Falling from Growth
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The Lord Jesus Christ, by His death and resurrection, paid
the sufficient price to satisfy God's demand for justice against man's sin.
God’s justice has been once and forever satisfied. Eternal life is available
to those who will receive God’s grace by faith (Eph. 2:8-9). The life that is
provided to the believer at the moment of faith is forever life, not
probationary life. Eternal life is just that, life that will never end. Those
of us who have believed in Jesus Christ are saved forever and can never be
lost. Our eternal salvation is not based on our living a sinless life, or on
our ability to hold on to this life. God knows very well all who are “in
Christ.” “And I give them eternal life, and
they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand”
(Jn. 10:28). “I am the Good Shepherd
and I know my own and my own know me” (Jn. 10:14). But there are passages in the Bible that seem at first glance to
say that it is possible to lose our salvation. One such passage is 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 shall fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they
crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame” (Heb.
6:4-6). Does this passage teach that a Christian can lose eternal life?
To discover the true meaning of these verses, we must dig a little deeper
into the Word of God. The book of Hebrews was written to Hebrew Christians to
teach Hebrew Christians that they were to no longer be Hebrew Christians.
They were to be simply Christians. These former law-keepers had left the
constraints imposed upon them by the Old Testament Law and had received a
brand new identity as Christians. “Old things had passed away and all things had become new”
(2 Cor. 5:17b). The “old things” involved all that was associated with the old
Adam. In Adam all die, but believers have been “made alive” in Christ. In old
Adam there was temporary life. They were destined to an eternal death. But
now they had God’s eternal life. And a part of these “all things” to Jewish
believers meant that they were no longer under the Mosaic Law. All of those ceremonial ritualistic
shadows had led them to Christ. Now they were “in Christ.” The shadows
revealed by the law had become reality. Jesus Christ had been foreshadowed by
the shadow sacrifices of the old law system. By His death and resurrection, He became the real sin
substitute (Heb. 10:1). Having trusted in Christ, these Hebrews had become members of the
body of Christ. They were now to
concentrate on cultivating a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Their
new goal, much higher than knowing and keeping the law, was to grow in
knowledge of their Savior. They were to begin to understand and apply fresh
new truth concerning their spiritual position in Christ. A wonderful part of this new truth involved knowledge of the Melchizedekian priesthood. No
longer were these Jews to serve God under their old fleshly high priests. As Christians, they were working
under their new High Priest - a raised, eternal High Priest. Christ was to
reign as a priest, not after the tribe of Levi, but after the order of
Melchizedek (Heb. 7-10). The writer of Hebrews used knowledge of this special
priesthood as a spiritual barometer to measure their lack of spiritual
understanding. “Called by God as High Priest according to the order to
Melchizedek of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have
become dull of hearing” (Heb. 5:10-11). The writer wanted desperately for the Jewish Christians to
understand that they now had an eternal Priest. They could be blessed by that
knowledge. However, because they had not matured, they had not grasped the
spiritual plan of God found in Melchizedek. They had become “dull of
hearing.” This meant that they were not only having problems with the
wonderful truth surrounding Melchizedek but were still struggling with truth
which they had known before but because they had not used it, it had fallen
away. “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need
someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and
you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only
of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But
solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason
of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Heb.
5:12-14). “Solid food” is the deeper spiritual insight into the teaching of
Melchizedek. “Milk” symbolized the simple truths which they should have
learned early and used often. The Corinthians, like the Jews in Hebrews, had been given
sufficient time and teaching to grow up spiritually, but they had failed to
do so. Because of this, they were also called “babes in Christ” (1 Cor.
3:1-2). Paul taught the Corinthians that spiritual babies often acted like
unbelievers. In fact, Paul had
to write to them “as” to unbelievers. Like the Hebrew Christians, they were to grow to maturity in
order to become spiritually productive. A tremendous motivation to do this is
the fact that they would all one day stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
There they will be judged - not for the penalty of their sins - but for the
way that they carried out the spiritual responsibility before God. (See “Growing Churches the Grace Way: Grace to Paul”.) “For we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ,
that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he
has done, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). These “works” were to be built on the firm foundation of their
faith in Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:9-11). “Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver,
precious stone; wood, hay, and straw” (1 Cor. 3:12). Notice the two different kinds of building material named here.
One group of material is combustible; the other is not. They represent the
quality of the works that Christians will produce while on the earth. The
fire of God’s judgment will one day purge believers. “Each one's work will become clear; for the day will
declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each
one's work of what sort it is” (1 Cor. 3:13). Works that are produced by God in us (the fruit of the Holy
Spirit) will stand the test of the fire and remain. Works which are motivated
by our flesh will be burned, resulting in a loss - not a loss of salvation
but loss of reward. “If anyone's work which he has built on endures, he will
receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he
himself will be saved, yet so as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:14-15). This truth not only applies to the Corinthian church of old, but
to believers today. Remember, good works do not save us; we are saved by
faith in Christ But God has foreordained good works in believers. “For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for
good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph.
2:10). Now back to the Hebrew Christians of our passage. The failure to
“move on” by studying and understanding the deeper truths of the word of God
had led to the spiritual immaturity. “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened,
and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have tasted the good word of God and
the powers of the age to come” (Heb. 6:4-5). There is no mistaking that the “those” in this passage are the
same immature believers of chapter five who misunderstood the doctrine of
Melchizedek. There is no doubt that they are believers. “If they shall fall away, to renew them to repentance since
they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame”
(Heb. 6:6). What exactly did the writer mean by “falling away”? He did not
mean falling away from eternal life in Jesus Christ. They were in danger of
falling back into Judaism. They were in danger of falling from God’s grace
back into Law (Gal. 5:1-5). By
having one foot in their Judaistic roots and one in Christianity, they were
in danger of staying in one place. They needed to move on! The answer to their dilemma was not a
renewal of their salvation. They did not need to go back to the cross and be
reborn again in order to have the capability of moving on. To do so would be
to crucify Christ in their mind time and again, thereby constantly putting
Him to open shame. It would be impossible for Christ to have died again and
it would have been impossible for them to be saved again. These believers needed to move on and produce fruit that was
pleasing to God. The reason was that each one was going to stand before God
at His Judgment Seat. Verses
seven through ten are critical verses which add light to the true meaning of
the passage because they continue the same thought. “For the earth drinks in the rain that often comes upon it,
and bears herbs (vegetation) useful for those by whom it is cultivated,
receives blessing from God” (Heb 6:7-8). A fruitful earth
receives blessing from God. It drinks in the rain and becomes fruitful. The opposite should also be clear. IF
THE EARTH DOES NOT PRODUCE FRUIT, BUT PRODUCES THORNS AND BRIARS, IT WILL BE
BURNED. This is a reference, not to the judgment of eternal hell, but to the
Judgment Seat of Christ and to the fact that we are all going to pass through
the judgment fire of God. Our works that are not fruitful or profitable to
God will be burned. And then the passage continues. “But beloved, we are confident of better things of you, yes
things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner” (Heb. 6:9). The “better things of you” does not refer to going to heaven or
having eternal life. It refers
to things that accompany salvation. Things like becoming teachers who are productive
and believers who have their spiritual senses sharpened. These are to be the
things that are to accompany our salvation, not earn it. “For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Heb. 6:10-12). In order to produce such labor of love, such works (fruit), the child of God should not be concerned with losing eternal life, but should leave the elementary things of salvation and move on to the more complex truths of our faith, continuously growing to the point of being able to teach others. Let us move on to better things - the things that God has designed to accompany our salvation. |
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