For it is impossible to renew again to repentance those once enlightened, and who have tasted of the heavenly gift, and have been made partakers of [the] Holy Spirit,
Few verses have frightened sincere believers more than this one. How far can a person go with Christianity — light, taste, shared blessing — and still not belong to Christ?
This letter went to Jews who had taken up Christianity. The danger in front of them was going back to the religion they came from.
Every Jew who had embraced Christianity had found an entrance into a most privileged circle. He became a partaker of many striking benefits, whether or not he was really converted underneath. Under the stress of persecution and trouble, some might wish to shake off allegiance to Christ and return to their Judaism. In these verses the Spirit of God warns such people of the consequences.
Light shining on a person is not the same as that person receiving it.
But you say, were they not "once enlightened," what does that mean? Surely that must mean converted. Not at all. In John 1:9, it is said of the Lord Jesus, "The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world." Is every man therefore converted? Not so; but everyone born into the world is brought into the place where the light is shining... Being enlightened is the light coming to a man — the good news of the gospel. It does not mean he receives it, or that it converts him.
A taste can be real feeling and still not be new life.
Many have tasted the new, heavenly things set out in the glorious gospel of God, and yet have never passed from death to life. They have never been broken down before God about their sins. They have never received Christ into their hearts. Tasting the heavenly gift and passing, by new birth, into the heavenly kingdom are two completely different things.
Writers describe the emotion involved without granting it more than it is:
They may have been moved and touched after a shallow sort. How many a one has come into a gospel preaching, heard of Christ, been deeply impressed for the moment, thought it a wonderful thing, meant to be a Christian; and gone away unsaved, for there has been no work in his conscience.
The word translated "partakers" here (ESV: "have shared in") is the weaker of two words for partnership.
In Luke 5:7 a different word is translated "partners." It describes only sharing the privilege of fishing in the lake, since the fishermen were in separate boats. But in verse 10 of the same chapter our word describes partners in a closer relationship... Hebrews 6:4 uses the word of verse 7, translated there "partakers of the Holy Spirit." It describes people who shared the outward privileges of Christianity and yet were not in the intimate circle described as "in Christ."
Read the list again and notice what is missing. It never mentions life.
Many true believers, troubled by fears, have applied Hebrews 6:4-6 to themselves. Perhaps no other part of the Word shows how much one may have and yet not have life. They tasted, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit — but not of life... I doubt this Scripture ever troubled a mere professor. The dread of having fallen away is more a mark of having life.
The writer's own next words settle the point:
Right after describing these people, the apostle turns to the ones he is writing to: "Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things — things that belong to salvation." That is the clearest assurance that he had no thought of anyone who had known salvation suffering the doom of an apostate.
The reason lies in what these people had already received.
The nation had crucified the Lord. But they were guilty of that when they had only the doctrine of the beginning of Christ. Now they have received all that Christianity has brought. If they reject that, then they have crucified Him personally — the very thing they were guilty of as a nation. And there remains no other gospel for them.
The warning does not touch the believer who has sinned, or the soul still searching.
It is not a child of God falling into sin and getting at a distance from God. Such a one will most surely be brought back and restored... It is not an anxious soul earnestly seeking the way of life and peace. It is not the case of a poor soul who is ignorant and out of the way. To none of these does the "impossible" of Hebrews 6:4 apply. There is one case that comes terribly near it: someone who has gone on sinning against light, refusing to act on the plain Word of God, knowingly and deliberately resisting the truth because of what acting on it would cost.
- Privilege — Light, taste, and shared blessing are real. Each one describes what a person stands near, not what he is.
- Profession — What a person drops here is a profession, not a life. The list never mentions life at all.
- Deliberate — This is not weakness or backsliding. It is open-eyed rejection after full knowledge, and it leaves no other gospel to offer.
- Impossible — The word marks a person who has used up every means God gives. No other gospel is left for him.
