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 judgement, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.  (Hebrews 10:26-27)

Humanity is in an adversarial relationship with God, that is our natural state.  The writer of Hebrews says that once that realisation has dawned, in other words, been revealed by God, the soul is in a parlous position.  For thereafter continuing to behave as we have been has dire consequences which are eternally lethal.

Deliberation is of course, forethought and the Greek word translated ‘deliberately’ is the adverb ἑκουσίως hekousiós which means ‘voluntarily’ or ‘of one’s accord’.  It also conveys ‘wilfully’ – decisions of free will.  To know in advance what is forbidden yet to go ahead anyway; taking not just one piece of forbidden fruit but a cartload.  Wherefore this idiocy?

It is valuable to reflect that of the very many forms of offering for the atoning of sin given by God to His people, Israel, through His intermediary, Moses, there was none for deliberate sin, only unintentional sin. 

If one person sins unintentionally, he shall offer a female goat a year old for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement before the Lord for the person who makes a mistake, when he sins unintentionally, to make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven.  (Numbers 15:27-28)

After saying this applies to the sojourner and Israel alike, there comes the immediate contrast:

But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native or a sojourner, reviles the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be on him. (Ibid 15:30-31)

Consequently, to any under the Law, even those not of Israel that dwell among the chosen, there is no way back for the deliberate sinner – and the writer of Hebrews, addressing the early, and largely Jewish church, saw no reason for this decree to be considered as rescinded under the New Covenant, either to the Jew or the Gentile Christian.

The book of Hebrews opens the mystery of the Mosaic sacrificial system, that the rites are fulfilled entirely through the perfect priesthood and the perfect sin offering that is Jesus.  That the pure and sinless suffers the mortal and the spiritual death in substitution for the corrupt and sinning is grace unfathomable; therefore, the author does not hold back:

How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:29)

And protestation of weakness is not acceptable extenuation.  For Jesus to issue the command to sin no more (John 8:11, see also 5:14) means that it must be possible to do so.  The Apostle Paul elucidates:

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.  (1 Corinthians 10:13)

And the half-brother of Jesus and leader of the early church wishes it to be known that we are always the author of our own destruction:

 Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.  (James 1:13-15)

He does not see even a role for Satan in this process, the desire to sin is within, latent and ready to overtake us, as God tells Cain:

…if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.  Genesis 4:7)

To the divided houses of Israel and Judah, Isaiah brought a most surprising and solemn word of prophecy:

But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honour as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offence and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.   And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken. (Isaiah 8:13-15)

If sanctuary is the place of righteousness – מִקְדָּשׁ miqdash being the inner sanctum of the tabernacle rather than a place of asylum – then the stumbling block, who is later revealed as Jesus, is also a snare to the unwary.  This says many will be ensnared by the rule of righteousness.  In other words, in the former time of unknowing is a better state than the knowledge and failure to act on it, as the Apostle Peter explains:

For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.  (2 Peter 2:20-21)

Repentance, that is the continual process of turning away from not turning back to all that was; and ignorance is no longer a defence.

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.  (Acts 17:30-31)

To know what is sin and yet to continue to sin is to presume on God’s grace; moreover, according to Scripture, God does not obligate Himself to overlook such behaviour.  It is a sobering thought that revelation of God’s truth places the lost in a new state of increased jeopardy depending on their response.  While, of course, God-given faith bestow infinite blessing of salvation, Scripture warns that this blessing must not be taken for granted.   

The lesson is surely that all must deliberate on God’s righteousness and deliberately repent of sin.  If God gives the freedom to make an informed choice and then any choose ill, none can presume on the forgiveness and mercy gained on the cross.