Hebrews 6:4-6.

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**Hebrews 6:4-6
**“For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 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”

My question:

Is it really impossible to renew repentence if a Christian ‘falls away’, having been a true believer? Does God harden his heart to such people?
 
Just for verse comparison from the DRV:

**"For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,

****Have moreover tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come,

**And are fallen away: to be renewed again to penance, crucifying again to themselves the Son of God and making him a mockery."

I’m so immature :o. Sorry that I have nothing to contribute, but I would like to say that I am indeed curious of this answer for redemption for those who fall away…
 
Yeah so to clarify, if you were once a Christian in the true sense but temptation got the better of you, and you forgot about God and did what you wanted…then that’s it? there’s no coming back. We are given a one-time chance for repentence, and if we use it up, then there’s nothing miore that can be done.
 
What the author of Hebrews is talking about is apostasy. He isn’t saying that sinners can’t repent. He’s saying that those who chose to be apostate, who have completely turned their backs on God, have sinned such a great sin that they are mortally wounded, spiritually speaking. For them repentance is nearly impossible because they have hardened their hearts against the promptings of the Holy Spirit because of the kind of sin they have committed. No one can casually become apostate. One has to know the teachings of the Church are true, and willing and with no coersion, deny Christ and his Church. Not too many people do that, thanks be!
 
I tenitivly have something to say. This verse scares me. Its humbling. It reminds me to produce good fruit, with help from the Spirit. If the Lord cleansed you, you are His servant. Its a daily fight against the devil. It may be a call for Sainthood. As it is written also in Heb.6:9- Though we speak thus, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things that belong to salvation. 10- For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love which you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do. 11-And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end, 12- so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
 
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Della:
What the author of Hebrews is talking about is apostasy. He isn’t saying that sinners can’t repent. He’s saying that those who chose to be apostate, who have completely turned their backs on God, have sinned such a great sin that they are mortally wounded, spiritually speaking. For them repentance is nearly impossible because they have hardened their hearts against the promptings of the Holy Spirit because of the kind of sin they have committed. No one can casually become apostate. One has to know the teachings of the Church are true, and willing and with no coersion, deny Christ and his Church. Not too many people do that, thanks be!
well I know people who grew up Catholic/Christian, believed it was the truth (as far as I can tell) up to some point in there lives but now have a different ‘understanding’ of God, God as the new age spiritualist nice guy, God as a hypothetical being etc. I can’t really tell acutally. They have premarital ralations, do whetever they want.

Quoting the Bible is no use, cause they know it better than I do. Is that it for them?
 
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cynic:
well I know people who grew up Catholic/Christian, believed it was the truth (as far as I can tell) up to some point in there lives but now have a different ‘understanding’ of God, God as the new age spiritualist nice guy, God as a hypothetical being etc. I can’t really tell acutally. They have premarital ralations, do whetever they want.

Quoting the Bible is no use, cause they know it better than I do. Is that it for them?
Cynic, at 34 years I was full of rage. I was ignorant. I was dead. For His reasons, He loved me and showed me. I think it had to do with my wifes love for me or the love I had tucked away in my heart. I was brought low and my heart was broken open, a little love leaked out. Love conquers all. Tim
 
cynic said:
**Hebrews 6:4-6
**"For it is impossible for those
  • who were once enlightened,
  • and have tasted the heavenly gift,
  • and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit,
  • and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,
    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"
My question:

Is it really impossible to renew repentence if a Christian ‘falls away’, having been a true believer? Does God harden his heart to such people?

With respect, that is not quite what the text which you have quoted actually says. First, this is not simply a Christian who falls away. Consider the list of qualifications which are added to “those”. This is the falling away of someone who truly, genuinely knows, in the depths of his/her soul, that what is being left behind is utterly true, someone who is absolutely sure that the very God whom he or she is rejecting is the One, True, Holy, Righteous God. It is not something which can occur out of mischance or mere indolence, but only by deliberate decision. Even when someone has grown up in a church, and has believed faithfully for all of his/her life, and then turns away because of something which happens in his/her life, it is not the same, because such a turning is mere disillusionment. There is no disillusionment in Heb 6:4-6, only fully conscious, fully informed, wilful rejection.

