I don’t know about you but I have had dreams where I needed to get to a class all semester and was never able to make it. I knew my grade was getting worse and worse and yet I couldn’t get to the classroom. And as the end of the semester approached I became more and more frantic over the outcome without being able to do anything about it.
The author speaks to us today of a group of people who are like me in my dream. They need to get to a certain place but are completely incapable of getting there. The key idea of this passage is those who have come to understand the meaning of the Gospel and refuse to enter into its reproach will fall away from it completely without any opportunity to return.
Now whether these people frantically try to get there without success, like me in my school dream, or whether they simply no longer have a desire to do so the author does not say. In either case it is not a place in which we want to find ourselves for with no opportunity to repent all we have left is a fearful expectation of judgment.
I. Introduction – What Have People Understood This Passage to Mean?
What we need to look at immediately in this passage is what have people understood these verses to mean? This passage is a difficult one and to gloss over it without giving you the background of what others have thought before will ill equip you to really understand the passage. Let me explain to you what I do when I come to an important difficult passage and I hope you will do something of the same. When I come to an important difficult passage I look at it from every question I have. If something doesn’t seem quite right to me I may come to a preliminary conclusion but continue to look at the questions I still have. And in doing this one of three things will happen. First, I may find an answer to the last of my questions about the passage and come to a completely satisfactory understanding of the passage. Or I will have some remaining reservations about certain questions I have and make a qualified decision on the passage and as I review that passage from time to time I will run over all the data again. Or third, I may not come to a satisfactory conclusion of the passage and continue to wrestle with it. I hope you are not disappointed that your pastor is not omniscient. But I hope you are diligent students of the Word of God so you are not tossed every way by shifting opinions of the Word of God. Sir Walter Scott said, “There is a simplicity on this side of complexity for which I wouldn’t give a wit, but there is a simplicity on the other side of complexity for which I would give my right arm.” He means there are always simple pat answers that don’t give a real answer. But when we delve into a difficult problem and come out with the simple solution on the other side of the sweat we put into knowing the answer, this is the answer worth knowing. I hope you do this with the Word of God.
Now concerning this passage, I don’t think I have all my questions answered but I do understand what the author is saying as to make a confident conclusion of its meaning. What we will do is look through the various main ways of how the passage has been understood and go through this thought process with each one of them. (see Guthrie, pp. 226-231).
The first of the views of this passage is what might be termed, “the hypothetical view.” This view describes the author’s warning as not something that could truly happen to his readers. What people who hold this view would say is the author is merely giving a severe warning to his readers so they might wake up from their backslidden condition in which the author has found them. He uses terms of burning and judgment to cause them to sit up and take notice. But his point is, “If some fell away, which cannot really happen, then they could not come back to repentance.” In favor of this, the author is quite skilled in his rhetoric. Have you not already felt yourself roasted at least once under what we have encountered from his strong teaching? The problem with this view, however, is the author is severe in his warning and seems to be genuinely concerned there are some in the congregation that could suffer this very fate. And the judgments don’t seem at all to be hypothetical.
Another view is described as a covenant community view. This view says God will reject an entire community or congregation. But in the letter so far the author seems to be making a distinction between individuals within the community. In 3:12, he mentions, “Take care . . . that there not be in any one of you an evil unbelieving heart.” In 4:1 he says, “Let us fear if . . . any one of you may seem to have come short of it.” And he says there are those who may have fallen away and those in whom he has confidence of better things.
A third view could be described as the true believer under judgment view. This says these believers are under God’s judgment in the same way the Israelites were under God’s judgment in the wilderness. As they lost their opportunity to enter the Promised Land so too these believers who fail to enter this rest of God will not enter the promises of the Word of God. There are some things to commend this position such as Hebrews 10:30 that says, “The Lord will judge His people” and the passages in Hebrews 12 that describe the true child of God experiences discipline.
However, the letter depicts these people, who have fallen short, as having lacked faith. And it seems they are better relegated to another category rather than believers under judgment. And furthermore those in chapter 10 are described as having no sacrifice for sins and have a terrifying expectation of judgment. These people are described as having trampled under foot the Son of God. They have regarded the blood of the covenant as something unclean and have insulted the Spirit of Grace. These do not appear to be believers simply under judgment.
A fourth view could be seen as an evidential true believer view. This view would see what is said here about the people shows the evidence these were true believers who fell away and lost their salvation. These people now are under judgment and can no longer come back to repentance. They will not experience Christ’s deliverance in His return but only a fearful expectation of judgment. From the evidence spoken about them they appear to have been Christians. They have been enlightened. They 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. This view seems to be the strongest of those mentioned so far. This view has for its advantage that many passages from the letter can be brought together under such an interpretation. Also the author of Hebrews places much emphasis on the future, the return of Christ, the awaiting rest, etc. and this might describe that the finale of salvation comes at Christ’s return and one may either be in a state ready to receive Him or one which has rejected Him and awaiting judgment. I would say we must take the last view as the correct view. But since I haven’t mentioned the last view yet you don’t know what it is. Let me first critique this view before we move on to the view I think is the correct one. There are several difficulties with this view in which the true believer loses their salvation. First, the author is concerned with those who appear to have an inauthentic, disingenuous relationship with Christ. He says there are some who seem to have fallen short in that they have not yet mixed faith with hearing. 4:2 says, “For indeed we have heard the good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard was not mixed with faith in those who heard.”
