A few disclaimers: (1) I don’t believe in once saved always saved and then go out and live a life of debauchery and so on. (2) I don’t believe a person can be truly saved and go in and our of salvation because of some sin committed. (3) But I do believe that once saved a believer is kept by the power of God through faith (1 Pet 1:5; Jude 1, 20-21, 24). Now to Hebrews 6:4-6:
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 6 and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. (TNIV)
Whatever we make of these verses, the writer of these verses adds a disclaimer:
Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are convinced of better things in your case—the things that have to do with salvation. (v. 9, TNIV)
So he was not speaking about the Christians to whom he was writing. Believers don’t go in and out of salvation—today they’re in, but tomorrow they’re out.
You made that crystal clear. I agree 100%.
Where you are going to run into problems with your interpretation is that these people are described as having shared in the Holy Spirit. Now I don’t know what your pneumatology is like but mine says that really the Holy Spirit is THE guarantee that we are saved. It is the down payment/guarantee of what is to come. If we can’t trust that then what can we trust? Now admittedly my pneumatology is rather Pauline and I’m not sure it’s completely compatible with the pneumatology of Hebrews but still the inclusion of the sharing of the Holy Spirit in this passage makes it really difficult for me to come to the conclusion that these people who might have fallen away weren’t at one time considered true believers… even by God.
Way to keep up the controversial topics ; )
Bryan
Stan, I’m depending on the text of Scripture here.
Bryan, my pneumatology is also Pauline, but I really don’t see a biblical fallout between the Hebrew writer and Paul. We have a disclaimer to work with (v.9).
Now in Pauline thought the Holy Spirit is the believer’s seal, showing ownership, authentication, and protection. Now that’s hard to undo.
“I really don’t see a biblical fallout between the Hebrew writer and Paul.”
I don’t either. I believe they both thought that someone could fall off the path of salvation and lose the prize and as long as they were on that path they would be considered believers or saved but once they no longer were running the race then they were no longer believers or saved.
Now that’s hard to undo
“Hard” is not impossible : )
Bryan
Bryan L, I believe we have a clash of our understanding of soteriololy and pneumatology going on here. I don’t believe Paul teaches that a true believer can lose their salvation. And the Hebrew writer adds a disclaimer to 6:4-6 in v. 9.
If you don’t mind, but where does Paul teach that a believer can be lost.
I’m staying out of this one other than to say that I agree with TC.
But just for some fodder here is a list I have for persevering in the faith:
Rom 11:22
Gal 5:2-4
1 Cor 15:1-2
That last one is sketchy.
Jeff
TC: He presupposes they can fail to complete the race of salvation by the warnings and admonitions that he gives (sorry I don’t have the time to look them up and list them although I trust you are familiar with many if not most of them).
BTW I don’t think it’s helpful to use language such as “lost” or “lose” since these don’t seem to be words the NT authors employ in talking about salvation (i.e. lose your salvation). To do so imports other theological baggage and presuppositions into the discussion that causes confusion… I think.
A problem I see is that in arguing that people who clearly seem to be believers and who even experienced the marks of being in the people of God (the gift of the Holy Spirit) were never saved in the first place because they didn’t continue in the faith then you risk taking away any confidence we may have for knowing we in Chrirst saved since there is no evidence we can point to.
Also I don’t see how v. 9 really supports what you are saying. He just seems to be saying that he’s more hopeful that the “Hebrews” will persevere in their faith. Although I haven’t cracked any commentaries open so who knows.
Bryan
I’ll jump in this one!
I like to believe that Paul did write Hebrews, but even if he didn’t, I don’t think this passage supports an “in today, out tomorrow” soteriology, or a “never saved to begin with” soteriology either. It’s talking about apostates. Apostates don’t return to the faith, that’s why they’re apostate! The writer (Paul 
) has better hopes for his audience, not because they’re Christians and the apostates weren’t, but because they “still do” (RSV) work and show love in serving the saints for his sake (vs. 10).
Jeff, you’re already in with those Scripture references.
Bryan L, I understand what you’re saying about those baggage words, if you will.
