Hebrews 10:26-39

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TALKS FOR GROWING CHRISTIANS

The Fourth Warning Passage

BACKGROUND NOTES

DOCTRINAL POINT(S)

1. Apostasy is evidence of threshold profession.

2. Endurance is evidence of true possession.
   
   

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

1. If you could see your present life one hundred years from now, how would you change it?
   
   

QUESTIONS

1. Match the following warning passages with their chapters:
   _____ “Beware lest you fall short of the rest of God”
   _____ “It is impossible to renew again to repentance those who
   were once enlightened and have fallen away”
   _____ “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”
   
   a. Chapter 2
   b. Chapters 3, 4
   c. Chapter 6

2. What are the two questions that come to mind when these warning passages are read?

3. How were these warnings significant to the readers of this epistle?

4. Concerning these warnings:
   a. Were they aimed at true believers?
   b. Was the author warning believers that they can lose their salvation?
   c. Were they written for backsliders, telling them that they would lose their reward?
   d. Were they warnings for unbelievers who have come to the threshold of salvation but are only professing believers?

5. What does “apostatize” mean?

6. For apostates there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. What, then, is the only thing that remains for them?

7. Was Judas a true believer? Did he lose his salvation?
   
   

ANSWERS

1. b, c, a

2. Why are they here? How do we interpret them?

3. Some of the readers were First Century Jews who had come out of Judaism and aligned themselves with Christianity, but now they were considering returning to Judaism. The author is warning them of what could happen if they returned to Judaism.

4. a. No
   b. No
   c. No
   d. Yes

5. It means to turn away and abandon a position once held. Apostates are not true believers who backslide, but they are unbelievers who were never saved.

6. Judgment and hell. See Hebrews 10:27

7. No. Judas was not a true believer. He didn’t lose his salvation because he was never saved. He only seemed like a believer. Judas was called the son of perdition by the Lord Himself.
   
   

DISCUSS/CONSIDER

1. Discuss the spiritual position of the apostate as noted in the passages in this lesson. Discuss the spiritual end of the apostate. See Hebrews 10:39; 2 Peter 2:20-21; and John 17:12.

2. Endurance is evidence of true possession. Are you an enduring believer? Do you persevere in spite of difficulties and persecution?
   
   

CHALLENGE

1. If you could see your present life one hundred years from now, how would you change it? Remember, “…the just shall live by faith.” See Hebrews 10:38; Romans 1:17; and Habakkuk 2: Are you living by faith? What are you doing right now that will count for eternity? Are your priorities in line with God’s purposes?
   
   

KEY VERSES

• For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment … ” Hebrews 10:26-27

• “Now the just shall live by faith.” Hebrews 10:38

• “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