The Sin against the Holy Ghost; Hebrews 6:4-6 by John Gill.

Alan Gross · Mar 9, 2023

Adapted from John Gill, below in dark black....,
I C&P him because he knows how to handle this difficult passage.

The Scripture we will notice is Hebrews 6:4-6.

4 "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened,

"...such are meant, who are so enlightened as to see the evil effects of sin, but not the evil that is in sin;

"...to see the good things which come by Christ, but not the goodness that is in Christ;

"...so as to reform externally, but not to be sanctified internally;

"...to have knowledge of the Gospel doctrinally, but not experimentally;

"...yea, to have such light into it, as to be able to preach it to others, and yet be destitute of the grace of God:

"...and have tasted of the heavenly gift,"

"...but there are others who taste, but dislike what they taste;

"...have no true love for Christ, and faith in him;

"...or have only a carnal taste of him, know him only after the flesh, or externally, not inwardly and experimentally;

"...or they have only a superficial taste"

"...and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,"

"...but by the Holy Ghost is sometimes meant the gifts of the Spirit, ordinary or extraordinary, ( 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 ) and so here;

"...and men may be said to be partakers of the Holy Ghost, to whom he gives wisdom and prudence in things natural and civil;

"...the knowledge of things divine and evangelical, in an external way;

"...the power of working miracles, of prophesying, of speaking with tongues, and of the interpretation of tongues; for the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost seem chiefly designed, which some, in the first times of the Gospel, were partakers of, who had no share in special grace,
( Matthew 7:22 Matthew 7:23 ) ( 1 Corinthians 13:2 1 Corinthians 13:3 ).

5 "And have tasted the good word of God,"

"...there is such a taste of this word as is disrelishing, as in profane sinners, and open opposers and persecutors of the word, or as in hypocrites and formal professors;

"...which is only an assent to the Scriptures, as the revelation of God, or a superficial knowledge of the doctrines of the Gospel without the experience of them, and a temporal faith in them, and a natural affection for them, and pleasure with them for a time;

"...as the Jews, and Herod with John's ministry, and the stony ground hearers."

"...and the powers of the world to come,"

"...the (dunameiv), miracles and mighty works in the former part of the Gospel dispensation, or times of the Messiah, the Jews' world to come, (See Gill on Hebrews 2:5), are intended; which many, as Judas and others, were able to perform, who were not sincere Christians, or true believers."

con't

Alan Gross · Mar 9, 2023

6 "If they shall fall away,"

"...but falling away, so as to perish, may be supposed, and is true of many professors of religion; who may fall from the profession of the Gospel they have made, and from the truth of it, and into an open denial of it;

"...yea, into hatred and persecution of what they once received the external knowledge of; and so shall fall short of heaven, and into condemnation."

"...to renew them again unto repentance;

"...these apostates before described had only a show of repentance, a counterfeit one; such as Cain, Pharaoh, and Judas had;

"...and consequently, the renewing of them again to repentance, is to that which they only seemed to have, and to make pretensions unto;

"...now to renew them to a true repentance, which they once made a profession of, the apostle says is a thing "impossible": the meaning of which is not only that it is difficult;

"...or that it is rare and unusual;

"...or that it is unsuitable and improper;

"...but it is absolutely impossible: it is impossible to these men to renew themselves to repentance;

"...renovation is the work of the Holy Ghost, and not of man;

"...and repentance is God's gift, and not in man's power;

"...and it is impossible for ministers to renew them, to restore and bring them back, by true repentance;

"...yea, it is impossible to God himself, not through any impotence in him, but from the nature of the sin these men are guilty of;

"...for by the high, though outward attainments they arrive unto, according to the description of them, their sin is the SIN AGAINST the HOLY GHOST, for which no sacrifice can be offered up, and of which there is no remission, and so no repentance;

"...for these two go together, and for which prayer is not to be made;

"...see ( Matthew 12:32 ) ( Hebrews 10:26 Hebrews 10:27 ) ( 1 John 4:16 ) and chiefly because to renew such persons to repentance, is repugnant to the determined will of God, who cannot go against his own purposes and resolutions;

"...and so the Jews F12 speak of repentance being withheld by God from Pharaoh, and, from the people of Israel;

"...of which they understand ( Exodus 9:16 )
( Isaiah 6:10 ) ( 2 Chronicles 36:16 )"

"...seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh,

"...it was for asserting himself to be the Son of God that he was crucified;

"...and his being so puts an infinite virtue in his sufferings and death;

"...and it heightens the sin of the Jews, and of these apostates, in crucifying him.

"He was once crucified, and it is both impossible and unnecessary that he should be, properly speaking, "crucified afresh", or "again";

"...it is impossible, because he is risen from the dead, and will never die more;

"...it is unnecessary because he has finished and completed what he suffered the death of the cross for;

"...but men may be said to crucify him again, when, by denying him to be the Son of God, they justify the crucifixion of him on that account; and when they lessen and vilify the virtue of his blood and sacrifice;

"...and when both by errors and immoralities they cause him to be blasphemed, and evil spoken of;

"...and when they persecute him in his members: and this may be said to be done "to themselves afresh";

"...not that Christ was crucified for them before, but that they now crucify him again, as much as in them lies;

...or "with themselves", in their own breasts and minds, and to their own destruction. Now this being the case, it makes their renewal to repentance impossible;

"...because, as before observed,
the SIN AGAINST the HOLY GHOST they commit is UNPARDONABLE;

"...it is a denial of Christ, who gives repentance;

"...and such who sin it must arrive to such hardness of heart as to admit of no repentance;

"...and it is just with God to give up such to a final impenitence, as those, who knowingly and out of malice and envy crucified Christ, had neither pardon nor repentance;

"...and besides, this sin of denying Christ to be the Son of God, and Saviour of men, after so much light and knowledge, precludes the way of salvation, unless Christ was to be crucified again, which is impossible;"

"...and put him to an open shame."

"Christ was put to open shame at the time of his apprehension, prosecution, and crucifixion;

"...and so he is by such apostates, who was he on earth, would treat him in the same manner the Jews did;

"...and who do traduce him as an impostor and a deceiver, and give the lie to his doctrines, and expose him by their lives, and persecute him in his saints."

"Some of the Jews who professed Christ were in danger of falling away.

"The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews warns them that those who deny Christ after having experienced such gracious influences of God's Spirit are in a hopeless condition.

"We think of men like Balaam, Judas, Saul, Demas, or the Israelites who died in the wilderness.

"They experienced 'the breath of heaven', yet died lost and undone."

The Sin against the Holy Ghost; Hebrews 6:4-6 by John Gill.

Alan Gross

Well-Known Member

Alan Gross

Well-Known Member