Also when you have in the New Testament God’s work in salvation for an individual it is completed by God. The promise of it is sure because it is God who says it will happen. Philippians 1:6 says, “He who began a good work in you will complete it in the day of Jesus Christ.” This is similar to the prophecies God makes in the Old Testament. In some of them He uses a past verb tense to describe them. God sees the event as already done. The same is true with our salvation. God already sees it as completed and is so sure of the outcome He speaks of us as already in heaven. In Colossians 1:13 Paul says, “He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.” We have been placed into the kingdom of His Son. The tense of the verb shows us it is a completed work with continuing results. In Ephesians 2:6, Paul says God has “raised up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
I cannot make any personal judgments as to who is a true believer or not but I think it is a precarious position in which to be for someone to believe you can lose your salvation, for if you can lose it, in whom are you trusting to continue in the faith? In whom will you rely? What will cause me to stop believing and so lose my salvation? What could cause me to give up the faith in Christ that has given me a new heart and has sealed me by His Holy Spirit until the day of redemption? Is it sin? Then how much sin? If we possess eternal life then what shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? If, as Paul says, the demonic realm cannot separate us from the love of Christ then what can? If nothing in today or in tomorrow can separate us from the love of Christ then what can? I shall say with Paul, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I didn’t do anything to earn my salvation and so I shall not be able to do anything to lose my salvation. I’m not hanging on I’m attached to HIM!!!!
So this brings us to the last position I think to be the correct one. We could call this the evidential unbeliever view. And in this view these who have fallen are those who appeared, by all evidence, to have been believers. They had participated in the community of believers but their rejection of Christ showed them (by this evidence) to be unbelievers. They participated in the community but lacked genuine saving faith. So the danger proclaimed is real and can be committed by those who were in the community. 1 John 2:19 seems to state this clearly. “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.” The author shows he is not omniscient. He doesn’t know the heart of each person. Because of this some within the community appear to be believers but are still living with an evil heart of unbelief.
There are challenges with this view. For example, the language the author uses here is ambiguous. It could refer to believers. There might not be a firm answer to that question. But this is not anything to keep us from pressing onto the conclusion we have reached. And we can be confident this view is correct. And so let’s look at the next section as their description. How does the author portray these who fall away?
II. The Description – Who Are These Who Fall Away?
Now we can look at these verses and see the description of these individuals. Who are these who fall away? The author notes two aspects to describe them.
A. Their Participation in the Gospel
The first aspect the author notes to describe them is their participation in the Gospel. In a real sense they participate in the Gospel but it is only in a superficial sense. We could sum up their participation in two ways.
1. They do partake
The first way we could sum up their participation is they do partake. Look at verses 4-5. The author says, “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.” Everyone who seeks God in the Bible and in a Christian community partakes in these experiences. But it does not mean they have become Christians. The wording is ambiguous. It does not have to mean they actually experienced conversion.
Being enlightened refers to seeing the light that Christ is to the world and seeing the value of the Christian ethic that is light rather than darkness. Someone may be drawn to the light without having become a Christian. They may actually like the Christian way of life. It may appear to them as a pleasant life a way of life that makes sense.
To have tasted of the heavenly gift may mean they had sampled it as if they were in a smorgasbord. The heavenly gift is most likely speaking of the gift of salvation. They may have had some kind of temporal deliverance from some sin due in part to the light they saw in Christ. Perhaps they were able to give up certain sins so they could be more comfortable in the midst of this new group in which they were participating. But they had certainly not received the gift of eternal deliverance.
The author says they also had been made partakers of the Holy Spirit. In this case they may have seen and experienced the work of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the congregation. Perhaps they had been healed or delivered from demonic possession. Certainly the Spirit of God was active in the midst of the congregation and they entered into His work there but they had not received the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit that takes place in every person the moment they believe.
They also tasted or sampled the good Word of God. Certainly they heard the fiery 1st century preaching of the early church. They were moved by the power of the Word of God as it searched their innermost being and convicted them of sin. They sampled but did not allow, as Peter says in His first letter, the imperishable Word of God to cause them to be born again.
And certainly the powers of the age to come were obvious as they saw God changing the lives of those around them. They too wanted these very same things to take place in them but had not yet given up all their reasons for not simply trusting the Gospel.
