Hebrews 10:29. Of how much sorer punishment (a word used only here, and meaning punishment in vindication of the honour of a broken law; compare Acts 22:5). The phrases that follow describe the acts of the apostate Christian.

He tramples under foot (an expression of ruthless contempt) the Son of God Him who has been proved to be above the mediator of the old covenant, and above angels and prophets. He treats the sacrifice of blood under the covenant as a common thing, nay, as a profane thing as the blood of one who claimed to be what the apostate now denies Him to be, and who is, therefore, guilty of blasphemy the blood, moreover, wherewith (or rather in which, i.e sprinkled with which) he was sanctified (Leviticus 16:19). What is this but the profanation of what he himself admitted to be most sacred. Who ‘was sanctified'? Christ, who did ‘sanctify Himself'? Hardly; for He is never said to sanctify Himself with his own blood; and, moreover, the word ‘sanctify' is always used elsewhere in this Epistle in the sense of cleansing from the guilt of sin by the blood of sacrifice (chap. Hebrews 2:11; Hebrews 9:13; Hebrews 13:12). The person, therefore, said to be sanctified is the apostate himself. But in what sense? Not in the sense of the Divine purpose or will (Stier see chap. Hebrews 10:10), not in the sense that he tramples upon blood wherewith we believers are sanctified (Calvin); but in the sense that he himself, the apostate, had claimed and had professed to be sanctified by it. So all the members of the first churches are addressed as saints elect, sanctified (1 Corinthians 1:2; 1 Peter 1:2), for this was their professed character. Similarly Peter speaks of the fruitless professor as having been cleansed from his old sins (2 Peter 1:9), and of false teachers, who denied the Lord that bought them (2 Peter 2:1). What men seem to be, what men claim to be, what men are commonly recognised as being, is fairly quoted as an aggravation of their guilt.

They have done despite to (have insulted) the Spirit of grace the Holy Spirit, the Giver of grace. To contemn mercy and holiness, to return insult to Him who gives them grace, is the sin of sins, for which, as the man has gone back to his old state, and continues in it, there can be no forgiveness; as in a previous passage we have learned that neither is there renewal (cp. Hebrews 6:6).

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Old Testament