EPISODE 247 HEBREWS CHAPTER 6 "Don't Fall Away!"

Welcome to Share the Word. As you may have read in the description for Hebrews chapter 6, Pastor Paul Nitz explains that this chapter covers a difficult section of Scripture which has crucial implications. Those implications have to do with your salvation. So now is not the time to do anything other than focus on what Pastor Paul has to say. Hebrews chapter 6. Don't fall away.

Believe it or not, there are reasons we've studied New Testament writings in the order we have on Share the Word, and I hope all of you who've gotten interested enough to listen have, or will, start back at the beginning in our archive you can find at www.sharetheword.org. We addressed easier to understand writings earlier in our series. It's also best to tackle one book at a time, following its message from its first chapter to its last, rather than jumping around. That's the way they were meant to be read, after all, and we suggest you use that format when listening too. Hebrews and Revelation are coming at the end of our series for a reason, honestly, because they are more difficult from an interpretational point of view. If you're just trying to figure out Christianity, Hebrews and Revelation are not the best starting points.

Just as you wouldn't start weightlifting by going to a gym, loading up a bar with 300-pound plates, and asking a couple guys to drop that on your chest, it could not only discourage you from pursuing the sport of weightlifting, might crush you right then and there. Hebrews chapter 6 is an example of a heavyweight section of Scripture, in my view. I'm not going to be dogmatic about applying my personal interpretation of it because people smarter than me understand things better than I do apply this passage pretty differently. When I find out in heaven who actually wrote Hebrews, I have my suspicions who to look for. I'm going to ask them just what they were trying to say in this chapter, and a couple of other spots in their letter as well. As for right now, probably the best I can do is give you two possible ways to interpret it, each of which has its strengths and weaknesses.

Let's read verses 1 through 4 in the very literal Legacy Standard Version. Then we'll get into this. Listen. Therefore, leaving the elementary teachings about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of teaching about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. This we will do if God permits. First, let's talk about what the author meant by elementary teachings.

He says, leaving the elementary teachings about the Christ, that is the Messiah, and then he enumerates several things that he's calling elementary, by which he means things like he thinks elementary school-type students should know, things his readers should consider basic. But did he mean by that Old Testament beliefs, some of which he's been pointing out in previous chapters as illustrations of things which were now completed by Jesus and in the new covenant? Or was he talking about elementary or basic things Christians should be clear on and settled in, New Testament concepts, basic Christian doctrine?

Remembering who this letter was first intended for, that is, people living in a time, a difficult time, when it was safer to turn back to Judaism, the faith of their ancestors, rather than to fully embrace Christianity, I'm pretty sure the elementary teachings he's mentioning here are things his readers were familiar with from their Jewish heritage, things which were part of the Old Testament religion that they were very versed in. Like what? Well, as you heard me read, he lists six things. First, repentance, being sorry about and turning away from sin and, he calls, dead works, and turning to faith in God. The Old Testament, rightly understood, certainly teaches that God was never interested in empty rituals and practices, but real repentance and faith toward Him from the heart.

But the Old Testament teaching on repentance and faith were not complete or mature until Jesus completed them. Old Testament Judaism never had a fully formed understanding of the Messiah and His work, or what He would accomplish when He came here. Repentance and faith toward God were what people in Old Testament times were called to, all right, but that message became more specific and complete once Jesus came and died for our sins. After that, the message became repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work on Calvary, that is, the gospel message. Then he mentions washings and laying on of hands. Some translations say baptisms, but washings is a much better translation of the word.

Baptisms could be misleading. The Old Testament has many rules about ceremonial cleanness that the Jews religiously practiced. Those are likely the washings referred to here. For example, Exodus chapter 30 contains instructions given to Moses as part of how to lay out the tabernacle, the temporary house of worship Israel used in the wilderness and in their early years before there was a permanent temple. It says this: You shall make a laver of bronze with its stand for washing, and you shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it. And Aaron and his sons, that is the priests, shall wash their hands and feet with it.