Well, the warnings and admonitions could point in two directions: (1) because he believes believers could lose their salvation, or (2) because he believes believers could lose rewards and discredit themselves from useful service in the the kingdom. I’m of the latter position.
Heb 6:9 seems to be saying more than what you’re saying. He mentions nothing about persevering in their faith in that verse.
Besides, “we are convinced” represents a perfect tense, conveying a prior conviction of the writer about his readers. I take it as an editorial “we.”
Nick, I’m glad you jumped in. Let’s make a deal to ask Paul about who wrote Hebrews.
Let’s say Paul wrote Hebrews. It seems like he would be contradicting what he already says about one’s salvation in Romans 8, that no one or nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
But let’s say also that Paul teaches that a believer can become unsaved (Bryan L, would that work?), then he’s also saying that such a person could never regain their salvation.
I’m basically of the opinion that the author of Hebrews is offering real warnings, and that true believers cannot lose their salvation. I can’t get around the fact that the situation the author of Hebrews is imagining is that of those who have been “enlightened” and have “tasted of the heavenly gift” and “shared in the holy spirit.” I take this, then to be a real warning: Don’t fall away!
I don’t think this goes against the idea of the perseverance of the saints- mainly because God always has a means to achieve the ends. The elect just don’t come to faith- their must be a means, i.e. the Gospel. The warning passages seem to me to be a means to an end: the glorification of the foreknown and predestined elect. The warnings convict us and move us to persevere in other words.
This doesn’t endanger the disclaimer, because the author knows that those who are truly saved will heed his warning and persevere. I think it is even more apparent in Chapter 10, where he warns those who ‘received the light’ (v. 32, which is linked to the warning before it) to persevere in light of the warnings (v. 35-36).
I’m basically of the opinion that the author of Hebrews is offering real warnings, and that true believers cannot lose their salvation.
I don’t understand how these can be real warnings directed at believers, knowing that they cannot lose their salvation. If real, then they have a smoke screen affect.
But I cannot ignore your use of Heb 10:32, 35-36.
As I said, it seems to be a means by which true believers won’t lose their salvation. The holy spirit can use these warnings to convict us of when we are not walking in obedience.
The situation seems to be the reverse for me. If they aren’t used as a means by which the true believers persevere (and note, of course, that it perseverance!), then I don’t see what the inclusion of the warnings would be for. It certainly doesn’t edify believers if its not meant for them, and seems to have no place in the scriptures. Either way, it seems to be a bit of a smoke screen- we just have to decide which side of the screen we want to view it from: real or hypothetical warnings
TC: There’s two ways to address that:
(1) ἀνασταυροῦντας and παραδειγματίζοντας are both present active participles, so it is impossible to renew the person to repentance for as long as they continue in ‘crucifying’ the Son of God and ‘publicly disgracing’ him, but theoretically it might be possible that they could stop such actions. If that were the case then repentence would be possible.
(2) It really is impossible to renew an apostate to repentence and they can never regain the salvation that they forfeited.
Personally, I go with option #2. That seems to be the plain sense reading of the passage, and it’s not something I have a problem with. Like I said in the original comment, I don’t think this passage supports an “in today, out tomorrow [back in the day after that]” theology. I couldn’t imagine an apostate even seeking forgiveness and repentence.
Yeah my view is closer to Nicks that what is being spoken of is of apostasy. There is no “losing” going on here as much as it is willfully abandoning.
See Nick there are other things we agree on ; )
Bryan
Nick and Bryan L, I understand your point on the present participle. Now if these verses are teaching that true believers can fall away, then it must be in light of 1 Cor 9:27, being disqualified for further service.
Hi TC,
I must confess that I don’t really find these ‘ivory tower’ debates to be helpful, and please don’t take that as a personal criticism!
I find it helpful to look at Hebrews 3-6 and 1 Corinthians 10. If you are baptised then you are within the covenant community, you have been baptised into Christ. Being within the covenant means that you now have covenantal obligations.
