The ultimate hardening of some who at one time professed faith in Christ ought to leave us unsettled in heart. The severity of apostasy is that there is no return. This ought to be felt by those who continue to profess faith in Christ. There will always be Judases among the people of God in almost any congregation. This means that we should examine our own hearts and lives to see if we have turned our gaze to the world and away from Christ to such an extent that we have hardened our hearts against the truth. The subject of apostasy has massive implications for our spiritual lives.

In John Bunyan’s classic, The Pilgrim’s Progress, there is a sobering picture of the experience of apostasy in the lives of those who once professed faith in Christ but who ultimately abandoned that profession. As Christian makes his way toward the celestial city, he comes to the house of a man named Interpreter. The Interpreter is revealed to be the apostle Paul by the descriptions Bunyan made of him. The Interpreter showed Christian seven different scenes in this house that highlight various aspects of the Christian life, dangers, and realities. The sixth of these is a man in a cage who is in utter despair. When Christian goes to this man and asks him why he is in the cage, and why he is in such despair. The man responded by saying:

 “I was once a fair and flourishing Professor [professor of faith in Jesus Christ], both in my own eyes and also in the eyes of others: I once was, as I thought, fair for the Celestial City, and had then even joy at the thoughts that I would get thither.”

Christian then asked the man what had happened to him. The man said, “I am now a man of despair, and am shut up in it, as in this Iron Cage. I cannot get out; O Now I cannot.”

Christian followed up by asking him how he came to be in this miserable condition; and the man said:

“I left off to watch and be sober; I laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the Light of the Word, and the Goodness of God; I have grieved the Spirit, and he is gone; I tempted the Devil, and he is come to me; I have provoked God to Anger, and he has left me; I have so hardened my heart that I cannot repent.”1

The imagery in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress has left many professing believers unsettled throughout the centuries; yet, it is functionally the imagery of Hebrews 6:4-6. What are we to make of the language of this passage? Surely these are some of the most fearsome words in all of Scripture. What do we do with the language of those who “were once enlightened,” “have tasted the heavenly gift,” “have become partakers of the Holy Spirit” and “have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come?” How are we to understand the teaching that there are some who it is “impossible to renew to repentance?” Are we to conclude that they were saved and lost their salvation? Are we to understand that somehow they did not do enough to stay in a state of grace? Are we to understand that it is possible for someone to sin so much that they are past the point of repentance? A prima facia reading of the language certainly seems to lend itself to such an interpretation; but a careful consideration of them leads to a vastly different conclusion. Prior to explaining the meaning of the text, we must consider how wrong views of this passage have frequently caused damage to true believers.

Warning Passages in Hebrews

There are essentially five warning passages in the letter to the Hebrews (Heb. 2:1–4; 4:1–13; 6:4–8; 10:26–31; and 12:25–29). Of these five, none have given Christians such interpretive difficulty as Heb. 6:4–8 and 10:26–31. The spectrum of interpretive possibilities published by theologians and commentators over the centuries has not alleviated the hermenuetical challenges that come with these passages. Rather, they have often offered solutions that only serve to extensuate the minds of believers. 

Towards the end of his ministry, the late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones appealed to Hebrews 6:4-6 and 10:26-29 as “passages that the devil seems to use most frequently in order to distress and to trouble God’s people” by twisting it meaning to hold true believers in servile bondage. He wrote:

“I can definitely say, after some 35 years of pastoral experience, that there are no passages in the whole of Scripture which have more frequently troubled people and caused them soul agony than the passage in Hebrews 6:4-8, and the corresponding passage in Hebrews 10:26-29.  Large numbers of Christians are held in bondage by Satan owing to a misunderstanding of these particular statements.  I do not say that these are the two most difficult passages in the Bible.  I do not regard them as such.  But I do assert that they are passages that the devil seems to use most frequently in order to distress and to trouble God’s people.”2

If we read the warning in chapter 6 together with the warning in chapter 10 we must conclude that the warning relates specifically to what is called, “sinning willfully.” Here too, we must tread lightly when settling on a meaning of the clause, “to sin willfully.” It might help us to say what it cannot mean prior to suggesting what the author’s meaning must be.

“Willful sin” cannot mean what the Scriptures call “presumptuous sin” (i.e., that sin that we know we should not do and yet do it anyway). We know the writer cannot be speaking of this because the Psalmist prayed that God would deliver him from “presumptuous sin” (Ps. 19:13)–thereby acknowledging that he had, at times, fallen into presumptuous sin–and that he was susceptible of falling into it again. Surely the sin of David with Bathsheba and Uriah would have been categorized accordingly.  We also know that Peter’s denial of Jesus cannot be said to be the sin intended since he was personally restored by Christ. The prince of the Puritan theologians, John Owen, explained,

“A man may so fall into a way of sin as still to retain in his mind such a principle of light and conviction that may be suitable to his recovery. To exclude such from all hopes of repentance is expressly contrary to Ezek. 18:21, Isa. 55:7, yes, and the whole sense of the Scripture.”

So what are we to make of the “willful sin” that is tantamount to “falling away” from Christ and putting oneself in a place in which it is “impossible to renew again to repentance?” The answer to this question must be determined by a consideration of what those who fall away fall away from. In Heb. 6:4-5, they are said to be those who were “once enlightened,” have “tasted the heavenly gift,” been made “partakers of the Holy Spirit,” and “tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.” Thew writer is noting that something has really and truly been experienced in the lives of those who are in danger of falling away. That something is that they have had the influences of the Spirit of God at work on them in the realm of spiritual gifts and experiences. Thomas Peck, the Southern Presbyterian theologian, noted,

 “The illumination and other spiritual endowments enumerated in the fourth and fifth verses are not ‘things that accompany salvation,’ that is, are not so inseparably connected with salvation but that they may belong to persons who never have been and never will be in favor with God. In other words, they are spiritual gifts, not spiritual graces. . .Gifts may be lost, graces never can. It is gifts, not graces, which are predicated of those who may fall away, in the passage under consideration.”

In other words, the phrase cannot mean that a true believer can fall from saving grace. We know this to be true because of such passages as John 6:37; 10:28; Romans 5:1-21; 8:1; 8:28-30; Phil. 1:6; etc. There are so many passages that speak of the definitive safety true believers have in the Person of Jesus Christ. Because of the perfections and finality of His saving work, those who are in union with Him by faith are also safe; since we cannot have an infallible knowledge of who has a true and saving profession of faith–in contrast from those with a false and temporary profession–all we can do is look for the fruit and perseverance they exhibit. This is why the writer of Hebrews can follow what he said in vv. 4-6 with what he says in verses 10-12.

The “we are confident of better things concerning you beloved…things belonging to salvation” is meant to be an encouragement to them that there is evident fruit in their lives. This is important because the writer rebuked them for not going on to maturity in the things of God in 5:13-6:3.

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