The Willful Sin, Part 1 (Hebrews 10:26-27)

Hebrews 10 and the Context of the Warning Passage

Now, if you will, please turn in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews, to chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10, and we're gonna begin reading at verse 19, catch some of the context again. Hebrews 10, verse 19, therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful, and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembly together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

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.

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

For we know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Let's pray before we begin. Our Father, we do ask for your help and assistance in understanding this passage.

Help us to understand who is being described here, what is being warned about, and help us to see if we are in this group of people that is being described here. We pray that you would bless the preaching and the teaching and our understanding of your word and the power of your Holy Spirit, so that we may honor you with obedient hearts and obedient lives.

Be honored and glorified here, we pray, in the name of Christ our Lord, amen. Well, apostates, we all know one. I mean, it's not that we all know the same one, but we all know somebody who has departed the faith at one time or another.

We all know someone who has had exposure to Christian truth and felt their hearts strangely warmed by the gospel message, and then they began to enjoy the fellowship and the meeting with the people of God and even made friends with many who were in the church.

Then they made a profession, a valid one, it seems, a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, and then were baptized. And then they went on to serve in various ministries within the church, even evidencing certain Christian virtues and qualities like forgiveness and graciousness and kindness and gentleness and compassion and love and submission.

And then slowly, sometimes slowly, their affections begin to cool and the passions begin to wane and their priorities shift. And what was once a fervent conviction and commitment to Christian truth becomes an almost undiscernible apathy toward Christian things and Christian truth.

Something happens sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly, but eventually and inevitably, they end up leaving the Christian faith and renouncing what they once firmly would have held that they believed and firmly would have insisted that they were part of.

They walk away, leaving the faith. In the end, they forsake the assembling of themselves with other Christians and then begin to renounce the truth that they once openly professed. And sometimes those people go on to be apathetic observers of Christian things, sort of sitting by the sideline, watching what's going on, thinking to themselves, I gave the whole Jesus thing a whirl for a period of time and it didn't work out for me.

Others go on to become hostile and openly hostile to Christian truth and to Christian things, even attacking the faith that they once said that they would have believed. This is nothing new under the sun.

Apostasy and the First-Century Pattern of Departure

In the first century, the apostle John wrote of those who went out from us, but they were not really of us. Their going out from us demonstrated that they were of us. And John says, if they were of us, that is, if they were believers, they would have remained with us.

But the apostate leaves in order to reveal that they were never really of us to begin with. According to John, the departure of apostates from the Christian faith gives evidence of what they were all along, professing believers and not believers at all, not really of the people of God, not one of the people of God, but just simply one who professes or pretends to be one.

And apostates eventually and inevitably leave the faith because they cannot put up airs and pretenses and the exhausting charade of what it means to try and pretend to be one of the people of God, so eventually they depart.

And sometimes we are able to see the apostasy happen relatively quickly, sometimes it goes in slow motion. Sometimes there are people who attach themselves to the congregation of God's people and you suspect from the very beginning that something is not right, something is a little off.

Maybe it's their profession of faith or the way they talk about Christian truth or Christian theology, something is not quite right there, but then over the course of time, it becomes more and more evident that something is seriously and profoundly wrong in their Christian profession of faith and then eventually they leave.

Sometimes the departure is quick and it takes us all by surprise. And the more high profile the quote unquote Christian is who makes his departure from the faith, the more devastating it is to those Christians who are left behind and who observe the whole thing.

And so if it is a well-known pastor or an author or a conference speaker or one who has made a name within Christian circles in some high profile way, his departure from the faith is then used as an opportunity by those who are not believers, by the watching world, to bludgeon those of us who are true Christians and to besmirch the name of Christ.

And the more high profile they are and the more ardent they are and passionate they are in their previous convictions, the more devastating their departure from the faith becomes because Christians then watch those who have left the faith and they just scratch their head and say, how could that person not have been a Christian?

It's almost appalling, it's devastating. Last week I set a little bit of the theological table for this discussion on the warning passages in Hebrews 6 and 10. These warning passages in Hebrews help us to understand the nature of this apostasy, who it is that apostatizes and the judgment that the apostate faces.

And so that is why while going through this, that is why we're taking the time today to really focus in on this question of who are the apostates that are mentioned in these warning passages in Hebrews 2 and in Hebrews 4 and Hebrews 6 and in Hebrews 10.

