A Severer Punishment (Hebrews 10:28-29)

Kootenai Church

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Hebrews chapter 10, and we're gonna read together verses 26 through 31. Hebrews 10, beginning at verse 26.

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For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.

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Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

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How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot 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?

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For we know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the

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Lord will judge his people. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Let's pray together.

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Father, we would just ask for your grace to illuminate our hearts and our minds by your word. And we ask for the benefit and the blessing and the power of the

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Holy Spirit among us as we look at your word. Pray that you would grant to us understanding and ready hearts to obey and help us to understand your word for it is in there that we see wonderful things and it is in the light of your truth that we see light.

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And so give us that light, we pray, and help us to understand these difficult passages we ask in Christ's name, amen.

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One of the elements of the image of God in us is our innate and inherent sense of justice.

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And it seems that every civilization, no matter how advanced or how primitive, has some idea of right and wrong and some sense of justice.

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We all have a sense of guilt over wrongs that have been done. And humans, no matter where they're at in history, no matter what culture they are from, no matter what religious bent they may have, have a conscience that testifies with the written law of God and the moral law of God which is written on their hearts.

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The scripture says that the law of God is written on our hearts. And that sense of justice and that sense of intuitive knowledge of right and wrong and the feeling of guilt are all in keeping with what scripture says regarding the law which is written on our hearts.

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We have this moral sense that is built into us. And this is why even cultures and nations that have never had an exposure to biblical truth and biblical revelation will come up with even false religious systems in an attempt to satisfy offended deities or expiate their guilt or to remove the offense of their sin and to in some way atone for all of their wrongdoings.

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This is almost universal across humanity. In fact, it is so much a part of our humanity that when we run across somebody who has no conscience, no sense of right and wrong, and no fear of justice, we recognize that such a person is fundamentally, morally bankrupt and broken.

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We have a word to describe such people. Sociopath is the word that we use to describe such people.

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Maybe politician, but I prefer the words sociopath to describe those people. And animals don't have this.

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They don't have the sense of right and wrong. When a lion kills a weak zebra on the plains of the

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Serengeti, the other zebras don't get together and issue a warrant for his arrest and then put him on trial and then execute him for crimes against the animal kingdom.

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That doesn't happen. Chimpanzees do not prosecute one another for stealing bananas. The cows in the herd do not care that the lone bull among them is no more monogamous than Solomon was.

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And the dogs in the barnyard do not turn up their snouts in disgust and moral indignation at the rooster in the hen house who is a serial philanderer who struts about the hen house like a congressman on Epstein's Island.

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They don't care. None of them care about those. Those, that sense of guilt and moral wrongdoing and the desire to see justice satisfied, those are innate and inherent characteristics of the

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Imago Dei, which is inside of each one of us. We understand what it means to desire to see justice done.

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We have, it seems, when we have wrongs done against us, we have a keen sense of justice, don't we?

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But when we are the ones who are doing the wrong, all of a sudden, our sense of justice is a little more flaky.

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See, if we are the offended party, then we know exactly what justice should look like. And we want it done, we want it done quickly, we want it done, it's black and white, we know exactly how this should happen.

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When we are the offended party, suddenly our moral conscience is lucid, our standards are rigid, our sense of justice is well -informed, and we have this longing that justice be done.

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But when we are the ones who commit the wrongdoing, then suddenly it's, you know, it's blurred lines, and gray areas, and uncertainties, and we're not sure exactly how that's, a lot of vagaries when we are the guilty party.

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This is why when you present the biblical teaching regarding the holiness of God, the righteousness of God, and man's sinfulness, and what man's sinfulness deserves before that holy and righteous

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God, when you present that to a sinner, the sinner chafes at the idea that their sin warrants eternal conscious torment in the lake that burns with fire.

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They don't like that. The average sinner will admit that they are a wrongdoer. Yeah, I'm not perfect. Yes, I've done things that are morally suspect, and I'm guilty of certain crimes, that's true, but God is a loving

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God, and who is more eminently lovable than me? And yes, though, I have done wicked things, and I have committed a few indiscretions here and there, none of it is anything that a good and loving

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God will not overlook on the day of judgment. That is how the sinner thinks. The sinner has no concept of their own moral culpability before a righteous

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God, no concept of the heinousness and putridness of their own sin before that God, and no idea at the offensiveness of their own iniquity in God's court and in God's eyes.

