.....this is a possibility, or else the author was wasting his time giving an empty warning that could not take place.
Not only was it a possibilty, it was happening, evidently on a large scale within the JEWISH CHURCH, and the exhortation to 'hold fast', 'take heed', and not fall away is a continuous theme all through the epistle:
Take heed, brethren, lest haply there shall be in any one of you an evil heart of
unbelief, in
falling away from the living God: Heb 3:12
Actually, its a STRONG case to prove eternal security, for he is presenting this as a "what if" type of proposition here, and argues that IF one could actually lose their ssalvation, would be one and done, but is persuaded that it is NOT even a real possibility!
You are promoting the totally false premise that 'true Christians' can never make shipwreck of their faith. Why these admonitions then?:
......to present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before him:
if so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and stedfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye heard, Col 1:22,23
Behold then the goodness and severity of God: toward them that fell, severity; but toward thee, God`s goodness,
if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. Ro 11:22
Now I make known unto you brethren, the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, wherein also ye stand, by which also ye are saved,
if ye hold fast the word which I preached unto you, except ye believed in vain. 1 Cor 15:1,2
but Christ as a son, over his house; whose house are we,
if we hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope firm unto the end...... for we are become partakers of Christ,
if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end: Heb 3:6,14