Whenever they come into the tent of meeting, they shall wash with this water. The washings were a ceremonial way to picture that when these priests approached God, they themselves needed to be spiritually clean. By Jesus' time, as we saw mentioned several times in the Gospels, religious Jews also had this water in their homes. They were always washing themselves and anything they used. It wasn't about hygiene as it was a ceremonial spiritual thing. The washings the Jews practiced for centuries illustrated the spiritual cleansing God was going to provide through the Messiah when He came.

The New Testament teaches that because of what Jesus did, we can be thoroughly washed now, bathed, as Jesus told His disciples in John chapter 13. Paul described it in chapter 3 of his New Testament letter to Titus: When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not by works which we did in righteousness, but according to His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. That, the washing away of our sin through faith in Jesus and being renewed, born again through the power of the Holy Spirit, that is the completion, the perfection of what the Old Testament washings symbolized. Get it? The laying on of hands mentioned in verse 2 is, I believe, a reference to what the Jews did when they brought a sacrificial animal to the tabernacle or temple under the Old Covenant.

Before the priest killed it, the penitent person laid their hands on it, symbolically transferring their sins and guilt onto that animal before it was slain. Moses wrote in Leviticus chapter 1, When any man from among you brings his offering to Yahweh, he shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, that it may be accepted for him, that is, in his place, to make atonement on his behalf. That ritual of sacrifice was an illustration too, picture of how Jesus would one day become the Lamb of God who takes away the world's sin, of how our guilt was transferred onto Him, and He became our sacrifice of atonement when He died on the cross. And the two final things He mentioned are the resurrection from the dead, and there will be a resurrection after people die, and a judgment after that.

The Old Testament doesn't teach a lot on either of those subjects, frankly, but the fact that people would be resurrected and would one day be judged by God at the end of time is mentioned a couple times in the Old Testament. And people who took it seriously, like the Pharisees, for example, definitely believed in those concepts. But the New Testament, of course, describes them much more fully, like in 1 Corinthians 15, which goes into detail about the resurrection of our bodies, when it will happen, even the nature of those new bodies. And New Testament also goes into much more detail about a few different judgments that will happen in the future, things the Old Testament believers were not fully aware of, like the believer's Bema Seat evaluation we've talked about, or the Great White Throne judgment described in Revelation 20.

So to me, the best way to understand the exhortation in the first few verses of chapter 6 is that the author is urging his Jewish readers to decisively leave behind the inferior, partial, illusory beliefs and practices of the Jewish religion because their fulfillment, their completion, was now available through Christ. Christianity is far better than Judaism, to put it in a phrase. So let go of the partial and embrace the whole. Let go of the old covenant and embrace the new. Let go of the shadows and illustrations and embrace the reality. Embrace Jesus as your Messiah and Savior.

That's the best way to understand those opening verses in context in this letter. Huh, that was the easy part. Verse 4 goes on, For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and having fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. The Greek word the author chose to use in chapter 6, verse 6, translated fallen away, from the verb parapipto, is only used this one time in the entire New Testament. So a lot of what the author was concerned about depends on what he meant by fallen away.

Why this section is so controversial is because some take this warning to apply to those who already had become genuine believers, and if that's the case, he's warning that even genuine believers could be at risk of falling away from their saving faith in Christ, as some call it, losing their salvation. But is he addressing real believers, or is he addressing almost believers, we can call them that? He says about those who might be in the situation, they have been enlightened, tasted of the heavenly gift, become partakers of the Holy Spirit, tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.

While some of the best interpreters of the New Testament scripture contend these phrases describe true believers, others say no, he meant people who have come right up to the point of embracing Jesus, following Him, and then turned away, like those Old Testament Jews who came right up to the border of the Promised Land, but then did not have the real faith to follow Moses in. Those who take that second position, that these are not true believers, do so mostly because of other clearer passages in the New Testament that teach that Christians are secure, that once born into God's family, they are protected by His love and power. They argue that spiritual enlightenment is not the same as embracing Christ. Being enlightened just means gaining understanding, they would say. People can understand the gospel without believing it in their hearts.

