Hebrews 6:4-6

The passage is a means that God uses to keep His people persevering to the end. It allows one to conceive of what would happen to a child of God if he apostasized. The passage contains the conception but that does not mean it has to happen.

An excellent recent book on the subject is The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance & Assurance by Thomas R. Schreiner and Ardel B. Caneday.

Ken

 

The passage, like the book, is addressed to a community of believers, but the author understands that not every member of the community actually believes. Before reaching chapter 6, he has already invoked the example of Israel in the wilderness, demonstrating that even within what is ostensibly the "people of God," there are some who believe (obey) and some who disbelieve (disobey). To new believers raised in the atmosphere of the Old Covenant (and seemingly tempted to lapse back into it), these words would make perfect sense and still be in harmony with a belief in the perseverence of saints.

Much more detailed information is available at http://users.erols.com/philkent/ChristianCanWeLoseOurSalvation.htm -- unfortunately, I came across it after my class.

Mark

 

The Schreiner/Caneday book is one of the best in print on this subject. Their perspective allows the text to speak for itself in a way that gives full credence to both warning & security texts.

Schreiner is a first-rate scholar -- I have to say this. He is my PhD supervisor

 

Warm Christian greetings!

Perhaps one way of understanding the passage is to look at what happened when the 12 spies went into the promised land. They entered, saw for themselves what it was like; they even brought some of its fruit to taste - but they did not properly enter. In disobeying God by not properly entering the promised land they forfeited the blessings that could have been theirs. That is like the people described in the passage - they were never truly saved in the first place.

Kind regards

Robert J Hutton

 

Hebrews 6:4-6 is speaking in the hypothetical, and referring to a hypothetical situation. It is in reference to "if it were possible to happen, but which it can't," not "if it were to happen, and then."

It is in regard to the eternal security of a believer, and it is saying that the doctrine of a person being saved once, then lost, then saved again, then lost again, is "impossible," as a person can only be saved one time. Therefore the writer of Hebrews is coaxing its readers to move on in their Christian walk, not "laying again the foundation of repentence from dead works," which means not trying to do things to earn your salvation, out of fear that if you won't you will not stay saved.

Read it together with Hebrews 5:12-14, and the beginning of Hebrews 6, and realize that the writer is saying that if the doctrine of one being able to lose their salvation was true, that it would be "IMPOSSIBLE" to be saved ever again, the very word the author used to make that point.

God bless.

 

That is the only view that makes any sense to me. Well put. I would only add that it becomes even more apparent when you weave into that section of teaching the words from Heb 9:15-17: "And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. {16} For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. {17} For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth."

The will has been written. The heirs are named. And PRAISE GOD, THE TESTATOR DIED and now ever liveth to make intercession for us!!!

The will is now on record with God. It's in His Court. No one is going to come in and change the will. IT IS, AS ALREADY STATED: IMPOSSIBLE !