So I mentioned last week that this is a battleground text amongst those who, over the issue of the security of our salvation, there are those who would disagree with my position to say that a Christian can genuinely lose their salvation and perish in hell, and then there are people who believe that a Christian, a genuine Christian cannot lose their salvation and perish in hell.

And so that raises quite naturally a question. The question is this, how essential is this issue if we disagree on it? Do those who believe that you can lose your salvation, does believing something like that make you a heretic or aberrant in your theology?

Does it make you wrong enough to go to hell itself? And the answer to that is no. This is not an essential issue, but it is a very important issue. It's not essential in the sense that if you disagree with me, you're going to hell.

This is not an essential issue in the sense that if you get this wrong, this is wrong enough to mean that you are not a Christian and you don't have sound enough theology, you're not trusting in Christ, and therefore you're going to perish.

This is not essential in that way, where denying the security of the believer is a denial of an essential cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith, but it is very important, and here's why. Because all of our theology is connected.

This is good quality stuff, I don't know what's going on.

All right.

All of our theology is connected. Truth is consistent. And so theologies have a way of bleeding into each other. So if you get something wrong in one area, it's inevitably going to crop up in other areas of your theology, because truth is consistent and they're all attached to each other.

So if you get this issue wrong, I can guarantee that there are some other issues where your thinking on it is going to be unbiblical, simply because the other doctrines that are attached to this are, in some cases, very essential doctrines.

Like, what did Jesus actually do on the cross? For whom did he die? What is the nature of justification, sanctification? How certain is our glorification? What is, what does God's predetermined plan, what does his purpose is actually accomplished from eternity past on into the present?

There are other theologies that bleed into this, and so it is important that we take the time to get it right, though it is a secondary issue, it is a very, very significant issue. So, while it's not an important, while it is an important doctrine, though not an essential doctrine, Hebrews chapter 10 gives us a chance to really kind of slow down and give some thoughtfulness to the nature of this apostasy and who these apostates are.

So that is what we're doing. Looking today in verses 26 and 27, we're gonna answer three questions from this text that will help us to understand who apostates are and what it is that they do when they leave the Christian faith.

And here are the three questions. Let's read verses 26 and 27 together again, and then I'll give you the three questions. Verse 26, 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.

Now here are the three questions. What is the willful sin mentioned in verse 26? What is the willful sin? Number two, why is there no sacrifice for it? And number three, what is the judgment that is faced by those who commit it?

What is the willful sin? Why is there no sacrifice for it? And then what is the judgment that is described in verses 26 and 27? So first, what is this willful sin? The very first word of verse 26 connects us back to the context because as I said a few weeks ago, it is an inferential conjunction, meaning that it joins what comes in verses 26 and following the stern warning with the exhortations that preceded it in verses 22 through verse 25.

So it is as if the author in verse 25 is saying, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together as is the habit of son, but instead encourage one another and all the more as you see the day approaching, because, here's how the argument flows out of the text, you do these things and not neglect your assembly because there are some who will do that very thing and they go on sinning willfully.

This willful sin is connected to the exhortations in verses 24 and 25. The willful sin is the neglect of those three previous exhortations. Let us draw near, let us hold fast, and let us encourage others to do the same or gather together with others for that same purpose.

These people who commit the willful sin, they are people who have not drawn near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having their hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and their bodies washed with pure water as is described in verse 22.

They're not those who have drawn near in that sense. They may have drawn near, but not in full assurance of faith. They may have drawn near, but not having their hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.

They are not those who hold fast the confession of our hope firm until the end. And they're not those who encourage others to do the same. And they're not those who obey the commandment to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

We saw back in verse 25 that the forsaking of the assembly was not just missing church an occasional Sunday because you're sick or because you're ill or you're caring for somebody you're traveling. That's not what's being described.

What's being described there is desertion. It's the act of deserting the Christian assembly. These are people who have turned their back on the assembly and gone their own way and done their own thing.

Those are the ones that are being described here. So the author says then in verse 26, those who go on sinning willfully, what is the willful sin? It's connected to the previous exhortations. The willful sin is not drawing near with a sincere faith.

It is not holding fast the confession of our hope without wavering and it is not encouraging others to do the same, but instead forsaking and neglecting the assembly of the saints. That is an idea of what the willful sin is.

