Hebrews 6:4-6 and the Peril of Apostasy

By Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

Westminster Theological Seminary

In the Epistle to the Hebrews there are repeated warnings against the danger of falling away into apostasy, expressed variously in terms of drifting away from what we have heard, careless unconcern for the great salvation that is ours in Christ (2:1–3), the development of an evil, unbelieving heart causing one to fall away from the living God, being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin and failing to hold our first confidence in Christ firm to the end (3:12–14), being excluded by disobedience from the rest promised to the people of God (4:1, 6, 11), sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth and thereby facing a fearful prospect of judgment (10:26f, 31), abandoning the Christian struggle because of hardship and affliction (12:1, 3, 7, 12f, 16f), rejecting Him who warns from heaven (12:25, 29), and being led away by diverse and strange teachings (13:9). But nowhere are the readers more strikingly admonished of this peril by which they are threatened than in chapter 6:4–6, where the author solemnly declares that

it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the words of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt,

and in chapter 10:29, where in similar manner he speaks of the dreadful punishment that will be deserved by

the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace.[1]

It is plain that the author’s concern is not simply lest his readers should remain at a standstill on the threshold of the Christian life, immature and unfruitful in the faith they professed (5:11ff), but, something far worse, lest there should be a relapse into unbelief in their midst. The danger of apostasy was real, not imaginary, and the situation called for the gravest possible warning; for loss of confidence and the slackening of the will to contend in the Christian race (10:35f, 12:3) pointed alarmingly to the ultimate possibility of their dropping out of the contest altogether, and in doing so of placing themselves beyond all hope of restoration.

Six things are predicated of the spiritual experience of those whom it is impossible to restore again if they rebel against the faith they claimed to hold.

1. They have professed repentance. This should be understood as a resumption of what is more fully stated in verse 1, namely, “repentance from dead works and faith toward God.” Genuine repentance is a once-for-all turning of the back on the old way of life; it is “repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret” (2 Cor 7:10); it is a decisive, unrepeatable moment in the transition from death to life; and as such it belongs to the foundation on which the new life in Christ is erected. Consequently, it is unthinkable that this foundation can be laid over again (6:1). This does not mean that there is no place for repentance on the part of the man who has truly turned to Christ. On the contrary, the sins and shortcomings of which he is daily guilty call for daily repentance and forgiveness; but even so, thanks to the grace of God which enabled him to make the decisive move of turning and trust, he has left behind him his former ungodly life and is on the road that leads to holiness and glory.

2. They belong to those who have once been enlightened (the same expression recurs in 10:32). The verb used here, (φωτίζειν) is used of the activity of the eternal Word who came into the world to enlighten men (John 1:9) and through faith in whom believers have been enlightened in the very depths of their being (Eph 1:18; cf. 2 Tim 1:10). Satan blinds the minds of unbelievers “to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ”; but in the case of those who have been transformed by the grace of the gospel this satanic darkness has been dispelled by the shining in their hearts of “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:4, 6; in both of these verses the Greek word translated “light” is the cognate noun φωτισμός, “enlightenment”). This accords closely with what is said in Heb 10:32, where “to be enlightened” evidently corresponds to the experience mentioned in verse 26 of “receiving the knowledge of the truth.” The grace of enlightenment carries with it solemn responsibilities. Thus Paul admonishes the Ephesian Christians: “Once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light….Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness” (Eph 5:8, 11; these “unfruitful works of darkness” being the equivalent of the “dead works” from which the Christian professes to have separated himself in Heb 6:1).

From at least the second century onwards this expression was interpreted as a reference to baptism. Justin Martyr (165), for instance, states that the term “enlightenment” was used in his day as a synonym for Christian baptism and himself calls the person baptized “the enlightened one” (ὁ φωτισθείς, First Apology, 61, 65); and the Peshitta Syriac actually renders the present passage as “who have gone down into baptism.” The baptismal ceremony, besides being the initiatory rite which graphically symbolized the candidate’s repentance from dead works and his resurrection to newness of life in Christ, was also, within two centuries after the apostolic age, the climax of a prolonged period of preparatory instruction; it was, moreover, for the convert to Christianity, the moment when he professed as it were before the world his turning from the darkness of sin to the light of Christ. In the controversy over re-baptism in the fourth century this text was adduced as specifically forbidding the repetition of baptism. And its association with baptism persisted, and, it could be said, became entrenched, so that in the thirteenth century we find Thomas Aquinas explaining that “enlightened” (illuminati) means enlightened through baptism, and that “baptism is appropriately called enlightenment (illuminatio) since baptism is the principle of spiritual regeneration in which the understanding is illuminated by faith”; and early in the sixteenth century Lefvre d’Etaples asks: “What is ‘who have once been enlightened’?” and replies: “Undoubtedly who have once been baptized; for baptism is termed the sacrament of photismata, that is of enlightenments (photismatum hoc est illuminationum sacramentum) by most of our scholars.” To what extent baptism and its significance may have been in the author’s mind as he wrote this passage is a question to which we shall return.