Now think back to Israel; at the feast of Tabernacles a covenant renewal ceremony took place wherein Israel was reminded of the covenant Yahweh established with them and they were exhorted to walk in faithfulness to it. At this ceremony they sung Psalm 81 and Psalm 95 (have a quick read of them now!). It is also likely that the Torah psalms originated from this, e.g. Psalm 78:5-8:
“For He established a testimony in Jacob,
And appointed a law in Israel,
Which He commanded our fathers,
That they should make them known to their children;
That the generation to come might know them,
The children who would be born,
That they may arise and declare them to their children,
That they may set their hope in God,
And not forget the works of God,
But keep His commandments;
And may not be like their fathers,
A stubborn and rebellious generation,
A generation that did not set its heart aright,
And whose spirit was not faithful to God.”
Now read Deuteronomy 7:7-11,
“The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. “Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; and He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face. Therefore you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today, to observe them.”
Now as Paul writes, “our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.” That is, they were all within the covenant community, they had all been redeemed from Israel and they were all under the obligation to walk in faithful obedience to the commands of YHWH.
Yet Paul goes on to say, “Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.” We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”
This shows that apostacy is very real, so what is our response. Is it to argue over the perseverence of the saints? No, it is to exhort on another to love and to good works. It is to celebrate Holy Communion, the covenant renewal ceremony of the Church, each week wherein we should be reminded of the covenant and law of God and be exhorted to faithful obedience to it.
We need to be reminded of our duty, and that God will work in us to do of his good pleasure. Moreover we need to recall the words of Peter,
“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins. Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
God bless!
Enns, Peter E. (1993) “Creation and Re-Creation: Psalm 95 and its Interpretation in Hebrews 3:1-4:13,” Westminster Theological Journal 55 pp.255-80.
Mathewson, D. (1999) “Reading Heb 6:4-6 in Light of the Old Testament”, Westminster Theological Journal 61 pp. 209-25.
I’m confused Richard at what is “Ivory Tower” about this debate? What is unhelpful about this particularly “Ivory Tower” debate and why if debates like this one are unhelpful in the manner they were being carried out before you entered it (in an Ivory Tower fashion) did you leave the longest comment with a short bibliography?
Bryan
Bryan,
It may be because we move in different Christian circles but in conservative British evangelicalism these types of discussions boil down to the old Arminianism v. Calvinism debates which I have seen divide congregations, yes indeed Arminians berating the minister who dared preach a Calvinist sermon etc. All very unhelpful, indeed.
Hence debates that degenerate into the old Arminianism v. Calvinism are very unhelpful because it is just one ism verses another, hence ivory tower. If we move from the intellectual sphere to what does Hebrews mean ‘in what I do’ then both Arminians and Calvinists will agree with one another. We are to live holy lives. That is what the writer of Hebrews was writing to exhort his readers to do.
If we focus on the practical implications of the verses then we can all unite, rather than divide when we look at the verses from our systematic theology.
Richard, at some point we have to debate some texts of Scripture. A person’s presuppositions about a particular text are unavoidable. I respect that.
First, allow me to say that I agree with TC and his understanding of Hebrews 6:4-6.
Second, I don’t believe verses 4-5 are addressed to true believers in Christ. These verses describe the person who knows the truth and who comes to the door of salvation and then willfully turns away. A person can be enlightened (etc) and not be truly saved. The “test” of true salvation is final perseverance (Heb 10:39). In fact I would argue that final perseverance as evidence of true salvation is one of the main points the writer of Hebrews, who cannot be Paul btw, makes (Heb 2:1-4, 3:5-6, 3:14, 4:11, 6:1-12, 10:19-39, 12:1-3, 12:14-29).
I think that is what makes the warning passages in Hebrews so frightening. Just because we profess to be saved does not mean we are and there will be plenty of people surprised when they are turned away at the day of judgment (Matt 7:21-23). The Christian life is not, contrary to what many popular teachers claim, a bed of roses on which we can lay down, kick up our feet, and do nothing. We have rest in our relationship with the Lord and if our relationship with the Lord is real we will persevere to the end. If our relationship with the Lord is not real, if we are fooling ourselves and others, then we will fall away at some point and/or be turned away on judgment day. People who think we are “once saved, always saved” and that they can “get saved” and live in sin are deceived (Eph 5:3-7) and their place will be in hell (Rev 21:8).
