An Exhortation to Persevering in the Faith from John Brown's Commentary on Hebrews, where he says, On the foundation of what preceded this, the Apostle proceeds to exhort the Hebrews to draw near with the true heart and full assurance of faith, and to hold fast to profession of their faith without wavering, for he is faithful, it promised. Since these things are so, and since we have abundant evidence that they are so, let us Draw near with the true heart and the full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful who has promised. To draw near is the same as to come to God. to come to the throne of grace, and is expressive of worshiping God as a reconciled divinity. The language in which this idea is expressed is borrowed from the Jewish ritual. In all their religious exercises, they look towards, and in many of them they approach towards, the emblem of Jehovah's favorable presence and the Holy of Holies. Let us draw near is just equivalent to let us worship God as a God of peace. Let us draw near to Him as propitious to us, and let us do so with a true heart. This phrase seems to me very nearly synonymous with our Lord's description of acceptable worship, John 4 verse 24, in spirit. And in truth, let us draw near to God, not by mere bodily surface, but the exercise of the mind and heart, not figuratively, but really with a true heart, with a mind enlightened with the truth, and with a heart made true, sound, and upright, through the influence of this truth. not under the influence of the evil heart of error and unbelief, which leads men away from God, but under the influence of the heart of truth and faith, which, by uniting the mind and heart of a man to the mind and heart of God, gives real fellowship with him. Christians are exhorted thus to draw near to God in the full assurance of faith. The full assurance of faith is just equivalent to the fullest and most assured belief. Do crush a naturally occurs? The full and most assured belief of what? And the answer is easy, the full and assured belief of that respecting which we have confidence that Christ as our high priest is bodily passed through these heavens into the heaven of heavens by his own blood. by this proving the perfection of his atoning sacrifice and the efficacy of his intercession, and so securing that in due time we shall also enter into a similar way into the heavens, and that in heaven where he is entered as our forerunner. He is a great high priest over the celestial temple having everything connected with the acceptable worship of God committed to his management. We ought to draw near to God with this full assurance because we have the most abundant evidence that these things are true. And because it is the assurance of these things which enables us to draw near. It is the faith of the truth respecting the reality and efficacy of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the hope that rises out of that faith. that enables us to draw near to Him from whom, but for this faith and hope, had we just views of His holiness and justice and power, we would seek shelter, if possible, under rocks and mountains. It is just an important remark of John Owen in his commentary on Hebrews respecting the meaning of the phrase, assurance of faith. The full assurance of faith here respects not the assurance that any have of their own salvation, nor any degree of such assurance. It is only the full satisfaction of our souls and consciences of the reality and efficacy of Christ's priesthood to give us acceptance with God, in opposition to all other ways and means thereof that is intended. " Let us draw near and the full assurance of faith is just. Let us worship God in the firm faith of these truths. The two following clauses have in later times very generally been considered as both referring to the exhortation, let us draw near, and as descriptive of the qualifications of an acceptable worshipper. Having the heart sprinkled from an evil conscience and the body washed with pure water has been considered as just equivalent to such phrases as being purified from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, being sanctified in the whole man's whole body and spirit. And the apostle has been supposed to teach the important truth that the worship of men living habitually in the indulgence either of internal or external sin cannot be acceptable. I cannot but take a somewhat different view of the matter. This is no doubt an important truth, but it has no particular bearing on the Apostle's argument. The construction of the original text entices me, along with many of the most learned both of ancient and modern expositors, to connect a phrase, and having our bodies washed with pure water, not with the exhortation, let us draw near, but with the exhortation, let us hold fast our profession. Thus, let us draw near having a heart sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast the profession of our faith. The words, having a heart sprinkled from an evil conscience, appear to me not so much intended to state that we must be holy at heart if we would be acceptable in our worship of God, as to bring forward the truth that having a heart sprinkled from an evil