No Other Boast

Ok, here it goes, an attempt to concisely (this is my longest post ever) and clearly explain what I believe is the clear teaching of Hebrews 6:4-9.  I think there are 3 major interpretations of this text.  Each of the interpretations has their nuanced varieties of course, so I will be guilty of reductionism.  Also there are the wacko cousins, those oddball interpretations that few if any other than their progenitors want to claim, I will leave them alone.  Option number one I will simply reject and move on. Option number two I find tolerable but not probable, thus I will work to break it into pieces, and by doing so establish option 3.  Option number three I will seek to defend.

 

Number One:

Some hold this text to be speaking of actual Christians who have committed a sin or sins so serious the deal is off.  Not only do they lose their salvation, they can never get it back.  Umm…NO!  (Though you may feel like I’m yelling at you though your computer, I don’t care; bold, underline, all caps, and exclamation are all justified here.)

 

Number Two:

Some hold this text to be speaking hypothetically.  They make much of the “if” in verse six, taking it in the sense of “if you fell off this building, though it’s impossible because of all the precautionary measures, what would happen to you.”  They then interpret this passage to be saying that you can’t lose your salvation, but if you could, you could never get it back.

 

Here are my major problems with this interpretation:

1)    It doesn’t fit the author’s pattern.  Proponents of this view often say that this text is then meant to build our assurance of salvation.  Because this is a hypothetical impossibility we need not fear it.  But the author of Hebrews will constantly transition from building comfort/assurance to concern/rebuke.

 

1 – comfort                             2:1-4 – concern

2:14-18 – comfort                 3:6-13 – concern

4:14-5:10 – comfort              5:11-6:8 – concern

6:9ff – comfort

 

The point of this paragraph is meant to generate concern, not comfort; thus the hypothetical position violates the intention of the paragraph.  And if one who takes this passage to be speaking hypothetically interprets this text as a warning he tears down any force the warning might have by making it a hypothetical impossibility.

 

2)    It doesn’t fit the immediate context.  After exhorting them to press on to maturity he tells them they will do this “if God permits” (v. 3).  Verses 4-9 function as an exposition of verse 3 giving us a case where God will not permit.  Also there are two cases being developed here as illustrated by verses 7-8.  There is land that has been cultivated and received natural irrigation.  If such a field produces fruit it is blessed by God, but if it bears thorns it is cursed.  The fruit is indicative of how the rain was received.  If the rain is received, it will produce fruit.  (Cf. Isaiah 5:1-7 and Matthew 13:1-30)  In verse 9 the author turns to comfort telling them that he is sure of better things concerning them, things that belong to salvation.  The implication being that the action of apostasy just mentioned above does not belong to salvation. In other word they are not those who bear thorns, but fruit.

 

3)    It doesn’t fit the overall context of Hebrews.  He wants them to persevere, remain faithful, not in order to gain salvation but to prove their salvation.  Falling away is a real threat, and he does not want them to do so proving that they were never Christ’s (I John 2:19).

 

Hebrews 2:1-4 – Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.  For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

 

Hebrews 3:12 – “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.”

 

Hebrews 4:11 – “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”

 

Hebrews 10:26-31 – “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

 

Hebrews 12:25 – “See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.”

 

The issue is not one of falling away and losing your salvation, but of never really having had it.  Here is one that has enjoyed great spiritual privileges yet has proved to have a hard unbelieving heart.

Some objections might be:

1)    “This violates the language of verses 4-5 which clearly indicates that these persons must be saved.”  This is an example of forcing a preconceived meaning onto terms rather than letting the context determine the meaning of the terms.  For example some might look at ever instance of “righteousness” in scriptures and import the meaning of “imputed righteousness” (that foreign righteousness of Christ that is declared to be ours) rather than “practical righteousness” (that which comes as a result of regeneration and sanctification).  Another instance is looking at every instance of “sanctification” as referring to the progress that we make after salvation, when in some instances “sanctification” is to be interpreted as “positional sanctification” (being set apart as holy) something that happens once upon salvation.  Too often we read our systematic theological categories into the text, forcing our system onto the text rather than allowing the text to fill out and refine our system.

 

All the terms here can be taken to speak of someone who dwells among God’s covenant people, makes a profession of faith, enjoys many spiritual privileges, and then violently rejects Christianity.   We all know “professors” are not always “possessors”.  They can be enlightened, that is come to see the truths of the gospel.  They can taste of the heavenly gift, this could be directly related to enlightened or a reference to communion.  They can share in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit may convict them, may use them while they are still unrepentant to teach and lead other to Christ and even gift them.  Spiritual gifts are no final indication that you are Christ’s (Matthew 7:21-23).  They can taste of the goodness of the Word of God; they can love its truths, see the goodness therein, and yet ultimately reject Christ.  They can taste of the powers of the age to come, in the church as when Jesus we present in flesh the presence of the future can be seen and tasted.  The immediate context is illustrating this heard unbelieving heart using the children of Israel in the wilderness (chapters 3,4); and all these things can be said of them, and of Judas as well.

 

2)    Some will take the phrase “restore to repentance” and insist that they had truly repented.  But scripture does speaking of a repentance, a turning that is not saving.  2 Peter 2 is a great example of this, pay particular attention to verses 20-22.

 

Number 3:

Although much can be implied concerning the option I hold from the mess above, here it is explicitly and briefly.  These are persons who have heard the gospel, professed Christ, enjoyed great spiritual privileges by being a part of God’s covenant people, His church, and then violently abandon the faith proving ultimately to have a hard unbelieving heart.