3. They have tasted the heavenly gift. The explanation of “the heavenly gift” as a description of the eucharist has proved attractive to some, especially if the “enlightenment” of the previous clause has been taken as a reference to baptism. On this understanding, the two gospel sacraments are then placed neatly side by side. It is an interpretation, however, which does not appear to have been current in the early centuries; but it has recently been taken up approvingly by Teodorico, who relates the “heavenly gift” to the teaching of Christ in John 6:31ff. where he speaks of himself as the bread of life given by the Father from heaven. F. F. Bruce, too, while conceding that this “heavenly gift” need not be restricted to the eucharist, suggests that “it may indicate the whole sum of spiritual blessings which are sacramentally sealed and signified in the Eucharist.” But it is doubtful whether “tasting” is intended here in a physical sense, that is, of consuming the eucharistic elements, especially as its usage in the clause after next (“tasted the goodness of the word of God”), within this same sentence, is quite clearly metaphorical. (Of the fourteen times, apart from the instance now before us, that the verb γεύομαι occurs in the New Testament seven are literal and seven metaphorical, five of the latter in the sense of tasting, that is experiencing, death.) Many commentators expound the “gift” in a somewhat general sense of the gospel and the benefits it confers. Others are more specific. According to Peter Lombard, for example, it is “forgiveness of sins in baptism”; according to Lefvre d’Etaples, “justification from sins”; according to Thomas Aquinas, grace, which is described as heavenly “because God gives it from heaven”; and similarly Spicq, who asserts that δωρεά is “a technical term almost equivalent to grace.” In harmony with this last interpretation, it seems best to understand “the heavenly gift” as denoting all that God freely and graciously bestows in Christ.

4. They have become partakers of the Holy Spirit. There is much that is attractive in the suggestion that the sequence of “enlightenment,” “tasting the heavenly gift,” and “participation of the Holy Spirit” in this verse corresponds with some exactness to the “instruction about ablutions” (interpreted as relating to Christian baptism) and the “laying on of hands” of verse 2 in this chapter (though there are only two items there as compared with three here). Thus, for example, Teodorico and F. F. Bruce offer the opinion that by the three things mentioned here baptism, eucharist, and laying on of hands are intended— eucharist having been passed over in silence earlier. Delitzsch cuts the knot by his supposition that “enlightenment” is the equivalent of catechetical instruction and the “heavenly gift” the grace imparted in baptism (the two together thus answering to the “instruction about ablutions” of verse 2), while the “partaking of the Holy Spirit” is the same as the imposition of hands.

Whether the proposed correspondences, in one form or another, are correct must remain a matter of conjecture, not least because the dispute over the significance both of the “ablutions” and of “the laying on of hands” in Hebrews 6:2 shows no likelihood of being resolved. Besides, in the Acts of the Apostles there is no fixed pattern for the impartation of the Holy Spirit, which takes place sometimes with and sometimes without imposition of hands, sometimes before and sometimes after baptism. The sequence, moreover, of baptism, laying on of hands, and eucharist which soon gained acceptance in the Church is different from the sequence which, as we have seen, some have thought they could discern here. Apart, however, from this question, we may understand that the recipients of this letter became “partakers of the Holy Spirit” by the reception of “the gifts of the Holy Spirit” (πνεν́ματος ἁγίον μερισμοί) sovereignly distributed by God as mentioned earlier in the epistle at chapter 2:4; and these gifts in turn may be identified with the charismatic apportionments enumerated by the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor 12:4ff, which likewise are distributed “to each one individually as he wills.” As Hebrews 2:3 testifies, these spiritual gifts confirmed the truth and power of the gospel when it was proclaimed to those to whom this letter is addressed.