conscience, through the full assurance of faith, we may and we ought to draw near to God. Is a God of peace? An evil conscience has a conscience burdened and polluted with a sense of unpardoned guilt. A man who has offended God and knows this, and who has no solid ground of hope of pardon, is totally unfit for affectionate fellowship with God. His mind is a stranger to confidence and love. It is full of jealousy and fear and dislike. The man must get rid of this evil conscience in order to his coming to God. This is expressed by the apostle by the heart being sprinkled from this evil conscience. The evil conscience occupies the same place as a bar in the way of spiritually drawn near to God as ceremonial defilement did in the way of ceremonially drawn near to God. And as ceremonial defilement was removed by the sprinkling of the blood of the ritual expiatory sacrifice, so the evil conscience is removed by what he terms as sprinkling of the blood of Christ. That which in the New Covenant corresponds to the sprinkling of the blood is the faith of the truth, as it is in Jesus, by which a sinner is delivered from the jealousies of guilt and the tormenting fear of divine vengeance. The words, then, are just equivalent to having obtained freedom from these jealousies and fears which arise out of unpardoned guilt, and keep us at a distance from God. Having obtained freedom from these by the faith of these truths, Let us draw near to God. There is an allusion to the consecration of Aaron and his sons, whose garments were sprinkled with blood, that they might enter into the sanctuary. Christians are invited, sprinkled inwardly on the conscience with the blood of the only effectual atoning sacrifice, not only into the sanctuary, but into the Holy of Holies, where God is and where the forerunner is also. It must be evident to every person who has attentively considered and distinctly understood what has been said that the Apostle's exhortation naturally rises out of and is strongly enforced by the principles on which it is grounded. Since we had the most satisfactory evidence that Christ Jesus has bodily gone through these visible heavens into the heaven of heavens, on the ground of his own meritorious expiatory death, thus proving at once the perfection of his sacrifice and the prevalence of his intercession. And since he is thus secured that all we believing in him shall in due time enter into the heaven of heavens in the same way, let us worship Jehovah as the God of peace. with enlightened minds and upright hearts in the assured faith of these truths, by which we are delivered from those jealousies and fears which a guilty conscience produces, and which prevent us from approaching Jehovah's propitiated divinity reconciling the world to himself, not imputing to men their trespasses. It must be equally plain that the apostle meant his readers to draw the conclusion. How much better is the way of drawing near to God, which is thus opened up, than the way of drawing near to him by the ritual of Moses? And how foolish as well as criminal would it be to abandon the former and revert to the latter? The Jews On the ground of the entrance of the high priest through the tabernacle and its veils into the material holy place by the blood of animal sacrifices, though they had no reason to hope that they were ever to be allowed to go into the holiest, were yet encouraged, tremblingly, to approach towards the emblem of the reconciled divinity. having their bodies purified with ceremonial devalement by the sprinkling of the blood of bulls and goats. But we Christians have the most satisfactory evidence that our High Priest has passed through these heavens into the heaven of heavens by his own blood, and is secure that in due time we shall follow him. And through the faith of this truth, our consciences are freed from those jealousies and fears which prevent spiritual intercourse with God. And therefore we can and we ought, in the spiritual institutions of our holy faith, to cultivate affectionate and childlike intercourse with Jehovah as our Father, because His Father is His God. and therefore our God. The Apostle's second exhortation is in these words, and having our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast to profession of our faith without wavering. The great body of manuscripts read profession of our hope, which seems to be the true reading. It does not, however, materially alter the sense. The profession of our hope is just equivalent to the hope we profess. the acknowledgement we have made of our hope. Let us hold this fast. In other words, let us not abandon it. Let us not be induced by any worldly motive to apostatize from the faith of Christ and thus abandon that hope of entering at last. into the true holy place by the blood of his sacrifice, by which we have made a solemn acknowledgment. That solemn acknowledgment was made when they submitted to baptism, and to this I apprehend the apostle refers when he says, having your bodies washed with pure water. Some have supposed that the allusion is to the several washings or immersions under the law, by which both the priests and the people were purified for approaching God in worship. and