And notice that it is called a willful sin. He doesn't just say if anyone sins after receiving the knowledge of the truth. Has anybody here sinned after receiving the knowledge of the truth? If that's what he is talking about, all of us have.

So all of us would fall into this camp. We've all sinned after receiving the knowledge of the truth, but he specifically is describing a kind of sin and a duration of sin that the author has in mind here.

If you go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth. That word willfully is a word that means intentionally or voluntarily. In fact, the only other time in the New Testament that this word is used, it is translated as voluntarily.

It's used only two times here and later in 1 Peter chapter five, where Peter describes the elders who quote, exercise oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily. That's the word voluntarily. As I illustrate the meaning here of this word willful, you understand that Peter is using it of elders who serve in an elder capacity and they do it voluntarily.

No elder ever slips and falls into eldership. No elder accidentally elders. I've never walked up to a guy and say,.

Hey, what are we doing here today?

I'm sorry, I just accidentally elder today while I was here at the congregations. Nobody ever does this accidentally or haphazardly or thoughtlessly or without intentionality. But those who serve as elders do so voluntarily, willfully, deliberately, considerably, thoughtfully.

They give some thoughtfulness to it and they do it with diligence because they plan and purpose it. And that's the idea behind this word. They do it voluntarily, not accidentally. So this is not describing then somebody who falls into sin or sins accidentally.

It's not describing something that happens and you lose your temper and you sin in that way. And then you wonder if you've lost your salvation. That's not what this word is describing. It's describing a thoughtful, thought through execution, a planned out, determined sin that continues on and on.

I don't know about you, but I can't tolerate more of that.

There we go.

Maybe it's my beard.

I'm sorry.

So it is a thought out, willful, deliberate, intentional, thought through, planned out, executed. This is done with forethought, this sin. Whatever this willful sin is, it is done with forethought. Not something that somebody falls into.

It's something that they willingly, voluntarily, intentionally, you might even say high-handedly, or in a premeditated fashion, they commit this sin. Further, the present participle of this word tells us that it is an ongoing pattern, something that is continual.

Wayne Grudem, in a chapter on this subject of the warning passages, he writes this, quote, "'The present participle indicates "'an ongoing pattern of sin.'. "'The New International Version translates, "'If we deliberately keep on sinning "'after we have received the knowledge of the truth, "'no sacrifice for sins is left.

"'Willful and persistent rejection of the truth "'and living in rebellion against it "'are in view in this verse.'".

Close quote.

And that comes from a chapter in a book called Still Sovereign, edited by Thomas Schreiner and Bruce Ware, and I would commend the book to you. Wayne Grudem contributes one chapter in that book to the subject of all of the warning passages in the book of Hebrews, and of all that I have read on the warning passages in the book of Hebrews, and I haven't read everything there is to read because that would take me a lifetime, but of all that I have read, and it's quite a lot, Wayne Grudem's treatment is the best that I have seen out of any other author that I've seen on this subject.

His one chapter in that book, Still Sovereign, is worth the price of the entire book. It's not light reading, but it's very, very good theological reading, and I would commend it to you. So it is describing an established way of thinking and believing.

It is describing a permanent renunciation of the gospel, a permanent denouncing of Christ, a permanent turning away, and this is not something that is done accidentally. It's not something that is done haphazardly.

It's not something that you fall into, and though we haven't covered this phrase yet, I want you to notice in verse 26 that it is something that is done after receiving the knowledge of the truth. That's significant.

In other words, this is a sin that is committed in the full light of revelation. This is somebody who does this sin not out of ignorance, not out of unknowingness or any kind of accidentalness. It's just something that is done against the truth with full knowledge of the truth.

Whoever these are who commit this sin of apostasy, they do so with full understanding of the truth. Now, let's contrast then, at the risk of being somewhat redundant, but I need to be clear, let's contrast this sin then with a couple other things that it is not.

Again, it is not, we're not describing a Christian who lapses into sin. It is possible for Christians to lapse into sin. It's possible for something to happen and you to respond in a sinful way. It is possible for a Christian to sin, sometimes even grievously, and it is possible for a Christian to sin and even for that sin to go on for a period of time, and I'm not gonna give any kind of period of time, because I don't wanna give anybody an excuse to think that they're justified in going on that, but if I said went on for six months, you say, okay, I got two more months left.

