About Hebrews 6:4-7
“If he is speaking technically–offering the kind of absolute axiom that one would find in a systematic theology–then he would indeed mean that if you fall away from Christianity then you won’t repent afterwards. Your mind will be locked on evil such that you can’t (or won’t) change it, as happens with those in hell.
But normally the authors of Scripture are not speaking technically. That’s one of the reasons Scripture does not read like a systematic theology. You can’t approach a given passage with the assumption that it must be a set of exceptionless theological axioms. To do that is to commit what I’ve called
the "technical statement fallacy."
Instead, you have to recognize the flexibility and partialness of the way the authors of Scripture express themselves, as well as the fact that they are often speaking in practical terms and may use expressions of speech that are hyperbolic.
That’s what I think is happening in this passage: The author of Hebrews isn’t making a technical statement about getting apostates to repent. He’s making a practical one, and in so doing he’s expressing himself somewhat hyperbolically.
He even signals this, after making the dramatic statement that you can’t get apostates to repent, by explaining the grounds for the assertion: They (the Jewish Christians who have gone back to Judaism) can’t be brought back to repentance because (a) they crucify Christ again
to themselves (meaning: in their hearts) and (b) they openly put Christ to shame. What he means by this is that, after having been followers of Christ, they then turn their backs on him and say that he was a false Messiah who deserved what he got by being crucified (that’s how they crucify him “again . . . to themselves”) and they then start publicly condemning him in the Jewish community (that’s the putting him to an open shame).
The author then, in subsequent verses, goes on to compare such people to hardened ground that won’t soak up rain, conveying the idea that they are so hard of heart at this point that you won’t be able to bring them back to repentance and faith in Christ.
Bear in mind that we’re talking about the first century, when becoming a Christian could and did result in being put out of the synagogue, shunned in Jewish society, and basically divorced from your family. If someone has braved all that and tasted all of the heavenly gifts that being a Christian has to offer and
still turned his back on Christ and gone back to Judaism, saying that Jesus deserved to be crucified and talking him down in the non-Christian Jewish community to prove their restored loyalty to it then–the author of Hebrews is saying–
don’t waste your time on such people. Their hearts are too hard. You won’t–practically speaking–be able to get them to turn back to Christ if they’re really that hard of heart.
Incidentally, the “don’t waste your time on these people” aspect of the passage is also indicated by the way the chapter begins, which involves the author of Hebrews saying “Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God” (6:1)–in other words, “Let’s not be detained by all of the basic, introductory elements of the Christian faith at this point. You’d have to explain a lot of this to ex-Christian Jews to lead them back to the faith, but it isn’t worth it practically speaking. You’d be better off focusing on the matters I want to move on to.”
Look at the way verses 1-3 hook up with verses 4-6: The author isn’t introducing the subject of the hard hearted apostates as a subject on it’s own. It’s a justification for moving on in the discussion.
Of course, as Jesus told us, what is impossible with man is still possible with God, and so in his own way God
can lead ex-Christians back to the faith–even very hard hearted ones. And human experience does show that apostates both
can and
do repent again and turn back to Christ, so we have evidence on that front as well that the author of Hebrews is speaking practically rather than technically. The long experience of twenty centuries shows that such reversions are possible, and the Church has recognized them and ministered God’s grace to such reverts by the sacrament of penance.”
jimmyakin.typepad.com/defensor_fidei/2006/10/a_reader_writes.html
