Sermon Text:

As you know, between sermon series, I often preach on passages or topics that come from you and that is what I want to do today. Over the past 6 months I have been asked about Hebrews 6:4-8 several times so we are going to look at that together this morning. It is not a surprise that this text raises lots of questions. When we read that someone who has been enlightened, who has tasted the heavenly gift, and who has even shared in the Holy Spirit can not only fall away, but do so in a way that makes it impossible for them to be restored, that is troubling.

Who are these people? Are they believers? What is the nature of a falling away such that it is impossible for them to be restored? And then, what does all that mean for us? Hopefully, with God’s help, we can answer these questions this morning. 

There are three common views on this passage. Some think these are believers in Jesus who have lost their salvation. Others believe this is a hypothetical warning, a kind of “what if” scenario to show the impossibility of a believer falling away. Then there is the view I think is correct, that this passage is not teaching that a believer can lose their salvation, but this is a real warning and we need to take it seriously. That is the key thing I want you to see.

First, I want to briefly address the two views I think are incorrect. These people are described in ways that are used elsewhere to describe believers. That is why some are convinced this passage teaches we can lose our salvation. This is a key text for those who teach that. But when we come to difficult passages, we should interpret them in light of clearer passages. The Bible is its own best interpreter, so when we come to a difficult passage, we need to ask how it fits with everything else the Bible teaches on that subject.

On this issue the Bible is clear. The life God offers through Jesus Christ is eternal life. Now, if you can have it one day and not the next, that’s not eternal. God isn’t in heaven perched over the book of life with an eraser. We do not gain salvation by our own power and neither can we keep it in our own power. Salvation from beginning to end is a work of God’s power. 1 Peter 1:3–5 says,

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  

Jesus says in John 10:27–30,

27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”

In John 6:37–40 he says,

37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

God doesn’t contradict himself, so unless we are misunderstanding these and several other clear passages, Hebrews 6 cannot be teaching a believer can lose their salvation. We have to go back and read it again more carefully.

The second view that I think is inadequate is that this is just a hypothetical warning. The idea is that the author of Hebrews is showing the impossibility of falling away by basically saying, “look, those who have tasted the heavenly gift can’t fall away but “if” they could, it would be impossible to restore them. To this line of thinking it isn’t so much a warning as a kind of thought experiment to show the impossibility of such a thing.

I don’t find that convincing because I don’t think that is what it says and that doesn’t fit well with the overall argument of the book. We need to be careful of imposing a theology onto the text rather than doing the work of building a theology that accounts for everything the Bible says. We need to let the Bible say what it says. 

We must be careful about disconnecting biblical truth from biblical logic. People do this all the time. Here are some examples: Since we are saved by grace apart from works, works are not necessary. God is love, so he would never condemn anyone. God is sovereign so we don’t need to evangelize, pray, whatever. We need to be careful about that kind of thing.

The Bible includes both promises and warnings and our thinking needs to account for both. Imagine you fell ill and went to the doctor and he prescribed you a certain medicine and gave you instructions on how to take it. Then as you were leaving he said, “don’t worry, you are going to be fine.” Would you think, “that’s great, I don’t need to take the medicine then!” 

Of course not. Then don’t do that with your Bible either. This is a real warning and the purpose of the threat is to protect true believers. The promises and threats in God’s word are themselves means God uses to keep us in the faith. They are there to jolt us into action, like spiritual smoke alarms, so that we move from danger to safety. 

So we need to take these verses seriously. But just as you can’t walk into the middle of a movie and expect to understand everything that’s going on, you can’t understand these verses without understanding their context and how they function in the flow of the book.

Hebrews was written to professed believers who were facing persecution. They had converted from Judaism but because of persecution some were being tempted to renounce Christ and return to Judaism. The book is written to encourage them to remain faithful. The argument is that Jesus is superior in every way to the Old Covenant. Woven into this argument are 5 warning passages that explain the consequences of rejecting the gospel and returning to their old ways. These are found in:

1. 2:1-4
2. 3:7-4:13
3. 5:11-6:12
4. 10:19-39
5. 12:1-29

The interesting thing about these warning passages is that they all seem to draw upon Israel’s wandering in the wilderness. You may recall that God mightily brought Israel out of Egypt but once they left the people grumbled and rebelled. As a result of their unfaithfulness, many died in the wilderness. Many who began the journey never made it to the promised land. The Bible says they were judged because although they were among the congregation of God, they did not have faith.

