The Third Warning Passage (Hebrews 5:11-6:20)

Kootenai Church

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And with your Bibles open to Hebrews chapter five, let's begin with the word of prayer.

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Father, even though we are your children, we are dependent upon the illuminating work of the

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Holy Spirit that we may understand your word in all of its glory and in all of its truth.

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And if it were not for the illuminating work of the Spirit, our minds would be completely dark and not able to understand or comprehend spiritual things at all.

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And it is our earnest desire that we may be able to do that today. And we are dependent upon your Spirit to be our teacher and your word to be our guide.

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So give us clarity of thought as we tackle some very difficult issues this morning. Help us to think clearly and help me to speak clearly.

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Help us to understand clearly here. I pray that you would open our eyes and our hearts and that your grace and goodness might rest in the power of your

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Spirit upon our time of study here today in your word. That you would be glorified through us and through this time we ask in Christ's name, amen.

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So we are here on the threshold of the third warning passage, Hebrews chapter six.

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How long have you been waiting for this? Say not long at all, this is my first time here. So I don't know what you're talking about.

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But we're starting today, the third warning passage in the book of Hebrews. And this is not just another warning passage.

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As it were, this is actually the battleground text over the theological issue of whether or not somebody who is a

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Christian can lose their salvation or whether they are safe and secure in Jesus Christ.

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90 % of the time that you encounter if you are in the I'm safe and secure camp, 90 % of the time that you encounter somebody who is on the other side who believes you can lose your salvation, nine times out of 10, they will come to Hebrews chapter six.

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The minute you say, I believe that we are safe and secure in Jesus Christ, that a true Christian cannot lose their salvation, immediately they will say, what do you do with Hebrews chapter six?

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As if that is the kryptonite bullet, as it were, the atom bomb that you drop into the discussion and we're all supposed to run from it.

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And we wish that as those who don't believe that, we wish that Hebrews chapter six would go away. That is definitely not the case.

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So this is the go -to passage. This is a battleground text. And we're going to kind of get an overview of this passage today.

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Concerning the issue of whether or not a Christian can lose their salvation, there are only two possibilities, there are only two.

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Either we are safe and secure in Jesus Christ, or our salvation can be lost.

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Either salvation is a one -time permanent, once and forever, never to be repeated and never to be lost event in reality, or it is something that can be lost and can be repeated.

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And it is not once and for all. You can either lose your salvation or you cannot. It seems quite obvious that there is no middle ground between those two options.

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They are mutually exclusive options. Only two possibilities. So consequently, Hebrews chapter six either teaches that you can lose your salvation, or Hebrews chapter six does not teach that you can lose your salvation.

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It's one of those two. So either it does or it doesn't. Then there is a third possibility.

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The third possibility is that Hebrews chapter six has nothing at all to do with the permanence of salvation at all.

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It might teach that you can lose your salvation. It might teach that you cannot lose your salvation, or it might have nothing to do with that question whatsoever.

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It's not describing the permanence of salvation at all. Those are really only three options regarding Hebrews chapter six.

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There are only two options regarding whether or not salvation can be lost or not. Either it can or either it cannot. Now, just in case

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I have been in any way unclear as to what my position on this issue is, and you chuckle, but you would be surprised.

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There are people who could listen to me for years and years, and then they'll say, I had no idea you believe that. So what? Where have you been for a decade?

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Literally, I have said this a thousand times. So just in case I have been in any way unclear about what

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I believe on it, I will lay all of my cards out on the table so that you know the position from which I am coming.

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I do not believe that a person who has been born again, regenerated, given a new nature and a new heart, transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God, adopted into the family of God, and regenerated by new birth in the

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Holy Spirit. I do not believe that that person can lose their salvation. I believe that we are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

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We are predestined to adoption of sons. We are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.

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God has placed us in him, and we are sealed in the power of the Holy Spirit, and we are kept by the power of the

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Holy Spirit and by the power of God for our inheritance, which will be revealed at the last time.

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It is not our doing. Nothing concerning our salvation is our doing. We are lost and helpless and hopeless.

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We cannot turn from our sin. We cannot open our eyes. We cannot change our heart of stone into a heart of flesh any more than a leopard can change its spots.

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We cannot do that. We are unable because we are lost and dead in Adam, completely helpless, completely hopeless, and without any hope and without God in the world.

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That is the condition of the unbeliever without Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, all of that has changed, and that change is permanent.