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They have no idea or concept of any of those things, which is why, by the way, we must use the law of God to bring about the knowledge of sin, which is why when we present the gospel, we begin with the bad news of our violating

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God's law, and we hold up the 10 commandments and the law of God, the moral perfection of God in front of the sinner so that the sinner's guilt and sinfulness is laid bare in the light of truth, and they see themselves as they are in truth and as they are before God's eyes as wretched and depraved and wicked and helpless sinners before the court of God's justice and the bar of His holiness.

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That's why we use the law of God to do that. And if passages of Scripture that describe eternal judgment and eternal damnation seem like overkill to us or too harsh or too stern, it is only because we do not understand how hideous, how odious, how putrefying, and how horrible our sin is against the

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Holy God. If we understood that, all of the passages about falling into the hands of the living

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God being a terrifying thing and our God being a consuming fire and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries, all of that would make sense if we only understood the depth of our own guilt.

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And understanding the depth of our own guilt gives us some appreciation for the magnitude of God's grace which has removed that guilt, expiated our sin, taken the judgment of God off of our backs so that it does not hang over us like the sword of Damocles anymore and gives us some appreciation of God's mercy in saving wretched sinners such as us.

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And it is doing this very thing that the author in Hebrews 10 is attempting to do. It is to reveal the hideousness of the sin of apostasy so that when he describes the punishment that is gonna fall upon the apostate as being the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries, he needs to make the case that the sin of the apostate is hideous enough that it deserves such wretched torment and such wretched judgment.

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And so that is where we find ourselves here in Hebrews chapter 10. This warning passage which we just read here at the beginning before the sermon is the sternest warning passage out of all of the five in the book of Hebrews.

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And though all of the other warning passages warn about the judgment that is to come, some of them describe the judgment that is to come, the language that is used here surpasses all of them.

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This is, in fact, the harshest language used toward apostates that you find anywhere in Scripture.

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It is right here in this passage. We see language like judgment and fury of a fire, verse 26.

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Dying without mercy, the severe punishment, vengeance, judge, and terrifying. And so what is the sin then that warrants such damnation?

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What is the sin that the author is calling out here that is deserving of such judgment? It is the sin of apostasy.

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It is the act of knowing the truth and turning from it in full knowledge of the truth. It is walking away from the truth that is to be found in Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for sin, and instead turning away from that and renouncing it, repudiating it, considering it as worthless, and turning back toward that old sinful lifestyle and repudiating the gospel, the good news, and the truth, which one clearly knows.

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It is that well -considered, well -thought -out, intentional act of treachery, high -handedly so, against a loving and sovereign and good

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God who has provided atonement in the person of Jesus Christ. And the one who does that, who turns their back on that atonement, has no more sacrifice for sins.

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You see in verse 26, it says that if you do this, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. That is to say that there is no alternate sacrifice that you can turn to which will atone for your sin.

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There is no further sacrifice that is going to be made, again, by that same person to atone for your sin, and there is no future sacrifice in the plan of God which is going to wrap up and to which you can look to or pursue.

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There's no other sacrifice for sins. There remains nothing else except, the author says, the certain expectation of a fury which will consume

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God's adversaries, that terrifying expectation of judgment, verse 27. So in verses 26 and 27, the author describes who this apostate is, and again,

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I would just reiterate, we are not talking about Christians who lose their salvation. It's not what the passage is describing. It is describing people who have intellectually known the truth and superficially experienced the truth on some level.

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And they know it well enough to know, and they have experienced it enough to see that it is true, and they know it is true, and knowing it is true, they willfully, consciously turn away from that truth and apostatize and walk away from it, having never been changed by it, having never been regenerated by it, and having never been saved by it, but instead they turn from it.

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So the author describes who this apostate is in verses 26 and 27. He describes what the judgment is that they are to face, and then in verses 28 and 29, actually for the rest of this paragraph, the author goes on to continue to speak about that judgment, showing that the judgment is just in verses 28 and 29, that it is certain in verse 30, and that it is terrifying in verse 31.

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It's just, it is certain, and it is terrifying. The author does not back away from the somber language that he uses in verses 26 and 27.