The author of Hebrews uses this experience as a warning to his readers who have started the journey and are being tempted to turn back. For example, Hebrews 2:1–3 says,

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? …

The message declared by Angels and the transgression and retribution refer to events that happened at Sinai and in the wilderness after Israel left Egypt.

The second  warning has several references, I will just share a couple. Hebrews 3:7-9 says,  

7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8  do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9  where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. …

Then verse 16-17 continues,

…16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? …

The warning in Chapter 10 doesn’t specifically mention the wilderness but quotes from Deuteronomy 32, which is the song of Moses given at the end of the wilderness journey and recounts some of its events.

Then in chapter 12 we get more specific references. 12:18-19 and 12:25-26 say,

18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. …

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. 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”

These are comparisons between their situation and Israel in the desert. That comparison is not unique to Hebrews. It was commonly used in the New Testament to warn believers to persevere in the faith. 

For example, Jude warns his readers saying,

5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.  

Similarly, the apostle Paul warns the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10:1–5 using language a lot like our passage when he says,

“For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.”

Our passage in chapter 6 does not specifically mention the wilderness but since that appears to be the background of the other warnings in the book, let’s see if that helps make sense of this one.

4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, 

Exodus 13:21 says as they wandered 21 ..the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night.  

They were literally enlightened by the presence of God in the wilderness.

…who have tasted the heavenly gift, 

In Exodus 16 we are told God provided manna to sustain them. They had literally tasted a gift from heaven. 

…and have shared in the Holy Spirit…

I can understand why people think this has to be believers, but listen to what Isaiah 63:11 says about Israel as they were being led out of Egypt, 

11  Then he remembered the days of old, of Moses and his people. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit was in the midst of them. That doesn’t mean they had the indwelling gift that came with the New Covenant, but all who were led out of Egypt shared in some sense in the ministry of the Spirit in that they were part of the community in which the Spirit was present and active. 

Verse 5,

5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 

They participated in the promise of deliverance that came through the word of God. They were at Sinai when the law was given. They witnessed the power of God delivering a people out of bondage. They drank water from the rock, which we just saw was provided by Christ.

When we read these verses in light of the wilderness experience, similar to the other warnings in the book, the descriptions make better sense. The point is the same as Paul made in 1 Corinthians 10. These are not true believers who lost their salvation. These are people who identify themselves with the community of faith but are not actually believers. 

They professed faith, and even participated in the life of the community of faith, but their hearts were never changed. Like Judas and Simon Magus, they looked and sounded like believers but in their hearts they loved the world so when the time of testing comes, they fall away. These are the people the apostle John talks about in 1 John 2:19 when he says,

19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.  

They know and have seen the power of God which is why verse 6 says it is impossible to

6 … restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. 

The point is this, if someone has a clear understanding of the gospel, has enjoyed the fellowship of God’s people and seen the work of the Spirit, and walks away then there remains no other hope for them. They are like those who were led by the pillar of fire, walked through the sea on dry land, and ate bread from heaven but wanted to return to Egypt because they longed for cucumbers, melon, onions, and garlic.

There are those who live in community with the saints but who are not saved. It is possible to understand the gospel and not believe it. To learn and never repent. You can sing the words of the hymns and never possess the joy they express. You can participate in the life of the church and witness the power of God transforming the lives of those around you without your own heart being changed.

A true believer cannot lose a salvation they received as a gift, but the promises are to those who believe. We are called to examine ourselves in light of the word to confirm that we are, in fact, in the faith. Paul says we are to work out our salvation in fear and trembling and Peter says we should make our calling and election sure. Saving faith is a faith that perseveres through trials. 

Friends, we need to consider this warning. Not in fear, but in humility. It is here for our good. Imagine you were driving down the road and saw a sign that said Danger, Cliff Ahead. If you believed the message and submitted to it, you would turn around. The one who doesn’t believe and respond to the word is the one who drives off the cliff. In the same way, a heart that is made alive by the Spirit is going to respond to God’s warnings.

The way to respond is to go to him. To meditate on his promises and his blessings filling our hearts with such satisfaction in Christ that there is nothing more precious to us than him. We see many every day who, having begun well, fall away because their hearts were never fully satisfied with Jesus. As the cost to being faithful increases, we will see more of this but it isn’t anything new.

In John 6:66–68 we read this,

66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,  

This is what it ultimately comes to. Do you believe that God will judge your life? If so, do you believe that your only hope is to trust and follow Jesus Christ? Are you confident that eternity with God will be filled with such blessings beyond our comprehension that no matter what it costs to get there, you will not be disappointed? Let our priority each day be to have this settled in our mind before we do anything else. 

