Hebrews 6:4-8 (HCSB)
4 For it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, became companions with the Holy Spirit, 5 tasted God’s good word and the powers of the coming age, 6 and who have fallen away, because, to their own harm, they are recrucifying the Son of God and holding Him up to contempt. 7 For ground that has drunk the rain that has often fallen on it and that produces vegetation useful to those it is cultivated for receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and about to be cursed, and will be burned at the end.
These are distressing verses, but the truth contained in them must not be reframed or discarded because of theology. There is a warning here, not only for the Jewish Christians immediately addressed by the writer, but for all Christians in all places and at all times.
The truth is simple. If we have turned to Jesus and have been filled with the Holy Spirit, as the Jewish Christians had been, if we understand God’s word about holiness and about the heaven that is promised to us, and then choose to turn away from all that, back to your old life, to deny our Savior and Lord, we return to being lost. And the future is worse for us than for a pagan who hasn’t known these things, because we have known, we have experienced God’s power and grace, and we have willfully chosen to turn away from them.
To say that those who do this can’t be restored, that they can’t be brought back to repentance, is not God’s judgment on them, but simply a statement of the truth. Someone who has experienced life in the Kingdom to such a depth as is catalogued here and still chooses to turn away can only do so by galvanizing their hearts against the truths that they have not only come to know, but which they have lived in.
In order to do that, they have to look at the many blessings they have received as a member of the kingdom, their relationship with God through the indwelling Holy Spirit, and say, “I don’t want these anymore. I’d rather go back to my old life.” They must look at the price which Jesus paid by suffering and dying on the cross and reject it. No wonder that it is described as having crucified Jesus all over again!
The illustration that the writer gives here is very clear. In both cases the land receives the same blessings, symbolized as abundant rain designed to produce an equally abundant crop. But one parcel uses that blessing to produce a useful crop, and the other produces only thorns and thistles. And, ultimately, the thorn-producing land will be deemed worthless by the owner, cursed, and ultimately burned.
Father, these really are fearsome warnings. I know that some say that these people who turn away must not have been truly saved. But your description of them says that they truly were. No unsaved person can share in the Holy Spirit or be able to experience the powers of the coming age working in their own lives. Help us, Lord, to not dismiss these verses as not applicable to us or to those we love, but to take the warning that is given through them instead so that we don’t go astray, but so that we stand firm, no matter what, so that we finish the race, no matter how challenging. Amen.