that the Apostle, as it were, says, is you have the substance of which the sprinkling of blood was an emblem. So you have also the substance of which the washing of water was an emblem. I have already, however, stated to you what appear to me satisfactory reasons for considering the words before as sustaining a connection, not with the injunction, let us draw near, but with the injunction, let us hold fast. And if this mode of connection is adopted, there can scarcely be any doubt that the reference is to Christian baptism. Submitting to Christian baptism by a Jew was a renunciation of Judaism. It was a public and solemn acknowledgement of his hope in Christ. It was a declaration that he considered himself as one with Christ, as having died with him, been buried with him, been raised with him, and of his expectation of a personal resurrection and ascension entirely on the ground of what he did. and suffered, the just one in the room of the unjust. That this was the import of a person submitting to baptism seems plain from the words of the apostle. Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death. that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For as many as you have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, He adds a very powerful persuasive motive in the words which follow, for he is faithful to his promised God. To give the ears of salvation strong consolation is confirmed by an oath, that declaration in reference to the everlasting priesthood of Jesus Christ on which all their hope depends. And he cannot lie. He cannot deny himself. He can as soon cease to exist as cease to be faithful to his promise. He is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent. And he has proved his faithfulness in accomplishing the promise with regard to our great High Priest. He has brought him, according to his promise, that he would not leave his soul in a separate state, nor suffer his Holy One to see corruption. He has brought him from the dead, and he will in due time fulfill all the promises which he has made to his people, bringing them again from the dead, and giving them that kingdom prepared for them before the foundation of the world. A consideration of the faithfulness of the promissor is a principal means of strengthening faith and a promise. Hebrews 10 verses 24 and 25. And let us consider one another to provoke and to love and to good works, not forsaken the assembling of ourselves together. as a manner of some is, but exhorting one another in so much more as you see the day approaching. For the purpose of mutually confirming each other in the hope of the gospel, the apostle exhorts the Hebrew Christians to consider one another, to provoke and to love in good works. Christians are not merely to be concerned about their improvement and safety as individuals, but as members of one body, they are to seek to promote each other's best interest, dare to consider each other, dare to attend to each other's wants, infirmities, temptations, and dangers, and to administer suitable assistance, advice, caution, admonition, and consolation, in this way dare to stir up each other to love, The word provoke is ordinarily used in a bad sense, but here it is just equivalent to excite. They are to act a part which is calculated to call forth on one another's bosom, so workings of that peculiar affection which all Christians have to each other. By doing offices of Christian kindness, they are to excite Christian love in return. They are required to excite each other to good works. In other words, I apprehend to the labor of love, here to do good to all as they have opportunity and especially to those of the household of faith. Such a course was calculated at once to confirm their own faith and that of their brethren, the faith of the truth and that holy love which it produces act and react on each other. Accordingly, the apostle exhorts the Hebrew Christians to be regular in attending on the stated meetings for instruction and worship, not forsaken the assembling of yourselves together. It is by means of the public assemblies or churches of the saints that the visible profession of Christ's name is kept up in the world, and the exercises in which Christians are engaged, reading, preaching the Word, prayer, the Lord's Supper, are all well calculated to strengthen their faith and hope. Some of the Hebrew Christians had become negligent in attending to this duty. The apostle calls on his readers, instead of imitating the conduct of these persons, to exhort one another. His meaning may be to exhort one another to attend on these assemblies, or generally, as in chapter 3, verses 12 and 13, to exhort one another to be steadfast and unmovable. always abounding in the work of the Lord. He adds a powerful motive. And so much the more as you see the day approaching. The day here referred to seems plainly the day of the destruction of the Jewish state and church. That day had been foretold by many of the prophets and with peculiar minuteness by our Lord himself. And he said, Take heed that you be not deceived, for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ. And the time draws near. Go ye not therefore after