5. They have tasted the goodness of the word of God. To “taste” something is to have experience of it, as earlier in the epistle at 2:9, where Jesus is said to have tasted death for every one (cf. Mark 9:1, par.; John 8:52). The verb therefore signifies an experience that is real and personal. Literally translated, the Greek text reads, “tasted the good word of God” (καλὸν γευσαμένονς θεοῦ ῥῆμα), and it seems best, with Spicq and Teodorico, to treat the expression “good word” as a synonym for the good news which is the gospel (εὐαγγέλιον). The expression καλὸν ῥῆμα corresponds to the Hebrew הַדָּבָר הַטוֹב (cf. Jos 21:43; 23:15, etc., LXX). The desire of Westcott and some others to sustain a distinction between ῥῆμα as some special utterance and λόγος as the whole message of the gospel is misplaced, since the evidence shows that the two terms may be used interchangeably (as, for example, in Acts 10:36f which is quoted below), and further, the Hebrew דָבָד, conformably with this, is translated sometimes by the one, sometimes by the other. Particularly relevant is Peter’s assertion, with reference to Isaiah 40:8: “That word (ῥῆμα) is the gospel which was preached (εὐαγγελισθέν) to you” (1 Pet 1:25). The same apostle addresses Cornelius in the following terms: “You know the word (ὁ λόγος) which he sent to Israel, preaching good news (εὐαγγελιζόμενος) of peace by Jesus Christ…, the word (τὸ ῥῆμα) which was proclaimed throughout all Judea” (Acts 10:36f). So, too, Paul speaks of “the word (τὸ ῥῆμα) of faith which we preach” (Rom 10:8). “This word is called good,” comments Thomas Aquinas, “because it is the word of eternal life.” Within the sphere of influence of this good word the Hebrew Christians to whom this letter is addressed had entered into the experience of the blessings that belong to the gospel.

6. Finally, they have tasted in addition the powers of the age to come. These powers may confidently be identified with the signs, wonders, and miracles mentioned earlier in chapter 2:4 as accompaniments of the preaching of the gospel. (It is worth remarking that δυνάμεις translated “miracles” in 2:4 is translated “powers” here.) They are the dynamic evidences of the presence of the Holy Spirit within the community of believers, manifested particularly perhaps in miraculous healings and deliverances. As such, moreover, they testify to the fact that “the age to come” is already upon them, since its powers are operative in their midst. Looked at from the perspective of the Old Testament, this “coming age,” so long expected, has truly dawned with the advent of Christ and the achievement of his work of reconciliation, followed by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all flesh. Hence the keynote of the public ministry of Jesus is the proclamation: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mk 1:14f). Christ’s coming ushers in “the last days” (cf. Heb 1:2; Acts 2:16f; 1 John 2:18; Jude 18).

But, at the same time, it is plain that in the biblical purview the coming of the final age is in two stages; and this conception is closely bound up with the doctrine of the two comings of Christ. At his first coming Christ by his incarnation, death, and resurrection accomplished all that was necessary for the redemption of the world and the reconciliation of man to God. The new creation is even now taking place in the lives and communities of Christian believers. The principles of the new age are at this moment active through the operation of the Holy Spirit. But the consummation is not yet. The fulness is yet to come. And it will come when Christ appears the second time in the glory of his eternal Majesty and his exalted manhood. Then at last there will be the total eradication from this world of all that is sinful and defiling, and God’s everlasting purposes of creation will reach fruition in the unfading perfection of the new heaven and the new earth (cf. 1 Cor 13:9–12; Acts 3:19–21; Phil 3:20f; 2 Pet 3:13; 1 John 3:2; Rev 7:13ff; 21:1ff).

Meanwhile the Christian, who is being transformed from glory to glory as the true Image of God is increasingly moulded within him (2 Cor 3:18), enjoys a genuine experience of the powers of the age to come. But his present experience is only the promise and the guarantee of the ultimate fulfilment. The conquest of sin in his own life is the assurance that the triumphant Christ will finally drive out all imperfection, not only from his people but also from the whole of his creation. His taste of the powers of the age to come, real and dynamic though it is, is but a foretaste of the glorious banquet which awaits him (cf. Rom 8:18, 23; 2 Cor 1:22; Eph. 1:13f; 1 Pet 1:4f; Rev 19:9).