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After talking about the fury of the fire which will consume the adversaries, the author doesn't stop and say, now this is just a metaphorical fire, this is just an allegorical fire, this is just a word picture to talk about how horrible it would be to live life without God.

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He doesn't do any of that. Doesn't back away from the sober language at all. In fact, he doubles down on it now in verses 28 and 29 in order to show that the judgment that is received by apostates who turn from the truth is a judgment that is deserved, that God's justice against them is deserved.

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It's just. This punishment, the fury of the fire which will consume the adversaries is just. That's verses 28 and 29.

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It's certain, verse 30, and it's terrifying, verse 31. That's gonna be our outline for the rest of this paragraph. That's not to say we're gonna get through the rest of the paragraphs, just to say that that's our outline for the rest of the paragraph.

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First, God's judgment is just, verses 28 and 29. Now, when we read through verses 26 and 27, we see what apostasy is.

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It's a willful sin committed by the apostate. It turns away from it, turns away from the truth. And in doing so, he warrants a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume

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God's adversaries because the apostate demonstrates that he is an adversary, an enemy of God.

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The most natural objection that would sort of pop up at this point is, does the apostate really deserve the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries?

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And it is almost as if the author is attempting to answer that very objection as he goes on in verses 28 and 29 to describe how just this punishment is.

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Look at verses 28 and 29 again. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

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How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the

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Son of God, has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the spirit of grace?

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Now see, the reasoning for these early Hebrew Christians, those to whom the book was originally written, their reasoning would have gone something like this.

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Look, in leaving the new covenant community of Christians and going back to the temple and the sacrifices and the old priesthood, really such a departure is just me choosing which way

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I'm going to worship God. I really don't see that my turning from Christ is all that deserving of this kind of judgment.

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After all, they've just come to the conclusion that Jesus really isn't their thing, and that what they are asked to sacrifice in terms of their family and their friends and their careers and their possessions for their

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Christian community really isn't that big of a deal, that that sacrifice is not worth it, that Christ does not warrant that.

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So if they go back to the old sacrifices where their family is from, where their friends, all the stuff that was familiar to them, if they just go back to that, do they really deserve that kind of judgment?

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I mean, I left the old to go to the new. I kind of tried the new. I really long for the smells and bells of the old, so I go back to the old and embrace that again.

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Do I really deserve the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries? And the author's point is that turning away from Christ and full knowledge of the truth is such a gross sin, such a high -handed act of defiance and rebellion in knowing the truth that it constitutes blasphemy of the highest order.

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It is a serious sin, and he gives an illustration from the Old Testament, verse 28. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy.

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This is physical death that is being described there on the testimony of two or three witnesses. He compares something under the

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New Covenant, again, to something under the Old Covenant. We've seen how the author is very familiar with the Old Covenant and how he often does this, comparing the new with the old, and every time we see the author comparing something from the

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Old Covenant with something from the New Covenant, you know what we find? That the New Covenant is always better, isn't it? It's always greater.

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It's always higher. It's always more glorious. Every time he compares something from the old, whether it's the priesthood or the sacrifices or the blood or the covenant or the promises or the law, when he brings in the new and compares the two, the new is always greater.

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It's always better. Jesus is the better priest with the better promise, a better sacrifice, a better blood, a better covenant.

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Everything about the new is better or greater. In terms of the comparison that he is making here, we see the exact same thing.

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Under the Old Covenant, one would die without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

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That Old Covenant, if violating it and turning your back on that, somebody would die a physical death from that.

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Well, the same is true in the New Covenant. In the New Covenant, the judgment is higher. The judgment is greater.

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Why is that? Because the revelation is clearer. And therefore, the apostasy against it is a greater guilt, incurs a greater judgment and deserves a greater punishment than the punishment which was meted out under the

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Old Covenant. So he is comparing, again, the Old Covenant with the new, and this time he is saying that the punishment under the

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New Covenant is greater than the punishment under the Old Covenant. He's comparing these two things because the light of revelation that we have in Jesus Christ makes our turning from that light a greater sin, incurring greater guilt and deserving of greater judgment.

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So he's again comparing them. And there are people who have a misconception about this contrast between the Old Covenant and the new.

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There are people who think that under the Old Covenant, God was a God of wrath, and under the New Covenant, God is a God of grace.

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And so that God today is far more forgiving, far more tolerant, far more lenient of our sin, and the opposite is the case.

