Hebrews 10:29

Of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?

There are two directions one's thoughts may take in reference to this verse. The extremely powerful language used to describe the apostate has led some to suppose that only the most shameful and incorrigibly wicked are included in the author's thoughts. Thus, Thomas affirms that "It is obvious that this is no case of ordinary backsliding, but, as in Hebrews 6, of willful and persistent apostasy."[37] On the other hand, there may be another intention of these holy words, namely, to show what dreadful guilt attaches to such ordinary lapses as forsaking the assembly or neglect of the Lord's Supper. Only a moment before this verse, the author had mentioned that very kind of failure on the part of some; and though not implied that an occasional or isolated instance of such failure could call forth such a proscription as this, it may very likely be intended that persistent and habitual neglect of such sacred duties may be accurately described as trampling the Son of God under foot and insulting the Spirit of grace. The demand for this understanding of the warning is inherent in the fact that one must look to the sins of the people whom this epistle was addressed in order to identify the condition described; and what were those sins? A neglect of Christian duty, lack of diligence in study, forsaking the assembly, and a tendency to revert to their old religion - those were the sins which were under consideration; and such were not the sins of reprobates, debauchers, or scoundrels, but the sins of "nice people"! - nice people who did not realize that their indifference and dalliance were not minor but major departures from the path of duty and that they were in deadly danger from such conduct. If the attitude of millions today may be taken as example of the same sins they committed, it is probable that they did not realize that their wrongs were of any serious consequence. For us, as well as for them, excuses are plentiful; cares, riches, and pleasures require a dreadful preoccupation of most; and it becomes quite easy to view the kind of spiritual lapse in view here as trivial, especially since it violates no law, is in fact customary for millions, and hardly viewed as sinful at all by the vast majority. But may God help Christians to remember that as custodians of the Light of all nations, their utmost endeavor is the least required of them, for their lives are forfeit to this task above all others that the lamp of truth be held aloft in the darkness of human sin and transgression. Any carelessness or preventable inattention, any conscious neglect of Christian duty shall certainly bring upon the offender a mountainous load of blood-guiltiness. When people who are generally supposed to be Christians live lives that lead others to despise the truth, they stand in the same condemnation as the Pharisees who did not enter the kingdom themselves nor allow others to do so.

Trodden under foot here translates a Greek word used by Matthew for heartless and totally indifferent action. Bristol says:

The verb is used by Jesus of the useless salt cast out and trodden under foot (Matthew 5:13) and of the perils of being trampled down by swine (Matthew 7:6). Here it denotes that the sinner rejects the Son of God completely and brutally.[38]

It is easy to take the penalties of neglect, and other so-called milder sins, as stated in this verse, and from the practical RESULT of such sins, impute to those that committed them "brutality," "harshness," and even reprobacy, as Bristol does both here and in the quotation below. This actually avoids the point of the exhortation, namely, that neglecting the assembly, absence from the Lord's table, indifference, and impiety - these things are said to make common the blood of Jesus, trample Christ under foot, and insult the Holy Spirit. Of course, this is the same manner of interpretation that imputes all manner of sins to the rich man at whose gate Lazarus lay. It is alleged that he had acquired his wealth dishonestly, that he was a drunkard, and that he even kicked Lazarus! The human mind finds it hard to believe that respectable people will be lost. It is in this tradition that commentators assign much worse sins to those ancient Hebrew Christians than any they committed.

The blood of the covenant ... an unholy thing refers to a lack of appreciation of the blood of Christ, making it "common" (see Greek, English Revised Version (1885) margin). How does one make the blood of Jesus common? By his indifference to it, by responding to it not at all, or half-heartedly, by neglecting to enter by means of the access provided through it, or, in short, either by non-Christian or anti-Christian conduct.

Wherewith he was sanctified is further evidence that the people addressed in Hebrews, and with such a powerful exhortation, were true Christians, as far as previous experience was concerned, and that they were not merely those "superficially" associated with Christianity. This poses so great a difficulty that translators and commentators alike often resort to radical devices in a vain attempt to remove it. Hewitt said, "The omission of the words `wherewith he was sanctified' by the Codex Alexandrinus was most probably due to an attempt to avoid this difficulty."[39] The difficulty, of course, is the sad, unwelcome fact, and one almost unbelievable, that even after one is a true and devoted Christian, enjoying all the privileges of salvation, even "sanctified" as in this verse, that even then such a person can defect from the Lord and lose his soul. All efforts to alter this fact, whether by tampering with the text of scripture or by explanations that deny the text, should be rejected. As an example of the latter, take Bristol's words concerning the passage here. Of course, they are true, at least on the surface; but they nevertheless fail to present one vital and overwhelming truth of God's word in these verses. He said:

(Regarding "hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace") The verb contains the thought of violent self-assertion and arrogance. Through his Spirit, God offers his love in action for man's redemption. But the defiant sinner thinks that he does not need this help in his life. His rejection is harsh and brutal.[40]

It is in that last sentence of Bristol's words that the common fallacy comes to light. What about the sinner who is not "harsh and brutal" but who rather reluctantly turns away from the fountain of grace, as did the rich young ruler (Mark 10)? How about him who is merely too busy with this life to concern himself with another? What about the man who simply never has time to think about it, after the first blush of his conversion is past? What of the soul which merely drifts away from it? It is the solemn conviction of this student that such conduct on the part of men, however good they may be in the ordinary sense, and however justified by the customs of a permissive society - that such conduct is not merely deplorable but GUILTY. The verse at hand calls such behavior by its proper labels; it is a trampling under foot the Son of God, making the blood of Jesus common, and insulting the Spirit of grace.

[37] W. H. Griffith Thomas, op. cit., p. 136.

[38] Lyle O. Bristol, Hebrews, A Commentary (Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: The Judson Press, 1967), p. 134.

[39] Thomas Hewitt, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1960), p. 167.

[40] Ibid., p. 135.