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Well, if you would, turn in the scriptures, we’ll be reading, we’ll be looking at Hebrews
chapter 6, verses 4 through 12, if you would remain standing while we read God’s Word that
we’ll be looking at this evening, Hebrews chapter 6, verses 4 through 12.
This is God’s Word.
For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted
the heavenly gift, and shared in the Holy Spirit, and tasted the goodness of the Word
of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them
again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm
and holding him up to contempt.
For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to
those whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.
But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless, near to being cursed, and its end
is to be burned.
Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things
that belong to salvation.
For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work, and the love that you have shown for
his name, in serving the saints, as you still do.
And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness, to have the full assurance
of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through
faith and patience, inherit the promises.
Amen.
You may be seated.
Let’s pray.
Our Father in Heaven, we would ask that you would open up your word to us.
You would give us your spirit to hear it with ears and hearts of faith, that we would see
what you have for us this evening, and that you would bless it to our understanding, that
we might also incorporate it into our hearts and lives.
We pray that you would do this to your glory.
In your name we ask this.
Amen.
Have you ever had a warning that came too late?
Have you ever been told to be careful after you stubbed your toe or hit your head?
Thanks for the warning, but it’s a bit too late.
In most cases it’s merely good fodder for comedians to make us laugh at our own foolish
habits.
But I think that sometimes people can read the warnings in scripture the same way.
God’s sovereign, and he’s planned out history, so when he predicts destruction, isn’t it
too late?
I certainly used to struggle with this as I read through my Bible in high school, however
after further study I’ve come to see that God’s predictions of judgment have a different
purpose.
They’re given as warnings in order to prevent the very outcome that they predict.
Now there’s a lot happening in Hebrews 6, and we don’t have time to get into everything
this evening.
Our passage is too big and too controversial to cover in one message, so we’re going to
return and look more closely at the warning in more detail, and the issues that are raised
with that next time.
But before we get into the weeds, I think it’s important that we look at this warning
in context, in the context of this passage, and this warning in the context of the rest
of scripture.
So this evening we’re going to get an overview of what’s going on and circle back next time
to dig into some of the specifics.
We’re going to look at what this passage has to say first by looking at the warning briefly.
So number one, the perilous position of apostasy.
Then the pattern in scripture of this in the providential purpose of prophetic warnings.
And finally the ending note in our passage in a peculiarly precious reassurance.
Let’s begin.
Number one, the perilous position of apostasy.
We find this in verses four through six.
For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted
the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the
word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them
again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm
and holding him up to contempt.
Verse four begins, it is impossible.
That word impossible is the first word that you encounter if you’re reading it in Greek.
It’s meant to stand out and stop us in our tracks a little bit.
But it’s not to the middle of verse six that we finally get the verb that he’s talking
about, to restore again to repentance.
This is the central thought, the impossibility of the restoration to repentance.
And that’s what has given people so much difficulty.
Some people resolve the difficulty by saying, well clearly Hebrews six is saying, even believers
are never safe from losing their salvation.
But this teaching clashes with other parts of scripture, which assure us that those who
are elected by God will eventually also be glorified, that no one can snatch the believers
out of the Father’s hand.
So one way to resolve the difficulty would be to say that Hebrews four through six is
not intending to describe believers.
But I’m not sure that that can be easily done either.
So let’s consider the descriptions briefly that we have.
First he says, once been enlightened.
This phrase shows up in Hebrews chapter 10, 32 as well.
If we look back, if we look forward to chapter 10, verse 32, we find this.
But recall the former days when after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle
with sufferings.
And he goes on to describe their situation.
The author of Hebrews is describing the former days when they were enlightened.
He’s reminding his readers of a time in their past when things were hard, but they willingly
endured that hardship because they were by faith looking to that future reward.
And there’s nothing to suggest in that passage that being enlightened means anything less
than embracing Christ by faith.
The word itself can mean illuminated by natural light or metaphorically by spiritual light,
which would be a clear reference to conversion.
Paul uses the same term in Ephesians 1, 18, where he describes it’s his prayer that believers
would receive further illumination to understand God and his love more deeply.
But in that passage, if anything, it means more the conversion, not less.
So it seems clear that Hebrews intends to speak of conversion in once been enlightened.
And the passage goes on to pile up the images, tasted the heavenly gift, shared in the Holy
Spirit, tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come.
All of these things appear to be presented as synonyms referring to the same reality.
These are the ways that we would expect believers to be described.
I don’t think we need to go through all of the different passages to demonstrate that.
The scriptures don’t teach that there are unbelievers who also share in the Holy Spirit
in this way.
