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, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. (Hebrews 6:4-6)
I believe in positive preaching that, like prophecy, is designed to strengthen, comfort and encourage. But there is also a time to issue warnings to the body of Christ. Hebrews is a letter both of encouragement and warning. To set the context, 30-40 years have passed since the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Persecutions had broken out throughout the Roman Empire. Several decades had passed and Jesus had not yet returned. Pressure from Jewish friends and families who still kept the Law of Moses was probably applied daily to abandon this “Jesus sect” and return to the Law.
In the context of those things, there were some believing Jews who were beginning to fall away from the church and drift back to the Law of Moses and the temple services in Jerusalem. Something in us tends to want something more tangible, more concrete, more about us than faith sometimes offer. These believers were beginning to drift away from the truth that we are saved by grace though faith in Jesus and by no works of our own. They liked a temple they could touch and smell, sacrifices and “good works” that seemed to put them in control of their relationship with God, and a priesthood that could be religious for them. Although, the law enslaved men, they wanted to go back to the Law like some in the days of Moses had wanted to go back to slavery in Egypt.
In the face of that “falling away,” the writer of Hebrews penned the warning above. There are only a few things in the New Testament that are deemed impossible, but this letter lists one of those. The writer says that when a person has been enlightened (when they have been taught the truth); when they have tasted the goodness of God and his salvation and experienced the Holy Spirit and his power…if they fall away…it is impossible for that person to be brought back to repentance.
I don’t believe that the writer is telling us that God won’t receive us again, if we repent. I believe the warning is that our hearts can become so hardened and so indifferent to the prompting of the Spirit, that there is a point beyond which we will not and cannot repent under any condition. This letter warns us that we can cross a point of no return in our faith. It may not be a moment we are aware of. We may not recognize hoe hardened or indifferent our heart has become after we have quenched and grieved the Spirit for so long. Many will take up an offense toward God because something in their life did not go as they planned or because some prayer went unanswered. That offense turns to bitterness and the bitterness to unbelief. They write God out of their lives like an old boyfriend or girlfriend who was unfaithful. You write them out and then after a few years you simply don’t think about them anymore.
The apostle Paul revealed a prophecy for the end times in his first letter to Timothy. He said, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times, some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron” (I Tim. 4:1-2).
In these last days, we are seeing many believers fall away from the faith. They are rejecting the exclusivity of Jesus as the only way to heaven. They are embracing compromise in the name of tolerance and calling things good that God calls an abomination (abortion, homosexuality, transsexuality, etc.). They are abandoning the local church to stay home and be Christians as if they can separate the head from the body without consequence. How many of us live out a casual Christianity that shows up or serves only when it is very convenient? How many of us trade on God’s grace by participating in sin year after year without repentance, believing that God will excuse our indifference to holiness? If we are honest, how many of us have slipped into a mindset that we will still get to heaven because we are better than most people? How many of us can truly point to the evidence that Jesus is Lord of our lives as well as Savior?
The warning in Hebrews is that we can be drawn away by false prophets who preach a partial truth or even by prophets of culture. We can forsake our spiritual family by becoming a faithful member of the “electronic church.” We can easily become casual about Jesus and his holiness. And we can come to a place we don’t recognize, but at which point, our hearts will no longer respond to God again. All the time, Satan will be whispering that we are in no danger.
The warning is intended to make us wise so that we keep guardrails up around our faith. The guardrails are staying in the Word, staying connected to spiritual family, staying accountable to other faithful believers, putting ourselves in positions to hear the truth that most often will be counter-cultural, and practicing confession and repentance so that we maintain a concern about our holiness and invite the Spirit to constantly do his work in us.
We live in dangerous times…especially, in the spiritual realm. The spiritual roads are slippery, dark, and tricky. Don’t be casual, don’t be a compromiser in the name of tolerance, and don’t disconnect from spiritual family. When you find yourself being apathetic about Jesus, do something about it. When you know you have sin in your life, acknowledge it, repent of it, confess it. Never allow yourself to even get close to crossing the point of no return.
