian addressed exclusively his Jewish brethren, who had all the advantages as Paul, and the context of the epistle is an appeal not to fall away from new found understanding that the none could be saved by the Law.

Written several years before the Temple would be destroyed, persecution by the Jewish authorities was harsh, persistent and increasing.  This was a cadre acting defensively in order to cling on to power and the early church suffered, but especially those believers in Jerusalem and Judea, who were predominately Jewish.

Judea has been a province of Rome with a modicum, more a semblance of independence.  While Rome’s rule was complete, they had no problem in the Jews keeping their own Law, running their own business with puppet kings provided by the Herodian dynasty. The Greater Sanhedrin, dealt with the day to day administration of Judea, and feared the growing revolt would mean that all Jews would suffer.  This fear was the pretext for taking Jesus before the Pilate, the prefect. It was prescient, prophetic of the council when this was heard and taken to heart:

Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, ‘You know nothing at all! You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.’  (John 11:49-50)

Yet, Judea would be destroyed, despite the Sanhedrin engineering the death of Jesus, and oppressing his following.   That this was ultimately futile was of little comfort to the early church, especially the Jewish converts.

These Jews, who had been faithful to the Law under Sanhedrin had been blessed with peace and relative freedom, now risked everything including their righteous standing with God by continuing to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah.  Many recanted, and it is to those considering this, the writer of Hebrews appeals.

They had had the opportunity to gain the full knowledge of the truth. They had seen for themselves or heard first-hand accounts of Jesus’ miracles, some thirty years since.  So what is their wilful sin?  To deny Jesus.

This is a specific appeal.  And it aligns well with the other tricky passage in this epistle:

 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance.  (Hebrews 6:4-6)

There are several readings of this passage, but none really work with the Gospel of Salvation, unless we see this relating to Jews specifically, who already had the knowledge of God, but wilfully resisted the full knowledge relating to Christ, the identity and nature of their Messiah, who will appear twice, the first time as the suffering servant and the second in power and might with judgment.  Had they indeed been enlightened?

Preceding this passage is this:

Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so. (ibid 6:1-3)

The ‘therefore’ refers to the author’s summary of fulfilment of the Law, including the Priesthood and the Sabbath, and then describes the new reality of redemption.  If, he is saying, they have understood this on the witness of the Spirit, then to deny all this is to deny the Spirit.  Implicitly, he is doubting that their faith was founded on being reborn of the Spirit.  Did they actually receive a complete understanding of what was hidden in the Scriptures they memorised in their local synagogues?

Paul speaks of the mystery in the Scriptures to the Gentiles, who had no relationship to the Hebrew texts about how the full knowledge was concealed, about the Gospel:

…the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly.

In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.  (Ephesians 3:3-5)

It is dangerous for the Gentile Christian to take these tricky passages in Hebrews chapters 6 and 10 out of context.  For the non-Jew today as then, to come to know Jesus, is to be introduced to the Scriptures and by extension, God; this is never the case for the Jew that comes to faith in Jesus; they already have a knowledge of God – even if they have repudiated that knowledge and become ‘secular’ – and this because of the transmission from generation to generation:

My people, hear my teaching;
listen to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth with a parable;
I will utter hidden things, things from of old –
things we have heard and known,
things our ancestors have told us.
We will not hide them from their descendants;
we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,
his power, and the wonders he has done.
He decreed statutes for Jacob
and established the law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
to teach their children,
so that the next generation would know them,
even the children yet to be born,
and they in turn would tell their children.  (Psalm 78:1-6)

While salvation is always through faith in Jesus as the Christ, the starting point for a Jew is very different.  Jews may consider themselves God-fearing yet reject the Gospel; it is this wilful and deliberate and specific apostasy that is the sin addressed by the writer of Hebrews, and is such a specific teaching for the Jew not the Gentile.