Is There No Forgiveness For Intentional Sin?

Question: Hebrews 10:26 says that if we sin willfully knowing better there is no more sacrifice for our sins.
Well, I have been taught that if you keep sinning over again knowing you’re going to do it, like premeditated sinning I guess you could call it, that’s what the scripture is talking about. Others say that it’s talking about rejecting Christ as savior after knowing the truth. So which is it?

Answer: Let me let you decide. Here is the full passage:

Hebrews 10:26, If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

Does it seem clear to you that the deliberate sinning being talked about here is equivalent to having “trampled the Son of God underfoot”? And if you view the letter as a whole it is written to a church with many Jewish believers who are considering returning to Judaism. Context clearly answers your question.

But the other question here is one of choosing to deliberately keep sinning. How does that affect you? I think the answer is it hardens your heart and your conscience to sin. It makes it harder and harder to really come to a place of repentance. You are damaging your soul and certainly hurting the heart of God. A true believer cannot lose his or her salvation. But God will certainly, out of love for you, discipline you until you come to a place of righteousness (Hebrews 12:4-11). That is not an enviable place to be.

See also:

https://askthepastors.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/will-god-forgive-us-when-we-break-our-promise-not-to-sin/

Related articles
Can a true Christian lose their salvation? (newjerusalem.net.au)

 

Response from founder of BattlePlanMinistries.org: As usual, my brother, you have touched a Spirit-led chord here with this blog, … my co-warrior, Randall.
As you know the men who are touched by Battle Plan Ministry (BPM), where I’ve been called to minister, especially those who find themselves going back to their past patterns of conscious sin choices, have to deal with the reality of the theology you’ve brought to bear in this blog. So, kudos for putting this passage into appropriate historical context; … but also bringing out what is the accurate outcome of making conscious (and I might add, repetitive, choices) to sin.
And this becomes so hurtful when one’s heart becomes hardened, as you discussed so clearly, especially when the impotence to repent leads to sin choices which damage marriages, parenting, ministry, or shining Christ’s light through our lives. … Thank you for your well-considered and theologically powerful blog. Your ElderBerry brother, … Bill

Response from another reader: I find myself doing the things I promise God I will not do again, and it has happened uncountable times. Will He forgive me? and how will I overcome this

My reply: When Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive his brother or sister who sins against him, and offers seven times as his own answer, Jesus responds, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:21,21). First of all, Peter considers it possible, perhaps even likely, that a fellow believer will commit the same sin against him many times and Jesus considers it possible that a believer will commit that sin even more times and need forgiveness. Do you suppose that if Jesus is asking us to forgive our fellow believers that often that he himself would not forgive us as well? Of course, God will forgive us! And the fact that we promise not to do it again is at once a sign of our deep desire to serve the Lord and our mistaken belief that we can manage not to sin with just our own willpower.

Perhaps the better way to approach repetitive sin is to ask God to teach us how not to continue in this sin. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest for your souls. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me” (Matthew 11:28,29). I suspect that he will teach us three things:

1) We need Him and intimate relationship with Him to transform our inner selves and change our affections so that we are drawn more to righteousness than sin.
2) We need one another to help us maintain obedience through example and accountability and insight
3) We need grace when we fail and a realization that we are just like everyone else and must show grace to others who sin and to ourselves.