V. 29.— Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? The Gospel was far more glorious than the Mosaic dispensation; it bore to the law the relation of the sun to the moon, and consequently the guilt of those who rejected it, or apostatized from it, was far greater than that incurred by the breach of the law of Moses. The Israelites, indeed, like all mankind, were under the law to God, and they all received the deeds done in the body according to that they had done, whether good or bad; but the peculiar dispensation under which they were placed contained only temporal promises and temporal threatenings, Leviticus 26 :, Deuteronomy 28 : Everything was temporal and figurative. The life promised to obedience was a long life in the land of Canaan; the death threatened was the separation of soul and body. But the promises and threatenings of the Gospel are eternal; a life which shall never end is held out to believers, and the threatening is being cast off with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power as the portion of all who reject it. The rebellious Israelites only trod under foot the blood of calves and goats, with which the Sinai covenant was ratified; but the apostate from Christianity trod under foot the blood of the Son of God, and hath counted, &c. The blood of the covenant is that by which it was ratified. It may be a question whether the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified refers to Christ or to the apostate. The Lord says, “ For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they may be sanctified through the truth.” John 17:19. Again, believers are sanctified in Christ Jesus, 1 Corinthians 1:2, chap. 13:12, but how can this be said of apostates? They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” 1 John 2:19. It is replied that the Scripture frequently speaks of things as they appear to be. Thus we read that Simon believed. Acts 8 : Apostates are said to have been once enlightened, and so they may be said to be sanctified. This seems to be the meaning of the passage; but, if we suppose it refers to Christ, we must refer it to His separation at once as the victim and as the priest. Every family in Israel was commanded to take a lamb without blemish on the fourteenth day of the month; it was to be kept till the fourteenth, and then to be killed in the evening. In exact correspondence with this law, Jesus, six days before the passover, came to Bethany, where Mary anointed His feet against his burying. John 12:1-7. Thus was He sanctified, or set apart as our passover. Again, it has been already observed that the first part of the consecration of the priests was their being washed with water, accordingly when Jesus began to be about thirty years of age, (the time when the consecration of a priest took place in Israel,) He was baptized in Jordan. The next step in consecration was the anointing with oil, and when Jesus came out of the water the Holy Spirit descended on Him in a bodily shape. Still the consecration was not complete, and accordingly our Lord did not act as a priest during his abode upon earth. Chap. 8:4. The last part of the consecration was the blood of the sin offering and the burnt offering, which completed the consecration, when the priest entered upon the duties of his office, and thus was our great High Priest consecrated, and having offered Himself without spot unto God, he ever liveth to make intercession for the true Israel. Thus the expression, the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, may either apply to Christ or to him who professed the faith and afterwards apostatized, thus counting the blood of the covenant wherewith he appeared to be sanctified an unholy thing, and did despite to the Spirit of Grace by rejecting the testimony which he bore to Christ. This is the sin against the Holy Spirit, of which we elsewhere read. performed the most astonishing miracles: He cast out devils by the Spirit of God, but the Pharisees attributed this to the power of Satan, which led to the solemn caution given to them by the Lord, who informed them that all manner of sin and blasphemy should be forgiven to men; that a word spoken against the Son of man should be forgiven, but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost should not be forgiven. They might blaspheme the Lord Jesus, might condemn and crucify Him, vet pardon would be proclaimed to them through the blood which He had shed, and more abundant evidence given of His having come forth from God by the outpouring of the Spirit upon His disciples, bestowing on them the gift of tongues, of the cure of the sick, and raising the dead, but if they rejected the testimony of the Spirit, ascribing His miracles to the power of Satan, then it should not be forgiven them either In this world or in that which was to come. We have observed that the world to come was an expression employed by the Jews to denote the kingdom of Christ, and indeed is thus employed by the Apostle. Hebrews 2:5. The rejection of the Holy Spirit’ s testimony should be involved in all the miseries which befell the Jews previous to and in the destruction of Jerusalem, and should then have their portion in the lake of fire. The Spirit is here termed the Spirit of Grace, because from Him proceedeth every good and perfect gift. He takes of the things of Christ and shows them to believers; by His grace and power they stand, holding fast the truth; and, finally, raises them from the dead.