Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 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?
Hebrews 10:28,29
I’ve always liked TV shows about crime and punishment. Police, detective, and courtroom trials are all on my all-time favorite list. Even today, I still go back and watch the reruns of those great shows,
If you were to look at the screen that my Amazon Fire TV stick puts up, you’d see the digital evidence of this. Right there on top is the original Perry Mason show. Even though it was made between 1957 and 1966, it still works. Yes, some of it is hokey, but the plot and characters still hold my attention.
Another piece of evidence is the fact that Blue Bloods is also automatically displayed. This show gives me all three pieces with the police and detectives bringing in the bad guys and the prosecutors putting them away.
No matter who we are, we all want justice. We want evil to be seen for what it is. We want the bad people punished. We want them to pay for the hurt and harm that they’ve done.
Something else that we all want is for the punishment to fit the crime. It just doesn’t seem right when someone gets off on a technicality. Everyone knows that they did it, but because of some small thing, they get to walk away without having to pay for what they did.
This is what the writer of this letter is saying about our relationship with God. We’ve all messed it up. Instead of treating him like he deserves, we’ve turned away from him and spit in his face. We’ve been so ungrateful for all his kindness and all the things he’s given to us.
Have you ever seen a teenager disrespect a parent? You know what I mean. They just unload all sorts of hatred and anger at the parent. They blame them for all the pain in their lives. The teen points all their hostility at the parent. In their mind, the parent is responsible and they are innocent.
Sound familiar? Maybe you’ve experienced this within your own family. Maybe you were the parent on the receiving side of all this poison. Or maybe you were just like this as a teen. Ungrateful. Resentful.
Now I’m not saying that a parent has to be perfect, but most parents do an OK job of raising their kids. Yes, they make mistakes. Some of them big ones. Mistakes of doing something really wrong. Something that brings real pain to the kids and family. Mistakes of not doing something. Not protecting their children.
But God has done nothing but to provide for his children. To care for them. To love on them. And like an angry and bitter teen, we’ve lashed out at him. Calling him all sorts of evil and disrespectful names. Throwing abuse at him. Turning our backs on him.
There’s no doubt about our guilt. But for some reason we think that God should just smile and take all that abuse. That like some cosmic, eternal punching bag, he should just take it and still bless us with everything we want. He owes us all the goodies of life and we deserve them.
Well, like any good parent, God’s not just going to sit there and take it. Not on your life. We’ve purposefully turned our backs on him, doing exactly what he says is wrong. Our yelling and blaming him just hurts him more and moves us further and further away from him.
This is the warning that the writer is giving to the Hebrews. How can they expect to be blessed by God after they’ve looked at Jesus and then turned away? They looked at the cross to forgive all their sins once and for all, and they decided that they could do a better job of sacrificing for their sins.
Aren’t we the same? We see Jesus paying for all our sins and we just walk on by. We think that we can do a better job of running our lives. We can figure everything out and do it all on our own. We also deserve his punished because we’ve trampled the Son of God underfoot.
We have insulted God’s Spirit of grace. He’s taken on himself all the punishment we deserve and he’s reaching out to us. He’s leaning towards us. He’s the one who left heaven and became like us while staying God.
And when we turn away from him, this has to be the crime of the century. The crime of all eternity. And like all crimes, we deserve punishment. But not a slap on the wrist, but eternal punishment. That’s what makes Christianity so wildly different than every other religion or philosophy. We did the crime but God took the punishment. Our punishment, The punishment we really deserve. And instead, we get his lovingkindness. He puts his righteousness on us. He remakes us into a new person. To be with him forever. If that’s not good news, then I don’t know what is.
Noodling Questions
How have you searched for justice? Describe three examples.
Why would we hurt the one who made us? Loves us? Died for us?
List three ways that people try to get out of the consequences for their actions.
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