This morning we are going to be studying a difficult and controversial passage of Scripture. I feel completely inadequate to deal with it, so I'm praying for the Lord to guide me while we discuss some verses that have been used by some theologians to "prove" a person can be saved and then lose their salvation.
Those of you who have been studying with me on the blog for years will know that I subscribe to the theory of "eternal security". Many times in the four gospels we find Jesus promising us that whoever believes in and follows Him has eternal life. Jesus never says, "You have eternal life in Me unless you do this or that." The writers of the epistles promise us eternal life through our faith in Christ. Even the author of the book of Hebrews will make mention several times of the eternal life we have through our faith in Christ. So why is he talking today about the possibility of falling away? Why is he warning his readers---presumably believers---that they can reach a point where they are so comfortable with sin that they no longer feel a need to repent of it? What does he mean when he says people who reach such a stage are in danger of being cursed?
I am not sure we can answer all of these questions to our complete satisfaction, but we are going to take a look at today's passage in a step-by-step manner and hopefully make our peace with it.
"It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance." (Hebrews 6:4-6a) It seems to be clear that the author is talking about people who are genuine Christians. I don't think there's any way he could say that they have "shared in the Holy Spirit" if they were not true converts. The argument has been made by some scholars that these are people who had some type of religious experience, were caught up in intense emotion, and joined the church with a great deal of enthusiasm but with little substance. When the going got tough, or when their high state of emotion wore off, they simply settled back into their old ways. I could accept this explanation based on everything the author says in verses 4 and 6 except for the part of their having shared in the Holy Spirit. This indicates, to me, that they received the Holy Spirit upon their acceptance of Christ. We could argue that they felt the call of the Holy Spirit and that they experienced His power during a church service and thought they had given their hearts to Christ when in fact they had not. The problem with this is that the author says a person in that state cannot later repent.
When I was sixteen years old I had a very moving experience in a church I was visiting. The pastor's attention zoomed in on me for some reason during the altar call and he asked the young lady sitting beside me to bring me up to the altar. He believed the Holy Spirit was calling me to give my heart to Christ. And likely He was, but I had no idea what to do when I got to the altar. I just knelt there and cried and no one gave me any instructions or prayed the sinner's prayer with me, so in a few minutes somebody helped me up and everybody in the church thought I'd been saved (I thought so too because I didn't know what the salvation experience was supposed to be like). What I did know was that I didn't feel one bit different leaving the church than I felt when I walked in there that morning. I didn't feel like a new creature. I didn't feel a sense of peace and relief. For several months I tried really hard to read the Bible every day and pray. I tried to be a nicer person. But something just wasn't clicking. I was still the old creature and didn't know it, so of course my efforts to be a better person were unsuccessful. I was relying on works instead of on faith. Within a short time I gave up on my attempts and went back to being exactly who I was before. It would be six more years before I realized I'd never accepted Christ in the first place, but when I did accept Him I was dramatically changed. I knew I was no longer the old creature. I did have a sense of relief and peace because I was transformed from the inside out. So, on that basis, I don't think we can assume that the author of Hebrews is talking about people who thought they were saved but weren't. He can't be, because he says they won't be able to repent at a later date, and obviously I was able to repent at a later date.
Some scholars believe the author is speaking on the basis of rewards that are granted to the believer. The Apostle Paul spoke of loss of rewards in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15. In that passage he is speaking to people who are genuinely saved but who have done little else for the kingdom of God. He warns them that only the things they do for Christ will earn them a reward when they get to heaven, and that the things they did that serve selfish ambition will earn them no eternal rewards. He makes it clear though, that the person who once was saved is still saved, but that this person has knocked himself out of rewards he could otherwise have enjoyed forever. We can't earn salvation through good works, but we can earn rewards through the works we do for Christ in the right spirit.