By the same token, they would argue that tasting is not the same as embracing, personally appropriating, that tasting sounds more like sampling. So this view holds that the author is warning those who have been with the Christians, who were very familiar with the gospel, had been with those who had experienced the Holy Spirit's power, and they had seen it for themselves. With all that exposure to the truth, still rejecting and turning away from Christ, there is no more salvation available to them because they would, in effect, be rejecting and crucifying Jesus all over again, just as the leaders in Jerusalem had done, who had seen more than enough to believe but rejected Him.

Those who interpret it this way might call to the witness stand someone like Judas Iscariot, who for three years was with Christ, certainly was enlightened, certainly understood Jesus' claims, certainly experienced and saw the Holy Spirit at work many times through His miracles and so on, yet somehow never personally believed into Him. The other side comes back, though, and says, Partakers of the Holy Spirit? That sounds pretty strong to us. And how about another biblical character like the Apostle Paul's co-worker Demas? At one point, Paul clearly considered him a key ministry partner. But later on, when the tide turned against Christianity and Paul was imprisoned, he sadly wrote to Timothy, Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world.

Demas was a real Christian, they would argue, a Christian leader and a coworker of Paul's, but who decided under pressure to abandon his faith because he loved his own life more. Do you get the dilemma? It's not just theological and theoretical either. It's also a very real personal question. What Christian has not wondered at some point, could I somehow lose my salvation? Could I, or have I, disappointed God so badly that he would turn me out?

I know I have. I'm sure some of you at this point wish that I would solve this controversy once and for all. If so, I'm about to disappoint you. I have my own personal understanding on this question, but honestly, I'm not 100% sure it's right, and so I'm not going to be dogmatic about it. Just as when we came to Romans 9, 10, and 11 and I described different views about election and predestination, very learned and faithful interpreters of Scripture have reached different conclusions trying to interpret that passage. I believe that's the case here as well.

So I think it is a legitimate interpretation of Hebrews 6 to say those in the author's view were some who had received the word about Jesus with enthusiasm and joined the Christian movement and participated in the early church, but when persecution arrived, on top of the ongoing pressure from family and friends still in Judaism, they shrank back. They fell away because they really never fully bought in, never fully gave their hearts to Christ as Messiah and Lord of their lives. But I also think it's a legitimate interpretation to say those in the author's view here were genuine believers who, over time, or for the same reasons and maybe for more reasons, like the ones we discussed in chapter two about drifting, reached a point where they decided they no longer believed, and they turned away from Christ and against Christianity.

The big word is apostatize, to willfully reject things you once believed in, to abandon your faith. But here's what's important to see. I hope you see this. Something that is true whichever of those views you adopt, once those in either situation reached the point of renouncing Christ, rejecting the truth they've had every opportunity and reason to believe, it is, the author says, impossible. Impossible to renew them again to repentance. Impossible.

Definitely a strong word. It precludes the idea that a person can be saved and then mess up and be lost, then repent and be saved again, and then backslide and be lost, and so on and so on, and so go through life not knowing where you stand with God. God never, ever wants us to be unsure about whether we are saved. He wants us to rest in Christ's finished work, as we said a couple lessons ago. Salvation, remember, is not gained by our performance, and so won't be lost by our poor performance. The notion that someone can lose their salvation comes from not understanding very well how we get it in the first place.

We get it by repenting and believing into Jesus. It's based on His performance, not ours. And we add to that only faith. It's our faith in Him that justifies us in God's sight. But the question remains, can someone once justified, once a part of God's family, later themselves intentionally renounce their faith, become an apostate, and be lost? I can think of some pretty prominent examples which make me think the answer is yes.

But only God knows if their faith was ever real in the first place. This is a question I've wondered about many times. Not that I would ever reach that decision. I'm fully persuaded in who Jesus was, that He did what the Bible says He did, and my confidence is wholly in Him as my Savior. But I see quite a few people these days talk about deconstructing. That's the term they use, deconstructing their Christian faith.

