Jennifer Rothnie Supporter Housewife, Artist, Perpetually Curious

In Heb 6:1-6, the author is speaking to Christians seeking to grow into maturity (Heb 6:1-3). 

They have seen the light (II Cor 4:6), ate of the heavenly gift (John 6:33), shared in the Holy Spirit (I Cor 12:13, II Peter 1:4, Eph 3:6, Heb 3:14, Col 1:12, Phil 1:7, Eph 4:4, etc), tasted the goodness of the word of God (Psalm 34:8) shared in spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12:4), and have repented (Acts 2:38).

These believers *should* have had a good handle on their Christian faith by now (yet are still struggling with the basics). As such, the author gives them a dire warning: that there is no "do over" if one repents and is baptized in Christ, but then later rejects Christ, effectively returning to slavery to sin and rejecting all the promises of God.

In Heb 6:4, the word for 'fall away' is 'parapipto.' Parapipto literally means 'to fall from close beside,' that is, to desert something you were once a part of or to apostatize.

It is also important to note the exact sequence of the verses here in Heb 6:4-6. The warning to the believers is about others who were, like them, believers - but fell away. Specifically, "For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit....and then having fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to a state of repentence."

There is nothing hypothetical in this warning - for those who had received the Holy Spirit and were believers, but then "having fallen away," it is impossible [at least for preaching] to renew them to repentance. 

[Side note: Beware of translations adding the word 'if' to Heb 6:6, such as 'if they should fall away' - as there is no 'if' or other conditional in the Greek manuscripts.]

To defect from Christ, falling away from a position of relationship with Him, is nothing short of the willful rejection of faith in the covering blood of Christ. It's not merely struggling with sin, addiction, selfishness, rebelliousness, stagnating, backsliding, doubting God, being angry with God, or other pitfalls Christians often fall into, but rather deliberately rejecting salvation by faith and in so doing reverting to our former state before Christ - without the spirit, slave to sin, under condemnation. 

Jude 1:22, I Tim 1:18-20, Luke 15:11-31, Luke 8:13, Heb 10:26-31, and other passages give examples of these 'temporary' believers. II Peter 2:20-22 goes so far as to say that it would have been better for these people to have never had true knowledge (relationship) with Christ then it is for them to have escaped the world by knowing Christ only to turn their backs on the gospel and return to the world. To receive Christ, but then later reject Him and trample underfoot Christ's blood (Heb 10:26-9), is to fall away from faith, relationship with Christ, and all the promises of God through the Holy Spirit.

These former believers, once begotten again in Christ as new creations (1 Peter 1:3, Gal 6:15) deliberately died to Christ, uprooting themselves from the source of life.

There are several reasons a believer might defect from Christ back to the world, such as love of sin or fear of persecution, but the in Heb 6 was that some converts were seeking to return to being under the law, rather than under grace. However, for a Christian to reject the idea that faith in Christ is what saves and instead seek the fulfillment of God's promises through the law can only bring condemnation, for the law has no power to save. (Heb 7:18-22.) Under the law, we all stand condemned.

If someone enters, but then rejects, the new covenant, then they also reject the seal of the Holy Spirit and Jesus as their guarantor. They cannot claim any of the promises of God, such as eternal life, for they no longer have faith, and God only wills that those who believe (continuously, not in the past) in Christ receive eternal life (John 3:13-18.)

March 20 2017 • 22 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report

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