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Paul said in Acts chapter 17 on Mars Hill, he said, God has overlooked the times of ignorance, but now declares that all men everywhere should repent because he's fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, and he's furnished proof to all men by raising that judge from the dead, the one whom he has appointed, that is the

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Lord Jesus Christ. There were times of ignorance that God overlooked. People had this wrong misconception view of God that under the

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Old Testament, God was trying to scare us into his kingdom, scare us into trusting him and believing in him, but he realized that that didn't work, and so now under the

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New Covenant, he's trying to woo us by loving and accepting, and so God under the New Covenant is far more gracious and far more tolerant, and he puts up with sin.

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No, the opposite is the case. Under the New Covenant, we have greater revelation, therefore sinning against that greater revelation incurs a greater guilt, and that greater guilt requires a greater punishment.

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The opposite of God being tolerant is now the case. His judgment is far more severe to those who understand and know truth and then willingly turn away from it, and so the principle is stated in verse 28 that anyone who has set aside the law of mercy dies, or sorry, the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

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That reference to setting aside the law, that's not a reference, by the way, to any and all sin committed under the Old Testament, under the

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Old Covenant. The word set aside means to reject or to regard as invalid, to nullify or to refuse.

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It was used in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament to describe the blatant outright rebellion against the

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Lord or to describe Israel's apostasy and their idolatry. It is describing here a high -handed rejection of the covenant that required the death penalty.

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Under the Old Covenant, there were some sins that if committed, they could be atoned for with a sacrifice that would be sacrifices or offerings which would be brought to the temple that would pay for or atone for or cover certain sins under the

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Old Covenant. There are other sins that you could never offer a sacrifice to get forgiveness of.

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Instead, what was called for was not an animal, but execution, and that's what's being described.

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Sacrifices might have been prescribed for lawbreakers, but there were some sins for which there was no sacrifice, that the person who had committed that sin was to be executed on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

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Here are some of those sins. Adultery, Sabbath violations, idolatry, witchcraft, homosexuality, blasphemy, incest.

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Some of those acts were outside of, sorry, all of those acts were outside of the purview of the sacrificial system, so there would no longer remain a sacrifice for those sins.

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The perpetrator was not commanded to offer an animal or to take an offering to the priest. He was commanded, the nation was commanded to put that person to death.

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And that's the picture that is used here. If you set aside that law of Moses, if you turn your back on that and repudiate the covenant that God mediated through Moses by violating the law and breaking the

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Sabbath and committing idolatry, that person was to be put to death. Now notice, the death penalty was not called for for people who ate food without washing their hands or had a lustful thought or lost their temper or coveted something that didn't belong to them or for touching a dead body or for any of those other kinds of sins.

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The sins that called for the death penalty were the sins that specifically indicated a repudiation of and a turning from the covenant that God had made with the nation of Israel.

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Adultery, Sabbath violations, idolatry, witchcraft, homosexuality, blasphemy, incest, and a few others.

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Those were intentional, well -considered acts of treachery against God and done in the face of biblical truth as a violation of that old covenant, indicating that one was repudiating or turning their back on the covenant that God had made with the nation and mediated through Moses.

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Deuteronomy chapter 17 describes this. If there is found in your midst in any of your towns which the

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Lord your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God by transgressing his covenant and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them or the sun or the moon or any of the heavenly hosts which

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I have not commanded, and if it is told you and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire thoroughly. Behold, if it is true and the thing's certain that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil deed to your gates, that is, the man or the woman, and you shall stone them to death.

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On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death. He shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.

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The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward, the hand of all the people, and so you shall purge the evil from your midst.

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Notice that the nation was not commanded to offer a sacrifice for the one who worshiped idols but to execute the one who worshiped idols.

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That's what's being described here. To commit such sins was to face the terrifying expectation of judgment, and it was to die without mercy.

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There was to be no mercy extended to one who sinned in that way. How much more the high -handed act of rejecting

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Jesus Christ? How much more? And notice the reference to two or three witnesses.

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This was a principle of justice in the Old Testament. Numbers 35, verse 30, if anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death at the evidence of witnesses, but no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness.

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The reason for the two or three witnesses was so that the guilt would be established and there would be a protection against wrongful conviction so that somebody could not say,

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I saw this person committing adultery or idolatry and have his neighbor put to death by other people simply as an act of violence against him.

