Question: Heb. 10:29. Those persons guilty of renouncing Christ’s sacrifice, and objects of divine judgment to the last degree, in what way can it be said that such were sanctified by the blood of the covenant?
Answer: None can be compared for guilt with apostates; and apostates from the gospel are immeasurably worse than from the law. These are the persons in view here. If they now abandoned the infinite sacrifice of the Savior which they hitherto had confessed, there was no other that could avail for their sins. None had real and everlasting efficacy but that one; and those who gave it up, after owning it, were absolutely resourceless. Only divine judgment awaited them which must be their perdition. Their guilt was despite of grace, and of the Holy Spirit its witness and power. Of course in their case it had been mere profession, and the sanctification but outward in separating them from their Jewish fellows who made the law (that is, their own righteousness under it) their sole dependence before God. They never possessed living faith in Christ; “they only received the knowledge of the truth,” of which flesh is quite capable. And what flesh takes up it can as easily give up under trials, which only by grace lead the believer to purge himself practically as well as into a holy deepening acquaintance with God. “For the just shall live by faith,” besides receiving remission of sins by Christ’s blood.