God Stuff - Grappling with Hebrews 6:4-6

Grappling with Hebrews 6:4-6

At Ridley this week we looked at the letter to the Hebrews. It was a very challenging study but one particular verse has had my brain doing cartwheels as I try to work out its purpose.

From the NRSV:

For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, and 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, since on their own they are crucifying again the Son of God and are holding him up to contempt.

It's like the author is saying that Christians who fall away from their faith have no chance of returning to God. In other words, the door opens only once. If this literal interpretation is correct then it has extreme ramifications.

On the other hand, is the author saying that when we turn away from God, no matter how subtly, that we are placing God and Jesus' saving sacrifice secondarily and treating God contemptuously.

The really trick element of this text, in my view, is "For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened...". Is is really impossible to be restored to repentance? I pray that the literal interpretation of this is incorrect as, through our fallen, sinful nature, we all put God aside at some time. On occasion, this is subtle but at other times it's more extreme.

Brown, in his commentary "The Message of Hebrews"[Affiliate Link] suggests that the ones who have "fallen away" are those that have completely rejected Christ. Brown says:

Some believers, who made an apparently excellent beginning in their Christian lives, are now not merely chronic invalids or spiritual casualties, but have become fierce opponents of the Christian gospel.

In other words, this is a response to apostasy, not just the daily (or even more frequent!) straying of faithful but fallen human beings.

Hopefully my thoughts and reading on this important segment of scripture is helpful to others grappling with the meaning of this text.