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The requirement for two or three witnesses was not the only requirement intended to protect the innocent from false accusation and false prosecution and false execution.

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There were a couple of other stipulations that are worth mentioning since we're talking about Old Testament capital punishment. I know this seems more like a sermon that you would expect on like a

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Mother's Day or something like that. And it is a bit weighty, but bear with me. There were a couple of other provisions for Old Testament capital punishment.

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One of them was that a false witness who attempted to lie or bear false witness against a neighbor to get them convicted of a certain crime, if the witness was found to be false, the false witness would suffer the same fate that he was trying to get the other person convicted of.

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So if you bore witness against somebody falsely that was intended to have their life taken by execution and you were found out to be a false witness, you would suffer the same penalty you were pursuing for the other person.

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That was one stipulation. Another stipulation was that the person who would bear witness against the individual for purpose of execution, that person had to be the first to pick up the stones to stone the other party.

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So you had to be willing to do two things. Number one, you had to be willing to venture your own life on your testimony, that if you were found to be a false witness, you would be put to death.

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And second, you had to be willing to pick up the stones and be the first one to throw the stone at the person as part of the execution. That would almost ensure, it was intended to almost ensure that there would be no wrongful convictions and that no innocent people would be executed.

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In fact, it would far more likely mean that guilty people would walk than an innocent people would be executed. Those stipulations.

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And I have a few suggestions to how we can work that into our own public policy in this country, but that's for another time.

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So notice the contrast of punishments in the passage. Notice that he is contrasting here the difference in kind and earthly punishment with an eternal punishment.

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The fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries was not intended to be an earthly punishment. That is an allusion to, that is a reference to the book of Isaiah, which describes hell and damnation.

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And here he's talking about a different kind of punishment of physical death so that the sin, the judgment that falls upon the apostate is a greater judgment because the judgment that falls upon the one convicted of an earthly crime here is simply physical death.

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Whereas the judgment that falls upon the apostate is eternal damnation and eternal death. Notice also the difference in guilt.

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That the one who rejected or turned his back on the law of Moses is less guilty and less culpable.

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Though he is culpable and guilty, he was less so than the person who would turn their back upon Christ. One of the reasons is because of what we found out in chapter two and three of the book of Hebrews that Jesus is greater than Moses.

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Therefore the revelation that came through Moses to the people was not as clear, not as great, and not as full and robust as the revelation that comes to us in the person of Christ.

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So to reject the covenant that God made through Moses with Moses and the people, that was a sin culpable and worthy of eternal, of damnation and execution.

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But the one who turns their back on the revelation that is found in Jesus Christ, he being higher and greater and better than Moses.

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How much severer should that punishment be? Not only is there a difference in kind and a difference in guilt, but there is a difference in the severity of the punishment that is described.

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You see it in verse 29. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has done these things?

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The fate suffered here is worse. What is worse than eternal ruin? What is worse than eternal death, eternal punishment, eternal loss?

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It's better to be killed physically than to die spiritually everlastingly forever.

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It is better to face judgment in this life at the hands of wicked people and to be destroyed in this life and to have the body killed than to stand before the one who has the power to kill both body and soul and to punish both of them in hell.

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There's a difference in degree of punishment. And notice there is an argument here from the lesser to the greater.

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If the one who rejects Moses is executed without mercy, how much more the one who rejects Christ? If the one who rejects the truth provided by Moses is executed and deserves judgment, how much more the one who rejects the truth that is found in Jesus Christ?

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And if turning from the old covenant, if forsaking the old covenant and the God of the old covenant warranted that type of judgment, how much more rejecting the new covenant built on better promises, inaugurated by a better blood and interceded for and inaugurated by a better priest?

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How much more the judgment that would fall upon the apostate? And notice the crimes that are here alleged.

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And here we get into verse 29. What are these crimes? For what is this punishment given? Now, in their context,

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I wanna put it back into their context for a moment so we don't lose sight of the fact that what the author is specifically addressing here.

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In their context, what he is describing and warning about against is those in this congregation who, again, are not true believers.

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They have come into the Christian community in a very superficial way and never been changed by the truth, but they are longing for and looking back toward the old covenant and wanting to go back to the sacrifices and the old priesthood and all the old forms and functions that they had grown up with.