Now it’s true that some of the descriptors by themselves could be taken as those who
want to hang around the edges of Christianity, such as tasting the heavenly gift or the powers
of the age to come.
You might think of the way that Jesus said in Matthew 7, 21 and 23 to those that come
to him.
He says,
Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who
does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast
out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?
And I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
So we could imagine this description applying to some of those.
Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, presumably healed the sick and cast out demons.
This might be described as tasting the powers of the age to come.
And I think if that were the only descriptor, we might have warrant to see that people described
by this in Hebrews chapter 6 might not have true faith.
However, with the piling up of descriptors, some of which are unmistakable references
to conversion, it seems clear that we’re not meant to doubt the genuineness of those described.
I think whatever difficulties that we find in this text, we must resolve them another
way.
This is where we see the challenge that so many others experience from this text.
If the writer were less clear about the impossibility of repentance or the enlightened sharing in
the Holy Spirit, it might help us.
But how are we to think about these categories and these terms?
Well, in 1 John chapter 2, verse 19, we have a descriptor.
1 John 2, 19 says, They went out from us, but they were not of us.
He’s speaking of the Antichrist.
And if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.
But they went out, then it might be clear that they are not of us.
So 1 John 2, 19 gives us a nice clear category of those that leave the faith.
They were not really in in the first place.
But Hebrews chapter 6 description of a believer who leaves has left many wondering what’s
going on here.
But if we consider carefully the criterion that John uses to determine who was one of
the Antichrist saints, it is their final position.
Nothing about their initial state made it clear that they were truly among the believers.
And I think one of the things that Hebrews 6 is doing is making that same point.
I think one way to understand what’s happening is that from our perspective, there’s often
no difference between those that fall away in the end and those that don’t until they
do.
Jonathan Edwards famously makes much of this in his book, Religious Affections.
I know of many Christians who have been rattled by this work as Edwards documents the myriad
of ways an ultimately unregenerate heart might deceive itself and mimic true faith.
But we should remember that introspection is unable to offer assurance.
It’s not that there’s no place for introspection in the Christian life.
We should look within ourselves to ask God to search our hearts.
But searching and finding good or evil within our hearts is not determined of our salvation.
If we find only good within our hearts, we may need to consider ourselves more closely
and ask if we’re being blinded by pride.
But if we find only evil, that’s still no cause for despair.
Our salvation is not based on our righteousness.
It never was and never will be.
Our hope for salvation rests outside ourselves on the work of Jesus, who both died to take
the guilt for our sins and perfectly obeyed to merit salvation on our behalf.
You should expect to see evidence of the Holy Spirit making you look more like Jesus.
But scripture never tells us to base our assurance on our estimation of his work in our life.
We should expect to see the Holy Spirit’s activity in our lives.
But our assurance that we are in Christ rests upon looking outside ourselves to the powerful
Savior.
Now there’s more to consider in terms of this warning and its implication for our Christian
lives, so we’ll look at it more in depth next time.
For this evening, I want to take a moment to look at this kind of warning in the context
of the whole of scriptures.
So number two, the providential purpose of prophetic warnings.
Now I think one of the reasons that many people are so baffled by a warning like we have in
Hebrews 6 is because they’re unfamiliar with the Old Testament, especially the prophetic
books.
Some of the least read and least understood books of the Bible are the prophetic books.
Not only do they mention strange names and places and not always fill out the historical
context of their writing, but they’re also so emotional.
God expresses intense anger and hatred using heated rhetoric and graphic imagery sometimes.
Other times it’s embarrassingly intimate and tender language.
It presents a view of God that doesn’t show up as much in anywhere else of scripture,
so it can be hard to know what to do with.
However, I think the book of Hebrews and our passage in particular is following that same
pattern with this intense warning followed by very comforting reassurance.
Now at grace, Pastor Willauer has been working his way through the book of Isaiah and we’ve
already seen some of those harsh warnings come out in the morning messages.
The question that a lot of people have is how are we to take those warnings that we
find in scripture?
Isaiah 9 verses 8 through 12 that we looked at just a few weeks ago.
The Lord has sent a word against Jacob and it will fall on Israel and all the people
will know, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria who say in their pride and arrogance
of heart, the bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones, the sycamores have
been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place.
But the Lord raises the adversaries of resin against him and stirs up his enemies.
The Syrians on the east and the Philistines on the west devour Israel with open mouth.
For all this, his anger is not turned away and his hand is stretched out still.
Even Christians often struggle to understand what to make of this harsh word of judgment.
These words of judgment are intended to provoke a response in those that hear them.
Turn if you would to your Bibles in Jeremiah chapter 18.
Jeremiah chapter 18, God describes his intentions regarding prophetic warnings in general.
