The grace of God is no idle gift. The very wonder of God's provision for man's redemption, the completeness of Christ's sacrifice, the gentle persistence of the spirit of grace, carry with them clear implications which our author now makes terribly explicit.
The sin here is clearly apostasy. The reference in Deut. 17:2-7 is to turning away from the Lord to the worship of other gods, such as the sun or moon. The tense of the word "sin" means "if we keep sinning wilfully." The knowledge is complete knowledge. The meaning of this sin is traced out in vs. 29.
There is a stern and inevitable logic in this passage. If we despise the sacrifice of Christ, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. God has spoken his final word in Jesus. He can say no more. He has revealed the way of salvation. There is no other way. Nor can the revelation be made any clearer.
If men turn away from the Christ, what can they expect? If they will not meet the God of mercy, they will encounter the God of wrath. They are left in their tragic fears, a certain fearful looking for of judgment. No man can escape the condemnation of conscience. To be separated from God is itself the fury of fire which will consume the adversaries. The fury of this fire men have known in bitter experience in our lifetime.
It is the obverse side of the gospel of grace. Without this fury of fire, the gospel of grace can have no meaning, make no appeal. The first work of the interpreter is to show men the fury of fire which even now consumes them. It should be so announced that men will recognize it out of their own experience. The fearful prospect of judgment is deeply suppressed these days and the very suppression is made clear by dread symptoms. The symptoms of fear and hate and bitterness at least can be recognized.
If an apostate under the law of Moses died without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses, how much more punishment ... will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, even as the covenant of Christ is much better than the old ceremonial law of Moses? The higher the privilege, the more severe the penalty: it is the law of scripture and of life.
The reader should ponder the three qualifications of apostasy in vs. 29.
The word translated spurned means literally to "trample underfoot," and more generally, to "treat with rudeness and insult." The word profaned means to "consider common." At whatever cost, evil must disparage Jesus Christ, reduce him, explain him, get him out of the way. When a man has received full knowledge of the truth, he can escape that truth only by belittling the Savior. It ought to be obvious to any man that this is the one unforgivable sin. In Mark's account (3:92-30) the scribes came down from Jerusalem to Galilee. They were prejudiced against Jesus. He was popular with the crowd; they were not. He taught with freshness and power; their teaching was dry and sterile. He kept dwelling upon all the grand simplicities of religion; their teaching was all tangled up with trivialities. So they whispered among the people, "He is possessed by Beelzebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons" (Mark 3:22). Their sin was this: they looked on the best the earth has ever known and they said, "He hath a devil," and they said it to preserve their own position and power. It was then that Jesus gave his teaching about the unforgivable sin; and Mark adds, "For they had said, 'He has an unclean spirit'" (3:30). This is the ultimate moral confusion. When a man has looked on the best and pronounced it the worst, he has outraged the Spirit of grace.
Vengeance is mine, I will repay. This should be our comfort. It bids us not be cast down when we are the victims of unfair human judgment. There is a fair judgment where even now we are justly appraised. It bids us give over our fretful impulse to pass quick judgments on our fellows. One there is who looks upon the heart and judges righteously. Yet the judgment of God is also a dreadful thing. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Before him all our flimsy pretenses drop away. All hidden things are brought to light. We are seen through and through. Small wonder that, facing that prospect, those who have never been reconciled to God, and so to themselves, "will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us'; and to the hills, 'Cover us'" (Luke 23:30). Beyond God there is no appeal. From him there is no escape. If he is the sovereign God, and therein is all our hope, it follows that he is also sovereign Right, and therein is all our dread.
Copied this from one of my commentaries. Interpreters Bible.
Hope it helps.
David
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You want me to argue with myself? 