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And they may have argued and said, but that's what I grew up with. That's what I'm used to. That's what I'm most comfortable with are those things.

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And yeah, I've come out of those for a little while, but I miss those things. And so I just wanna go back to them. And after all, it's not as if I am committing adultery.

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It's not as if I'm committing the sin of idolatry. I'm still going to be worshiping the same Yahweh, the same

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God. I'm just doing it through animal sacrifices instead of appreciating the sacrifice of his son.

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I'm still going to have a priest. It's just gonna be that Aaronic priest and not the Melchizedekian priest. I'm still gonna have all of the forms and the rituals, in fact, the very ones that God himself ordained for us.

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So I'm gonna be worshiping the same God through a system that he ordained, sacrifices which he commanded and a priest which he has initiated and ordained for us.

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So I'm just going back to that. I'm gonna have all the same stuff that I have under the new covenant. Sure, it's a little lesser, but I'm just going back to that because I feel more comfortable there.

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Who could blame them? They're not committing idolatry, are they? They're not committing adultery, are they?

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They're not murdering anyone. They're just going back to a form of worship that they were more comfortable with.

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What does the author say? Well, this is trampling underfoot the son of God. This is regarding as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified.

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And this is an insult to the spirit of grace. You deserve a more severe punishment for doing that than for idolatry under the old covenant.

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Worshiping the same God in the wrong way is worthy of more severe punishment than worshiping a different God under the old covenant.

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Worshipping the same God in the wrong way was deserving a more severe punishment than worshiping a different God under the old covenant.

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Think about that. He is excoriating any attempt to lessen or to minimize the sin.

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Three things that are charged. This is the one who has done this. Look at how the apostate is described. This is the description of their treachery.

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There are three statements in verse 29. How much severe punishment do you think he will deserve? And here are the three statements. He has trampled underfoot the

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Son of God. He has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified.

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And the third one, he has insulted the spirit of grace. These are the charges that are brought against the apostate. Turning from Christ with full knowledge of the truth is no small sin.

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It's no small sin. Now, I wanna deal with all three of these charges in a general way today.

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And we're not gonna go through all three of them today. You should be thankful for that. We'll go into all three of them in more detail next week.

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So today, I just wanna deal with all three of them, some observations that we find. We kinda group all of them together. I want you to see the flow and the purpose of the passage here.

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And because we're gonna wait till next week to get into more detail because number two, that second statement, he has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified.

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There's an interpretive issue there that we need to address head on and kinda think through a little bit. Who is it that is sanctified and what is this sanctification and how was this person sanctified?

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Because if the person that is sanctified in that second statement was a Christian and that's genuine Christian sanctification, holiness and salvation, then what we have here are people losing their salvation.

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So what do we do with that? Does this say that people who are actually sanctified for whom Christ has died are gonna lose their salvation?

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We need to wrestle through that. So let's just deal, let me give you a couple of observations about all three of these statements.

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First, notice that these are active repudiations of divine majesty, active repudiations. The sin of apostasy is not a neutral thing where an apostate just says, eh, you know,

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I'm not sure. I'm just gonna go do something else. That's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about ignorance of the truth. We're talking about somebody who knows the truth and understands the majesty of this truth and openly, willfully, intentionally, and in a very considerate and thought out way turns from that truth and blasphemes it.

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These are active repudiations. Look at the verbs that are used, trampled, regarded, and insulted.

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And each of those expresses a disdain for the thing considered. When you trample underfoot something, you show your low evaluation of that thing and how you consider it to be something low.

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You regard as unclean the blood of the covenant that Jesus shed. You regard that as unclean and then you actively insult the spirit of grace.

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These are not neutral assessments. These are not neutral activities. These are not things that are done in ignorance. This is willful sin.

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It is high -handed treachery against God and it deserves the fullest judgment that is described in this passage.

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And notice that there are three statements. Now the author has just said that on the testimony of two or three witnesses, every truth should be established and somebody should be put to death.

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Punishment was mediated by the witness of two or three people. And then how many of these statements does the author give?

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He has trampled underfoot the son of God, that's one. He has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant, that's two.

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And he has insulted the spirit of grace. That's three statements. I don't think that that's accidental. I don't think the author talks about the two or three witnesses and then gives us three things, really, that bear witness against the apostate.