- Assurance — If this verse frightens you, that dread is a mark of life. The very next words speak of "better things — things that belong to salvation."
and have tasted the good word of God, and [the] works of power of [the] age to come,
Hebrews 6:5 sits inside one of the most searching warnings in the Bible. It lists the last two of five privileges a person can share and still not be saved. It raises two questions. What does it mean to taste God's word instead of eating it? And why are miracles called the powers of an age still to come?
The first phrase points to the message these people had heard.
"And have tasted the good word of God." That is the word of the gospel of His grace. It had been presented to them, and they had the chance to taste it. Then there are "the powers of the world to come" (the coming age) — that is, the miracles.
Part of what made the word taste good to them was the contrast with what they had known before.
Whoever bowed to the gospel tasted God's word as good. They welcomed it with joy, and its flavour was completely different from that of the law, which was a ministry of death and condemnation.
One writer notices a word the passage never uses.
Hebrews 6:4-6 shows how far a person may go who only professes faith. It is interesting that the passage speaks twice of tasting, but never of eating. This is very suggestive.
Tasting can also be followed by refusal.
They had "tasted" — but a person may taste and, in the end, refuse.
The "powers" were not abstract. Those addressed had watched them happen.
They had tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come. A word healed many and raised some from the dead. Peter said to the lame beggar, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." To the dead woman Tabitha he said, "Arise." But it was all God's word, and everyone who professed the faith saw it and enjoyed it.
These powers take their name from a time still ahead. Older translations say "the world to come" where the ESV says "the age to come".
What the Lord was doing here below was giving a sample of what will mark the world to come. The powers He used, and which others used later through His name, were "the powers of the world [or age] to come," as Hebrews 6:5 calls them. His curing of diseases and casting out of demons was a partial display of what will be open and worldwide in that day.
The miracles therefore announced a coming reversal of everything sin has done to the earth.
"The powers of the age to come" are miracles, the mighty works by which the consequences of sin and the destructive power of Satan will be banished from the earth in the millennial reign — the thousand-year age still to come.
The whole list can be true of someone and still leave the question of salvation untouched.
This passage does not assume that these people have life, and it does not touch that question. It speaks not of life, but of the Holy Spirit as a power present in Christianity. To "taste the good word" is to have understood how precious that word is. It is not to have been made alive by it... so all these things could be there and yet no salvation. There could be no fruit; fruit assumes life.
That difference settles what these verses describe.
So Hebrews 6:4-6 shows us a profession that might be renounced, not a life that can be lost. The enjoyment of privilege, and the possession of a gift, is different from eternal life.
Many believers have read these verses against themselves. One writer answers that fear directly.
I doubt whether this Scripture (Hebrews 6) ever troubled someone who merely professes faith. The dread of having fallen away is instead a mark of having life. The more outward privilege a lifeless professing person had, the further he would be from feeling such dread.
Some of these privileges belonged to that first period; others continue. But the seriousness of turning away does not lessen.
His word shows more than law or promise. It shows what has been accomplished in Christ, and such a word is truly "good". All who are baptised can at least taste that it is good, even if the powers of the coming age are no longer here... But to give up all this, after once profiting from its wonderful excellence in the name of the glorified Jesus, is fatal. What more can grace do or give to work on souls?
- Taste — They put God's word to their lips and called it good. The passage says taste twice and never says eat.
- Taste, not life — All of this can be true of a person who is still not saved. Someone can taste how precious the word is and still never receive life from it.
- Powers — The readers had watched the miracles for themselves. A word healed the sick and raised the dead.
- Powers of an age — They were samples of the coming age. In it God will defeat Satan and undo the damage of sin, out in the open, over the whole earth.
- Fruit — Tasting can never produce fruit, because fruit needs life. These verses show a profession that can be dropped, not a life that can be lost. The fear they stir is itself a sign of life.
and have fallen away, crucifying for themselves [as they do] the Son of God, and making a show of [him].
