Introduction
Are you listening to God’s loving warnings, or are you treating His patience like permission to keep going your own way? The central teaching I want to press into your heart is this: Jesus is better than disobedience, and God’s warnings are meant to rescue us from despising the gospel and drifting into judgment (Hebrews 10:26–31). Hebrews 10:26–31 is one of those passages we can misunderstand in two opposite ways: we can hear it and think God is an abusive father ready to explode, or we can soften it until it becomes meaningless, like God is a grandpa in the sky who winks at sin. Neither is true. This is a serious warning from a holy Father who loves His children.
Main Points
Are you listening to God’s loving warnings, or are you treating His patience like permission to keep going your own way? The central teaching I want to press into your heart is this: Jesus is better than disobedience, and God’s warnings are meant to rescue us from despising the gospel and drifting into judgment (Hebrews 10:26–31).
Hebrews 10:26–31 is one of those passages we can misunderstand in two opposite ways: we can hear it and think God is an abusive father ready to explode, or we can soften it until it becomes meaningless, like God is a grandpa in the sky who winks at sin. Neither is true. This is a serious warning from a holy Father who loves His children.
Godly Warnings Are Loving Protection
On Father’s Day, it struck me how a good father, when not abusive, can be a “voice of warning” in a home. Many of us grew up hearing things like:
- “Don’t talk to your mother that way.”
- “Don’t lie to me.”
- “Don’t run into the street.”
- And the classic: “Wait until your dad gets home.”
A mother who says, “Wait until your dad gets home,” isn’t saying it because she hates the child. She says it because she loves them and knows a warning can stop a destructive path.
That’s what Hebrews is doing here. After ten chapters of showing the beauty of Christ, His better covenant, His better sacrifice, His greater salvation, the writer says, in effect: If you won’t listen to the encouragement, listen to the warning. The warning is love. It’s protection. It’s God saying, “Come back before you harden your heart.”
Deliberate Sin Despises The Gospel
Hebrews says:
“For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins…” (Hebrews 10:26)
This is not teaching that Jesus’ sacrifice becomes weak or runs out. The point is simpler and more frightening: if you reject Christ’s sacrifice, there is no other sacrifice anywhere else. If you turn away from Jesus, you don’t graduate to a different solution, you abandon the only solution.
This matters because many tender consciences hear Hebrews 10 and panic: “I sinned again, am I done?” Listen closely: this passage is not aimed at the believer who hates their sin and runs to the Father for mercy. This warning is aimed at the person who is becoming characterized by deliberate, continual, hardened rebellion, someone who receives gospel truth and then chooses, persistently, to live as though Christ doesn’t matter.
There’s a difference between individual lapses and universal desertion, between struggling and repenting versus drifting into a settled posture of, “I don’t care what God says.”
And the context matters: just before this, the writer urges the church to keep gathering, to stir one another up to love and good works, and to refuse isolation (Hebrews 10:24–25). When people forsake Christian community, sometimes because of real church hurt, they can become vulnerable to drifting from Christ Himself. God’s design has always been that resilient faith grows in gathered worship and close-knit encouragement.
So I want to say this gently but clearly: Don’t confuse your ongoing access to church, knowledge, and spiritual language with actual submission to Jesus. The warning is meant to wake us up.
Rejecting Christ Leaves Only Judgment
Hebrews continues:
“…but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.” (Hebrews 10:27)
If you will not have Christ as Savior, you will meet Him as Judge. That’s what the passage is pressing. It’s the terrible emptiness of leaving the gospel: Where will you go? What sacrifice will you bring? What hope will you hold?
The writer uses intense language because the stakes are real. God does have wrath. But don’t misread this wrath as unstable rage. God revealed His own character like this:
“The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love… but who will by no means clear the guilty…” (Exodus 34:6–7)
God is slow to anger, astonishingly patient. But His patience is not approval. Paul warns:
“Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience… not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4)
Here’s the discipleship gut-check: I despise the gospel when I take God’s patience as a co-sign on my disobedience. When I say, “He hasn’t stopped me yet, so it must not be that serious,” I am misusing mercy.
And it’s also important to remember: there truly is a category called “adversaries.” God has enemies, not in the petty, tribal sense of “my political opponents,” but in the holy sense of those who persistently set themselves against Him. If we belong to Him, that should actually comfort us: God will set the world right.
Contempt For Grace Is Spirit-Resistance
Hebrews strengthens the argument by comparing the old covenant to the new:
“Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.” (Hebrews 10:28)
The logic is: if rejecting Moses brought serious consequences, how much worse to reject the One Moses pointed to.
