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Heb_10:26. Ἑκουσίως γὰρ ἁμαρτανόντων ἡμῶν μετὰ τὸ λαβεῖν τὴν ἐπίγνωσιν τῆς ἀληθείας ] For if we sin wilfully (i.e. against our better knowledge and conscience) after having received the certain knowledge of the truth; so that we become recreant to Christianity (comp. Heb_10:29), to which the ἐγκαταλείπειν τὴν ἐπισυναγωγὴν ἑαυτῶν forms the dangerous preliminary step. The ἑκουσίως ἁμαρτάνοντες are the opposite of the ἀγνοοῦντες καὶ πλανώμενοι , Heb_5:2,[103] and the participle present indicates the continuous or habitual character of the action.
ἡ ἀλήθεια is the truth absolutely, as this has been revealed by Christianity. The ἐπίγνωσις of this absolute truth, however, embraces, along with the recognition thereof by the understanding, also the having become conscious of its bliss-giving effects in one’s own experience. Comp. Heb_6:4-5.
οὐκέτι περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν ἀπολείπεται θυσία ] there remains in relation to sins, i.e. for the expiation thereof, no more sacrifice; inasmuch, namely, as the sin-cancelling sacrifice of Christ, the communion of which we then renounce, is a sacrifice which takes place only once, is not further repeated, while at the same time the Levitical sacrifices are unable to effect the cancelling of sins. Bengel: Fructus ex sacrificio Christi semper patet non repudiantibus; qui autem repudiant, non aliud habent.
[103] The assertion of Kurtz, that, if this remark were true, the author would be expressing “a dogma in its consequences truly subversive, and destructive of the whole Christian soteriology,” inasmuch as it would “imperatively follow therefrom, that even under the New Covenant only those who transgressed from ignorance and error could find forgiveness with God for Christ’s sake, while all who had been guilty of a conscious and intentional sin must beyond hope of deliverance fall victims to the judgment of everlasting damnation,” is a precipitate one, since the special limitation within which the expression ἑκουσίως ἁμαρτάνειν was used was naturally afforded to the reader, quite apart from the investigation already preceding at Heb_6:4 ff., even from our section itself.