Another Case of Eternal Security
Every Christian is called to grow to maturity in Christ. But the fact is, not every Christian is maturing. Today’s passage urges us to go beyond the basics of the Christian faith with assurance of salvation and the certainty of God’s promises.
Transcript
Warning labels usually come with the threat of consequences. Tobacco products, for example, have a label on them warning that they will cause cancer. Over-the-counter drugs carry warning labels of certain side effects like drowsiness or dizziness. What you do not find on products is a positive encouragement. A bag of apples does not have a label that reads, “Eat these for the improvement of your health.”
Well, the Bible has both warnings and promises. And as we set sail today into chapters 5 and 6 of Hebrews, we find both.
The author begins by observing a spiritual problem. He writes in Hebrews 5:11, “We have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.” The word for “dull” indicates they were spiritually hard of hearing. They were not really listening. It was a selective hearing problem. It was sort of like when your wife asks you to take out the trash; you do not seem to be able hear those words unless they are repeated a few more times.
Well, that is happening here. These believers need to be retaught the simple truths of the faith. As the author tells them in verse 12, they are like babies who still “need milk, not solid food.”
The solid food represents the deeper truths of the Christian life—truths that produce spiritual depth and the ability to discern between good and evil. These truths are described as being for mature believers “who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice” (verse 14).
When I was twelve years old, there was nothing I disliked more than to hear my mother say, “Stephen, it’s time to start practicing your piano.” I took piano lessons for eight years and finally stopped—and for the same reason you might have stopped taking piano lessons: you did not want to practice. I am not a concert pianist today for one reason: I stopped practicing the piano.
The fact is, discernment is not guaranteed for the Christian. It comes only to those who are willing to practice God’s Word in their daily lives.
In the first two verses of Hebrews 6, we have a call to spiritual maturity. As important as milk is to a baby, that baby will eventually grow up to eat solid food. The immature believers the author is addressing here need to go beyond the “milk” of basic, foundational truths in order to grow spiritually.
In these opening verses of the chapter, we are given a quick list of some foundational teachings such as repentance and faith, as well as washings and “the laying on of hands”—which were Old Testament practices the Jewish believers need to distinguish from New Testament worship. The list ends with “the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.”
Some of these are crucial doctrines, but they are basic to the Christian life. Get them nailed down in your mind and heart, and move on to more truths from God’s Word. These believers, though, were not yet standing on these foundational truths. They were as spiritually unsteady as a baby learning to walk.
The readers are then given a solemn warning in the next few verses. Now this passage has given rise to a number of interpretations. I just want to read verses 4-6 and then make some observations I think will help us understand what the writer is saying.
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.
First, the writer is describing the experience of genuine Christians. He says they have been spiritually enlightened. They have “tasted”—experienced—the “heavenly gift” of salvation. They have “shared in the Holy Spirit.” Beloved, those are experiences only a Christian can have.
But then he speaks of believers falling away and completely rejecting Christ. In that case, the writer says that it is impossible for them to come to repentance again.
Now some say this passage means Christians can lose their salvation. But if that is the case, this passage would also be teaching that it would be impossible for them to be saved again. I do not know anyone who believes you can lose your salvation who also believes that you cannot be saved again.
I believe the author is presenting a hypothetical case. And it is hypothetical because no genuine Christian will ever repudiate and reject Jesus Christ and want to return to the kingdom of darkness ruled by Satan. That would be like a blind person who suddenly could see deciding later he would rather be blind. It is not going to happen.
It is true that some who appear to be true Christians depart from the faith. But John the apostle explains that they go out from us because they are really not of us (1 John 2:19). In other words, those who say they have Christ but then want the world and the devil never had Jesus to begin with.
So, what is the point of making this hypothetical case? I believe the writer is emphasizing how utterly foolish it was for these Jewish believers to even consider turning back to Judaism with its familiar practices and traditions. Wouldn’t that be a repudiation of Christ and His work? And if, hypothetically, that could take place, they would be leaving Christ and joining with those who effectively crucify Jesus all over again (verse 6). And beloved, crucifying Jesus all over again is something no genuine Christian can do or would ever want to do.
The Jewish believers need to persevere in faith, trust God’s promises, and look nowhere else. Their security is in Him.
The writer gives them the example of Abraham here in the concluding verses of chapter 6. Despite many failures, Abraham believed God, persevered, and inherited God’s promised blessings.
Abraham was not saved by his faithfulness but by the faithful promises of God. Abraham was not going to heaven because he was perfect, but because God promised—and the same is true for you and me today. I love what verse 18 says: “It is impossible for God to lie.”
Salvation is a gift, received by faith alone in Christ alone. So how secure are we today in the promise of God that Christ is our ticket to heaven?
Well, the writer of Hebrews cannot make it any clearer than here in verse 19: “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain.”
These Jewish believers would have immediately understood this word picture. In the first century, sailors would carry their ship’s anchor ahead of the ship, in a small boat, and then drop the anchor on the shore so that the ship out there would not drift, even as the waves and currents pushed against it.[1]
Verse 19 tells us that the anchor of our souls has already been taken behind the curtain—a reference to the Holy of Holies, or Most Holy Place—that is, into the very presence of God.
But that is not all. The boat that carried the anchor was called a “forerunner.” The same Greek word used here for Jesus Christ.[2]
Let me read it again: “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain.” Then verse 20 adds that this is “where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf.”
Jesus has already secured your place in heaven. The anchor of your soul has already, as it were, been deposited on the shore of heaven, in the presence of God. You cannot get any more secure than that.
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