more on the book of hebrews: a hard passage

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. (Hebrews 6:4-6)

Back in the late ‘80’s, I was preaching for a church in south Texas and I decided to do a study on the Sermon on the Mount over the course of a year or less. I was going to look at each section and talk about it.

Things went fine until I came to Matthew 7:6: Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

I had gone through chapters 5 and 6 pretty well, even at some of the hard parts, but this verse stumped me.

First of all, what exactly did it mean, why was it in here in a place that was generally positive and what could I do about it.

My answer? I decided to go into a study of Ephesians. Why? Because I didn’t understand the verse.

However, common sense won out. It is a dumb idea to leave something just because you are too lazy to try to understand it. I studied and thought and it came to me. All it means is summed up in two phrases:
     Don’t argue theology with a drunk and
     Don’t officiate at the opening of a brothel with a prayer.

The point is that some verses are hard, but there is an answer (most of the time) there for you to find if you will but depend on the Lord and study.

Hebrews 6:1-6 is one of those difficult passages. On the surface, it seems that if one leaves God, one cannot come back. In fact the early church interpreted it that way. Those who succumbed to persecution were often not allowed back into the church because they had “fallen away.” The church figured that God didn’t want them.

Of course, that is not what the writer was talking about. He says that it is hard to bring people back to what they have left. If you do, they have to accept again the things they have rejected. That is hard.

It is like falling out of love with your wife and then trying to fall back in love again. The very things that irritated you about her are still there. You have to deal with them and find the things that caused you to love her in the first place.

In those magazine ads they send you, they talk about why you should buy the magazine in a letter and brochures and other tree-wasteful stuff. Then there is one little envelope that says, “If you have decided not buy this product, please read this.” It will have some little extra bonus that they will give you if you will buy what they have for sale.

God has no extra envelope to give us. We take him or we don’t. And if we reject him, it is truly difficult for someone to bring us back. We have to accept again the grace and love that we rejected before as if it were new.

The good thing about it, however, is that it is God offering this, not a magazine subscription agency in Cincinnati. He can quicken out hearts and cause us to love him. After all, it was Jesus who said, No man comes to the Father unless the Father draw him (John 6:44). When it really comes down to it, all we decide to do is let God pull us.

We can decide to reject the pull and we can fight against the pull as Saul of Tarsus did. But God is sneaky and underhanded. He does not play fair and will find ways to get us. It is ultimately our decision whether or not to let him, but it is his grace and love that saves.