sinning wilfully

seems like a landslide of stuff to put up all of a sudden. another good article by a dear brother....

Here is another writting that was found on the web.Those who 'sin wilfully'
Hebrews 10:26-3026 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?
Christians have used this passage to say that if a Christian sins wilfully, he will lose his salvation. If you think about it, most of the sins that we commit after we are saved are wilful sins! We know that we should not do it, yet we choose to do it. Does that mean that the majority of Christians are on their way to hell? The suggestion itself is ridiculous.
Christians have also used this passage to say that if a Christian keeps sinning, he will lose his salvation. In the first place, a Christian does not keep sinning or live a lifestyle of sin. Paul made it clear when he said, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" (Romans 6:1-2)
So if the wilful sin here has nothing to do with a Christian sinning today, albeit wilfully, what is it then?
As explained,Hebrews is written mainly to the believing and unbelieving Jews. Under the old covenant of law, the priests had to offer animal sacrifices for the sins of the Israelites year after year because the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sins (Hebrews 10:4), but only cover their sins until the next sacrifice. That is why these animal sacrifices could not make the offerers perfect (Hebrews 10:1). Neither could they clear the offerers' consciousness of sins. In fact, they reminded them of their sins (Hebrews 10:3), causing them to have a sin consciousness or what the Bible calls an "evil conscience" (Hebrews 10:22).
But now that the true Lamb of God has come and taken away their sins (John 1:29) once for all (Hebrews 7:27) through one perfect sacrifice of Himself (Hebrews 10:12) to end all animal sacrifices, if the Jews continue to reject the Christ, "there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins" (verse 26). Christ is it. If they reject Him as their sacrifice for sins, there is no other sacrifice for sins that they can turn to. The system of animal sacrifices has ended or expired. Christ is not going to come down to die for them again. Neither does God the Father have a "plan B" of some sort. Christ is it!
So the wilful sin of the Jews here would be to reject their Messiah. It would be wilful because they would be rejecting Christ "after we have received knowledge of the truth" (verse 26). So there were many Jews who rejected the Christ after the truth of the gospel was preached to them. And the Jews who did this "trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace" (verse 29).
To count the blood a "common thing" is to put the eternal blood of the Son of God on the same level as the temporal blood of animals. To insult the Spirit of grace is to slap God's hand of grace, to reject the covenant of grace, to reject the Holy Spirit, and to go back under law, works and sacrifices.
This was the unpardonable, wilful sin of many of the unbelieving Jews. And the result was "a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries" (verse 27). Did such a terrible judgment come to pass? Yes, their temple in Jerusalem was burned and utterly destroyed by the Romans in AD70.
Jewish historian Flavius Josephus records that 1,100,000 Jews were killed in Jerusalem and that some 97,000 others were taken as slaves into captivity. It has been estimated that some 1,337,490 Jews in Jerusalem (and in the regions adjacent to Judea) died -- by famine, by the sword, by burning and by crucifixion (Wars 6.9.3-4). Some scholars believe that even these figures are too conservative. In fact, Josephus himself expressed the view that the suffering of this holocaust exceeded anything known to man previously (Wars, Preface, 4; 9.4).
On the other hand, the Christians who were in Jerusalem at the time recognised the assault upon the city by Cestius Gallus as the fulfillment of the words of their Lord: "Therefore when you see the 'abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place' (whoever reads, let him understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains." (Matthew 24:15-16). It is said that every Christian in the city fled. Most of them went to Pella in Decapolis, as they had been instructed.
So the author of Hebrews, which I believe is Paul, was addressing his fellow Jewish brothers, both the believing and the unbelieving. For those who refused to believe in Jesus, it was a warning. For those who believed, it was an exhortation to hold on their faith and not "draw back" (Hebrews 10:38). This does not mean that many of the believing Jews drew back by renouncing their faith and thus lost their salvation. The passage does not say that. In fact, Paul said, "But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul." (Hebrews 10:39)
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