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Because of Christ and only by the grace of God, salvation comes to us through repentance and faith, and scripture calls both repentance and faith divine gifts from God that he gives to those whom he has chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

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And because we are in him, we are safe and totally secure. It is impossible for God, having started a work, to not finish that work.

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He will complete the good work which he has begun in you. That is his promise. It is impossible for him to fail.

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All those whom the Father has given to the Son, and this is John chapter six, all those whom the

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Father has given to the Son will come to the Son, and the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, will not cast any of them off.

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He will welcome them all. Every last one whom the Father has given to the Son will come, the

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Son will embrace them all. The Son will bring them all to himself and draw them all in, and he will, every last one of them will come to the

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Son and will believe, and every last one who believes is given eternal life, not temporary life, but eternal life, and having been given eternal life, the

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Son has promised that he will raise up all of them at the last day, and that he will lose absolutely none.

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He cannot. The Son cannot fail to fulfill the will of the Father, which the

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Father purposed in eternity past. He cannot fail to fulfill that. All whom the Father has given to him, he will save and resurrect and bring into his kingdom on the last day, every single last one of them, because the

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Father has purposed our salvation, and the Son has purposed our salvation, and the Holy Spirit has purposed our salvation.

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Our triune God cannot fail to accomplish every last thing that he has purposed.

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The will of man and the rebellion of man and the hostility of the nations notwithstanding, he is not swayed by any of that, so that there is nothing that can happen, there is nothing that will ever happen, there is nothing that could possibly happen which could alter his plans to save his people from their sin and to bring them all safe and secure into his eternal kingdom.

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He has promised it himself. He is sworn by one by himself, and there is none greater.

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So if I've been in any way unclear, that's where I'm at on the issue of salvation. Now, that does not mean that I am in any way for one moment vouching for false converts, people who make an intellectual assent to the truth, or people who have walked an aisle or checked a box or prayed a sinner's prayer or had an emotional experience that got really warm in their hearts at some time in their childhood, or some time at an evangelistic meeting, or somebody who had an experience with God, or fakes or frauds, phonies, hucksters, charlatans, superficial

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Christians, people who think they know the truth and can put on a good act and live like Satan all the rest of the week,

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I'm not vouching for any of them. I'm only talking about genuine, redeemed, regenerated, born again people who have been saved by the

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Spirit of God who belong to Christ. Those are the ones I'm talking about. And that number is far, far smaller than what it looks like when you look out across the landscape of Christianity in this country, far smaller.

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I would be shocked and surprised if one in 10 of what we think are Christians are actually

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Christians, not in this congregation, you people are unique. I'm talking about when you look out across the broad swath of evangelicalism in America, you say, oh, that looks like Christianity, that looks like Christian, that looks like a

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Christian church. I'd be shocked if it's one in 10 of the people that I'm defending. So that is what

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I mean when I talk about the salvation and security of God's people. Now, Hebrews chapter six is our text, and here's what we're going to do today.

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We're gonna read the passage, and we're gonna go through it here in a few moments. We're gonna break it down and show you how the passage kind of falls apart into different segments as the author makes his argument from the beginning all the way to the end.

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And my goal here is to introduce some of the issues that swirl around this text, and to show you what it is that lies ahead for us in the weeks that are to come.

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We're just doing a flyby today, we're not doing the whole, we're not getting in like at the depth that we normally would on a

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Sunday morning. We can't do that, that's not the purpose of today. That's not to say that this is the last message on Hebrews chapter six in the morning passage,

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I assure you that it is not. In fact, I have mapped out kind of what is ahead, and it looks like probably seven more messages on the warning passage, maybe eight counting today.

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Now, if you're sitting here thinking to yourself, eight messages on the warning passage, like, why are you rushing?

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Couldn't you take some time and go through it? Then just calm down, there may be a possibility that that could be altered, and it might be a few more.

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But there's nobody here who was thinking that, so if you were thinking to yourself, eight messages on the warning passage, just calm down, we might cram it all together, and it might be a little bit less than that.

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But probably, probably 12 messages by the time we're talking about Melchizedek again at the end of chapter six.

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So that's the whole warning passage all the way to the end of chapter six. By the time we talk about Melchizedek again, the days will already be getting shorter.

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That's how long we'll take. Was that too soon? Okay, so that is the preaching schedule.

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Now, this passage, just in case, whatever side of this theological divide you are on, and by the way,

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I'm going to assume for my purposes that probably most of the people here do not believe you can lose your salvation. There may be a few that I don't know.