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These six blessings have necessarily been discussed separately and in turn, but it is important to recognize that they are but different aspects and manifestations of the one great blessing which the reception of the gospel brings. They are components of a unitary experience of evangelical grace in the life of the believer. It seems scarcely credible that one who has in some definite sense experienced all this should then fall away from grace. And yet this is the dreadful possibility that is envisaged in this passage. The situation is hardly eased by suggesting, as some (Spicq included) have done, that the author is expressing himself in a merely hypothetical manner: “If anyone should become apostate, it would be impossible to restore him,” with the implication that a defection of this kind would actually never take place. There is, as a matter of fact, no “if” in the Greek text, though the rendering of the participle παραπεσόντας in a conditional sense is quite justifiable. The author, we are reminded, goes on to express his confidence with regard to those he is addressing in verse 9, where he says: “Though we speak thus, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things that belong to salvation” (cf. also 10:39), and this is taken as an indication that his warning about the impossibility of restoration for the apostate is unrelated to reality and little better than the invention of a bogy for the purpose of frightening them into being better Christians. But the end does not justify the means, and to resort to subterfuge and deception, and that too within so solemn a context, would be subchristian and incompatible with the whole tenor of the epistle. The confidence expressed in 6:9 and 10:39 arises from the assurance that a true work of God has taken place in their midst; but this does not exclude the possibility that some of their number are rebellious at heart and on the road to irremediable apostasy.

Attempts have been made (by Ambrose [De Poenitentia, II, 2], Aquinas, Wordsworth, Spicq, and others) to soften the import of the language by proposing that “impossible” here means impossible for man, but not for God, and invoking the support of a text like Mark 10:27 (“With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God”). But “impossible” is used absolutely here, without any such qualification. Even less substantial is the supposition of Erasmus and Bengel that “impossible” means no more than “difficult,” for this is to do violence to language. The reading difficile in the Latin version of the sixth century Codex D (Claromontanus) which they cite affords no real support since this is clearly an earlier attempt to soften the sense of “impossible” and not a solution of the problem. Nor is the explanation of Wordsworth, Delitzsch, and others convincing that what is intended here is that it is impossible for the renegades envisaged to be restored to repentance as long as they persevere in the betrayal of the faith they formerly professed. F. F. Bruce rightly remarks that “to say that they cannot be brought to repentance so long as they persist in their renunciation of Christ would be a truism hardly worth putting into words,” and that “the participle ‘crucifying’ [ἀνασταυροῦντας] is much more appropriately taken as causal than temporal in force; it indicates why it is impossible for such people to repent and make a new beginning.” This is how RSV understands it: “…it is impossible to restore…since they crucify…”; and the NEB rendering is to the same effect.

An interpretation that has had much currency through the centuries of the Church’s history is that which explains the expression to “restore again” (πάλιν ἀνακαινίζειν) as signifying to baptize again. Not long after the apostolic age the theory was developed that the washing of baptism was equivalent to the cleansing of the blood of Christ, but that this cleansing covered only those sins committed prior to baptism; for sins committed after baptism Christ’s blood no longer availed and there was no place for renewal of repentance and forgiveness. Such teaching is found in the Shepherd of Hermas (Commandment IV,3) and is restated more fully in Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, II, 13), and subsequently receives considerable elaboration in the self-expiatory prescriptions of the penitential system in this life and in the flames of purgatory hereafter. The one permissible substitute for baptism, it was held, was the blood of martyrdom, which, like the blood of Christ, purged away all sin. Hence the practice arose, on the one hand, of postponing baptism until the hour of death and, on the other, of deliberately seeking martyrdom, since by either method it was hoped that one could enter the future world unencumbered by sin and without the danger of a spiritual relapse. Motivated though teaching of this kind may have been by concern for the purity of the Church, it is none the less seriously unevangelical, for the New Testament plainly instructs us that grace and forgiveness and the cleansing of Christ’s blood are freely available to the Christian believer who falls into sin and turns in repentance to God (cf. Heb 4:15f; 10:19–23; 1 John 1:7–9; 2:1f). It is evident, moreover, that the reference in the passage before us is not to sin in general as it displays itself in the lives of Christians, but to a particular sin of such enormity that it has the effect of permanently severing those who are guilty of perpetrating it from the body of Christ.

