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Transcript 206B — Hebrews 10:26 Explained + Sunday Worship
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Would you explain Hebrews 10:26? When was worship for Christians changed to Sunday, and are we wrong in worshipping on Sunday? Should we really be worshipping on Saturday? And I'll take my answer on the air.
HC: All right. Fine. Thank you very much. Good night.
The first question that has been raised is concerning this verse in Hebrews 10:26, where we read, "For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, but a fearful prospect of judgment and the fury of fire, which will consume the adversaries." Is this talking about the possibility of losing our salvation, if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth?
Well, let's assume that someone has been saved. Let's first of all ask the question, what has he been saved from? What has he been saved from? From his misery? From his loneliness? From himself, somehow? No. The Bible teaches that before we're saved we're under the wrath of God. We're sinners, and God's wrath abides on us. We're destined for hell.
And Christ came as the sin-bearer. He took my sins, all of my sins, and paid for those sins, Therefore I am saved from the wrath of God. I'm saved from the consequences of my sins. I stand before God as if I am completely righteous.
And so could I find a sin now that I could commit that would make me lose my salvation, if I've actually been covered by Christ's blood, if I'm actually born again? Well, no, because Christ became sin for me. He covered that sin, too. There is no possible way that I could lose my salvation. Every one of my sins has been paid for.
So we know that when we read Hebrews 10:26 it's not talking about a born again believer. A born again believer cannot come under God's judgment. He has passed from death into life. He does not come into judgment, as we read in the Gospel of John. He has eternal life. So it has to be talking about something else.
Now the Bible sometimes uses the word know in the sense of being saved. But at other times the Bible uses the word know in the sense of just having an intellectual knowledge, being acquainted with truth. Now there are all kinds of people in the church today, in the various congregations where they are found, who know that Jesus Christ is the Savior. They know that they are sinners, they know that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, born of a virgin. They know that Jesus is God. They know that He went to the cross in order to die for sinners. They know all of these things. But they have never become born again. Jesus told Nicodemus, "Ye must be born again." In other words, you must be the personal recipient of this salvation. You must be personally surrendered to Christ as your Lord and Savior.
Otherwise all of this knowledge won't avail anything. Now what happens, if someone has a knowledge of the truth, of salvation, but has not become born again? Eventually one of two things will probably happen. He will finally be arrested by God and broken down by God to the point where he will begin to cry out, "Oh God, have mercy on me." And so today there are many people in the church who have heard the Gospel for years and years and years, who finally become born again. Praise God for His patience and longsuffering with such.
But on the other hand, unfortunately, there are many in the church today who know the way of salvation, but eventually they don't like it anymore, this trying to make like a Christian. And so either they go running after another gospel that looks more exciting than the true Gospel, which is grievous sin. Or they leave the church altogether, or religion altogether, and simply begin to live like the world. And they in either case are sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth. And walking in that direction brings them to a point where there is no salvation, because salvation is not "out there." Salvation is where this truth was that they had been hearing, where the true Gospel is proclaimed. That is where they're going to find salvation. They're not going to find it when they leave the true Gospel. And as long as they walk in that direction, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. All that is in front of them is hell.
Now wonderfully, even after a man has rejected the Gospel in this fashion and has begun to run after other gospels, or has turned his back altogether against any kind of a gospel, God can still save. And even in that extremity the possibility of salvation exists. So we should not stop praying for these who walk in this way.
Now with regard to the second question about the Sabbath, let me try to briefly outline the Bible's teaching on this. In the Old Testament God did declare in the fourth table of the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments that we are to remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy, because God in six days created the heavens and the earth, and He rested the seventh day.
Now if that was the only command we had in the Bible and the only information in the Bible concerning that command, then today we should be observing the seventh day Sabbath, because God so commands. But the Biblical rule is that we interpret scripture by scripture. We can't stop there. We've got to ask ourselves, is there anything else in the Bible that relates to the question of the seventh day Sabbath?
And as we continue to study the Bible, we discover that this seventh day Sabbath became a part of the ceremonial law. God used it as a figure of Christ Himself. We read that He gave the sabbaths in order that the Israelites might know that it was God who sanctifies them. And so we're not surprised to read in Leviticus 23, where God outlines the various feast days, the various festivals, ceremonial festivals that were to be observed by Israel, that the first feast day that's named is the observance of the seventh day Sabbath. And it goes on with the observance of the Passover. And then it goes on into the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and so on.
Now when Christ came, the Bible teaches that all of these ceremonial laws were completed in Christ, and we're not to observe them any longer. Any man today who would want to observe the Passover would be going contrary to the Word of God. He would indicate that he doesn't trust Christ as his Savior, that Christ has not actually come. If any man would be circumcised today for religious purposes, again he would be trying to walk in the shoes of Old Testament Israel. He would be negating the truth of the Bible, that Christ has come and completed that particular ceremonial law.
Now by the same token, when we come to the seventh day Sabbath, we want to make sure that we are not observing that accidentally, or incidentally. And so the church, already in the Bible days, began to observe the first day of the week. We find this in Acts 20:7. The church at Troas gathered together on the first day of the week, to break bread. And on that occasion Paul preached to them. We find in I Corinthians 16:1 & 2 that Paul admonished the church of Corinth to lay aside on the first day of the week that which they were going to give, so there would be no gathering when he came. And of course whenever we give to the Lord, that's part of our spiritual worship, and it's on the day that we worship.
And so the early church began to observe the first day as a day set aside for spiritual nourishment, refueling of the spiritual fires, a day when there was no obligation to work. It's easy to see why they selected the first day. On the first day Christ rose from the grave. And so every Sunday in a certain sense is a commemorative service concerning the resurrection of Christ.
It was on the first day that the Holy Spirit was poured out. As a matter of fact, it was on the first day that God began to create the heavens and the earth, when He said, "Let there be light." And it is the church that has been mandated by God to go out into all the world and shed the light of the Gospel. And so it's altogether fitting and proper that the church worships on the first day.
We are altogether in accord with the law of God when we worship on the first day of the week.