 

This is not simply an agnostic attitude toward Christianity.  It is not mere doubt.  Nor is it atheism.  Atheism is simply unbelief.  This text goes further than that.  Also it is not equivalent to someone who leaves the Christian faith for a time and lives in sin.  It is a persistent, intense, resolute, violent action of standing with the crucifiers of Christ and holding Christ in contempt and shame, rather than trusting Him.  

 

This is not to say there may be a person who repents but God will not save them.  This is a case where someone will not be saved because they have such a hard heart that repentance is not a viable option.  Repentance has become an impossibility due to the hardness of their heart.

 

WHEW!  (Again another instance where the emphasis is justified)  That was almost as exhausting as preaching it.  I’m going to quit and go get a glass of water now.

You’re not like those other piggy’s are you?  No, your house isn’t made of the straw of Hinduism, or the sticks of Buddhism, but it is made of solid “Christian bricks”.  “Satan, storms, and sin can’t touch me,” reason, “I’ve got bricks and a ceiling.”  Your wall is made up of bricks like Christian music, “Christian” fellowship, church attendance, baptism, a worship experience, and a prayer you said once.   But anchoring all your hopes to walls and ceilings means that when they are gone so are you.  Satan does not puff, he uses wrecking balls.  The storms or life sometimes contain violent tornados.  Sin is no small burden to your walls but a crushing one they cannot sustain.  If walls have been you anchor, or at least partially so, you may have found the book of Hebrews devastating so far.  But if all your hope is in the foundation, if your anchor, your hope is the high priesthood of Jesus Christ, then you stand after the wrecking ball has passed and the tornado has blown.  Also sin does not end you, because the burden has been born.

If you are God’s child you may have been shaken by the wonderful book so far, but you have been shaken so that you may realize your unshakable position in Christ.

If all you have are walls, be devastated.  If as Hebrews has been preached you see that the ceiling is no surety of your salvation and seemingly has been sucked into oblivion, or if the walls are seen as empty vain works if not built upon the one true foundation and thus they seemingly crumble; yet you look down and there is a foundation left, take great hope.  The ceiling and walls are gone so that you might take confidence in the only place where any can be found – Jesus Christ.

For the outsiders who read this blog please excuse me while I write pastorally.  I have counseled with many of you whose assurance is shaken, and I am desirous that you come to a full assurance of your standing in Christ.  There are others of you who seem absolutely confident, and I pray that for a moment your confidence may be shaken, because I am concerned that your confidence is not something rooted in the word of God, evident fruits of salvation, and the testimony of the Spirit.

Assurance does not grant liberty to make little of sin; rather persistent sin and a casual attitude toward sin should cause doubt, not assurance of our salvation.  Or to say it another way, assurance is not a doctrine that allows me to treat sin lightly, rather the biblical doctrine of sin is such that if persistent and casual sin is present in my life I should question my assurance.  When you sin, do you easily comfort yourself, or do you find no peace except in His word, promises and the inner testimony of the Spirit that they are real to you?  Do you look for the presence of fruit in your life bearing witness to God’s saving work in your life or do you easily gloss over sin?

A man who is in the act of secretly cheating on his wife is a fool to convince himself that his wife will never leave him.  In a similar way the “Christian” who continually and apathetically lives in sin is a fool to convince himself that he knows God savingly.  The streams of assurance flow into the Christians life not while they are living in darkness, but while walking in the light.   A man’s wife may indeed remain faithful, and an individual in sin for a season may be truly saved, but this is not when the streams of assurance flow.  If assurance flows at such a time is a false stream with a limited supply.

I pretty much loathe most books that fall under the genre “devotional”.   Please never buy me Chicken Soup for the Soul, or some Christianized equivalent.  I think too often people try to read the Bible like devotional material; that is they want a cute little story that will leave them felling encouraged, fuzzy, or confident.  My major fuss with devotional material is that they treat the text as a three year old does a piece of play dough; they want to say something fun and they contort the scripture so that it fits their scheme.  Devotionals are kool-aid, and pardon my analogy but I want a man-drink spiritually, give me a beer.  With devotionals the holy is absent, you don’t have to query the text, wrestle with the text, pray over the text, cry over the text.  No one ever remembers those ridiculous stories from Chicken Soup, they don’t impact your living in a profound lasting way; at least they don’t for me.  But there have been moments; holy moments where after thrusting myself into God’s Word by His grace I, like Jacob, deem that spot Bethel, for God was there. 

Don’t settle for Hallmark clichés that sound spiritual.  Invest in a good expensive bible, if ever you are going to spend over a hundred dollars on one book, make it a good Bible.  Consult commentaries, don’t scratch surfaces, dig into the depths and discover amazing underground worlds that lie beneath.  Get a concordance, and make sure you own a Bible with cross references, and look up other instances of key words.  Study through books, don’t play Russian roulette with the Bible; what God wanted to say was said within a structure, don’t violate that structure.  Set aside time, chip away bit by bit, day after day, don’t move on two quickly, chew slowly and savor all the flavors.  Stare at the text, and when it doesn’t makes sense, doesn’t stir your soul, keep staring, keep studying, keep praying, and beg God to ‘do’ that text in your heart.  Pray! Soak your study time with prayer.  Study that is not doused in prayer can quickly become dry archeology, arrogant academics, and flippant trivia.  When study ceases to be mixed with prayer it ceases to be worshipful communion with God.

So go, pick up you Bible, seek to make it the air you breathe, the water you swim in, the food you eat, and the lens through which you view the world.