This verse explains the "impossible" of the verse before it. People who have known all that Christianity offers, and then walk away, treat Christ as those who crucified Him did. Two sharp questions follow. Who exactly does this describe, and can a real believer end up here?
The people in view are not weak believers who have drifted. Commentators mark off two very different things: a believer slipping back, and someone giving up a profession of Christ for good.
The "falling away" the Apostle speaks of is not the backsliding of a true believer. It is the apostasy of someone who only professed to believe.
The description narrows further. It rules out the merely religious and the believer who has grown cold.
These are not simply people who knew little, joined some denomination, and then lost interest in it. Nor are they true believers who have grown careless and have "left their first love," who need to recover the joy of their salvation. But they are people who once enjoyed all the outward blessings of a Christianity that was then pure, fresh and vigorous. They knew its precious truths. Then they coldly and deliberately refused it.
Older versions read "if they shall fall," which sounds like a case that might never happen. A closer translation drops the "if."
In Hebrews 6:6, the Authorised Version's "If they shall fall" returns to its true and literal force: "and have fallen." It described a fact.
The commentators here quote an older wording of the verse: to "crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." For a Hebrew reader that danger was not abstract. Returning to the synagogue had a price at the door.
Suppose a Hebrew gave up his Christian profession and wanted the synagogue and his own people to take him back. What would happen? He would find that as the price of re-admission he would have to call down a curse upon Jesus as an impostor. He would have in effect to crucify to himself "the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame."
The nation had already crucified Christ, but in ignorance. The difference here is knowledge.
But there is this further point in the case supposed. By turning back again from these heavenly things, "they had crucified the Son of God afresh," and so could not be renewed to repentance. The nation had indeed crucified Christ, but they did not know what they were doing. This could not be said of those of whom the apostle is speaking. This was not ignorance, but will.
That ignorance had been a shelter. Deliberate rejection removes it.
In the Israelite cities of refuge, someone who had killed another without meaning to murder could escape the avenger of blood. Christ Himself was the true City of Refuge for those who had shared in the nation's common guilt in His death. For them He pleaded at the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." But those who now went back with open eyes among His rejecters could no longer plead this. They were crucifying for themselves the Son of God afresh, and there was no city of refuge to open its doors to such.
The answer turns on where repentance comes from in the first place.
Why does he speak of it being impossible to renew them again to repentance? Because repentance is always produced in the soul by the Word of God, and is the effect of the received testimony of the Spirit of God. God had no further witness to give. When God sent His Son into this world, what did man do? He spat upon Him and killed Him. What did God do? Did He draw the sword of judgment? No. He took Him up to heaven, and from heaven sent the Holy Spirit to say to man, "You would not have My Son as an earthly Christ, now will you have Him as a heavenly Christ?"
Many genuine Christians have read these words and feared for themselves. Two things answer that fear. The first is what the passage threatens.
So Hebrews 6:4-6 shows us a profession of faith that could be given up, not a life that can be lost. Enjoying privilege and having a gift is not the same as eternal life.
The second turns the anxiety itself into evidence.
I doubt if this Scripture (Hebrews 6) ever troubled someone who merely professed faith. The dread of having fallen away is instead a mark of having life. The more outward privilege a lifeless professing person had, the further he would be from feeling such a dread.
- Privilege — A person can enjoy everything listed in verses 4-5 and still have no life. Light, taste and gift are not the same as eternal life.
- Departure — The sin is not slipping into sin. It is giving Christ up altogether; commentators call that apostasy, not backsliding.
- Deliberate — The nation crucified Christ in ignorance, and He pleaded for their forgiveness. These act with full light and by choice, and lose that plea.
- Depleted — God has given His whole testimony. He sent His Son; man killed Him; He took Him to heaven and sent the Spirit; man refused that witness too. Nothing further remains.