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I don't know everybody's theology here, but I'm going to assume that if you are here and you've been here for any length of time, you are probably going to agree with me, because it would be very difficult for you if you didn't to see your theology pistol whipped every

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Sunday in literally everything that I say from the pulpit, from the beginning of Hebrews all the way until today. So if you're new here and you're thinking,

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I believe you can lose your salvation, and you're not going to change my mind, at least give me till when the days start getting shorter again, and we are through this passage, and then you can make your decision.

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But I'm going to assume for our purposes that most people here believe in the security of the believer. So that's the perspective from which

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I'm coming, and for my purposes, when I say we, I'm talking about those who would agree with me in my camp.

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This passage is not a slam dunk for anybody on either side of the theological aisle. It's not.

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If you think, if you're an Arminian, and let me clear this up too. It is easy for us to talk about these two sides of the theological divide by talking about Arminians and Calvinists, and that's not entirely accurate because there are

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Arminians who would agree with me concerning the security of the believer. There are people who would believe all of the

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Arminian doctrines and who would reject what I would say about the depravity of man and the nature of God's election and the scope of the atonement and the irresistibility of divine grace.

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There are people who disagree with all of that, but they would agree with me that once saved, always saved. That's the phrase that they would use. So even though they would be

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Arminians, they would agree with me on my reformed or Calvinistic perspective on the security of the believer. So it's not accurate to say that this is entirely a

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Calvinistic versus Arminian issue. But if you are one who believes that salvation can be lost, and you're coming in here today, and you're thinking

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Hebrews chapter six, I can't wait for Jim to get in there and get all bogged down in the mud of this and not be able to explain anything that we find in the warning chapter at all because this passage is a slam dunk.

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And I've convinced, I can't tell you how many people that salvation can be lost by just turning to Hebrews chapter six.

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This is my ace in the hole. This is my three pointer at the end of the game. This is what my big gun that I bring out to prove that.

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If that's what you believe, that was what you're thinking, I assure you that this passage is not a slam dunk for you, nor is it a slam dunk for anyone.

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This is a difficult passage, no matter what your theological perspective is, no matter what angle you're coming at this doctrine from, this is a challenging text because there are questions here, no matter what your theological leanings, there are questions here that cause, that are raised to kind of make you go, huh, that's challenging.

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I have a book that I just read recently called Four Views on the Warning Passages in Hebrews. And notice the title is called

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Four Views and not all four views. It's just four views on the warning passages in Hebrews.

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Two of the perspectives and what each author does, he presents his perspective and then it's critiqued by the other three. Two of the perspectives are what are called an

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Arminian perspective and two of the perspectives are what are called a reform perspective. Now you're thinking to yourself, hold on a second, you mean there's more than one

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Arminian perspective and more than one reform perspective? Yeah, there are. These were just two of the most popular on each sides of that.

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And they would disagree about some of the nuances of what's in the text. I'm gonna show you what it is that causes some conundrums for us, no matter what your theological perspective is before we're done today.

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So there are more than two takes on this warning passage. There are at least eight that I can think of off the top of my head.

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I'm gonna give to you, I think all eight this morning before we're done. And we will get out of here on time.

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I do promise that. So for those of you who are in my theological camp, the challenge here is understanding these warning passages.

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And remember, there are five of them in Hebrews. This is the third one. The challenge for us is understanding these passages in a way that these passages seem to suggest that a believer can lose their salvation.

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The challenge for us is understanding them in a way that is consistent with the rest of the argument of the book of Hebrews. For those of you who are on the other side of that perspective, who believe you can lose your salvation, your challenge is the rest of the book of Hebrews.

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So my challenge is the warning passage. Your challenge is the rest of the book of Hebrews. Because the rest of the book of Hebrews presents the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as being an eternal sacrifice of eternal priesthood that accomplishes an eternal redemption based upon eternal principles and promises made by an eternal and triune

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God that lasts forever. That's the argument of the rest of the book of Hebrews. That this one priest has offered one sacrifice once and for all that is eternally and perfectly perfected all those for whom the sacrifice was made.

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And that therefore we are safe and secure in him. We have an anchor that holds within the veil. We cling to that in Jesus Christ and because of him and what he has done in his eternal priesthood which is forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

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Because of that, we are safe and secure everlastingly and eternally. That's the context of the book of Hebrews. So when somebody comes up to me and they say, you believe you cannot lose your salvation?

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I say, yes. And they say, what would you do with the Hebrews chapter six? I say, what do you do with the rest of the book of Hebrews? My challenge is the warning passages and I think we can handle that.

