4 For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,
6 and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.
7 For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God;
8 but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.
9 But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way.
10 For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.
11 And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end,
12 so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
“For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance”. This is one of the most challenging text in the Bible to interpret because of difficult and uncommon language that seems to contradict what all else of Scripture teaches. But when we take a closer look at the text and chose not to take it out of the whole of the book of Hebrews we see that it fits beautifully into the main theme and focus of the author. The author of Hebrews is continuing to stress the importance of the spoken Word of God and our need to remain faithful to Him who has spoken that this warning really wrenches tight the severity of his message.
First, we must discuss the one the author is speaking of here. Notice that throughout the book the author speaks in first and second person. “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God”, ‘let us press on to maturity”. But here the author uses third person language. Why the difference? When he speaks to the readers of this book he is speaking to those who are of the faith and within the community. He is speaking to those he assumes to be believers. But here he is making reference those who are not true believers and this is seen by the fact that these leave the faith even though experiencing what appears to be great experiences.
Secondly, we cannot divorce chapter six from chapter three. This is all one book written by one author for one purpose. In chapter three he gives two conditional statements to who believers are. “Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope until the end” (3:6). Even more convincingly is 3:14 where “we have become partakes of Christ [presence tense] if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end”. What the author of Hebrews stresses is we are “Christians” if we persevere to the end. If we don’t persevere to the end it shows that we were never really Christians in the beginning. Thus Hebrews echoes that language of 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.”
We do not want to use John to interpret Hebrews, but it is reassuring to see that the two authors agree on this stance. Now that we have a clear understanding of what the author understands in regard of holding fast to the faith we can look closer at the text at hand. What does it mean to be enlightened, having tasted of the heavenly gift, having been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and having tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come? Since these individuals are not believers these must be understood as being experienced in the context of the community of God and not personally in their own lives or in the spiritual sense. They have been enlightened in that they have seen and understood the truth. They have tasted and been partakes with the Holy Spirit in that they have experienced the work of the Holy Spirit within the community. As the Holy Spirit worked within the community they were there experiencing many of the outward signs of it. They have tasted the good word of God, having heard it and believed it, but not trusting in it. This should be understood as someone who believes something is truth, but not to the extent that it affects their lives. The belief the Bible speaks of is one that calls people to live life differently; any belief less than that is a non-saving belief. Lastly they have tasted the powers of the age to come. They have seen the power of God working by the Spirit through the people of God. Yet, even through all of this, the people did not place a saving, life changing faith, in the Son of God.
Then the preachers of Hebrews gives the punch, if professing believers experiences these things “and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.” The person who is brought so near to the work of the Spirit and the grace of God and professes to believe and be apart of the community, and then falls away can never be brought back into the fellowship of the people of God. For if they were to come back it would be like hanging the Son of God on the cross again and making Him be the laughing stock all over again. Christ is no longer the humbled man, but is the exulted king and will never again be the object of shame again. This verse does not teach that there will be people who backslide and then try to come back to Christ but He will not let them, but rather, the Father will never draw them to Christ again so as to protect the validity of the Son’s name. This is seen most clearly in the land that receives the rain so that it might bring forth good vegetation, but when it brings up thorns and thistles it is burned up because it is worthless.
The author of Hebrews has just given the harshest warning in the whole book, and then immediately transitions into a warm encouragement to those he loves, “But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way.” He says, “Beloved, we don’t consider you to be like these people mentioned above. We have confidence in all of you. We are just concerned for you. We don’t want you to fall away. We don’t want you to lose your hope. We want you to stay faithful. We want you to listen and pay attention to what the Lord has said. We do this for your good, not to make you worry and feel unsure. We do this so that you will have confidence in Him, that as you stay with Him you are encouraged along the way.”
“For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.” Notice the last things the author stresses, “still ministering to the saints.” He is confident in them because they are continuing. He isn’t saying that should have confidence because they once did some good things, but because they still are. Therefore continued faithfulness is where we gain our assurance that we are His. Thus he says, “we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” Here he gives them the reason why he wants them to be students of the Word, so they can realize the full assurance of hope. Without understanding who Christ is and what He has done our faith in weak and he is concerned that if we don’t strengthen it we will fall way. So don’t be sluggish, but follow the example of those who went before you and through faith and patience, remaining faithful to the end, inherit the promises of God given to His people.
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