I. Introduction
A. As we work our way through the book of Hebrews, today we come upon one of the most controversial and difficult passages in the Bible.
B. Remember that this is God’s word. It is not ours to judge, but to be judged by. Our job is to try to understand and receive, to listen and to learn.
C. Two great problems face us here in these verses.
1. The problem of what’s possible
2. The problem of what’s impossible
II. The problem of what’s possible: These verses tell us that it is possible to fall away from Christ after being enlightened and sharing in the Holy Spirit.
A. This is one of the most difficult passages for those of us who believe the Bible teaches the perseverance of the saints, that once you are truly saved, you are saved forever.
B. Here we have this passage telling us that it is possible to fall away from Christ after one has been enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, shared in the Holy Spirit, tasted the goodness of the word of God and tasted the powers of the age to come.
C. Five things are listed here:
1. “been enlightened”
2. “tasted the heavenly gift”
3. “shared in the Holy Spirit”
4. “tasted the goodness of the word of God”
5. (tasted) “the powers of the age to come”
D. Is it really possible for all of these things to happen to a person who is not truly saved? Let’s look at each one.
E. “been enlightened”
1. Some suggest that enlightenment might refer to baptism. The word was used in the middle of the second century in Rome that way. But this isn’t the way the word is used in the NT.
2. Enlightenment means that you’ve been shown that Christ is real, that He is true. The light has gone on. Your eyes have been opened to Jesus.
3. These Hebrews have been enlightened, as the author says in Hebrews 10:32: “But recall the former days, after you were enlightened.”
4. We tend to think of this passage as objective, theoretical and theological. But this is a very personal warning to his readers. Remember what this epistle is all about. A number of Jews have come to Christ, but are now being challenged in their faith by the pressure of persecution from their fellow Jews, who are going all out to pressure them to return to Judaism. The author is desperately trying to persuade them not to abandon their faith in Christ.
5. He’s talking about them here. They’ve been enlightened, and he’s saying that once you’re enlightened, if you fall away, it is impossible to restore you again to repentance.
F. “tasted the heavenly gift”
1. Some suggest that tasting the heavenly gift here refers to the Lord’s Supper. I doubt it because it doesn’t fit in with the theme of the others.
2. It seems to me that there are two good possibilities of what this means.
a. The first is that the heavenly gift is Jesus. And the tasting of the Lord is a common theme in Scripture (Ps.34:8; 1Pet.2:3; John 6:35).
b. The second is that it refers to a taste of heaven, which the people of God experience in their fellowship, in watching the Lord at work in their midst, etc. They’ve been there when God manifested His presence to His people. They’ve seen His work transforming people’s lives. They’ve experienced His love through those who are filled with Him. They’ve had a taste of heaven.
G. “shared in the Holy Spirit”
1. Ordinarily we think of someone who appears to be a Christian but actually isn’t as a person in whom the Holy Spirit has not worked.
2. But theologians point out that the Holy Spirit does a lot of things besides bringing people to salvation. He works in people’s hearts in other ways as well – even non-believers.
3. The saving operations of the Spirit are exclusively in the hearts of believers, of course. But there are also common operations of the Spirit. And these can include conviction of sin, illuminations, and even religious experiences.
a. For instance, who but the Spirit gave the rich young ruler a zeal to follow God’s law and to seek eternal life? – Lk.18:18-27
b. Who but the Spirit worked in the scribe’s heart to get him to be “not far from the kingdom of God”? – Mk.12:34
c. And I believe it is the Holy Spirit who is the great restrainer of evil even among those who do not believe. – 2Thes.2:6
d. Not all of God’s grace is effectual grace.
4. Thus all of these things are ways in which even those who fall away could have been participators in the Holy Spirit.
H. “tasted the goodness of the word of God”
1. Rom.3:1-2 and 9:4 tell us that of all people on earth, the Jews were given the privilege of tasting the goodness of the word of God.
2. You can experience the power of the Bible, and know the wisdom of the Bible, and taste the deliciousness of the Bible and still not know the Jesus of the Bible.
3. There are many lovers of the Bible who are in hell. There are people who read the Bible more than any of us, there are people who shed more tears while reading the Bible, there are people who knew the Bible better than all of us combined, who are destined for the outer darkness.