I don't wanna do anything like that. So it is possible for a Christian to lapse into a sinful habit, and for that sinful habit to go on for a period of time. We're not describing lapsing into sin or falling into sin, and the good news is that when a Christian lapses or falls into sin like that, the Lord sanctifies that believer out of it or disciplines him like in Hebrews chapter 12, so that he may produce in that believer the peaceable fruits of righteousness.

So I see somebody falling away from the faith or lapsing into sin, I always say, if that person is a believer, God will discipline them, and that's what I pray for. Lord, pour out your discipline on that person.

Bring them back to repentance and faith, and if I see somebody who's a professed believer who is living in a sin and not repenting of it, my assumption is that they're not believers, no matter what their previous testimony has been, and my prayer is that, Lord, if they are believers, then discipline them severely enough to bring them back to the truth and do so quickly, and if they are not believers, then bring them to faith, true repentance and faith in Jesus Christ before they fall away and cannot be renewed again to repentance.

That's my prayer. So we're not talking about a believer who lapses into sin, second, we're not talking about a believer who strays away in their intimacy from the Lord for a period of time. Every Christian goes through seasons in your life where because of the circumstances of life or because of your emotions or because of your hormones or because of, I'm just throwing that in there, because of kids in your life or things that are happening outside of us or what's going on in a political arena that our passions, our affections wax and wane a little bit.

We grow passion, our love for the Lord, and then we kind of cool off for a season, a time, and we kind of want some distance for a period of time. Those things happen, just the part of being human. I'm not talking about that.

I used to have a coworker in a job that I worked at. Every Monday morning, he was the most on fire, fervent, passionate, just lit up Christian you'd ever seen. Now, by Friday, it was a bit of a different story, but Monday, he'd come back again.

Why was that? Because he went to church on Sunday so that he could get the emotions going again. And in our conversation, our theological conversations, he always feared that if he didn't keep the emotions up and the passion there and the burning fire all the time, just always turned up, dialed up to 11, if he didn't have it always dialed up to 11, then he might sort of cool off for a bit, and what if he died at that point?

Then he wouldn't even know if he would go to see Jesus. We're not talking about a Christian whose affection's cool for a period of time. Of course, that is not an excuse in any way of consciously allowing our affections for the Lord to cool.

We need to deal with those, but that's not what's being described here. This is a well-thought-out, deliberate, intentional, high-handed act of treachery against the truth. That's what's being described, a high-handed act of treachery against the truth.

Contemporary Examples of Apostasy and the Meaning of “Receiving the Knowledge of the Truth”

Now, let me give you some examples, even from recent years, and I point to these, not to besmirch these people at all, but simply to give you examples that you are probably already familiar with. Within the last three years, most notably, we saw the deconversion of Joshua Harris.

Now, Joshua Harris's departure from the Christian faith made news in 2019, ironically and providentially, while we were in the middle of studying the warning passage in Hebrews 6, so that may be why that sounds familiar to you, because I brought up Harris's name.

Harris gained fame because of his work with Sovereign Grace Ministries and the Gospel Coalition. He wrote the book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. He was instrumental in the purity movement, and his family is well-known, his brothers are well-known.

He was quite the Christian celebrity. And the progression of Harris was slow, but it was discernible. In 2014, he left his pastorate of a Sovereign Grace church, and then he left the Gospel Coalition.

Later on, he renounced his book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. In 2018, he announced that he and his wife were separating. Several weeks later, he announced that he and his wife were divorcing, and several weeks later, he announced that he was kissing Christianity goodbye.

So his church, and then the Gospel Coalition, and then his wife, and then his Christianity, and his book. Joshua Harris ended up kissing a lot of things goodbye by 2018, and his departure from the faith made waves throughout Christianity.

In his statement, he said this, quote, I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus. The popular phrase for this is deconstruction. The biblical phrase is falling away. By all measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian,.

Close quote.

You remember that a few years ago? That sent shockwaves throughout Christianity. That was on Fox News. You can still find the article there today. And he went on to include in his statement an apology to the LGBTQ plus community.

And several weeks after he departed the Christian faith, he posted an Instagram picture of him celebrating in a gay pride parade. I think it was in Vancouver, B .C., if memory serves, or Seattle. It's all Sodom over there, so it doesn't matter which city it was.