Second, the ones who cannot renew are the rejectors themselves.
“That which is impossible for humans is possible for God” (Mt 19:26/Mark 10:27/Luke 18:27). “impossible” is the same Greek term (adunatos) both here and in Heb 6:4. They cannot return to God, but God can return to them.

Job set his face against God, as did Jonah. Neither was condemned.
 
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Mystophilus:
With respect, that is not quite what the text which you have quoted actually says. First, this is not simply a Christian who falls away. Consider the list of qualifications which are added to “those”. This is the falling away of someone who truly, genuinely knows, in the depths of his/her soul, that what is being left behind is utterly true, someone who is absolutely sure that the very God whom he or she is rejecting is the One, True, Holy, Righteous God. It is not something which can occur out of mischance or mere indolence, but only by deliberate decision. Even when someone has grown up in a church, and has believed faithfully for all of his/her life, and then turns away because of something which happens in his/her life, it is not the same, because such a turning is mere disillusionment. There is no disillusionment in Heb 6:4-6, only fully conscious, fully informed, wilful rejection.

Second, the ones who cannot renew are the rejectors themselves.
“That which is impossible for humans is possible for God” (Mt 19:26/Mark 10:27/Luke 18:27). “impossible” is the same Greek term (adunatos) both here and in Heb 6:4. They cannot return to God, but God can return to them.

Job set his face against God, as did Jonah. Neither was condemned.
Yes, very well put! The trouble is, will they accept that God has never left them, but that they have left God before their deaths? If not, then they have sealed their own fate, as it were.
 
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Mystophilus:
With respect, that is not quite what the text which you have quoted actually says. First, this is not simply a Christian who falls away. Consider the list of qualifications which are added to “those”. This is the falling away of someone who truly, genuinely knows, in the depths of his/her soul, that what is being left behind is utterly true, someone who is absolutely sure that the very God whom he or she is rejecting is the One, True, Holy, Righteous God. It is not something which can occur out of mischance or mere indolence, but only by deliberate decision. Even when someone has grown up in a church, and has believed faithfully for all of his/her life, and then turns away because of something which happens in his/her life, it is not the same, because such a turning is mere disillusionment. There is no disillusionment in Heb 6:4-6, only fully conscious, fully informed, wilful rejection.

Second, the ones who cannot renew are the rejectors themselves.
“That which is impossible for humans is possible for God” (Mt 19:26/Mark 10:27/Luke 18:27). “impossible” is the same Greek term (adunatos) both here and in Heb 6:4. They cannot return to God, but God can return to them.

Job set his face against God, as did Jonah. Neither was condemned.
Pretty good work for a self-proclaimed heretic, Mystophilus! Excellent post.
 
I think Ezekiel 18 may even allow for the apostate to return to the fold. In context, the book of hebrews is written to Jewish believers. If one walks away back into judaism. It may be impossible if not very difficult for one to rejoin chrisitan ranks because of the jewish social pressures of the day.
 
Here is what Collegeville Commentary says:

The danger for those who refuse to advance toward maturity is that of losing hope, of turning away from God (see 3:12). In 6:4–8 the author sternly warns his hearers of the consequences. One who has become a Christian, been enlightened, shared in the Holy Spirit, tasted God’s word, and yet has rejected it all can even be said to participate in responsibility for the death of Jesus. Hebrews is often said to take a hard line on the matter of penitence and forgiveness (see also 10:26–31), but note that the author is careful not to say that God does not forgive, but only that personal repentance is beyond the reach of one who definitively rejects the Son of God.

