The Unforgiveable Sin of the New Arrangement

Sometimes we read New Arrangement statements through Old Arrangement ‘eyes.’  An example of this is the way some in the Early Church understood the statement in Hebrews 10:26, “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins…”  They understood this to mean that if a believer in Jesus sinned after being baptized, he had no hope of forgiveness or final salvation (Bruce, Hebrews, p 260, 261). 

Admittedly the phrase “sinning willfully” is drawn from the Old Covenant itself, in Numbers 15:30, referring to the fact that the animal sacrifices did not provide forgiveness for intentional or deliberate violations of the Law (such as the cases of the Sabbath breaker in Numbers 15:36, and King David’s adultery with Bathsheba).

But clearly in the context of the letter to the Hebrews, and particularly in the paragraph context of Hebrews 10:26, this Old Testament phrase familiar to the Jews is used to refer to the sin of those who having heard and initially seemingly embraced the gospel then decisively rejected the grace offered via the self-sacrifice of Jesus.

Thus, there is only one unforgiveable sin, and that is regarding the blood of the new covenant, i.e., the death of Jesus, as no different from any other death, instead of regarding it as the basis of the New Arrangement, by which a believer’s sins are remembered no more (cf. Hebrews 10:29).