I encourage you to turn to this to see for yourself.
Jeremiah chapter 18 verses 7 through 10.
Jeremiah 18, the Lord says, if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom
that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation concerning which I
have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.
And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and
plant it, and if it does evil in my sight not listening to my voice, then I will relent
of the good that I had intended to do to it.
So we see God’s intention in sending these proclamations of judgment.
The very proclamation of judgment is spoken with the implication of mercy.
Even without God’s constant offers of mercy to those who repent that often accompany the
threats of judgment, God’s proclamations of judgment are themselves merciful.
If you’ve heard the story of Jonah that we just read, Jonah and Nineveh, we have no indication
that Jonah said anything other than to tell Nineveh that their destruction was imminent.
His simple message was 40 days and Nineveh will be destroyed.
Of course, implicitly he was saying, and I’ll be glad.
It doesn’t sound very merciful.
But even Jonah tried to avoid telling Nineveh that judgment because he knew that that warning
would give them the opportunity to repent and to avoid that very predicted destruction.
When God intends to destroy a nation, he doesn’t send a warning.
In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, there was no warning.
He had already determined to bring judgment, and so he gave them no warning, simply removed
Lot and his family and rained down fire from heaven.
Jesus even says in Matthew 11, 23, that if Sodom had been warned, they would have repented.
When God warns of impending judgment, he’s implicitly offering a way out to those that
repent and call upon him for mercy.
We’ll look more closely at the language of impossibility in Hebrews 6 in our passage,
but when we consider this warning in light of the rest of scripture, we see the intended
response.
Fatalistically throwing up one’s hands at the prospect of divine judgment is not the
response of faith.
God tells us that he has planned all things from beginning to end, but a saving response
to God’s declaration of certain judgment is always a repentant cry for mercy, which God
has made clear he is eager to give.
So with this warning in Hebrews 6, before we get caught up in what it means for believers
to fall away and it being impossible to bring them back, we need to understand the fact
that this dire warning is meant to provoke saving faith and repentance.
Only those who fear this judgment will respond in faith and repentance.
There are others who will simply read it, explain it away, scoff at it, and it is precisely
these that will find it to be an accurate prediction.
But in the prophets, the stern warnings are rarely by themselves.
They are almost always surrounded by tender words of comfort, almost in the next breath.
Now this does not reflect an oscillating God who can’t make up his mind, rather it reflects
the need of God’s people for warnings and comfort.
It’s quite common for Christian communities to fail to appreciate one of these.
There’s some churches and church leaders that are afraid to warn their people, believing
that fear of eternal judgment has no place in our Christianity.
On the other side are those that seem only to warn, even teaching that being assured
of your salvation is antithetical to the Christian faith.
All human wisdom thinks that warnings are too harsh on the one hand and comfort is
too kind on the other.
But God knows best.
If we look briefly at Isaiah 1, we see this.
God warns harshly but comforts tenderly.
One of the most tender passages we might think of is Isaiah chapter 1 verse 18.
Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord, though your sins are like scarlet, they
shall be as white as snow.
Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
But this is preceded by Isaiah 1, 14, and 15, where God says, your new moons, your appointed
feast my soul hates.
They have become a burden to me.
I’m weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you.
Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood.
So we have God giving warning but offering comfort and assurance.
God’s pattern in the prophets is to couple harsh warnings with tender comfort and that’s
what we see in our passage in Hebrews 6.
So let’s consider thirdly a peculiarly precious reassurance.
Many people come to Hebrews 6 and get so caught up in verses 4 through 6 that they
fail to see that verse 9 is part of the same thought.
Hebrews chapter 6 verse 9, though we speak in this way, yet in your case beloved we feel
sure of better things, things that belong to salvation.
The author is aware that he spoke very harshly in a way that might even cause his listeners
to be questioning their own salvation.
So he reassures them that he has no doubts of their genuine faith.
In the Greek this is even more clear because he emphasizes this by placing his concession
at the end of the sentence.
We might rephrase it more literally, we are sure of better things in your case beloved,
things that belong to salvation even though I spoke in that harsh way.
The point is the writer wants to absolutely banish the thought from their minds that he
thinks that they have committed this apostasy.
He does not consider them to have fallen away.
Chapter 6 in Hebrews is not the first time that he’s warned his readers.
He’s been warning them ever since chapter 2 about not drifting or not falling away and
the serious consequences that would result.
In chapter 6 the warning reaches a climax, but notice that he follows that up with an
even stronger reassurance of his readers own salvation.
While 4-6 might be one of the most troubling warnings in the New Testament, it is followed
up by verse 9, one of the strongest reassurances.
Now it can be easy to think that the reassurance in verse 9 blunts the force of his prior warning.
