Question: Hebrews 6:4-6 speak of the impossibility of one who has fallen away to be restored again to repentance, does this mean they are lost forever?
4 For as touching those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame..
Here the author deals with verse 6, the crucial verse. The point he is making is that for believers who have these five spiritual privileges of verses 4-5, that prove them to be true believers, there is something that is impossible for them to do. And that which is impossible controls both clauses: first, it is impossible for them to fall away and, therefore, secondly, it is impossible also to be renewed to repentance. The reason it is impossible is that for them to be able to lose their salvation and be saved again later would require the Son of God to be crucified afresh. Therefore, by their action, they re-identify themselves with the decision of that Jewish generation in rejecting Yeshua as the Messiah. Hence, it is impossible for them to fall away and to be saved again later, because this would require a re-crucifixion of the Messiah. The reason He is not coming back to be crucified again is because it puts him to an open shame. It would mean that His first death did not provide complete salvation; that His first death did not save “to the uttermost.” To understand this verse correctly in the context of the first century Messianic Jewish situation, it is impossible for those who had experienced these five spiritual privileges to lose their salvation and to be saved again later.
It might help to make this clearer by giving several different paraphrases of this passage in context. The first paraphrase is:
“If you could fall away, and then, at some later time be saved again, thus, a new salvation would erase the responsibility and judgment of the relapse. But since you cannot fall away and be saved again, you must go on to maturity and bear fruit.”
The second paraphrase is:
“If it were possible to fall away and then be saved again, which it is not, then you could start all over and remove your past mistakes. But since it is not possible, you must be warned about how you are now living, and you must go on. The consequences of neglect will be dealt with at the Judgment Seat of the Messiah.”
The third paraphrase is:
“Because you have been privileged spiritually and enlightened by having tasted the heavenly gift, by being made partakers of the Holy Spirit, by having tasted the good word of God and powers of the age to come, you cannot retreat.”
The fourth paraphrase is:
“It is impossible for those who are saved to fall away and thus remove all the wasted years and failure and babyhood. This would require the Messiah to die again and put him to an open shame, because His first death was not sufficient. As all of this is impossible and we cannot remove the record of wasted years as a believer, there is only one thing for us to do: to go on to maturity.”
And the fifth paraphrase is:
“Leaving babyhood behind, let us go on to maturity. For it is impossible by means of a falling away to renew, that is, to make the whole record new by means of initial repentance through salvation, since this would necessitate the Messiah’s dying again and making His first death of no avail, and therefore, a mockery to those watching.”
To summarize this section: they thought they had an option that they did not have. They did not have the option of giving up their salvation, going back into Judaism and being saved again later, because that would require His re-crucifixion. However, Jesus will not be coming back to be re-crucified, because He has already saved to the uttermost; He has already saved completely. They did have two options. The first option was to go back into Judaism. This would not mean the loss of salvation, but it would mean the loss of their physical lives in the judgment of a.d. 70. The second option was to make their break from Judaism once-and-for-all complete. For Jewish believers, then and today, this comes by means of immersion or water baptism, thus identifying themselves with believers in Yeshua, and then pressing on to maturity. The rest of chapter 6 is trying to encourage them to do just that: to press on to maturity.
Extract from Dr Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Ariel Ministries Messianic Bible Study MBS135 'The Five Warnings of the Book of Hebrews' (San Antonio, TX.) pg. 15
