²⁶ For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins …

The doctrine of eternal security, in some people’s minds, carries within it a significant tension. Why would a Christian be motivated to continue walking in God’s ways if he could not lose his salvation? After all, wouldn’t a guaranteed eternity in heaven lead people to licentious living? Why not eat, drink and be merry, for in the end we go to heaven anyway?

Such logic rests on the insistence that the only motivation for a holy and righteous life is the fear of retribution, but it also goes flatly against the previous assertions in the book of Hebrews. For example, “ ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws upon their heart, and on their mind I will write them,’ He then says, ‘And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more’ ” (Heb 10:16–17). The new covenant written on our hearts will be demonstrated in a Spirit-embedded desire to walk in the Lord’s ways, not in a callous desire to act any way we want. So, yes there is a better motivation for living a godly life than fear, and that is a spiritual in-born motivation based on a new, transformed heart.

To be true, Christendom has argued about this issue through the centuries. The human mind seems inexorably bent toward the idea that motivation for true walking by faith comes through fear of retribution. Such thinking, though, is part of the “elementary principles of the world” (Heb 5:12). We, as believers in Christ’s once-for-all-sacrifice-for-all-time, are to no longer follow such infantile reasoning. We have been born-again to a greater life of faith and security.

To the point of our passage for today, what about the one who goes on willfully sinning? The writer uses the rhetorical “we” here, which some assert means he includes himself in the warning. However, later in this chapter he shows that he does not include himself, “But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul” (Heb 10:39). Rather, he speaks in verse 26 as a person confronted with the knowledge of salvation, but who rejects that message, and thereby is “sinning.” Remember early in this letter, that judgment will come to those who reject the message of Christ. “For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” (2:2-3). To walk away from Christ’s sacrifice for our sins leaves us without any sacrifice sufficient for our sins!

Lord, thank You for the security of the once-for-all offering of the perfect sacrifice. I am fully and eternally accepted by You because of Your Son.