Friday DIVE – Eternal Security – Difficult Passages (3)

7. Passages Dealing With The Book Of Hebrews

The seventh category of passages that are misunderstood and wrongly used by some to try to prove that it is possible for you to lose your salvation or your eternal position “in Christ” are passages from the Book of Hebrews. Particular attention will be directed toward those verses that use the word “if” and the incorrect teaching that these “ifs” prove that your salvation can be lost. Read the following passages and note the word “if” in each as you read.
Hebrews 2:3   how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him,

Hebrews 3:6   but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.

Hebrews 3:14  For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end,

Hebrews 6:3‐6  And this we will do if God permits.   4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,  6 if  they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.

• How are you to correctly interpret and understand the meaning of these “ifs” in the Book of Hebrews?
• First, the Book of Hebrews was written to believers who were struggling through great suffering for their obedience to Christ.  The “if” clauses do not address the possibility of losing their salvation but the issue of the costs for not pressing on to spiritual maturity in suffering.
• The writer understands their terrible sufferings for their faith, but warns them that their failure to press on to spiritual maturity and not heeding and obeying these warnings will result in physical death but not spiritual death.
• The “ifs” of Hebrews deal with physical death for these believers, not spiritual death.  How do we know that?   We will briefly explore what these verses actually say and you should be able to see that these verses do not argue against security but for security.
  • • You have previously seen that God’s discipline can result in premature physical death for a believer but not loss of salvation.
    • Did you notice in Hebrews 6:3‐6 that the writer says that ‘if” it were possible (which it is not) to go back “in Adam” and be lost again, it would be impossible to ever renew that person “in Christ”?
    • You cannot be spiritually renewed “in Christ” because Christ will never be shamefully crucified again.
• The “if” verses in Hebrews exhort the readers to press on in their present suffering to avoid physical death for disobedience not loss of salvation.
• The writer is arguing for security, not against it.

TDNT writes anakainizo means “to bring to conversion again.” The seriousness of the distinctive teaching of Hebrews that there is no second repentance is here shown from the standpoint of the Christian teacher who is speaking. He and his fellow-teachers cannot bring complete apostates to a new beginning which will lead to conversion. The miracle of becoming a “brand new creation” occurs only once. In early Christian writings anakainizo is a common word in connection with regeneration.

Metanoia (repentance) is therefore, primarily, an after-thought, different from the former thought;  then, a change of mind which issues in regret and in change of conduct.   These latter ideas, however, have been imported into the word by scriptural usage, and do not lie in it etymologically nor by primary usage.

Repentance, then, has been rightly defined as  “such a virtuous alteration of the mind and purpose as begets a like virtuous change in the life and practice”.

Crucify conveys a picture of a person making a deliberate, malicious decision to continually spurn Christ, not just to carelessly disregard Him.  The voice is active which indicates a personally initiated active betrayal of Christ! This person is in essence in that throng of Jews who screamed to Pilate “Crucify, Crucify”. (Jn 19:6, cp Acts 2:23 where “you” = Jews)

To themselves – This means that, as far as they were concerned, the Son of God deserved to be crucified.  Regardless of what they may have been professing openly and publicly, they now took their stand with the crucifiers. In their hearts they said, “That’s the verdict we give – Crucify Him!” and put Him to open shame again.

Hebrews 10:26-27    For if we willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins  ²⁷ but a fearful prospect of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.

• we need to understand the main issue the writer is addressing and that is the issue of sinning willfully.
• Willful describes that which is done intentionally or deliberately.  It is doing what one what one wants to do even when he knows it is wrong.
• The word deliberate (as an adjective) means that which is characterized by or results from careful and thorough consideration.   It refers to a mental process in which one proceeds to  take some action after thoughtfully weighing the options.   Spiritually speaking it would describe a “conversation” as it were with one’s conscience regarding whether one should take a particular action in a certain direction!  In the context of sin … it is the idea of even planning out a situation that might place us in the path of temptation to commit that sin.
• So then, in a sense we need to be clear, all of us are guilty of deliberate or “willful sinning” in the sense that there are (many) times when we know the truth of God’s Word regarding what would constitute righteous, godly behavior (i.e., obedience) and yet we stubbornly walk down the path of temptation until we are guilty of overt, deliberate disobedience. While this should not be taken lightly for a believer, please note that this is NOT what the writer is talking about in this sobering passage.  The context is not a person who is a believer and then one day ceases to be a believer (or loses their salvation).  So do not let anyone tell you that you can lose your salvation if you willfully or deliberately sin.  That is a false teaching which goes against a flood of Bible passages that teach eternal security (read Jesus’ promise in Jn 10:27-29, etc).
• But on the other hand, just because God’s infinite mercy does not strike us down when we commit deliberate sin, his grace and mercy should never be treated as a invitation to live licentiously!   While we are not longer under law but under grace (Ro 6:14), grace is not license to sin.  We are not at liberty to sin willfully or deliberately.  To the contrary we now have the power to enable us to fight against the temptation to deliberately sin. We will fail and fall, but it should always be the exception and never the rule, certainly not the habitual practice of our lives.  Before we were saved we chased after sin, but now that we are saved, sin chases after us!
• If willful sinning is an individual’s lifestyle, then that individual needs to be very honest with himself or herself and ask “Is my Christian profession really a possession of Christ?”  (They need to soberly ponder Paul’s words in 2 Cor 13:5+)  The incomprehensible truth that Christ in us (Col 1:27) and His Spirit is in us (1 Cor 6:19) should serve to motivate us out of love, enabling us to resist committing willful sins and empower us to fight off those temptations that assault our minds enticing us to commit that willful sin (cf 2 Cor 5:17).
• (ILLUSTRATION)  To glimpse his passion, we can imagine ourselves as parents raising our children along a boulevard on which huge trucks regularly pass at great speed.  Our warnings are couched in the most dramatic terms and lurid illustrations — “Do you know what happens to little children if …” — in the hope that somehow what we say will penetrate the imagination and thinking process of our children, so they will stay out of the deadly street! (Preaching the Word – Hebrews)
• THE CHRISTIAN LIFE IS ABOUT DIRECTION, NOT PERFECTION

Does Hebrews 10:26 mean that a believer can lose salvation?

• The willful sinner sins because of an established way of thinking and acting which he has no desire to give up.
• The true believer, on the other hand, is one who lapses into sin and loses temporary fellowship with God.  But he will eventually come back to God in repentance because his heavenly Father will continually woo and convict him until he can’t stay away any longer.
• The true apostate will continue to sin, deliberately, willingly and with abandon.  John tells us that “No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (1 John 3:9).

Why does the idea of “apostates” and “apostasy” come up?

Remember Hebrews is written to Jewish Christians and believers, who were thinking of going back to Judaism.  Some may have been experiencing Christian fellowship without accepting Christ.

CONCLUSION

We’ve been looking at some passages that SEEM to indicate that a true believer can lose his/her salvation.

Tonight, we’ve been looking at two passages from Hebrews.

In previous weeks, we’ve looked at other passages.

What we’ve seen is those passages are not talking about true believers, at all, but rather dealing with

• Passages Dealing With Those Who Profess But Never Possessed Salvation
• Passages Dealing With The Fruits Of Discipleship, Not With Salvation
• Passages Dealing With False Teachers Who Were Never Saved
• Passages Dealing With Believer’s Losing Rewards, But Not Salvation
• Passages Dealing With Discipline, Loss of Fellowship, But Not Loss of Salvation
• and a number of passages that we didn’t look at, in the interest of time.

Next Friday, God willing, I plan to begin a series of book studies, starting with ROMANS.