Some day every one of us will stand before a holy God and face judgment. The bad news is that every one of us is guilty of rebellion against him and deserves punishment. Not just that we aren’t good enough to go to heaven, but that our lives have earned hell. But in an amazing act of grace, God sent his son Jesus as a savior. 

He lived the righteous life we were supposed to live and then offered himself as a sacrifice for the sins of everyone who would ever put their faith in him. He was crucified, died and was buried. He satisfied the just wrath of God on the cross for all believers so that we would not have to satisfy it in hell. 

Then after 3 days, he rose again proving the price was paid in full. Sin and death had been defeated and now he offers salvation to anyone who repents and believes. This world is passing into judgment but Christ offers eternal life with God. He alone is able to deliver on that promise.

If we ultimately reject the sacrifice of Christ then salvation is impossible because there is no other way to obtain it. There is nothing else that can be offered that is more precious than his blood. If we reject his sacrifice, we are left without hope. 

So this is a real warning that we must examine ourselves. But I also know there are some of you on the other side of the spectrum. You are not presuming upon grace, you are in despair because you know your weakness. Some hear these warnings and are concerned that perhaps you cannot be restored. If so, let me encourage you. 

The first sign that you are not hardened beyond repentance and have not committed the unpardonable sin is that you are concerned about it. In fact, I think it is impossible for anyone who is worried about this to have done it. It is impossible for someone who ultimately rejects the faith to be restored to fellowship, but anyone seeking to repent will not be refused.

Jesus said whoever comes to him will never be cast out. Ezekiel 33:11 says God takes no pleasure in judging the wicked. As one preacher said, “God would rather have our tears of repentance than our blood.” If you are weighed down by the guilt of your sin then hear the invitation of the savior in Matthew 11:28–29,

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Perhaps you have done something grievous. If so, run to Christ who died to save sinners. Abraham, the father of faith, lied twice putting his wife in danger. David, who was a man after God’s own heart, had a man killed to cover up an affair. The man in Corinth was living in sin with his mother-in-law. Even Peter, the chief apostle, denied Jesus three times and abandoned him the night he was arrested. 

All these men repented and all were restored. I don’t mention this to dismiss their sin, I mention it to remind you of the depth of amazing grace God shows to sinners like us. I like the way the Puritan preacher Richard Sibbes said it, 

“There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.” 

We are not saved by a perfect faith, but by a perfect savior. If we have faith at all, we know we are united to Christ, we have the Spirit, and we can be sure God will complete the good work he has begun in us. Soon we will be raised with Jesus in glory and will be like him. Therefore, so long as there is faith, there is hope. 

In verse 7 the author uses the image of a farmers field to illustrate the differing responses and differing outcomes for those in the congregation who persevere in faith and for those who fall away in unbelief. It is an illustration that applies just as well to this church and every group of professing Christians.

7 For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

The rain represents the means of grace that God has provided. It includes the blessings mentioned in verses 4-5. Where the word of God has taken root in the soil, that is in the hearts of the people, and is cultivated by the work of the Spirit, the rain causes fruitful crops to grow, making it useful to its purpose. But where the word has not taken root, only weeds grow. Eventually, the unproductive land will be cleared and the useless growth will be burned up.

The illustration is a warning that merely observing, tasting, and experiencing the blessings of God cannot save a person unless genuine spiritual rebirth has taken place. It is only when God has given a new heart, evidenced by faithfulness, that God’s blessings produce their proper fruit. It is not an experience of the blessings of God, but an experience of the God of the blessings that makes the difference.

In the next verse, the author expresses his confidence that his readers are truly saved and will respond with faithful endurance. What about us? We are not yet facing persecution as these Hebrews were but the cost of identifying as a Christian is rising. There are many who claim to be believers in whom there is no evidence of spiritual life. There is no affection for the Jesus of the Bible, no repentance, no growth in love for God, for his word, or for his people.

Friends, there is a difference between understanding the gospel and believing it. There is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God. Remember our main point? This passage is not teaching that a believer can lose their salvation, but this is a real warning and we need to take it seriously. 

If you are struggling with assurance or are not sure that you have been born again to saving faith in Jesus please connect with us. You can email us or write “let’s talk” on a connection card and we will set up a time for one of the pastors to meet with you. 

If you are one who knows that you have been transformed by the grace of God and your confidence is in Christ, then praise God. Look for ways to use your gifts to encourage and serve others.

I want to finish this morning with the words of the apostle Peter in 2 Peter 1:3–11,

3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. 

5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  

9 For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. 11 For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  

Amen