Before Joshua Harris was Bart Ehrman. Now Bart Ehrman, having studied at Moody Bible Institute, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Wheaton College, Ehrman found a way to leverage his apostasy into a celebrity gig that has paid him quite well.

There is money to be made in attacking the Christian faith, and Bart Ehrman is an example of that. He claims to have been a believer in Christ, but after leaving the faith, he wrote books, and he's participated in public debates, he's lectured publicly, he's written articles, and been on television programs, and radio programs, all in attempts to seeking to undermine the Christian faith and the reliability of the New Testament.

He has spent his apostate days attacking Christianity publicly, and applying his intellectual abilities, and they are substantial intellectual abilities, and speaking abilities into attacking the Christian faith.

Bart Ehrman studied under some of the greatest minds that this generation has produced in Christianity. He was one of Bruce Metzger's final students at Princeton Theological Seminary. Bruce Metzger was a conservative Greek and Hebrew scholar, and a textual critic of the New Testament.

Bart Ehrman learned under one of the greatest minds concerning textual criticism in the New Testament today. He departed the faith, turned from the truth. Marty Samson followed soon after Joshua Harris.

Do you remember Marty Samson? He was a prolific worship music writer, known for Hillsong Worship, Hillsong United, Delirious, the band Delirious, and of course his departure from the faith was posted on Instagram, like Joshua Harris's was, and he said, I am leaving the faith, losing my faith, he said, and then he said it brought him great peace.

You know why it brought him great peace? Because it always brings you great peace when you're finally able to shed the sheep's clothing and stop pretending to be something that you're not in front of a watching world.

Carrying on a charade like that is exhausting. To pretend to be holy, to pretend to love the Lord, to pretend to be in the circle, to pretend to be part of the group, to pretend to have these affections and these desires, to put all of that up on a public display like that is just exhausting on a level that you cannot imagine unless you're doing it.

And then most recently, son of influential pastor John Piper, Abraham Piper, has become infamous almost online for attacking the Christian faith, and that is tragic on so many levels. With a possible exemption of Marty Samson, all of these men were immersed in biblical truth, immersed in it.

And I say possible exemption of Marty Samson simply because the amount of rank and gross heresy that is woven into the warp and woof of Hillsong culture and theology, I would be surprised if Marty Samson ever even heard the gospel in those environments.

But the rest of them would have no excuse for their apostasy. Immersed in biblical truth, growing up, preaching the truth and reading the truth, their apostasy from the Christian faith, their departure from the truth is deliberate and willful and flagrant and voluntary and completely well thought out and well considered.

You don't post a picture of yourself standing in front of a mountain lake with mountains in the background on Instagram with a long explanation of your departure from the Christian faith if you have not thought that through and thought through all of the implications of it.

Their departure from the faith is willful, intentional, deliberate, and well considered. These men know what they are doing when they leave, and yet they leave willfully and voluntarily. These are not Christians that we are talking about.

For them, this is an ongoing, established way of thinking and believing, a permanent renunciation of the gospel, a permanent forsaking of God's grace, and a permanent turning from the truth. We're not describing somebody who has a doubt about the Christian faith.

Not describing somebody who has a theological conundrum that they're trying to work through and come to a conclusion on. We're not talking about somebody who falls into sin or is in a state of ignorance or apathy or just cooled off for a moment in their relationship with the Lord, wrestling through something.

We're not describing any of that. Harris, Berman, Sampson, there will be others. I promise you there will be others. In our culture, as the price of holding to Christian convictions continues to increase, the list of people willing to pay the price to hold to those convictions will decrease.

I said it some weeks ago, our list of allies grows thin, and it is going to grow thinner, it is going to grow so thin that you're gonna need a magnifying glass to see it. I would not be surprised, I'll give you an unpopular prediction, unpopular opinion, whatever, I'll lay this out here, these are my cards.

I would not be surprised if we see every year from now until the Lord returns or the end of Western civilization as we know it, whichever comes first, the departure of at least one high-profile evangelical from the Christian faith, from orthodoxy into heresy or apostasy, every year from now until then.

I wouldn't be surprised if we see that. I could name for you five high-profile evangelicals right now that are teetering on the brink of apostasy and five more whose trajectory does not bode well for them in the years to come.

