Hebrews 6:1-20
v19) What is the veil mentioned in Hebrews 6:19?
This curtain hung across the entrance from the Holy Place to the Most Holy Place, the two innermost rooms of the temple. This curtain prevented anyone from entering, gazing into, or even getting a fleeting glimpse of the Most Holy Place. The high priest could enter there only once a year to stand before God's presence and atone for the sins of the entire nation. But Christ is in God's presence at all times as the high priest who can continually intercede for us.
(The One Year Bible Companion)
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6 comments:
v1) God wants us to always increase in the knowledge of Him and to never be complacent.
v7) I feel this is saying that we need to be fruitful and to help others with everything He has given us.
v10) God doesn't forget the work and sees everything we do for Him. And we show how much we love God, by how we have helped others.
v11-12) So we need to be diligent to the very end and not be lazy. But instead we are to imitate those stong in the faith like P Sam and Bobby/Fifi.
Hey, what do you guys think verses four through six mean; since literally, I think, this excerpt suggests that if a believer falls away, they become irredeemable. Then what does "fall away" mean; that is, how extreme is this falling away?
good question David. and it depends what it means by being "enlightened". looked it up and here's what i found:
Question: "Does Hebrews 6:4-6 mean we can lose our salvation?"
Answer: Hebrews 6:4-6 states, “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.” This is one of the Bible’s most difficult passages to interpret, but one thing is clear—it does not teach that we can lose our salvation. There are two valid ways of looking at these verses:
One interpretation holds that this passage is written not about Christians but about unbelievers who are convinced of the basic truths of the gospel but who have not placed their faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. They are intellectually persuaded but spiritually uncommitted.
According to this interpretation, the phrase “once enlightened” (verse 4) refers to some level of instruction in biblical truth. However, understanding the words of scripture is not the same as being regenerated by the Holy Spirit. For example, John 1:9 describes Jesus, the “true Light,” giving light “to every man”; but this cannot mean the light of salvation, because not every man is saved. Through God’s sovereign power, every man has enough light to be held responsible. This light either leads to the complete acceptance of Jesus Christ or produces condemnation in those who reject such light. The people described in Hebrews 6:4-6 are of the latter group—unbelievers who have been exposed to God’s redemptive truth and perhaps have made a profession of faith, but have not exercised genuine saving faith.
This interpretation also sees the phrase “tasted the heavenly gift” (Hebrews 6:9) as referring to a momentary experience, akin to Jesus’ “tasting” death (Hebrews 2:9). This brief experience with the heavenly gift is not seen as equivalent to salvation; rather, it is likened to the second and third soils in Jesus’ parable (Matthew 13:3-23), which describes people who receive the truth of the gospel but are not truly saved.
Finally, this interpretation sees the “falling away” (Hebrews 6:6) as a reference to those who have tasted the truth but, not having come all the way to faith, fall away from even the revelation they have been given. The tasting of truth is not enough to keep them from falling away from it. They must come all the way to Christ in complete repentance and faith; otherwise, they in effect re-crucify Christ and treat Him contemptuously. Those who sin against Christ in such a way have no hope of restoration or forgiveness because they reject Him with full knowledge and conscious experience. They have concluded that Jesus should have been crucified, and they stand with His enemies. It is impossible to renew such to repentance.
The other interpretation holds that this passage is written about Christians, and that the phrases “partakers of the Holy Ghost,” “enlightened,” and “tasted of the heavenly gift” are all descriptions of true believers.
According to this interpretation, the key word in the passage is if (verse 6). The writer of Hebrews is setting up a hypothetical statement: “IF a Christian were to fall away . . .” The point being made is that it would be impossible (IF a Christian falls away) to renew salvation. That’s because Christ died once for sin (Hebrews 9:28), and if His sacrifice is insufficient, then there’s no hope at all.
The passage, therefore, presents an argument based on a false premise (that a true Christian can fall away) and follows it to its senseless conclusion (that Jesus would have to be sacrificed again and again). The absurdity of the conclusion points up the impossibility of the original assumption. This reasoning is called reductio ad absurdum, in which a premise is disproved by showing that it logically leads to an absurdity.
Both of these interpretations support the security of the believer in Christ. The first interpretation presents unbelievers rejecting Christ and thereby losing their chance of salvation; the second interpretation presents the very idea of believers losing salvation as impossible. Many scriptures make it abundantly clear that salvation is eternal (John 10:27-29; Romans 8:35, 38-39; Philippians 1:6; 1 Peter 1:4-5), and Hebrews 6:4-6 confirms that doctrine.
Thanks, Tim; I dig the latter explanation as the former stretches my credulity too much by referencing unbelievers who, I believe, have no part in those verses.
This question must be understood within the context of the antinomies of God's sovereignty/election on the one hand and Man's responsibility/freewill on the other. From God's perspective, the elect have been predestined from the foundation of the world (Heb 4:3 and Rom 9). We, however, cannot determine who the elect are and for that reason we see freewill as being determinative (Rom 10). These two teachings of the scripture cannot be reconciled by us and we must embrace both - this is part of the cost of having a relationship with Christ.
That being established, let me suggest that Heb 6 is addressing the question of where, theologically speaking, does the Christian go for forgiveness. The author answers that "...it is impossible to renew him again to repentance." I understand this to mean that when a man comes to Christ he goes (theologically) to the cross but that when he sins after coming to Christ he goes to the throne of grace (Heb 4). Which is to say that a man gets saved only once and that failure to understand this and "getting saved" multiple times results in immaturity. Remember, the passage says that such people are close to being cursed, not actually cursed.
Heb 10:26 ff does teach (as does Gal 5) that a man can "loose his salvation" but this must be understood in the context of the first paragraph. From our perspective, he 'looses his salvation", while from God's, he was never saved.
Let me extrapolate a bit...I believe in once saved always saved but that is in God's perspective. If we are agents of free will, we can choose to be saved and we can choose not to be saved. also, we can choose to fall away from our faith and renounce. No one can take our salvation away from us (once saved always saved) but we can willfully renounce our faith (some scholars believe this is what blasphemy of Holy Spirit is).
Paul mentions some of his colleagues who have turned from their faith.
Sometimes we perform theological gymnastics to try and protect our pet doctrines but we must let the scriptures speak for themselves.
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