Hebrews 6:4-7

Hebrews 6:4-7. These verses have deep significance and are difficult of interpretation. In the early Church a sect arose who gathered from them that those who sinned after baptism either generally or especially by joining in idolatrous worship under persecution, were to be finally and permanently excluded from the churches, and could not be forgiven; and hence baptism itself was often postponed till death drew near. The Church of Rome, on the other hand, refused for a considerable time to give this Epistle a place in the Canon, because it seemed to teach a doctrine at variance with what is taught in the accepted apostolic writings. In later times, those who deny the perseverance of the saints find in these verses and in others a little later (Hebrews 10:26) the chief support of their system, as the defenders of that doctrine may perhaps have sometimes been more anxious to confute their argument than to give a fair interpretation of these texts. Nor can it be questioned that the passages have created great anxiety in real Christians who, sinking into spiritual languor, or betrayed into gross sins, as was David or Peter, have been thrown into despondency, unable ‘to lay hold of the hope set before them in the Gospel.' Of the two passages it may be observed generally that the word ‘ if ' (‘if they shall fall away,' if we sin wilfully) is not found in the Greek of either of them. It has been urged against the translators of the Authorised Version that they inserted ‘ if' for the purpose of lessening the difficulty of the passage; out this should not be hastily assumed. In the Revised Version the ‘ if' is retained in the second passage, though it is struck out in the first; and the ‘if' is so natural a translation of the Greek that it is inserted in the 8th verse: ‘ if it bear;' where the Greek is simply ‘but bearing,' ‘on its bearing.' We need not blame the translators either earlier or later; it is enough to note that a common solution of the difficulty of the two passages, that they are only supposed cases, is not tenable. On the other hand, very few of the commentators note that the persons whom it is impossible to help are described by words that indicate continuous character and not a single act. Those who fall away are spoken of as continuing to crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, while those who sin wilfully are not guilty of a single sin, but of going on sinning. The case, therefore, is the case of those who go back to a life of sin, who take their place with the crucifiers of our Lord. Not single sins, but settled character or habitual practice, is what is condemned. Three principles more need to be remembered: every Christian grace has its counterfeit, and all the common privileges of the Gospel are shared by multitudes who make no saving use of them. This is the first. Many of the rulers of the Jews believed, and yet they ‘loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.' There is a real faith that cannot save; there is a repentance, a worldly sorrow, which cannot be distinguished for a time from the godly sorrow of the true convert, as there is a ‘joy' with which some receive the word and yet have no root in themselves. There is a hope which God will not honour; there is a holiness that is Pharisaism or deception; there is an enlightenment as universal as the knowledge of the Gospel (John 1:9); there are miraculous powers shared apparently by Judas, and certainly by men whom Christ never knew as their Lord (Matthew 7:22). And, secondly, though there are difficulties on both sides, the general teaching of the New Testament is, that if there be true union with the Lord Jesus Christ it is never to be broken off. If the light of Divine grace be once kindled in the soul, it is never to be extinguished. Sins once forgiven are forgiven for ever. The law written on the heart by God Himself is distinguished from that written on stone, and is not to be effaced; the principle of the Divine life once implanted is kept and guarded even to the end (see Hebrews 10:19; John 10:15; John 10:17; John 10:28-29; 1 Peter 1:4-5). But, thirdly, the precepts and warnings of the New Testament are addressed to men who are still in a state of probation. Every command that deals with essential Christian grace, every promise made to character, as in the Sermon on the Mount, all the watchfulness which Christians are exhorted to practise, and which inspired men practised (‘I keep my body under, lest having preached the Gospel to others I should be a castaway'), are based upon the supposition, not that really saved men will perish, but that any professing Christian man may. We are startled to find the truth so sharply set forth in passages like the one before us; but the truth really underlies the teaching of every Epistle, and practically of every modern sermon. Most startling of all, the warnings and the invitations of the blessed God in the Old Testament, and of our Lord in the New, both of whom may be supposed to know the actual character 2nd the final destiny of those they addressed, speak ever as if the ruin of all were possible, nor can there be probation under any other arrangement. To argue that therefore neither the ruin nor the salvation is known or certain, would be shallow philosophy. We cannot solve the mystery, but we ought to recognise it, and to note that a moral government under which God reveals to every one beforehand his final destiny, speaks or acts as if it were fixed, and thus removes the condition which moral government implies (the force, viz., of motives as if all were uncertain), is a contradiction in terms. There is, of course, an added difficulty in this chapter, that those which are enlightened are not supposed to fall away, but are stated to do so. The difficulty will be examined in due time.