Other scholars believe that, since the author of Hebrews is speaking to Jewish believers, he is warning them not to fall back into relying on the law---relying on works for salvation, in other words. He's already told them in our study this week that they are not progressing in their Christian walk as they should be. They are still standing where they were when Christ saved them, in a way, because they have not moved any deeper than knowing the gospel message. They are not studying the Scriptures in a way that helps them to build a personal relationship with Christ. They are not applying Biblical principles to their lives in the ways that a Christian should be applying them. So perhaps he's saying that, if they fall back into trusting in the law and in good works, they are going to feel no need to repent of future sins, for they will feel that they can bring enough sacrifices and offerings to "make up" for their mistakes. If so, this completely pushes Christ's sacrifice out of the picture and treats His agony on the cross as something that never needed to be suffered at all. For if good works could save us, Christ need never have come into the world to offer Himself for our sins.
Yet another theory says that the person who falls away is still saved, though only by the skin of his teeth, but has fallen into habitual sin that has hardened his heart to the point that his conscience doesn't bother him. I'm going to use another example from my own life to illustrate the point. Some years back I made such a mistake that I shocked even myself. Have you ever messed up so badly that it didn't even seem real? I remember driving to work one morning with the radio tuned to the Christian station playing a song about the nails that were in Christ's hands. And I understood, as never before, how I personally drove those nails into His hands. I also understood in a new way how precious the voice of the Holy Spirit is, for He was speaking right then to my conscience. I felt like I couldn't even lift my eyes to heaven because of the shame I was feeling, but repenting was my only hope of repairing the rift I'd made in my close relationship with Christ. But what if I hadn't heeded the Holy Spirit? What if I'd gone on to make the same mistake over and over again? What if I'd closed my ears to the Holy Spirit over and over again? I could have become so hard-hearted that I could have kept committing this sin without any guilt at all. And when we feel no guilt, we feel no urgency to repent. Repenting doesn't even enter our minds.
So the author could be warning his readers about the same thing the Lord warned the church in Ephesus, "You have forsaken the love you had at first." (Revelation 2:4) The people the Lord is talking to were genuinely saved. He is referring to Himself as their first love. But something has caused them to put other priorities ahead of Christ. They have become worldly and have hardened their hearts. So He issues this dire warning, "Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from this place." (Revelation 2:5) The people of Ephesus have not yet become so hard-hearted that they can't hear the Lord's voice calling them to repent. But if they reach a state where they can easily ignore His voice, the future of the church at Ephesus is grim.
What are we to make of these words about falling away and about being unable to repent? Can we lose our salvation or not? I think we have to take these words in context of what came before them and what comes after them. In yesterday's passage the author scolded his readers for not growing in their knowledge of the Lord. Someone who doesn't have a solid foundation is going to have trouble standing firm in this world full of temptations and trials. If these people do not get with the program and mature in the faith then they are far more likely to fall back into old habits or to be seduced back into trying to rely on good works to be made right with God. Instead of going to the Lord and repenting of sins, a person might instead bring an offering or perform a good deed as if they can "cancel out" the bad deed. The author is also going to go on to say, in tomorrow's passage, that these believers he's addressing have worked hard to minister to God's people and that God is not going to forget that they love His people. This indicates that God will keep on dealing with their hearts in order to keep them from becoming hard-hearted. But He won't force them to do what's right. They have to do their part in staying close to their Redeemer, in heeding the guiding voice of the Holy Spirit, in studying the Scriptures, and in communing with the Lord in prayer.
Having said all this, have I changed my mind regarding eternal security? No, I am still at least 90% convinced that we are "once saved, always saved". But I'm also convinced that it's possible to be saved and to stop right there. It's possible to remain babies in the faith instead of maturing into adults in the faith. I think we can be saved and yet manage to live lives that do little to advance the kingdom of Christ. I think we can be saved and, on the day our works are judged, receive no rewards because we've mainly served ourselves instead of our Lord. So whether or not a person can actually lose his salvation, or whether or not the author's words are regarding the loss of rewards, neither of these things is something we want to happen to us. The best way to prevent it is to remain in close contact with our Redeemer. The closer we draw to Him, the closer He draws to us. The more we want to honor Him, the more He enables us to honor Him. The more we want to help others and lead them to Him, the more opportunities He will give us to do great things for His kingdom. Let's be Christians who finish strong, who can stand before our Savior and Redeemer someday and hear Him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant!"
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