them. But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, do not be terrified, for these things must first come to pass. But the end is not by and by. Then he said to them, Nations shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and great earthquakes shall be in several places, and famines, and pestilences, and fearful sights, and great signs shall there be from heaven. But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake. He assures his followers that in that awful destruction they should be preserved. But the security was only to be expected in attending to his cautions and persevering in faith and hope and holiness. Take heed that you do not be deceived, for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ. And a time draws near. Do not go, therefore, after them. Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness in the cares of this life, so that that day come upon you unawares. But he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved. These events were now very near, and the harbingers of their coming were well fitted to quicken to holy diligence the Hebrew Christians, that they might escape the coming desolation. But the Apostle, to impress on their mind still more strongly the infinite importance of perseverance in the faith and profession of the Gospel, lays before them a peculiarly impressive view of the complete and everlasting destruction which awaits the final apostate and the future state. Verses 26 and 27 For if we sin willfully, after that we have received a knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. The first point which here requires our attention is the description of the persons of whom the Apostle is speaking. That description consists of two parts. There are such as have received the knowledge of the truth, and such as after having received the knowledge of the truth. Sin. Dare such as haven't received the knowledge of the truth. By the truth we are without doubt to understand Christianity, which is not only truth as opposed to falsehood and error, but what we apprehend probably was chiefly in the apostles' view, is truth or reality is contrasted with the shadows of the mosaic economy, the truth. The reality of which the shadow was given by Moses and the law came by Jesus Christ. The gospel makes known to us a real high priest, a real sacrifice, a real holy place. To receive the knowledge of this truth is not only to be furnished with the means of obtaining the knowledge of Christian truth, but actually to apprehend its meaning and evidence in some good measure. so as to make a credible profession of believing it. To receive the knowledge of the truth seems just the same thing as being enlightened, which is spoken of in the sixth chapter. Now, it is taken for granted that persons who have received the knowledge of the truth may sin. The persons who are here described are persons who, after they have received the knowledge of the truth, sin. The word sin here is plainly used in a somewhat peculiar sense. It is not a general description of sin, but of a particular kind of sin, apostasy from the faith and profession of the truth, once known and professed. The angels that sinned are the apostate angels. The apostasy described is not so much an act of apostasy as the state of apostasy. It is not if we have sinned, if we have apostatized, but if we sin, if we apostatize, if we continue in apostasy. You're described as not only habitually sinning, or as continuing in a state of apostasy, but of doing this willfully, obstinately, determinedly, in opposition to all attempts to reclaim them. The contrast implied in the use of the word willfully does not seem so much between sins committed in ignorance and the sins committed knowingly as between a temporary abandonment of the faith and profession of the gospel. under the influence of carnal fear or some similar motive, and a determined, persevering final apostasy. The character here described, then, is that of a man who has at one time obtained such a knowledge of the meaning and evidence of the gospel. as to induce him to make an open profession of Christianity, and who has as openly abandoned its profession and lives in a state of determined apostasy. With regard to such a person, the Apostle declares that there remains no more sacrifice for sins. The persons immediately referred to were Jews. When they became Christians, they gave up the legal sacrifices for sin. But then, in the one sacrifice of Christ, they found what infinitely more than supplied the deficiency. But renouncing the sacrifice of Christ, what are they to do? There is no salvation without pardon, no pardon without a sacrifice for sin. and apostatizing from the faith of Christ. They have renounced all dependence on a sacrifice, and there is no other. They may return to the legal sacrifices, but these never could take away sin. And now that the substance has come, of which they were but to shadow, they are no longer useful even for the subsidiary purpose that they once served. Jesus as a high priest promised in the ancient oracle that it is vain to look for another, and it is equally in vain to look for his appearing a second time to offer sacrifice. To the apostate, then, there