Prepare for more, and don't be shaken by it. The first century had their Harris's and their Bart Ehrman's and their Samson's and their Piper's, the first century had those, and one of the things that the warning passage in Hebrews helps us to do is to understand the true nature of what is going on, in that when those people leave, they're not leaving, they're leaving an understanding of the truth, but they're not leaving because they were once saved and have lost their salvation.

These are apostates who were never saved to begin with. So, notice now, the next phrase, receiving the knowledge of the truth, that these people do this in full light of what they know to be true, having received a full understanding and a full knowledge of the truth.

Now, this phrase is understood by many who believe that you can lose your salvation as describing those who are genuinely saved, that this knowledge of the truth means that they have not only been exposed to the truth, but that they have seen it, they have understood it, they have embraced it, they have welcomed it, they've then been transformed by it.

Some would even use this phrase as synonymous with repentance and true and genuine faith in Christ. And so I would ask you, are we justified in understanding this group, having received a knowledge of the truth, is that a synonymous description of a Christian?

Is that synonymous with repentance and faith and regeneration? Now, it's true that that phrase is used to describe genuine believers in Scripture, and I'll give you some examples of it. First Timothy chapter two, verse four, says that God desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

And there, Paul is using it as synonymous with salvation. In Second Timothy 2 .25, Paul instructs Timothy to correct those who are in opposition if perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.

That seems to be salvation that Paul has in mind. Second Timothy three, verse seven, describes those who are always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Titus one, verses one and two, Paul, a bondservant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness in the hope of eternal life, which God who cannot lie promised long ages ago.

There is a knowledge of the truth that is according to godliness, and I would suggest there may be a knowledge of the truth that is not according to godliness. An ability to have a knowledge of the truth and receive a knowledge of the truth that does not result in eternal life and salvation.

So yes, the phrase is used to describe Christians, but here is the issue. Can we always take this phrase, having received the knowledge of the truth, can we always take that as synonymous with salvation?

I'm not arguing that a Christian is one who has not received a knowledge of the truth because obviously receiving a knowledge of the truth is essential to becoming a Christian. There's intellectual content that you have to hear, receive and understand and apprehend in order for you to do what God has commanded you to do.

There must be a reception of the truth and an understanding of the truth, but are we justified in saying that one who has received the knowledge of the truth is therefore always a Christian? Let me put it another way.

If the author wanted to describe somebody who had heard the truth, understood the truth, made intellectual assent to the truth, nodded their head to the truth, maybe even repeated the truth back to others, professed to believe the truth, had encountered the truth in a very real but though superficial way, and had even maybe conformed their lives to the truth, like a sow that is washed, for instance, and they have outwardly conformed their lives to those truth standards and enjoyed certain benefits of being in environments where the truth flourishes, but had never themselves ever been transformed by that truth or regenerated by that truth, how would the author describe such a one?

Would he not say that they had received a knowledge of the truth? If you're sitting here and you're an unbeliever and you've been an unbeliever here for the last 10 years and you've heard all of the preaching through the book of Hebrews and you have heard the gospels presented over and over and over and the clarity of doctrinal truth laid out from everybody who has stood behind this pulpit and everybody who was taught in adult Sunday school class, and you have heard all of that and you walk away, would it not be fair to say that you had received a knowledge of the truth?

It certainly would, we would never describe you as being one who was ignorant of the truth. You'd received it, you had known it. Every Christian has received a knowledge of the truth, but not everyone who has received the knowledge of the truth is a Christian because you can receive the truth and you can understand the truth and make intellectual assent to the truth, even conform your life outwardly externally to the truth and never truly be saved.

This is what we encountered back in Hebrews chapter six when the author talked about those who fall away having once been enlightened. We saw back in chapter six what is being described there. It's one who has received the light of truth.

Every Christian has been enlightened, but not everyone who has been enlightened is a Christian because something more is necessary to make you a Christian than simply hearing and understanding the truth.

If all that was necessary to make you a Christian was hear and understand the truth, everybody that I've ever spoken to would be a Christian. Everybody I've ever preached the gospel to would be a Christian, but that's something more is necessary than understanding the truth.

A Christian is one who has been regenerated by the truth, and regeneration, the new birth, that is a divine act, that is a divine miracle, that is something a sovereign God does. You can receive the knowledge of the truth without ever being transformed by the truth.