- Assurance — What can be given up here is a profession, not a life. The very fear this verse stirs in a believer is itself a mark of life.
For ground which drinks the rain which comes often upon it, and produces useful herbs for those for whose sakes also it is tilled, partakes of blessing from God;
After the sharp warning about falling away, the writer turns to farming: two fields under the same sky, drinking the same rain, giving opposite results. So what makes ground good, and what does the crop prove about the soil?
The rain is not the variable in this picture. It falls on both fields alike; what differs is what lies underneath. One writer sets David beside Saul:
The showers that fall on both do not change, but they do show the true nature of the soil. In David, on whom the Spirit of the Lord came, we have an example of fruitful ground; in Saul, an example of a barren waste.
Ground drinks rain only if the plough has broken it up first. Hard, packed earth sheds water. So the difference between the two fields starts before the rain ever falls:
These two kinds of earth differ at the root, and the same line divides the true believer from the person who only claims to believe. To "drink in the rain," the earth must be soft and open. Where the plough has done its work, the seed planted in it will respond to the gentle rains and bear fruit. So the Spirit of God stirs and prepares, through true repentance, what is then called "good ground." The soul then takes in the fresh water of the Word of God, bears fruit, and receives blessing from God.
The verse says the crop is useful "to those for whose sake it is cultivated." So the kind of fruit matches the kind of cultivation. One writer presses this home as a question:
What kind of cultivation is God giving your heart now? It is not law, but grace. Moses was on the principle of law — the Lord Jesus was on the principle of grace; and free, happy, grateful hearts are the crop that suits such cultivation. How is your soul before God? Do you understand Him in judgment or in grace? ... But if I walk in the confidence of a son who has trusted in the salvation of God, that is the ground yielding fruit fit for Him who cultivates it.
The word "often" matters. God does not test a field with a single shower. One writer points to Jehoram, a king of Israel:
God took great pains with this man, yet we have no reason to believe that anything came of it, so hopeless is the flesh. This reminds us of the apostle's warning in Hebrews 6:7-8 ... The "rain" of God's goodness fell "often" upon Jehoram, but no fruit for God can be found in the record of his life as a result of it.
Many read this chapter and ask whether a real Christian can be lost. One writer answers straight from the picture of the ground:
Some have thought this a terrible passage. It is certainly a very solemn one. But what does it teach? That a real Christian may after all fall away and be lost for ever? There is not a thought of that in it. ... The illustration of the ground in verse 7 was plain in its application. The ground enjoyed the rain from heaven, so you could say it shared in a heavenly gift, and if it was fruitful it received blessing from God. But if it produced thorns and thistles after the rain had watered it, it would be rejected and near a curse, and its end was to be burned. It had enjoyed every advantage, but did not respond to them.
One writer lays the same test over the whole professing Christian world:
So it is now in Christendom. What is it, for the most part, but land that has drunk the rain that comes often on it, and yet bears thorns and thistles instead of a useful crop? ... The power displayed has long vanished to zero; but the awful fact is that the classes and the masses are alike departing from the truth of the gospel.
- Rain — the same goodness of God falls on every field. The shower is never what makes one soul differ from another.
- Ploughing — ground drinks only after the plough breaks it open. The Spirit works true repentance, and that is what makes a heart soft enough to take in the Word.
- Tillage — the fruit God looks for matches the way He works the soil. He works it by grace, so the crop is glad, grateful confidence, not fearful effort under law.
- Testing — the rain comes often, so years of privilege with no fruit are themselves the verdict. Jehoram's life shows it.
- Blessing — fruitful ground shares in blessing from God. The crop, not the privilege, is what marks off living faith from empty claims.
but bringing forth thorns and briars, it is found worthless and nigh to a curse, whose end [is] to be burned.
The verse ends a picture drawn from farming. Two fields get the same rain: one grows a useful crop, the other only thorns. Commentators read this as the line between real faith and mere profession. It raises the hardest question in the chapter: can someone with every spiritual advantage still be lost? (Older translations read "thorns and briers" where the ESV has "thorns and thistles".)