Early in the third century, Tertullian, governed by the rigorist presuppositions of the Montanism which he embraced in his later years, regarded repentance and forgiveness for sins such as adultery to be appropriate only to the heathen, that is, at the moment of baptism. For the Christian, or baptized person, however, repentance and forgiveness for a sin of this kind he considered unthinkable: “For who will fear to squander what he has the power of afterwards recovering?,” he asks. “Who will be careful to preserve to perpetuity what he will be able to lose not to perpetuity? Security in sin is likewise an appetite for it. Therefore the apostate will recover his former ‘garment,’ the robe of the Holy Spirit, and the renewal of the ‘ring,’ the sign and seal of baptism, and Christ will again be ‘slaughtered’“…an evident allusion to Hebrews 6:6. And there would seem to be another echo of our passage when, after citing 1 Corinthians 6:9–11, where Paul affirms that immoral, dishonest, and dissolute persons will not inherit the kingdom of God, and then adds: “And such were some of you; but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God,” Tertullian explains that “in as far as Paul puts on the paid side of the account such sins before baptism, in so far after baptism he determines them irremissible” (De Pudicitia, 9, 16). In the next century both Ambrose (De Poenitentia, II,2) and Jerome (Adversus Jovinianum, II,3) state that sects such as the Montanists, who denied the possibility of repentance in the case of church members who had fallen into serious sin, and the Novatianists, who denied that those who had lapsed under persecution could be restored to fellowship, claimed that their rigorist position was justified on the basis of the apostolic teaching of a passage like Hebrews 6:4–6. Indeed, the favor with which groups like this that had been denounced as heretical regarded the Epistle to the Hebrews is said by Filaster (De Haeresibus, 41) to have been a cause of the difficulty which this writing encountered in gaining admission to the New Testament canon. In the midst of the Novatian controversy Cyprian had exclaimed: “I wonder that some are so obstinate as to think that repentance is not to be granted to the lapsed or to suppose that pardon is to be denied to the penitent” (Epistle to Antonianus, 22, referring to Novatianists and Montanists respectively).

The situation to which the author is addressing himself, however, involves considerably more than the question of the irremissibility of a particular sin. It is not so much an act as an attitude of which he is speaking…an attitude, to be sure, which will manifest itself in disgraceful acts inconsistent with a profession of Christian faith. Yet even an act of adultery coupled with virtual murder, as in the case of David, does not necessarily betray an attitude of apostasy. That David’s true attitude, despite the enormity of his sin, was not that of apostasy is plain from the content of Psalm 51. A life that once was lived to the glory of Christ but now openly blasphemes his name and denies his gospel is the mark of the apostate. 1 John 5:16f speaks of the commission by a Christian brother of a sin which, wrong and dishonoring to Christ though it is, is not “unto death,” but at the same time affirms that there is such a thing as “sin unto death” into which a “brother,” that is, a member of the Christian community, may fall. The one guilty of the latter is evidently beyond praying for, but the precise nature of “sin unto death” is not explained. A clue to what is intended is available, however, in the warning of Christ against “eternal sin” (Mark 3:29, αἰώνιον ἁμάρτημα). This warning was called forth by the calumnious assertion of the scribes that Christ himself was demon-possessed and cast out demons by the prince of the demons…in other words, that the power at work in him was satanic and not divine. This was, in fact, the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, since from first to last the dynamic of Christ’s life was the dynamic of the Holy Spirit (cf. Mark 1:10f; Luke 1:35; 4:18–21) and his deeds were manifestly good, not evil, and evil cannot be the source of good (Mark 3:22ff; Matt 12:22ff; Luke 11:14ff; 12:10). By closing their eyes to the plain evidence that the kingdom of God had come upon them and wickedly describing as satanic the signs that the Holy Spirit was powerfully and beneficially acting in and through Christ, these professors of godliness betrayed an attitude of hardened hostility to the truth. Members of the covenant people though they were, they refused to glorify God for the evidence that his promises were so clearly being fulfilled in their presence. They showed themselves to be hard-hearted enemies of the light that had come into the world (John 1:19–21). Such blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is sin for which there is no forgiveness (Mark 3:29). “The apostle is not talking here about theft or perjury or murder or drunkenness or adultery,” says Calvin, commenting on Hebrews 6:4–6. “He is referring to a complete falling away from the Gospel, not one in which the sinner has offended God in some one part only, but in which he has utterly renounced his grace…. This does not happen to anyone unless he sins against the Holy Spirit…. Certainly God does not deprive any others of his grace except those who are wholly reprobate. There is nothing left for them.”