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It's intentional. You want two or three witnesses? Here are the three persons, if you will, that witness against you.

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And there are a number of ways, actually two main ones, that we could categorize these three statements. We could look at these statements in terms of the work that is described in them.

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Look at them again. Verse 29, he has trampled underfoot the son of God. The reference to the son of God, rather than just saying, trampled underfoot

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Jesus the high priest, Jesus our great high priest, Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus. He uses the term son of God because that was

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Christian shorthand or biblical shorthand for a way of reminding us of this intimate connection between the father and the son.

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That it is the father who sends the son into the world to reveal the triune

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God in the person of the son in the incarnation. So he is describing here not just Jesus as the son, but reminding us that that son is one in nature and one in essence with the father who sent him into the world.

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This is the one who is sent by the father. And so it's the father who is doing the sending is the father who intends to reveal himself in the person of the son to a lost humanity.

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So it's the father's work. The second statement is the son's work. And that's the reference to the blood of the covenant. He gives his life as a sacrifice to atone for that sin.

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That's the work of the son. And when the spirit of God draws us to himself, reveals our sin, points us to the son, convicts us of sin, and then one turns away from that, he is insulting the spirit of grace.

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See the work of the father in sending the son, the work of the son in atoning for sin, and the work of the spirit in drawing us to the son, all of those are described in those three phrases.

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So what are the three witnesses against us? It's really the three works of the triune God. The father sending the son, the son atoning for sin, the spirit bringing us to the son.

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Those are three witnesses against us. Or we could categorize those three statements in terms of the person who is offended.

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The father is offended that we would tread under foot the son of God. The son is offended that we would regard as nothing, as unclean, as common, the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified.

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And the spirit would be offended at us turning from so gracious a thing as him revealing our need for a savior and sin to us.

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So the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit are the three people who bear witness against us, and their character is unassailable, and their testimony is impeachable, and their recall is perfect.

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Now I ask you this, where will you turn for mercy on the day of judgment if the only one who can give you mercy is one who is bearing witness against your soul on that day?

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Where will you turn? When the three witnesses who are calling for justice are the father, the son, and the

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Holy Spirit, because you offended all three at turning from the revelation of truth in Jesus Christ, where will you turn on the day of judgment?

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You see why it is that you have nothing to expect but the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries? Under the old covenant, one was put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

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Apostate, you want witnesses? Here they are, the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. And on the day of judgment, they will be the prosecuting attorney, they will be the three witnesses who bear witness against your soul, and they will be the judge who issues the sentence.

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And where should you turn for mercy on that day? You see, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin for the apostate.

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For the one who has superficially known the truth and intellectually assented to the truth, and then turns from that truth, and then he's gonna stand before that God whom he has offended in all three persons.

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He has considered Christ as nothing, offending the father who sent the son. He has considered the blood of the covenant as nothing, offending the son who shed his blood to atone for the sins.

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And then he has insulted the spirit of grace who has done graciously the work of drawing us and revealing

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Christ to us. Where will you turn for mercy on that day? The point of the argument of the author in verses 28 and 29 is to show us that the judgment that the apostate receives is a judgment that the apostate deserves fully, without any excuse, because God's judgments are always just, and truth and righteousness are the foundation of his throne, and every judgment of our

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God is true and righteous altogether. God only does what is righteous and just. And that means that because of the justice of God, it means that no sin will be overly punished.

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God will not exact more for a sin against him and against his law than it deserves. He will exact only what it deserves, but he will certainly exact no less than it deserves.

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And he has promised that every sin against him and against his law will be punished. It will either be punished on the son who bore the sins of all who will believe and trust in him, or it will be punished on the head of the sinner who refuses to bow the knee and repent and turn to the son in submission to the son.

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But every single sin will be punished. The justice of God requires that. It must happen.

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God is not going to pervert justice by pouring out wrath upon a sinner that he does not deserve, and God is not gonna pervert justice by showing grace to a sinner and winking at their sin and winking at the justice that they deserve and letting them go scot -free on the day of judgment because God is a just God.

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And so is this a stern warning? Yeah, I mean, it is. But it's deserved by the apostate.

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So now I ask you, listener, what do your transgressions deserve?

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Do you think upon it? If God were to exact his justice upon you for every crime, every transgression, every iniquity that you've ever committed, what would he exact from you?