What they mean by that terminology is that they are rethinking, reexamining everything they were taught and at one time believed. That exercise actually could be beneficial if your Christian faith has been shallow, kind of leached off of others. I think many young people go through this process who grow up in Christian homes and youth groups, but then at some point in adulthood start questioning, sifting through what they really believe for themselves. So thankfully, some of them come out of that experience with stronger, more personal faith. I've seen that with a couple of my own children. But some do just the opposite, and deconstruction over time becomes deconversion, apparently.

They turn away from Christ and adopt the view that Christianity is a myth, is anti-intellectual, or whatever, and announce they are no longer Christians, or they ever true believers. Again, the answer is only God knows. The verses that immediately follow verses seven and eight are something of a parable, and probably came to the author's mind from one or more of Jesus' parables. He writes here, Ground that drinks the rain which falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those who till it receives a blessing from God. But if the ground yields thorns and thistles, it is unfit, close to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. I can think of at least three parables of Jesus to which he might be alluding.

The idea in each of them is that real faith, saving faith, like good soil, will show itself over time by what it produces. Real faith produces fruit, good things that please God. We cannot ever see into anyone else's heart. We know that, and know for sure what they really believe, whether they're all in on Jesus Christ or not. But we can, to some extent, see what's growing in their life's soil, whether there's fruit growing, the evidence of real faith. Ultimately, however, it's much more important that we examine ourselves to be sure we are in the faith and that we are genuine followers of Christ.

Is the evidence there in you? Remember all our lessons in 1 John on the tests of life. All this brings up questions for you. I hope you will review those episodes. I watched a movie recently about World War II made by Germans, interestingly enough. It followed the lives of five young friends from Berlin through the war years.

One of the five was a young Jewish man named Viktor, who, to the dismay of his Gentile friends, was arrested when the Nazis began their final solution to rid Germany of Jews. He was loaded onto a cattle car with many others, train headed to a death camp. One young woman in that car knew where it was going and the outcome there. She had a knife that was hidden in her boot, and she started digging at the seam between two boards on the train's floor. Viktor, believing her story about what was ahead, started helping her, and taking turns they dug feverishly until they were able to pull up one board, then two, then three, until there was a hole in the bottom of the train floor and they could see the tracks and ground passing beneath them. It seemed too dangerous to everyone else on that train car.

No one joined them, but Victor and that young woman dropped through the hole, hit the ground, lay still until the train passed over them. It was the only possible escape, and they took it, and they lived. Regardless of what the author of Hebrews 6 meant, his warning for some who were close to embracing Jesus as their Messiah and Savior and were now thinking seriously about turning away, or to others who had been Christians for a while, apparently believers, but now under pressure were thinking of abandoning their faith. That question could be debated all day. But what is clear is that to put yourself in either situation, to willfully reject Christ, would make it impossible to be saved because He's the only way. How will we escape if we neglect so great salvation?

the author has already asked in this epistle. We won't because there is salvation in no one else. There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. The writer of Hebrews is pleading with his readers, don't turn away from the only way of escape. Jesus is the only one who can save you. He is the only way to life.

Thanks for listening. This is Paul for Share the Word. One of the things I enjoy most about our teachers is the way that they present the information, the way they break things down, the storylines, even the jokes. I'm a picture guy, and there's never been a chapter that they haven't painted a vibrant and clear picture of the big idea, which made it easier to understand. This was such a rich chapter filled with practical and important insight. For me, my takeaway: God never wants us to be unsure as to whether we're saved.

Simple, right? But as simple and clear as that thought is, it's been a topic of debate throughout history. The other point, among so many that Paul made, that resonated with me, he said the notion of the fact that we can lose our salvation comes from not understanding how we get it in the first place. I said to someone the other day, I know, without any doubt, that when I die, I'm going to heaven. And he said, I wish I could be that sure. It broke my heart.

Are you that sure? And if not, why? Let's talk, please. Contact us at info at sharetheword.org or contact Paul directly at paul at sharetheword.org. Until next time.