In Christ,
Martin.
Thanks, Martin. “Perseverance is the test of faith.” I don’t believe if we read Hebrews we can disagree with you on that.
Acknowledging that, is not the best course of action to exhort one another to obedience. Whether a true believer can fall or not is somewhat besides the point, we desire no-one to fall so let’s exhort all to believe and once they profess to believe, exhort them to keep believing!!
[Try chapter 4 of this]
Well, I believe we need to let the text of Hebrews address these issues.
TC, you wrote in comment 3 “I’m depending on the text of Scripture here.” But actually you seem to be depending on the text of TNIV. Now TNIV is usually a great translation, but like any translation it has to make judgment calls e.g. about what the meaning is of a participle. You discussed one such example a few days ago. This is another one.
Here TNIV interprets the present participle in verse 6 as a separate sentence, starting oddly with “To their loss”. But as Nick suggests in comment 14, these participles can quite easily be understood as attendant circumstances to what comes before - remembering that Greek phrase ordering can be very different from what we expect in English. So here are two modified TNIV renderings of verse 6 which might get us closer to the meaning:
The first suggestion implies that this verse is not about ordinary falling away but about a very deliberate and public rejection of Jesus. The second suggests that restoration is possible but only after a real change of behaviour.
TC, with respect, you say that “we need to let the text of Hebrews address these issues” yet you prefix your discussion by stating three “disclaimers” which means you then are limiting your exegesis by these disclaimers.
Which is one of the big reasons that, as I argue, we should just simply step back from the text, ignore the systematics, and obey its warning.
The debate is whether a true believer can fall away, but the true believer is made known by his not falling away, so we need to be exhorting all believers not to fall away. That was Paul’s practice.
Paul did not say; “Well chaps, even though we both know that you can’t fall away I really should tell you to be careful that you don’t fall away, even though you can’t anyway”.
May be I am missing something.
I totally missed some of what Nick was arguing for in comment #14.
The TNIV did correct the NIV’s conditional take on the participle parapesontas, but you think they have messed up on anastaurountas.
With your first option, anastaurountas is seen as a participle of means, while your second option takes it as temporal. Now those options are possible.
But the TNIV’s rendering could actually be correct when we take the sole article tous into consideration, for it governs a series of five participles, which I think should be treated as substantival participles.
Richard, but we cannot ignore presuppositons when approaching such a debated text. I had to add the disclaimers. I see the issue as one of those tensions in Scripture.
Thanks, TC. I don’t say that TNIV is wrong, just that there are alternatives which need to be considered.
I had not compared TNIV with NIV, which shows interesting changes. NIV links the last sentence of verse 6 with what precedes with “because”, with a footnote alternative “while”. I guess the TNIV translators sought to retain this ambiguity by making a separate sentence, but unfortunately ended up leaving it as no more than a disconnected comment.
TC, what is the practical application of Hebrews 6:4-6?
Thanks for the clarification, Peter. I think I missed some of what you were actually saying.
Yeah, the disconnect is there. But how can TNIV translators honor the substantival participle without such disconnect?
You’re correct about “to their loss.” It’s quite interpretive.
Richard, I see the section as a call to perseverance in the faith. I believe a few of the commenters made that point. I agree with them.
TC, I’m not sure if your question was meant to be rhetorical, but here is a possible answer although it does make the sentence long and ungainly:
Peter, that’s a possibility, but your take on the participle seems ambiguous. Should it be understood as temporal, “while”?
Here’s my take:
I’m taking the participle as grounds/cause.
I see the section as a call to perseverance in the faith
With that in mind, does it matter whether Heb 6:4-6 is or is not about true believers? You see, we would disagree over that but we both agree on the practical implications.
That is good, Richard.
This whole discussion is the jist of a major discussion/conversation in presbyterianism today called the Federal Vision. A good bit of NT Wright involved here as well.
We maybe should not be so focused on our personal salvation (being in or out at a particular time) but be focused on persevering if that makes sense.