Hebrews 6:4-8 AMP “For [it is impossible to restore to repentance] those who have once been enlightened [spiritually] and who have tasted and consciously experienced the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted and consciously experienced the good word of God and the powers of the age (world) to come, and then have fallen away–it is impossible to bring them back again to repentance, since they again nail the Son of God on the cross [for as far as they are concerned, they are treating the death of Christ as if they were not saved by it], and are holding Him up again to public disgrace. For soil that drinks the rain which often falls on it and produces crops useful to those for whose benefit it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God; but if it persistently produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.”
This post is a follow-up to a previous post titled “No Way Back” and is inspired by a post on a social media site.
Original social media post:
There are some of you who have run from Jesus. There are some of you who are backsliding. I’m here to tell you.
Try as you may, you can’t run from Him.
He’ll pursue you, wherever you go on this earth. Go back. He tells me to remind you…
He loves you, more than you ever know.
The above sounds great. It sounds Biblical. It sounds ethnocentric. It sounds as if you can do what you wish without consequence, and this is my response to the above, and I hope it sheds light on an exceedingly difficult and constantly overlooked issue in Hebrews 6.
This social media post does not align with Hebrews 6. It tells people that they can fall off the train, sin all they want, and return as if nothing happened. All they must do is repent (rinse, wash) and then repeat. I could agree with this statement if the individual stopped attending worship services, attending bible studies, or worshipped at home instead of corporately, and did not go on a sin binge for weeks, months, or years. We all sin every day we take a breath, however, we do not abandon our Lord, we do feel the need to confess what we have done to the Lord and He is there to help us through it and forgive us. Issue is, when we are forgiven and we truly repent, we do not return to the same issue again. Please read Hebrews chapter 6 for yourself. Christianity, our faithfulness, our walk with Christ is not a revolving door where one week we follow Christ and the other weeks we follow the flesh and the devil.
Please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here. I can tell you from personal experience that God will restore a person who has had weak moments in their life, where a person goes off the rails for fleeting period and then returns because of the intervention of the Holy Spirit. That individual such as I, never stopped believing, nor stopped praying, never stopped hoping. It was a momentary failure of a test where I for example decided to go it alone instead of asking Jesus for help and then trusting in Him to provide that help. What I’m saying is there are differences to backsliding; where one backsliding moment never leaves the faith while the other backsliding moment abandons the faith in Christ. The backsliding where there is no departure of the faith, can be brought back into the fold while the other has no way back. I hope this helps to understand what I’m getting at.
Hebrews 6:9-12 AMP “But, beloved, even though we speak to you in this way, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and of things that accompany salvation. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown for His name in ministering to [the needs of] the saints (God’s people), as you do. And we desire for each one of you to show the same diligence [all the way through] so as to realize and enjoy the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be [spiritually] sluggish, but [will instead be] imitators of those who through faith [lean on God with absolute trust and confidence in Him and in His power] and by patient endurance [even when suffering] are [now] inheriting the promises.”
In closing, let’s not take our carnal and liberal thoughts and implement them to the commands of the word of GOD. Christianity is not a democracy on any worldly level. God’s word is about the supernatural sovereignty of GOD almighty. We do not change HIS words and or meaning to say what we want it to say. It does no matter if the wording from God offends you or causes you to have sleepless nights. God’s word says what it means and means what it says, that is how it works. It took me many years to finally understand this and to change my way of thinking to accepting the way God intended me to think so I can accept what He has said without quarrel or dispute. That, my friends, is just the way it is.
Mike
6 January 2022
The Christian Underground Journal
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