Then comes the heart-stopping description:
“…the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace.” (Hebrews 10:29)
Those are not words for minor stumbling. That’s the language of contempt, treating Jesus as common, treating His blood like it’s nothing, treating the Holy Spirit’s gracious conviction as something to resist and insult.
It makes me think of the idea of stepping on Christ, like stamping on His face, not necessarily with our feet, but with our choices. When I cling to a sin I know God is confronting, and I keep saying “no” to the Spirit’s prompting, I’m not merely “making a mistake.” I’m training my heart to harden.
Jesus gave a severe warning here too:
“Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven…” (Matthew 12:31–32)
Whatever all the complexities of that passage, Hebrews pushes the same pastoral urgency: do not reject the Spirit’s gracious pressure to repent. Don’t keep telling Him “later.” Don’t keep explaining away what you know is disobedience.
God’s Vengeance Gives Security And Humility
Hebrews says:
“For we know him who said, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’” (Hebrews 10:30)
Notice that phrase: “we know him.” This warning is rooted in God’s character. The writer is saying, “You know what your Father is like.” His judgment isn’t random. His vengeance isn’t petty. His holiness isn’t a mood.
Our modern instinct is to hear “vengeance” and think it can only be bad. But Scripture presents God’s vengeance as a stabilizing hope for His people, meaning: evil won’t win, injustice won’t get the final word, and wrongs will not be ignored forever.
That’s exactly how Paul applies “vengeance is mine”:
“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God… ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ …Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:19–21)
Because God will repay perfectly, I don’t have to. Because God will judge righteously, I can pursue peace, do good to enemies, and entrust my cause to Him.
And God’s judgment should also produce humility in me: I don’t get to domesticate God, edit the parts I dislike, or remake Him into a safer version. His holiness is not negotiable, and His warnings are meant to draw me back to the mercy He freely offers in Christ.
A Fearful Thing, And A Gracious Rescue
Hebrews ends:
“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31)
Yes, fearful. Not because God is abusive, but because He is living, holy, and real. We are not dealing with an idea or a vibe; we are dealing with the God who made us, sees us, and will hold the world to account.
But remember where the whole letter has been taking us: to the better sacrifice, the better priest, the better covenant, the open way into God’s presence through Jesus. The point of this warning isn’t to make you despair; it’s to make you return.
So if you are convicted, the response is not, “I guess there’s no hope for me.” The response is: run to your Father. Turn back. Confess. Rejoin the people of God. Receive again the grace that is actually offered to you in Christ.
Conclusion
I want you to hear Hebrews 10:26–31 the way a loving Father intends it: not as cruelty, and not as empty threats, but as a rescue alarm.
- Don’t despise the gospel by choosing deliberate, ongoing rebellion.
- Don’t treat God’s patience like permission.
- Don’t trample Jesus underfoot by calling His blood “common.”
- Don’t outrage the Spirit of grace by repeatedly resisting His conviction.
- Instead, remember: we know Him, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, steadfast in love, and also perfectly just (Exodus 34:6–7).
Jesus is better than disobedience. And His warning is an invitation: Come home before your heart hardens.
Father in heaven, I come to You in the name of Jesus. Thank You for loving me enough to warn me, not just comfort me. Please forgive me for the ways I have taken Your patience as permission and treated grace lightly. Holy Spirit, soften my heart where it has become resistant. Give me true repentance, not excuses. Help me to draw near to God through Christ, to stay close to Your people, and to live in obedient faith. Keep me from drifting, keep me from contempt, and keep me in the joy and security of knowing You. I trust Your justice, I trust Your mercy, and I rest in the sacrifice of Jesus alone. Amen.
Conclusion
I want you to hear Hebrews 10:26–31 the way a loving Father intends it: not as cruelty, and not as empty threats, but as a rescue alarm.
- Don’t despise the gospel by choosing deliberate, ongoing rebellion.
- Don’t treat God’s patience like permission.
- Don’t trample Jesus underfoot by calling His blood “common.”
- Don’t outrage the Spirit of grace by repeatedly resisting His conviction.
- Instead, remember: we know Him, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, steadfast in love, and also perfectly just (Exodus 34:6–7).
Jesus is better than disobedience. And His warning is an invitation: Come home before your heart hardens.
Closing Prayer
Father in heaven, I come to You in the name of Jesus. Thank You for loving me enough to warn me, not just comfort me. Please forgive me for the ways I have taken Your patience as permission and treated grace lightly. Holy Spirit, soften my heart where it has become resistant. Give me true repentance, not excuses. Help me to draw near to God through Christ, to stay close to Your people, and to live in obedient faith. Keep me from drifting, keep me from contempt, and keep me in the joy and security of knowing You. I trust Your justice, I trust Your mercy, and I rest in the sacrifice of Jesus alone. Amen.