remains no more sacrifice for sins. The Apostle's assertion is not if a person apostatizes there is no hope of his obtaining pardon through the one sacrifice of Christ, but it is if a person perseveres in apostasy, putting away from him the one sacrifice of Christ. There is not, there cannot be for him any other sacrifice for sin. The apostate. must perish. Not because the sacrifice of Christ is not of efficacy enough to expiate even his guilt, but because continuing in his apostasy, he will have nothing to do with that sacrifice, which is the only available sacrifice for sin. Instead of another sacrifice for sin remaining for the apostate, so that though he give up Christ he may yet be served, there remains for him nothing but a certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. The word judgment here, as in many other places, is equivalent to punishment to which a sinner is doomed or a judge. James 2 verse 13, 2 Peter 2 verse 4. When it is said that there remains for the apostate a fearful looking for of this punishment, the meaning does not seem to be that every apostate is haunted by a dreadful anticipation of coming destruction. 4. Though this has been the case with some apostates, it is by no means characteristic of all apostates. The meaning is, the apostate has nothing to expect but a fearful punishment. He has no reason to hope for expiation and pardon, but he has reason to fear condemnation and punishment. The epithet certain here does not denote either an assured expectation or the certainty of the punishment, It is used in the same way as in the expressions a certain man, a certain place, a certain occurrence. It is intended to suggest the idea that the punishment to be expected by the apostate is the punishment of undefined, indefinable magnitude. something that is inexpressible, inconceivable. We cannot say what it is. We can only say that a certain awful punishment awaits him, the nature and limits of which cannot be fully understood by any created being. As a sinner he is exposed to the wrath of God. He obstinately refuses to avail himself of the only covert from this fearful storm, and therefore he must meet it in all its terrors. It must break on his unsheltered head. And who knows the power of his anger? The extent of infinite power must be measured. The depths of infinite wisdom must be fathomed ere that awful question can be resolved. We can only say, according to his fear, so is his wrath. The most dreadful conception comes infinitely short of the more dreadful reality. We can only say of it, it is a certain fearful punishment which the apostate has to expect. This punishment is further described as fiery indignation. There remains for the apostate indignation or wrath, even the wrath of God. God is angry with him for all of his sins and especially for the sin of apostasy. And this wrath of God abides on him. He is exposed to the fearful effects of God's moral disapprobation and judicial displeasure. And having renounced the sacrifice of Christ, he has nothing to save him from these. The displeasure of God is termed fiery indignation, or indignation of fire, to represent in a striking manner its resistless, tormenting, destroying efficacy. It will prove its power in devouring the adversaries. The adversaries here are, I apprehend, primarily the unbelieving Jews. The apostle does not say here, as he does elsewhere, those that do not believe. Those who do not obey the Gospel of Christ, but the adversaries. The appellation is peculiarly descriptive. The unbelieving Jews were actuated by a principle of the most hostile opposition to Christ and Christianity. They both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and have persecuted us, and they please not God and are contrary to all men. The fiery indignation of God is to devour these adversaries and along with them the apostates from the faith of Christ. It is not improbable that here, as in the passage just quoted from the epistle to the Thessalonians, there is a reference to the awful judgments which are about to befall the unbelieving Jews, and which the apostates were to have their full share. But the ultimate reference seems to be of the great day of wrath and revelation of the judgment of God, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power. Such was the punishment which awaited the apostate of the primitive age, and materially the same as the punishment which awaits the apostate of every succeeding age. In the verses which follow, we have at once an illustration of the certainty and severity of the doom which awaits the apostate and a vindication of the justice of that doom. In verses 28 and 29, he that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much more sore punishment, suppose you, shall he be thought worthy, who has trodden underfoot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant in which he was sanctified an unholy thing, and has done despite to the Spirit of grace? The general sentiment, obviously, is, if their punishment shall exceed in severity that of the despiser of Moses' law, as much as their crime exceeds his in heinousness, and strict justice requires and secures this, then it will be severe indeed.