The rain is not what changes in the picture. The ground changes, and the harvest shows what that ground always was. One writer illustrates this with two kings of Israel, Saul and David:
We have reason to fear that some people like to carry the Christian name, to share in Christian privileges and even to aim at Christian offices, without true conversion to God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ… The showers that fall on both are the same; they only make clear the true nature of the soil. In David, on whom the Spirit of the Lord came, we have an example of fruitful ground; in Saul, of a barren waste.
The same is true of everyone who sits under the preaching. Only two outcomes follow:
One plot of ground does not repay the labour spent on it. It produces only briers and thorns, and it is found worthless… It is the same with those called Christians. They all enjoy the same outward advantages. Those truly converted are fruitful; the rest, who only profess, are unfruitful.
The word translated "rejected" is a strong one, and it turns up elsewhere in the New Testament describing people God has disapproved:
In the New Testament the word is adokimos, "disapproved." Scripture applies it to the wicked, and also to those who enter the race but fail to reach the goal (Romans 1:28; 2 Corinthians 13:5-7; 2 Timothy 3:8; Titus 1:16). Translators also render the same word "rejected." It marks out those who, despite gracious ministry, produce only what is natural to fallen man (Hebrews 6:8).
Thorns are not a neutral image. They have a history, and even their structure carries a lesson:
Thorns were the sign of the curse at the beginning. They are, in fact, as botanists tell us, abortive leaves, parts of a plant incapable of fulfilling their original purpose. Sinners are thus in this symbol naturally connected with the curse upon sin.
One writer follows the thorn from the teaching of Jesus to its worst end:
You may remember that our Lord says in the parable that some seed fell among thorns. He tells us the thorns can be the cares, the pleasures, the riches, the prosperity of this world. Anything that would take Christ's place can be the thorn. The apostle applies it here to full-fledged apostasy: giving up Christ and so becoming an absolute thorn, whose end is cursing and burning.
Does this verse describe a Christian losing salvation? One writer answers from what the apostle assumes:
All the difficulty leaves the passage once we see clearly what the Apostle assumes. He is not assuming divine life, or a divine work in the soul. He is assuming only a taste of the outward privileges of the Christian circle.
Another writer draws the line plainly:
All the blessings offered on Christian ground come to such outward professing Christians like rain. Instead of bringing useful herbs out of the ground, it brings thorns and briers — worthless, near to cursing, and then the end, to be burned. This can never be said of a true child of God.
The picture is not only about single people. One writer turns it on the whole professing Christian world:
So it is now in Christendom. What is it, for the most part, but land that has drunk the rain that falls on it so often? Yet instead of useful herbs it bears thorns and thistles. By God's word it is therefore rejected and near to a curse. Is not its end to be burned?
One writer saw himself in this verse, as the wild growth it condemns:
I remember the time when I, a wild briar, looked over the fence and across the way. I saw the beauty of the Lord's cultivated garden, and I saw how useless and hopeless my life was. I knew what the end must be for all the wild growth I was part of. I had read in Holy Scripture that ground which bears thorns and thistles "is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned."
- Same rain. The same privileges fall on every hearer. The harvest only shows what the ground always was. The Spirit of the Lord came on Saul as well as on David.
- Rejected. The word means "disapproved." Scripture uses it of the wicked, and of anyone who, after gracious ministry, still grows only what fallen nature grows.
- Thorns. They are the old sign of the curse, and growth that failed its purpose. They stand for anything put in Christ's place, and at the extreme, for giving Christ up.
- Not the believer. The passage never assumes divine life in these people, only a taste of outward privilege. This verdict is never said of a true child of God.
- Still time. The land is near cursing, not yet cursed. One writer read this verdict, saw the wild briar in himself, and can now speak of it in the past tense.