The nightmare of many earnest children of God is "the unpardonable sin;" and there are few conscientious Christians that do not at one time or another allow the fear that perhaps they have committed it to torment them, while those who really have committed it go light-heartedly (hard-heartedy, rather) on their way and care nothing about it. As some one said, "The fact that a man is afraid he is a hypocrite is a good indication that he is not one"--so might it be put that a Christian's being troubled with the fear of having committed the unpardonable sin is a good indication that his fear is groundless. I have a request to explain (Heb. 10:25-28.) If the willful sin mentioned in verse 26 is simply any wrong done against light and conscience, and if that is unpardonable, then there is hardly a man in the world, or ever has been, that will be saved. But verse 29 describes that willful sin as consisting (1) of treading under foot the Son of God, (2) counting the blood of the covenant with which he has sanctified an unholy thing, and (3) doing despite unto the Spirit of grace. Now, to disobey the Spirit is not the same as "doing despite" unto him; to be unfaithful to Christ is not the same as treading him under foot. Sinners who have wandered from God often hold the very thought of Jesus in high honor and hang their heads in shame at the mention of his name; they realize that if they are ever forgiven and washed, it will be through this very "blood of the covenant," and that they have grieved the Holy Spirit without at [278] all setting out to do despite to him. This is commonly the case with backsliders. Unless a man can be proved squarely guilty of the three offenses described, he has not committed the unpardonable sin. Furthermore, any man who has sinned and returns to God penitently has not committed that sin, for God pledged himself to forgive and receive such, but for the unpardonable sin is no forgiveness. (Ps. 51:17; John 6:37.) Therefore, they who are guilty of it never repent and return to God.

      Immediately preceding the paragraph that speaks of the "willful sin" is the exhortation not to forsake our own assembling together; and since the next paragraph (according to the arrangement of the American Revised Version) begins with "for"--"For if we sin willfully," etc.--it has been taken by some that to forsake the assembling is the willful sin for which there is no more a sacrifice. That, however, from the following context and in the nature of things, cannot be the case. "What, then, is the force of the word "for" in verse 26? It takes the entire preceding paragraph (Heb. 10:19-25), and is warning to Christians to hold fast their holy religion by every means, showing what will result from the renouncing of it. And here is the great lesson of it to us. No man, once a true Christian, would renounce Christianity at one leap. Before a man can bring himself to that, he must go through a process of hardening--of carelessness, backsliding, neglect. But such a course, dangerous in itself, is seen to be terribly hazardous when it appears that by this process a man becomes ripe for that last awful step that cuts him off from mercy forever--the [279] sin unto death, concerning which it is of no use to pray for a brother. If those Hebrews grow neglectful of their salvation, the chances multiply rapidly that they will be swallowed up by, and go back to, Judaism; join with their former brethren in denouncing Jesus as the impostor who well deserved his death (thus crucifying him to themselves afresh and putting him to open shame); and by their apostasy they confess that his blood was no better than that of any other malefactor, and that the Spirit who has worked among them was of Beelzebub, not of God. This was their awful danger, and they must cleave close to Jesus, to his word, to one another, and avail themselves of their privileges in Christ, that they may avoid that fatal undertow. A similar danger threatens to-day those who have grown lax and drifted from God and the means of his salvation. Let such turn and return to him before it is too late.

[TAG 278-280]