I. “(tasted) the powers of the age to come”
1. This might be talking about miracles.
a. Extraordinary powers are sometimes given to non-believers. The evidence for this:
(1) Matt. 7:22 - "Lord, lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? ... " Yet God said to them, "Depart ... I never knew you."
(2) Judas Iscariot was an example of this. He was one of the disciples who was sent out with power to cast out unclean spirits and heal diseases, yet he was unregenerate.
(3) King Saul is another example of a man who prophesied, but was unregenerate. In fact he fell away in a striking manner.
2. Or it might be referring to the powerful work of the Lord in our lives and in our midst, when those in the church see God’s self-revelations and displays of His power in answered prayers and in changed lives.
3. So tasting the powers of the age to come doesn’t mean a person is truly saved.
J. Is it really possible to have experienced all these things and not truly be saved?
1. Yes. In fact, we have at least one example of this happening right in the record of the NT. In Acts 8:9ff., 18ff., a man named Simon (Magus) is said to have come to faith and was baptized. He presumably received the Holy Spirit when the hands of the apostles were laid upon him along with the other converts in Samaria. Yet later Peter declares that Simon is still “in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity” (Acts 8:23). Later he “showed himself in the following decades to be the most determined opponent of apostolic Christianity.” – Bruce, FF
2. “In these verses he is not questioning the perseverance of the saints; we might say that rather he is insisting that those who persevere are the true saints.” – Bruce
3. As we see throughout the NT, continuance in faith is the test of the reality of faith.
4. In our Lord’s parable of the sower, for a period of time there was no apparent difference between that which sprouted from rocky ground and what was growing in the good soil. It was only after a time of testing that the difference became evident.
K. I think there’s another point the author implies in these verses. I think he is reminding them about how much they’ve been blessed to be welcomed and included in the household of Christ.
1. Think about the blessings you’ve been given! You are so rich! Much seed has been sown in your life. You have been fed the word of God, you have been adopted into the covenant family of Christ (see Rom.3:1-2 and 9:4).
2. Do you realize how good is the word of God you’ve been given?
3. Do you realize what a privilege it is to taste the realties of the age to come?
4. You have been given a vast treasure! Do you realize the dire consequences of letting it go to waste?
5. You’ve been enlightened! You’ve tasted the heavenly gift! You’ve shared in the Holy Spirit! You’ve tasted the goodness of the word of God! You’ve tasted the powers of the age to come!
6. Do you realize what privileges these things are?
7. Don’t turn your back on all you’ve been given!
III. The problem of what’s impossible — namely, these verses tell us that repentance is impossible after enlightenment and falling away.
A. Whatever this means, it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible for God to produce repentance.
1. Obviously, God is all-powerful. All things are possible with God. If He wills, He can change any heart — even a heart that has fallen away after having been enlightened, etc. Repentance comes from Him (2Tim.2:25). There is no heart so hard that God tries His best and cannot move it.
B. But it is clear that, for whatever reasons, God does not choose to change all hearts.
C. In one sense, every repentance is impossible without divine enabling, but there are some repentances which are even more impossible than others.
1. For instance, the impossibility of the rich entering into the kingdom of heaven: Matthew 19:24–26 “I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
D. Isn’t this verse saying exactly what the Christian church has experienced down through the ages, from Judas to today? Those who have seemed to be the closest friends of Christ, the most knowledgeable, the most engaged in the things of the Lord, and who then came to repudiate Him and renounce Him, are the most unlikely to ever come back to Christ.
E. It is possible to receive immunization from disease “A” by contracting or being vaccinated by disease “B” if it bears a close resemblance to disease “A.”
1. In the same way, it is possible to have an experience with Christianity that is so similar to the real thing that it vaccinates you from the real Jesus.
F. We are not given a formula here. We’ve given a warning. We are not given tools here by which we can measure whether a certain person qualifies for the impossibility-of-repentance this passage talks about, whether he’s been enlightened enough or whether he’s fallen away enough. That’s not the author’s point here.
1. His point is that once your eyes have been opened to the reality of Christ, and you’ve seen His goodness and power, once you’ve tasted of the reality of heaven in the midst of God’s people, if you’re going to consider turning your back on all that, you should realize that, if you take that step, you’ll be making a PERMANENT decision.
