Highlights From HebrewsSýnishorn

The Danger of Apostasy

If you’ve read Hebrews, you might remember that Hebrews 6 warns that people can fall away from the faith and be permanently lost. This passage has caused a great deal of consternation in the church, and there are two ways to understand it.

According to the first interpretation, the passage does not say God's elect can be lost. Those whom God elects, those for whom Christ offered up Himself as an atonement for sin, and who are fully regenerated by the Spirit cannot fall away from the kingdom of God because God will sustain them. This is a fact taught in many places in Scripture (see Phil. 1:6; Rom. 8:28–30; John 10:28–29).

But we also have to reckon with the visible covenant of God in history. In terms of the covenant, there are people who join a local church but have never actually entered God’s kingdom by faith in Christ alone. Such people were never truly saved, but for a time, they thought they were. In the parable of the sower, Jesus says that some people are like soil that receives the Word of God but then let thorns choke it out or let the sun burn it up and are lost (Matt. 13:1–9, 18–23).

The problem is that we cannot know the condition of anyone else’s heart but our own. We cannot look at the church and know which other people besides ourselves are really saved and who are only temporary believers. The proof is that the truly saved person perseveres in fighting the weeds of sin and perseveres under the sun of affliction and adversity.

Hebrews 6:4–6 says that the temporary believer who commits full and final apostasy is like the true believer in Christ in some ways: he has received enlightenment, has experienced the good gifts of the kingdom, and has experienced the Spirit’s work in the church. He has received blessings by being a local church member but not the full experience of salvation. Only those who persevere have experienced that. The one who commits full and final apostasy lacks perseverance; if he falls away, it will prove impossible to get him interested in the faith again.

The other interpretation is that this passage describes real believers but is only hypothetical. If someone could renounce his salvation, he would be crucifying Christ afresh. Yet this is only hypothetical because it is impossible for the truly converted to fall away, so a true believer can't be lost.

CORAM DEO Living before the face of God

The author of Hebrews is persuaded of better things concerning those who get his letter (6:9–12). Daily study and prayer, as well as active participation in your church, are signs of true faith and perseverance. Keep on “muddling through” by faith.