Entirely Beside the Point
Today, I’m going to work on unpacking a chapter that is discussed fairly often, but is largely misunderstood because the modern church is guilty of the very thing the chapter warns against to such an extent that it completely fits in our blind spot!
You’ve likely heard people talk about what the following verses do and do not mean:
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. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
Hebrews 6:4-8
Everyone seems to be trying to explain how this section proves their Soteriology (theology pertaining to salvation). Those who hold to “once saved, always saved” contend that these verses speak of someone who has experienced the gospel of Christ, fellowship of the saints, etc… second hand. They were never really believers, but through contact with believers can be said to have “tasted” these things, while ultimately always rejecting them.
Those who do not, say this is evidence in their favor since it is speaking of people who were believers but lost their salvation. Within that group there are those who believe a person such as that could yet be redeemed (who need to explain away the impossibility mentioned in the verses) and those who believe you have put your hand to the plow and then looked back and are rightly considered irredeemable (Luke 9:62).
Not About Salvation
I’m going to contend that all of this discussion ultimately shows that we’re still stuck in the same place as the church to which this letter was written. We are so focused on salvation, that we can’t even see that the point being made is to encourage people out of the very situation in which we find ourselves.
To really understand the context of these verses, we actually must back up a chapter so we start before the “Therefore” at the beginning of chapter 6.
About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
Hebrews 5:11-14
The ESV has placed Warning Against Apostasy as the title of this section, where as the NKJV has a far more accurate Spiritual Immaturity title. This text doesn’t speak at all against apostasy (turning away from religious beliefs). This is talking about children in the faith, not the spiritually dead. You don’t nurture the dead back to life with milk, you give it to infants so that they may grow and mature.
The mistaken title shows the issue many have with understanding these chapters. The focus isn’t upon who is or can be saved! It’s about those who are mature and those who are not. The end of chapter 5 (which really better fits as the introduction to chapter 6) is a lamentation of how the author of Hebrews wishes to discuss the focus of the letter more deeply (the way in which Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament laws and prophecies) but feels he cannot due to the recipients still not having matured enough to comprehend it. They should have grown up into meat eating adults, but they’re still suckling on spiritual milk.
The “Therefore”
With the groundwork being laid at the end of chapter 5, we can now move back into chapter 6.
Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.
Hebrews 6:1-3
The goal is stated pretty clearly right here. He’s going to lay aside discussion of the elementary doctrines about repentance, faith, washings, laying on of hands, the resurrection, and judgement so that the readers can go on to maturity. It is at this point, with this frame, that we get to verse 4. So what is the point of 4-8?
It is to encourage the church to press on past these basic doctrines, which they already know well, but have been sitting around beating like a dead horse. It’s a rhetorical practice designed to explain why that horse isn’t going to move any further no matter how hard you hit it.
This letter is to a group of believers who all well understand that they need to turn from their dead works, place their faith in God, be baptized, appoint people for ministry, and understand the coming resurrection and judgement. They have been enlightened, tasted the goodness of God, and shared in the Spirit. What good, then, is preaching the basic message of salvation at them over and over?
Even if you were to say, theoretically, that a person could truly accept these things and then later come to reject them, preaching the very thing which they have already rejected isn’t going to change their mind! You’d need a second path to salvation. Since salvation is only in Christ, you’d need a second crucifixion in which such a person could believe! It’s absurd!
The remainder of the chapter is about how we should have confidence, like Abraham, that God will make good on his promises for salvation, and we needn’t spend time worrying about losing the salvation he has promised. Rather we should press on to maturity and the good works he has prepared for us (Ephesians 2:10).