2. They do not possess
And this brings us to the second way to sum up their participation is that they do not possess. Why is it they do not possess eternal life? Why is it they are not born again? Their faith is not genuine. Their faith is not saving faith. They may believe in God or believe in Christ as a historical fact. James says the demons believe in God but shudder at their impending judgment. Trusting Christ doesn’t mean to believe about Christ in your head but to submit to God’s way of salvation through Christ alone. Paul notes this false belief in 1 Corinthians 15. He says, “I made known to you . . . the Gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which also you stand, by which you are saved . . . unless you believed in vain.” Paul was making provision for someone to have believed in vain or have believed with no effect. There is a belief that does not touch the will, or heart and because of this remains ineffective. There is no conversion and the person is not born again.
How do you know if someone’s faith is genuine or vain? You can tell by what they do in the difficult times. Persecution and suffering are the means God uses to separate true believers from false ones. It is interesting the author of Hebrews uses a word in verse 8 that Peter uses in his first letter to refer to the genuine quality of someone’s faith. In verse 8 the author says, “but if (the ground) yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless.” A better rendering would be, “It is un-approved” or “It is not genuine.” In 1 Peter 1:7, Peter says, these trials have come “so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine.” Why does God allow trials and hardships into our lives? It is to prove our faith genuine. Those with genuine faith will become more like Christ and those without Christ will fall away. People don’t usually fall away from the Christian faith when things are going well it is when they run into difficulty. And God purposely allows these difficulties in order to separate the wheat from the chaff, those with real faith from those with vain faith. Jesus mentions these people in His parable of the four soils in Matthew 13. He says there is one individual who immediately receives the Word because of joy but when persecution due to the Word arises he falls away because he had no root. There was no firm faith in him.
B. Their Perdition
The second aspect the author uses to describe them is their perdition or their destruction. There are four features the author notes about them.
1. They reject the cross
First, they reject the cross. In verse 6 the author says, “they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.” Because they want to steer clear of persecution they avoid making the cross of Christ the ultimate issue for salvation, which it is, so they end up, in essence, standing up with those who had crucified the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul made this clear when he said if salvation came through the law Christ died needlessly. And so by stating there are other ways to God beside Christ they stand up with those who condemned Him in the first place shaking their fist in His face and spitting upon Him and cursing Him as they call for Him to come down from the cross. In that way they crucify to themselves the Son of God.
And this puts Jesus to open shame because someone who had supposedly sided with Jesus has now left the camp. This is why Jesus said you should make sure you have counted the cost before following Him. In Luke 14 Jesus says, “Which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not sit down first and calculate the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him.” Now in this parable Jesus speaks of the man being ridiculed. But when someone, who has said they are following Christ, leaves off from following Him it is Jesus who also bears the brunt of the ridicule. Was Jesus not able to deliver the goods? Was He not able to save completely? What did Jesus do wrong? In rejecting the cross these people heap shame upon the name of Jesus.
2. They are fruitless
The next feature the author mentions about them is they are fruitless. In verses 7-8 he says, “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; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed.” Those who fall away are fruitless. They produce no lasting and increasing fruit in their lives. In Colossians 1 the apostle Paul says the Gospel had come to the Colossians and was producing fruit and increasing in them. The fruit of a changed life was evident in them. And the fruit wasn’t stagnant but it was increasing. Someone who calls himself a believer but can only point to old rotten fruit in their life is probably bluffing.
Jesus also noted this in the parable of the soils we mentioned earlier. He said those who were truly saved did not get choked out by the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of wealth but produced fruit. They may have differed in their harvest of fruit but they all produced fruit.
3. They cannot repent
The third feature the author mentions about these who fall away in their perdition is they cannot repent. In verse 6 he says, if “then they have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance.” These who have hedged on the cross of Christ and have put Him to an open shame have nothing upon which to repent. They cannot come back because they have rejected the cross.
If they don’t change their mind about the cross how can they repent? Their rejection of the cross is the rejection of eternal life itself. And when they have come to a point in having understood what the cross is about and then reject it; it is then impossible for them to come to repentance. Leon Morris, in his commentary says, “when people have entered into the Christian experience far enough to know what it is all about and have then turned away, then, as far as they themselves are concerned, they are crucifying Christ. In that state they cannot repent.”
4. They will experience judgment
Finally, we see they will experience judgment. In verse 8 the author says, (the ground) “is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.” There is judgment awaiting those who will not trust Christ. And for those who have entered into the Christian experience far enough to see the truth of the cross and still reject its complete work on their behalf will receive judgment and they will receive it without opportunity for repentance.
Where are you? Have you fully entered into the rest only Christ can give? Are you secure in your salvation through the blood of the lamb shed once for all for your sin? Or have you come to a point to recognize the necessity of the cross but have not put your trust in Him? If you are there do not hesitate to cross the line and put your trust in Christ alone for your salvation. Do not fear standing with Christ in His reproach. And do not, after having studied out the Christian experience reject it for a little temporary safety because the end for those is they are rejected and experience the judgment of God without opportunity for repentance.