ACC ~ Hebrews 10 v28 - 29

LAW IN OPPOSITION TO BLOOD AND SPIRIT. THEODORET OF CYR: Once more, note, he brings out the difference under the guise of exhortation, namely, the Son in one case and the slave in the other, those sacrifices of brute beasts in one case and in the other this rational and all-holy sacrifice. To the law he set in opposition not a law but the “blood” and the “Spirit.” Through them salvation comes to us. INTERPRETATION OF HE-BREWS 10.

A DIFFERENT DISPENSATION. ORIGEN: According to the law, “the adulterer and the adulteress were put to death.” They could not say, “We seek repentance and we pray for mercy.” There was no place for tears, and no opportunity was granted for any correction, but in every way it was necessary for those who had contravened the law to be punished. This was observed in certain individual offenses for which the death penalty was ascribed. But among Christians, if adultery has been committed, the precept is not that “the adulterer and adulteress” be punished by the destruction of the body. No power was given to episcopal authority to sentence an adulterer to immediate death, as had happened earlier according to the levitical law who gave this power to elders. What does this mean? That while the law of Moses takes adultery seriously enough to punish it unmercifully, the gospel of Christ through gentleness frees the adulterer to go from bad to worse? It is not so. For this reason, we brought forth the word of Paul, saying above, “How much worse punishment will be deserved by one who has spurned the Son of God,” etc. Hear, therefore, how neither was the law cruel then, nor does the gospel now appear dissolute because of the abundance of mercy, but in both instances the benevolence of God is held in a different dispensation. HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 11.2.4.

CONSIDERING THE GOSPEL TO BE EQUAL. EPHREM THE SYRIAN: And who have “outraged the Spirit of grace,” which is in us? These are the people who consider the gospel to be equal to the law of Moses. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

OLD REPROACHES RETURN. ORIGEN: But if you sin again, the old reproaches return again against you and all the more so, since it is a much greater crime “to spurn the Son of God and to profane the blood of the covenant” than to neglect the law of Moses. HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 5.6.

Heb