Solemn warning as to the fearful consequences of apostasy.
For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for ( ἐκδοξὴ, used here only; but ἐκδέξομαι is frequent in the New Testament in sense of "expect;" e.g. supra, Hebrews 10:13. Hence there seems no good ground for disputing, with Afford, the usual rendering, "expectation") of judgment, and fiery indignation ( πυρός ζῆλος), which shall devour the adversaries. The warning passage thus begun closely resembles the former interposed one, Hebrews 6:4-9. Both have been similarly misapplied (see notes on Hebrews 6:4-9); but both have the same real meaning, which is further confirmed by comparing them together. The purport of both is the hopelessness of a state of apostasy from the faith after full knowledge and full enjoyment of privilege; both are led up to by cautions against remissness, of which the final issue might be such apostasy; both are followed by the expression of a confident hope, founded on past faithfulness, that no such apostasy will really follow. The state contemplated is here expressed by ἐκουσίως ἁμαρτανόντων, a phrase which in itself might at first sight seem to support one of the erroneous views of the drift of the passage, viz. that all willful sin after baptism or grace received is unpardonable. But it is first to be observed that the participle ἁμαρτανόντων is not aorist, but present, expressing a persistent habit; also that the whole context is sufficient to denote the kind of sin intended. For