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What do I deserve? What do you deserve? We deserve eternal judgment and damnation and separation from the love of God and the grace of God for all of eternity.

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If you are here and you are outside Jesus Christ and you've never repented of your sin and trusted Christ for salvation, what do your transgressions warrant you?

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What should you expect from a just God who knows every crime you have ever committed, every deed you have ever done in darkness, every thought you have ever had, every motive that has appeared in your heart?

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He knows you better than you do. And you know your guilt warrants justice. You know your guilt is deserving of eternal damnation.

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What should a good God do with you? You might not think that your sin is that big of an issue, but you're not the judge. You're not the one whose name has been blasphemed, whose grace has been spurned, whose love has been rejected, and whose truth has been maligned.

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And you're certainly not the one that is going to cast judgment. And if it were you, in God's position, you'd have a keen sense of justice, wouldn't you?

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If somebody had done to you what you have done to God, you would know exactly what justice should look like.

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And you would want it. You would demand it. And you would feel slighted if you didn't receive justice.

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So, unbeliever, God has made provision for you in the person of his son, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And if you will repent, and if you will believe, and if you will turn from your sin and acknowledge your stature before him, that you deserve his judgment, he has provided in Jesus Christ an atonement sufficient to pay the price for your sin.

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And if you will turn from your sin and believe upon Christ and trust him and call out to him, look to him and you will live.

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That is his promise. He will not cast you out. He will remove your sins as far away from you as the east is from the west.

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He will adopt you into his family. He will declare you innocent, not guilty, and you will face no condemnation because you were in Christ Jesus.

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That is God's promise to you. Reject that truth and there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, but only a terrifying expectation of the judgment that is to come.

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Now, Christian, those of you in Jesus Christ, as we think upon our sin, let that cause your heart to leap in joy at the grace that you have received, that there is no condemnation to those who are in Jesus Christ.

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We will never see the frown of God. We will never suffer the penalty for our sin because one, that is

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Christ, has come and he has borne the fullness of our guilt and removed all of it in full and paid the price completely so that all of our sins, past, present, and future, were laid upon him so that we might be declared righteous and justified in his sight.

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And we are not only forgiven of our sins, but all of the righteousness that was belonging to Jesus Christ is credited and imputed to our account so that not only are we just forgiven of sin and all of my sin is taken away, but I have a positive righteousness so that before the throne of God and in the sight of his eyes, which see everything, and before which all things are laid bare, he does not see our sin on the day of judgment and he does not see our sin now.

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He sees only the spotless, pure, and perfect, and undeserved and unmerited righteousness of Jesus Christ in all of its fullness and all of its glory.

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And that is ours, not because we have done anything to deserve it, but because one has come and done something on our behalf that in his perfect living and his perfect dying and all of his perfect righteousness, he has paid the price for our sin and given us his righteousness.

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That is the great exchange the scripture describes, that God made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf and to take that punishment so that we might receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ in return and that we might be counted righteous in his sight.

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That is the glorious news of the gospel. And you get it not because you have deserved it, not because you do anything to earn it, not because you pay it off or you work it off, you get it in an undeserved state, justified and declared righteous while you are still in a sinning state, and you get it by faith and by faith alone in the person of Christ.

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That's why I said earlier, if you're not in Jesus Christ, look to him and live. And if you will not look to him and live, you will turn from him and die, eternally so.

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Justice for the believer has not been slighted when all of our sins are forgiven. Justice is satisfied because the one who paid the price for our sin died in our stead and paid every last debt we owe.

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And we give him glory and praise for some greatest salvation. Let's bow our heads. Father, we do praise you for your goodness in sending your son into this world to die for us and to take the punishment that we deserve to die the death that we deserve to die for our sin.

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How glorious this gospel is and how merciful you have been to those who do not deserve that mercy but deserve only your justice.

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I pray for any who are here who have never trusted Christ for salvation, that they would see their need for the son and look to him and live and be redeemed and have eternal life.

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Do that work of drawing sinners to your son so that the Lord Jesus Christ may receive the full reward for all of his suffering as he gathers together all his people whom he has chosen and loved from eternity past.

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We pray that you would be honored and glorified through our worship and the response of our hearts this morning. In Jesus' name, amen.

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Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.