…and here is Oxford:
6:4, the homilist declares four things to be ‘impossible’; cf. 6:18; 10:4; 11:6. This solemn declaration begins a stern warning, soon to be balanced by a more encouraging message. The belief that it is impossible to restore apostates resembles other early Christian expressions of rigorism, such as the notion of the unforgivable sin (Mt 12:32; Mk 3:29; Lk 12:10) or the ‘mortal sin’ of 1 Jn 5:16. The homilist does not indicate whether the grounds for this judgement, repeated in a slightly different form at 10:26–31 and 12:15–17, involve divine unwillingness to accept repentance or a subjective inability of apostates to repent. It appears to be a matter of definition; those who put themselves outside the pale of salvation cannot be retrieved. Various images define belonging to the Christian community. To be ‘enlightened’ is a common Christian image for reception of the gospel; cf. 1 Cor 4:5; Eph 1:18; 2 Tim 1:10; Jn 1:9; 1 Pet 2:9; Jas 1:17. The image has not yet become an equivalent for baptism. To have ‘tasted the heavenly gift’ could allude to the eucharist (cf. Acts 20:11) but is more likely to be a general reference to all that is involved in salvation. For similar gifts, see Acts 2:38; 10:45; Rom 5:15; 2 Cor 9:15; Eph 3:7. v. 5, the ‘powers of the age to come’ recalls the description of the confirmation of God’s word (2:4). v. 6, the heart of the belief about apostates comes to expression. In rejecting the one whose death brings salvation, they join those who disgracefully executed him. The solemn designation of Christ as Son of God reinforces the heinousness of apostasy.

 
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mercygate:
Pretty good work for a self-proclaimed heretic, Mystophilus!
You are very kind.
(This is probably not the time for me to point out the self-serving bias in a heretic defending the possibility that God could redeem a dissenter, is it?)
 
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Della:
The trouble is, will they accept that God has never left them, but that they have left God, before their deaths? If not, then they have sealed their own fate, as it were.
Are their fates sealed by death? I thought that the whole point of Purgatory was that death is not the deadline for redemption.
 
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Mystophilus:
Are their fates sealed by death? I thought that the whole point of Purgatory was that death is not the deadline for redemption.
Sorry. Purgatory is not a second chance. It is the place where we are purified of our residual attachment to anything that is not fit to enter the Heavenly City (which nothing unclean shall enter – Rev. 21:27). Think of it more as the antechamber to Heaven.
 
Let’s do the Catholic thing and read in context, beginning with Hebrews 5,12:
12 Although you should be teachers by this time, you need to have someone teach you again the basic elements of the utterances of God. You need milk, (and) not solid food. 13 Everyone who lives on milk lacks experience of the word of righteousness, for he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties are trained by practice to discern good and evil.
Chapter 6:
Therefore, let us leave behind the basic teaching about Christ and advance to maturity, without laying the foundation all over again: repentance from dead works and faith in God, 2 instruction about baptisms 1 and laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. 3 And we shall do this, if only God permits. 4 For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift 2 and shared in the holy Spirit 5 and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 3 6 and then have fallen away, to bring them to repentance again, since they are recrucifying the Son of God for themselves 4 and holding him up to contempt. 7 Ground that has absorbed the rain falling upon it repeatedly and brings forth crops useful to those for whom it is cultivated receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is rejected; it will soon be cursed and finally burned. 9 But we are sure in your regard, beloved, of better things related to salvation, even though we speak in this way. 10 For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love you have demonstrated for his name by having served and continuing to serve the holy ones. 11 We earnestly desire each of you to demonstrate the same eagerness for the fulfillment of hope until the end, 12 so that you may not become sluggish, but imitators of those who, through faith and patience, are inheriting the promises.
What we see clearly is an exhortation to the reader to advance in the Faith and in learning. The inspired writer’s intent is not to set out grounds for eternal damnation.

When read in context, “proof texts” usually turn out to mean something other than the narrow interpretation placed on them to make a particular point.
 
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