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Heb_12:4 ff. The sufferings which have come upon the readers are only small, and a salutary chastisement at the hand of God.
Οὔπω μέχρις αἵματος κ . τ . λ .] Not yet unto blood, i.e. to such extent that bloodshed should result, that a martyr’s death[115] among you should be a necessity (as such death had but just now been mentioned of the O. T. saints, chap. 11, and of Christ Himself, Heb_12:2), have ye offered resistance in your contest against sin. The author has, as Heb_10:32 ff., only the present generation of Palestinian Christians, to whom he is speaking, before his eyes. It is otherwise at Heb_13:7.
πρὸς τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ] belongs to ἈΝΤΑΓΩΝΙΖΌΜΕΝΟΙ (against Bengel, who conjoins it with ἈΝΤΙΚΑΤΈΣΤΗΤΕ ), and Ἡ ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑ stands not in the sense of ΟἹ ἉΜΑΡΤΩΛΟΊ , Heb_12:3 (Carpzov, Heinrichs, Stuart, Ebrard, Delitzsch, Maier, Kluge, Grimm in the Ztschr. f. wiss. Theol. 1870, p. 43, al.),—for there would exist no reason for the avoiding of this concrete expression,[116]—but is the inner sin, conceived of as a hostile power or person, which entices the man (visited with sufferings and persecutions) to an apostasy from Christianity. Comp. ἀπάτῃ τῆς ἁμαρτίας , Heb_3:13.
In ἀντικατέστητε ἀνταγωνιζόμενοι —both verbs in the N. T. only here—the author has, what is wrongly denied by de Wette and Maier (in like manner as Paul, 1Co_9:26), passed over from the figure of the race to the kindred one of the combat with the fists.
[115] Wrongly is it supposed by Holtzmann (Stud. u. Krit. 1859, H. 2, p. 301; Ztschr. f. wiss. Theol. 1867, p. 4) that a reminder of a martyrdom not yet endured is remote from the connection. The discourse is said to be of a resistance πρὸς τὴν ἁμαρτίαν . Sin, in this conflict with the flesh, would not allow it to be continued unto blood. For this very reason it is necessary to resist sin μέχρις αἵματας , ever anew to reanimate the weary limbs for the continuance of the conflict (Heb_12:12). In the same manner, too, does Kurtz find only a proverbial figurative expression for an earnest, decided, and unsparing resistance to the sinful desire in μέχρις αἵματας . But though in German “bis auf’s Blut” (even to blood) has proverbial figurative acceptance in the sense of “to the very uttermost,” yet assuredly neither αἷμα nor yet sanguis is anywhere else employed in this proverbial sense.
[116] At least no one will recognise as apposite that which Ebrard adduces as such,—to wit, that in ver. 3 “the whole (!) of mankind as the sinners (the class of sinners) might be opposed to Christ; whereas to the readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who were themselves ἁμαρτωλοί , the enemies of Christianity could not be opposed as the sinners.