²⁸ Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?

Another warning passage now sits before us that some people use to erroneously teach that a genuine Christian can lose his or her salvation. This sounds similar to what we read earlier concerning the hypothetical case of someone falling away: “… it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame” (Heb 6:6). But we believe this passage today refers to people who fully understand the Law and now have the knowledge of God’s once-for-all-time offering of the perfect sacrifice of Christ – and then have turned back to the Law. The fact that this one is described as “sanctified” doesn’t mean he is a redeemed Christian, anymore than the unbelieving husband of 1 Corinthians 7:14 is saved, even though he is “sanctified through His wife.” Clearly, unbelieving people are “set apart” (the root meaning of the word “sanctified”) by their association with Christians, which puts them in a favored position to hear the gospel up close and see it lived out.

But with this “up-closeness” comes a dire warning for those non-believers among the Jewish-Christian community. Notice the comparison with “two or three witnesses” required for charging someone with violating the Law. So now three testimonies are given regarding the charge against those who reject His sacrifice. First, they “trampled under foot the Son of God.” Not just an animal sacrifice, but deity Himself. Not just ignoring or rejecting, but showing disdain. This is what happens to salt that is no longer any good and to seed that falls by the roadside—it gets trampled on as being totally inconsequential and useless.

Second, those who reject Christ “ regard as unclean the blood of the [new] covenant…” The word “unclean” literally means “common” in the sense of “nothing special.” Rejecting Christ means treating His death as no different than any other person’s death. Finally, those who walk away from the message of Christ, “insulted the Spirit of grace.” From the beginning Satan has insulted God, “Indeed, has God said …?” The bitter sarcasm continues down to denigrating the blood of Christ. God will, in the end, punish him and all who follow his example in arrogantly rejecting the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ.

Lord, I exalt You for saving me from that “severer punishment” through the once-for-all-time sacrifice of Christ. That is far more than I deserve.