2. Last week my wife told me that she thinks it’s time to replace our old floor mat inside our front door. But she added, “Please don’t just buy one and bring it home without me looking at it.” (You can see she trusts my taste!) I told her, “Costco is a good place to buy mats and you hardly ever go there. So, how about if I find one there, I’ll buy it and if you don’t like it, we can just bring it back?” She agreed. So, what changed her mind? That fact that she could undo it, the fact that we could bring it back.
3. But when the author warns his readers in Hebrews, he wants them to know that there are no returns, no take backs, if they renounce Christ.
IV. One more theme in this passage: People who experience these things and then fall away are “recrucifying the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.”
A. Falling away from Christ involves a second repudiation/rejection of Christ, like the one that He experienced at the cross.
B. In other words, this is not just an internal rejection, it is a public repudiation. Once a person is publically known as a Christian, falling away involves holding Christ up to contempt in a public manner.
C. Holding him up to public contempt
1. Even if you’re not intending to, you are saying something very public by leaving Christ.
2. Here’s someone who was really on the inside, who really knew what being with Christ was like, and yet he’s rejected it!
D. Think about how bad Judas’ judgment was.
1. We get a glimpse of it in Matthew 26:24, “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”
2. Why such strong words? Because Judas was on the inside. He was chosen as one of the Lord’s disciples. He saw it all. He tasted it all. He knew Jesus up close. He saw the power. He saw the love. He saw the beauty. He saw the goodness. And then he betrayed Him.
E. No matter how hard He makes my life, no matter how much I feel like leaving, how can I rejoin that mocking crowd holding Jesus up to contempt, and recrucify the One who purchased me with His blood?
V. Application
A. In this passage the author is doing three more things to try to dissuade his readers from abandoning their faith in Christ.
1. He is reminding them of all the benefits they’ve received as part of the NT community.
2. He is telling them that if they depart, they’ll never return. Betraying Jesus is forever.
3. He is warning them that if they abandon Jesus, they are betraying Him, just like Judas and the Jews who shouted “Crucify Him!”
B. They haven’t fallen away yet, and he’s assuming they will not (Heb.6:9). But he does warn them about the consequenes of falling away: If you go there, you’ll never come back. So don’t go there lightly.
C. This passage calls us to stop and ponder the seriousness of falling away. “They are crucifying once again the Son of God TO THEIR OWN HARM and holding him up to contempt”
1. He who rejects Christ is despising — and harming — himself.
2. In fact, there is no self-harm more harmful than rejecting Christ. There is something worse than suicide! There is an act involving more self-loathing and more self-destructiveness. It is remurdering Christ in your heart and in your world.
3. There are two ways it harms you.
a. It empties your life of hope/meaning, of a sense that Someone is watching over you. You have no God-with-you. You’re cursed to live a Christ-less life. When you’re in trouble, when you’re in pain, you have no one to cry out to.
b. It ruins your eternity. There is no one to forgive you. There are no open arms to receive you. There is no home to welcome you. There is no resting place. There is only rejection, exclusion and judgment.
c. Friends, I’m not making this stuff up. This is what God says in His word.
VI. Assurance of salvation
A. There are many NT passages which talk about an outward Christian falling away (Matthew 13:20-21; John 15:1-2, 6; 1John 2:19). But here in Hebrews 6:4-6 it goes beyond the outward.
B. We have heard many testimonies of those who grew up in the church and later abandoned Christianity who have eventually come back to believe and grow in Christ.
1. This passage is not saying that anyone who leaves will never come back.
C. There are two ingredients necessary to qualify for the impossibility this verse refers to.
1. You need to really have gotten Christ.
a. You see, this author knew His audience. He knew that they had really had a life-changing experience when they came to Christ.
b. Hebrews 10:32–35 talks about what the readers had experienced: “Recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.”
(1) They were enlightened.
(2) They were strong and firm in their faith.
(3) They had put their hope in heaven not on the earth.
(4) They had confidence in their faith.
c. This is not referring to someone who was merely outwardly a Christian. We have all seen such people fall away and then at a later time come to experience God’s grace in a powerful way.
2. You need to really get Christ and you need to really reject Christ.
VII. It gets even better! Wait till we look at how the next verses follow-up on these next week!