I. Introduction – What Have People Understood This Passage to Mean?
I want to quickly go over the five views we looked at last week. They are written in your bulletin outline so you can see them. And hopefully as we look at the second part of this material it will clarify the correct view.
The first view is the hypothetical view. Those who hold this view say the author declares something that could never happen to a believer but uses it for a strong rhetorical effect. It might be translated if some fell away (which could not really happen) then they could never come back to repentance.
The second view called the covenant community view says the author is describing an event in which God may reject an entire community of believers. In this the church would have no opportunity to return to the Lord.
The third view might be termed the true believer under judgment view. These believers were under God’s judgment even as the Israelites were under God’s judgment in the wilderness. This event of not being able to be renewed to repentance was similar to the Israelites trying to enter the promised land on the day following their rejection. If you remember the story they were beaten back at the edge of Canaan and had to turn back to wander for 40 years in the desert until that generation had all died. This view would hold that a believer who has backslidden to this point could never again be used by God for His purposes but is destined to wander through life purposeless and hopeless for the rest of their earthly life until all their rewards are burned up at the judgment seat of Christ.
The fourth view called the evidential true believer view says these people showed evidence of being real believers who have fallen away without possibility of falling away. This view would say any real Christian could lose their salvation. In doing so they have no possibility to return to Christ.
The last view that I take to be the correct view is labeled the evidential unbeliever view. In this view the author says that though these people showed evidence of having believed they were really unbelievers who lacked genuine faith. Though they understood the Gospel they refused to enter the reproach of Christ and thus rejected any possibility to come to repentance. They came to a point of true understanding of Christianity but refused to commit their will and heart to trust in Him.
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 one way 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
First their participation is summed up in the fact 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 Christ is to the world and seeing the value of the Christian ethic. That is, they see the real benefit derived from following light rather than darkness. Someone may be drawn to this 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 without having become born again.
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 a particular sin due in part to the light they saw in Christ. You may have seen people this way. They had been delivered from drinking or immorality and they revel in this deliverance (or salvation) but it is really temporary. And it is merely an external benefit they receive from hanging around people who live pure lives. However there is no real heart change. 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 participated. But they had certainly not received the gift of eternal salvation.
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 even they had been healed or delivered from demonic possession. Certainly the Spirit of God was active in the midst of the congregation to whom the author was writing and these people entered into the Spirit’s work 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 their own lives but had not yet given up their reasons for not simply trusting the Gospel.
Hopefully, the work of God occurring in the 1st century church is taking place here. I trust the light of Christ is evident in our midst, I hope the heavenly gift of eternal life is being clearly presented in the preaching of the Gospel. I expect that the Holy Spirit continues to convict our hearts of sin and righteousness and that the Word of God is exalted in our congregation so it tastes as good as it really is. And I hope God is still working in us to show us the power of the age to come. And as these take place some will truly enter into them while others will merely experience them as an outsider.
But this is exactly what the author said the Israelites had experienced when Moses led them. They were enlightened by the fire that surrounded them by night. They tasted the manna God provided for them. Their elders received the Holy Spirit and experienced the benefit of their prophesying. They tasted the good Word of God delivered to them by Moses at Mount Sinai. And in the miracles and provision of God they saw the powers of the age to come. Yet Paul says of them in 1 Corinthians 10 that though they were all baptized with Moses and ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink they did not possess a faith that pleased God. They went along for the ride but did not come to know God personally.
Where are you? Have you been led in to this congregation by some wonderful things happening here? Have you participated in some of the joy here but do not have Christ’s Spirit dwelling within you to give you a changed heart?
2. They do not possess
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.
In Romans 6:17 Paul seems to indicate genuine faith is the product of the mind, heart and will. There he says, “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed.” Paul mentions the obedience of the heart, the will committing itself to the form of teaching they learned in their mind. If all three factors are not present it results in a faith that is vain. It is disingenuous.
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 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. In persecution and hard times 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 in their perdition.
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 intially, shaking their fist in His face, spitting upon Him and cursing Him as they call for Him to come down from the cross. In this 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 said, “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.
I remember speaking with someone who had left the faith practically. This person said they believed in the Gospel but as Paul notes, he denied Christ by his works.” This person said they know they are saved because they led someone to Christ. But they resolutely refused to repent of their gross immorality. This is a case of someone pointing to old rotten fruit when the fruit of the Spirit is not evident.
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 continued to produce fruit.
3. They cannot repent
The third feature and saddest 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. As the author says in chapter 10 all they have is a fearful expectation of judgment.
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 people is they are rejected and experience the judgment of God without opportunity for return.