But when we remember from our previous point that the purpose of judgment in scripture
is to prevent the predicted outcome, then it makes more sense.
It’s also important to remember that while the gospel must be proclaimed within the context
of bad news, the bad news of God’s judgment against our sin, the gospel itself is good
news.
It’s the news that God loved the world.
It’s a message of hope and reassurance that even the most vile and wretched sinner might
be clothed, become blameless, clothed with divine righteousness.
Deformed Christians like to talk a lot about God’s covenant and covenant theology.
At its core covenant theology is about the fact that when God makes a promise to make
you his child and his bride, you can rest in it.
You can trust him to fulfill it.
There’s no breaking it.
This is the pattern that we see in Hebrews 6.
There are dire consequences for leaving, but take comfort and find assurance in God’s unchanging
love for you.
He’s got you.
The writer cites his ground for confidence in the deeds of faith working through love.
Verse 10, for God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown
for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do.
Jesus told his disciples that they would be distinguished by their love for one another.
And the writer of Hebrews has observed this in his readers’ lives.
It’s not a one and done thing either.
He sees it ongoing.
As you still do, he says, this is continuing among them and gives him confidence that they
have a real heart change.
This is not a meriting of salvation.
This is a manifestation of the good works which Ephesians 10 says God prepared beforehand
for his children to walk in them.
God notices.
The writer is saying the work and love are evidence of a deeper change which God is observing
as well.
God notices.
The Bible’s clear.
We can’t merit salvation by our works because we can only ever do truly good works after
we are saved.
Truly good works of love can only come from a transformed, Holy Spirit indwelt, faith-filled
heart.
But it’s a mistake to think that since good works can’t merit salvation, they deserve
to be ignored.
The works of love that the saints do are glorious things that have been prepared beforehand
for them to walk in.
God doesn’t prepare meaningless tasks for his people.
So there’s a reward that God gives to those who serve him.
Revelation speaks of crowns, white linen, various other rewards that are given to God’s
saints in response to their obedience.
And we see that in verses 11 and 12, the writer has this final reward in view.
Look at 11 and 12.
And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness, to have the full assurance
of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish.
But imitators of those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises.
We mentioned last time how this word sluggishness ties in with the same Greek word which is
translated dull in Hebrews 5, verse 11.
The writer of Hebrews makes his intention absolutely explicit in verse 11 and 12.
He told them in verse 9, he doesn’t actually doubt their salvation.
But his point in his warning has been to ensure that they don’t fall.
He doesn’t want them to think that they can coast their way into heaven.
In chapters 3 and 4, he talked about how even those who appeared to be part of the
covenant community missed out because they never had faith in the first place.
But here in chapters 5 and 6, he’s further stressing the importance of believers to maintain
earnestness, intentionality, to pay attention.
Jesus in the gospels gives the analogy of falling asleep and not being ready when he
returns.
The apostle Paul picks up this imagery as well in several of his letters.
I think that’s what’s in view with our writer, earnestness, stay awake.
That’s what it’s in view in the term sluggishness and earnestness.
The sluggishness is opposite of earnest.
The writer of Hebrews has intended chapter 6, verses 4 through 8, to be like a bucket
of cold water, a wake-up call, a slap in the face.
But then he offers them a warm towel to dry off while he reminds them of his intention
to wake them up.
He says, now that you’re awake, stay awake.
Don’t take your salvation for granted, but don’t doubt it either.
Just like all God’s warnings all throughout the Old Testament prophets, the warning here
in chapter 6 of Hebrews is intended to induce repentance and head off rebellion.
But the tender, comforting reassurance that follows the warning also follows the pattern
of God’s prophets and serves the same end of preserving God’s saints, keeping them
in the fold.
God doesn’t just hedge his people in with threats.
He draws them in with tender bonds of love, as preeminently seen in the gospel.
He freely gave his son so that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.
He intends his people to earnestly embrace him in love, not maintain their commitment
to him purely in trembling terror.
God is a covenant God.
He’s made promises, and he intends for his people to inherit them, and as such, he will
preserve them to the very end.
Amen.
Let’s pray.
Our Father in Heaven, we thank you that though you warn us of the danger of being outside
Christ, there being no hope for salvation, yet you also comfort.
You speak tenderly.
You say, such as Isaiah 1, 18, let’s make a deal.
You have sins.
Let me wash you clean in the gospel.
So Lord, we ask that you would comfort our hearts.
You would cause us to tremble at the warnings in repentance, but believe your reassurances.
Pray that you would do this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Well, in response, let’s turn in our hymnals to 432, By Grace I’m Saved, and let’s stand
as we sing.