This sin, then, is a sin against the light. It is a sin committed, not in ignorance, but in the face of knowledge and even experience of the truth…not the sin of those who are “ignorant and wayward” (Heb 5:2) but of those who “sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth” (10:26). It is the sin which brought the direst judgment upon the Israelites of old, and also the sin by which in the first days of the Gospel their descendants judged themselves unworthy of eternal life (Acts 13:46). To enter into the light and then to reject that light in favor of the darkness of unbelief incurs the judgment of being broken off from the tree of life (cf. Rom 11:17ff). Within this perspective we can understand Paul’s otherwise enigmatic statement in 1 Timothy 1:13 that, though he had blasphemed and persecuted and insulted Christ, yet he received mercy because he had acted “ignorantly in unbelief”: in other words, his unbelief was capable of receiving God’s pardon (on his acceptance of the Gospel) because his opposition had been exercised in the darkness of ignorance (sinful and therefore culpable in itself), whereas the man who rebels as an apostate after professing faith in Christ and entering into the sphere of evangelical blessing is not acting “ignorantly in unbelief,” but by a deliberate and calculated renunciation of the good he has known places himself beyond forgiveness and renewal.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews the calamitous history of the Israelites of old is repeatedly set before the readers as a warning against the imitation of their evil example (2:1f; 3:12ff; 4:1f, 11; 10:28ff; 12:25ff), while at the same time they are urged to emulate the example of unwearying perseverance of the faithful core of the community (ch. 11). The principle affirmed in Romans 9:6 applies equally in the sphere of the Christian Church, to the effect, namely, that all are not of the Church who are in the Church. Or, as another apostle says of some who professed to be Christian but were in fact antichristian: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out, so that it might be clear that not all in our company truly belong to it” (1 John 2:19; the last clause is the NEB rendering). This same principle finds fuller expression in our Lord’s parable of the sower (Mark 4:1–20, par.). Of the four types of reception of the good seed of the gospel only one is genuine. In one type Satan immediately snatches away the word that has been sown. In another, the word is received with joy, and with rapid and even spectacular results, but without being deeply rooted, so that the response is apparent rather than real, and, “when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.” A third class of hearers seemingly gives evidence of more permanent and solid results, “but the cares of the world, and the delight in riches, and the desire for other things, enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.” Only those who receive the seed of the word into “good soil” really “hear the word and accept it and bear fruit.” It is not enough to have the name of the Lord upon one’s lips in worship and invocation. Even to prophesy and to cast out demons and to do many mighty works in the Lord’s name does not necessarily guarantee trueness of heart (Matt 7:21–23; 25:11f) Christ knew very well that it is all too possible to honor God with the lips while the heart is far from him (Mark 7:1–8). Many of the same voices that cried “Hosanna” (a petition for salvation, Ps 118:25) and hailed Jesus as King on Palm Sunday insistently demanded his crucifixion on Good Friday. Genuine confession with the lips springs only from belief in the heart (Rom 10:9f).

To turn to individual cases, Paul had the sad experience of being deserted by his erstwhile fellow worker Demas, who was lured away by “love of this present world” (2 Tim 4:10; cf. Phile 24; Col 4:14; Mark 4:18f). Simon Magus, who professed belief and was baptized under the ministry of Philip, was shortly afterwards rebuked by Peter as being “in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity” (Acts 8:9ff)…though in this instance, it is true, he was urged to repent and pray for forgiveness: tradition strongly affirms, however, that Simon became a megalomaniacal heresiarch. But no defection is more startling than that of Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, no less, who for the duration of our Lord’s ministry was blessed with the special privilege of being constantly in his presence, enjoying the warmth of his friendship, receiving his sublime instruction, and witnessing his wonderful works, and yet who sold his heart to Satan and betrayed the Master he had followed so long and so closely (Luke 22:3; John 13:2). Furthermore, the apostate condition of his heart, though known to Jesus, was not even suspected by the rest of the Twelve, to whom it was unthinkable that any of their number could prove to be a traitor (Mark 14:18f; Luke 22:21–23).

It is apparent, then, that the sin of apostasy is a grim (and far more than a merely hypothetical) possibility for persons who through identification with the people of God have been brought within the sphere of the divine blesslng. They may be baptized, as Simon Magus was, occupied in Christian labors, as Demas was, endowed with charismatic gifts, preachers even, healers of the sick and casters out of demons, and privileged to belong to an inner circle of disciples, as Judas was (Mark 6:12f; Matt 10:5ff), and yet their heart may be far from the One they profess to serve. Such considerations from elsewhere in the New Testament throw light on the passage that is before us. The Hebrew Christians who are being addressed had to all appearances been incorporated into the Church of Christ: they had professed repentance, been enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, partaken of the Holy Spirit, and experienced the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come; but, despite all this, they, or at least some among them, had failed to such a degree to show spiritual progress that it was doubtful that they had grasped even the first principles of the faith (5:11–6:2). The author fears that they are in imminent danger of slipping away into reprobation. As 10:26f shows, wilful or deliberate repudiation of the truth they have known would place them beyond the scope of that grace whose benign influences have been shed upon them. Such persons, of their own choice, withdraw themselves from the sphere of redemption and take their stand with those who crucify the Son of God and hold him up to contempt. (The tenses of the Greek participles are significant: the aorist participle παραπεσόντας indicates a decisive moment of commitment to apostasy, the point of no return; the present participles ἀνασταυροῦντας and παραδειγματίζοντας indicate the continuing state of those who have once lapsed into apostasy: they keep on crucifying the Son of God and holding him up to contempt.) They now show themselves in their true colors. They join the ranks of the mob that yells “Crucify him, crucify him!” and that wickedly derides and insults the suffering Savior; and they do this “on their own account,” that is, in their own persons and of their own volition: they are not content that others should have done it apart from them.

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The patristic authors, we may affirm, were wrong-headed in their wish to explain that this passage, despite its categorical declaration to the contrary, should not be understood as excluding all possibility of repentance; but it does not follow that their insistence on the impossibility of rebaptism is similarly invalid. A somewhat typical assertion is that of Chrysostom: “What then, is repentance excluded? God forbid! but the renewing again by baptism.” Jerome relates the whole passage to Christian baptism and its significance: “Surely we cannot deny that they have been baptized who have been illuminated and have tasted the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God” (Adversus Jovinianum, II. 3). Ambrose contends that “it is evident that the writer was speaking of baptism from the very words in which it is stated that it is impossible to renew unto repentance those who were fallen, inasmuch as we are renewed by means of the laver of baptism”; and in support of this interpretation he cites the teaching of Romans 6:4, where Paul says that “by baptism we were buried with Christ into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father we too should walk in newness of life.” He further understands as a reference to the significance of baptism the admonition of Ephesians 4:22–24: “Put off your old nature…and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Ambrose goes on to expound the association between baptism and the crucifixion of Christ: “This, too, is plain, that in him who is baptized the Son of God is crucified, for our flesh could not do away sin unless it were crucified in Jesus Christ”; for, as Paul teaches again, “all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death,” and “we know that our old self was crucified with him” (Rom 6:3, 6). Thus baptism signifies that “Christ is crucified in us, so that our sins may be purged through him, that he, who alone can forgive sins, may nail to his cross the handwriting which was against us” (Col 2:14). From this teaching the conclusion is drawn that as Christ was once crucified and died to sins once so there is but one baptism, which cannot be repeated without violating the principle of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice for sins on the cross (De Poenitentia, II,2).

Now it may very well be that the danger confronting those whom the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is addressing involved, in effect, the repudiation of their baptism. The New Testament undoubtedly affirms a very high doctrine of baptism, and in favor of interpreting the present passage in the light of the baptismal event is the series of participles in the aorist tense (φωτισθέντας…γευσαμένους…γενηθέντας…γευσαμένους) which would appropriately point back to the moment of initiation through a rite which dramatically and publicly symbolized the candidate’s turning from the darkness of unbelief to the light of the Gospel. The cardinal significance of baptism is explained by Paul to Titus, in a passage which has clear affinities with the one before us, declaring that “God saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5–7). Reduced to a single phrase, baptism is “the washing of regeneration.” The external element of this washing is water, but the water is a sacramental symbol which graphically points to an internal reality, “renewal in the Holy Spirit,” who effectively applies to the believing heart cleansing from sin by the blood of Jesus Christ (cf. 1 John 1:7; 5:6; 1 Pet 3:21). That is to say, as Augustine taught long ago, the element of water must be linked to the word of the gospel, otherwise there is no sacrament (Tract. LXXX, 3 on the Gospel of John). Accordingly, Paul tells the Ephesian Christians that Christ’s cleansing of his Church is “by the washing of water with (or within the sphere of) the word” (Eph. 5:26); and Paul himself, at his conversion, was exhorted by Ananias: “Be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16; similarly 2:38). The internal and essential element of Christian baptism is the Holy Spirit. Thus the baptism of Christ, in contrast to the baptism of John (and for that matter the proselyte baptism of the Jews), is described as baptism with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8, par.; John 1:33); and thus our Lord admonished Nicodemus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).

Furthermore, the regeneration which Christian baptism portrays is symbolized by the sequence of descent into and under the water and ascent from the water, signifying self-identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. “In baptism,” as Paul reminds the Colossians, “you were buried with him, in baptism you were raised to life with him, through your faith in the active power of God who raised him from the dead” (Col 2:12). The far-reaching implications of this union with Christ in death, burial, and resurrection are expounded at length in Romans 6:1ff. The logic of baptism, then, is that one has died to the old life of sin and been raised to newness of life in Christ. And as the death of Christ for sinners is, as the Epistle to the Hebrews repeatedly emphasizes, once-for-all, never to be repeated, so also this determines the once-for-all character of Christian baptism. A repetition of baptism suggests the possibility of a repetition of the crucifixion of Christ; and to revert from the evangelical faith professed and dramatized in baptism to a state of mutinous unbelief is to put Christ and his cross to open mockery. The following comments by Lefvre d’Etaples are very much to the point in this connection:

It is not said simply that it is impossible for persons to be restored to repentance, but that it is impossible for those who crucify again the Son of God in themselves and make him a figure of shame to be restored to repentance, which is precisely what those do who, having fallen away after receiving the baptismal illumination, imagine that they can be restored as penitents by means of a repetition of baptism. For through baptism we die, are buried, and rise again with Christ; and this is something that can happen only once. For the Lord died once, was buried once, and rose again once. Is not to crucify Christ a second time in a second baptism to set him up as a figure of extreme shame: as though his having been crucified, dead, and buried once were insufficient for the redemption of the world?

It should be added that Lefvre d’Etaples, like so many others in the preceding centuries, goes on to affirm, inconsistently with this passage, that while the way is not open for the repetition of baptism it is always open for the return of the penitent. Of course, the very possibility of lapsing from all that one’s baptism signifies discountenances the doctrine of automatic regeneration, ex opere operato, through baptism, as though the external rite itself guaranteed the internal reality. Indeed, the whole issue of this passage may be said to revolve around the question whether the internal reality, to which the external rite is designed to testify, is truly present or not.

Finally, when the redeeming blood of Christ is applied by the Holy Spirit to the very heart of a man’s being, it is a work of God that cannot fail. This means that those who are genuinely Christ’s do not fall away into apostasy. To imagine that God is anxiously waiting, uncertain not only as to who will respond to the proclamation of the gospel but also as to whether those who have responded will remain true to the end, is entirely foreign to the biblical perspective. Indeed, on this assumption, which makes the will of God dependent on the shifting will of man, there could be no guarantee that the work of Christ for our redemption would have any fruit at all; quite the contrary in fact, for unless man dead in his sins is quickened by the grace of God the heavenly banquet will certainly be bare of guests. We should be grateful, therefore, that God is not as man, no matter how much man may attempt to shape him in his own image. Where there is a work of God, whether in creation or in re-creation, whether in judgment or in grace, that work, simply because it is God’s work, cannot fail to achieve its purpose in accordance with the divine will. Thus Paul is assured that God who began a good work in the Philippian believers will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Phil 1:6); and he encourages Timothy, at a time when he is faced with the defection of Hymenaeus and Philetus, with the reminder that God’s foundation is firm and secure, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his” (2 Tim 2:19). The mystery of divine election is the guarantee that Christ will not have died in vain and that the purpose of his coming into the world will be fulfilled without any hint of frustration. This was the certain confidence of the incarnate Lord himself, who declared: “All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out” (John 6:37), and who assured his disciples that those to whom he gave eternal life would never perish and that no one would be able to snatch them from his hand (John 10:28). How, indeed, could the life that he gives be described as eternal if for one reason or another it may fail or be cut off ?

It is plain that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews does not contemplate the possibility that the work of God in the lives of those to whom he is writing may fail or be frustrated, for he expresses confidence concerning them, and that confidence is based on the assurance that God’s word and God’s work, which have been powerful in their midst, cannot falter (6:9ff, 17ff; 10:39; note also his request for their prayers in 13:18…a strong mark of his confidence regarding them). What he has reason to fear is that some among them who have professed Christian faith, enjoyed Christian fellowship, and engaged in Christian witness may prove to be hypocrites and enemies of Christ and, by turning their backs on the light they have known, show that they do not in fact belong to God’s people at all.

Notes

1. Biblical quotations are from the Revised Standard Version.