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If you're on the other side, your challenge is to explain everything else in Hebrews which argues for the set security of those whom the son has saved.

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So here's an overview. Let's look at the passage as a whole. We're gonna go through it at 30 ,000 feet and I promise you we'll go into the details because there's nothing in the details of this passage that should scare anybody who is in our theological camp that believes in the security of the believer.

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There's nothing here that should scare us off. It's perfectly consistent with a reformed understanding of the security of the believer.

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And so we're just gonna get an overview. I would remind you that before we start reading, we'll hear in a second, and I know what you're thinking,

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Jim, just seriously, get to it, get to the text, we will. One more thing. This is the third of the five warning passages and because as my case would be, each of the warning passages can be understood in light of the other warning passages.

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In other words, each warning passage can be understood in and of itself, but we do have to step back and remember what each warning passage is because the author is unfolding a theme through the warning passages themselves, not just through the whole book of Hebrews, but these warning passages are all kind of tied together.

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I'll remind you of what these warning passages contain. The first warning passage was back in chapter two, verses one to four, it's the shortest of them.

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And the second warning passage was started in chapter three and went into chapter four. This is the third warning passage that starts at chapter five, verse 11, and goes through the end of verse 12.

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And some would argue, and I would agree with this, that it actually goes to the end of verse 20. The verse 20 of chapter six is the end of that warning passage.

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And then he picks up again, it sort of transitions into Melchizedek. That's the third warning passage. There's a fourth one in chapter 10 and a fifth one in chapter 12.

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The one in chapter 10 and the one in chapter 12 are both shorter than this one.

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So this is the, no, they're both longer than this. So this is the fourth longest, almost the shortest warning passage in the whole book of Hebrews.

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So in chapter two, the danger was against drifting. Remember that, the danger was against drifting. He says in chapter two, verse one, for this reason, pay close much attention to what you have heard so that you do not drift away from it.

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It's the danger of drifting. And the analogy of the picture there was of one who was drifting by the safe harbor. And because of his negligence and neglect, he did nothing to reach out and to embrace the safety of the harbor.

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It's a sailing imagery. And so the author is warning against those who might hear the gospel call.

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And because of their apathy and doing absolutely nothing, they just drift by and watch salvation pass them by and then finally perish.

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And then the second warning passage was against the danger of disobedience. Remember the wilderness generation who did not enter into the rest because of disobedience, the danger of drifting.

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Second, the danger of disobedience. Those who do not enter into the rest are disobedient. Having come right up to the edge of the land of promise, they turned away in disobedience.

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And the author says, do not be like that disobedient generation. Enter into God's rest and enjoy salvation and send Jesus Christ.

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The third warning passage is a danger against departing, turning and walking away from Christ. There is an element of apostasy here.

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It is the image of apostasy, the danger of drifting, the danger of disobedience, and now the danger of departing. So having covered all of those, let's turn to chapter five, verse 11, and we will walk through the entire passage.

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We'll read through the whole thing. And I'm gonna kind of give you an overview, highlight some of the things as we work our way through.

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And then we'll move on to the rest of the message after this introduction. You ready? Chapter five, verse 11.

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Concerning him, we have much to say, and it's hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. Now pause just for a second.

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Concerning whom? It's Melchizedek, verse 10. Right, having explained the priesthood of Melchizedek, which is an eternal priesthood, he pauses and he says, concerning him,

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Melchizedek, we have a lot to say. I'd love to unfold Melchizedek for you, he says, but he cannot for a reason.

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You have become dull of hearing, verse 11. And by the way, there's another, that same word, that same phrase that's translated dull of hearing here in verse 11 is translated sluggish in chapter six, verse 12, which is toward the end of the warning passage.

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So he says that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

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So you have kind of a sluggish sandwich, if you will, the beginning of the warning passage, and then towards the end of the warning passage, he is concerned about the apathy, the spiritual apathy, and the immaturity of his audience.

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He wishes that he could explain more about Melchizedek, but his audience has become dull of hearing, and he's concerned about their inability to understand these truths of scripture concerning the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So verse 12, for though by this time, you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracle of God, oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

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That's the immaturity. I wanna say much about Melchizedek, but I can't, as you become dull of hearing. And you ought to be teachers by now, but you're still sucking on a bottle.

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Because of your immaturity, I can't take you into these deep things, the meat. Instead, you have come to,

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I need to go over again, these simple and elementary principles, because that's what Hebrews is all about, right?

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The simple and elementary and easy stuff, right? Well, he thought it was. Verse 13, for everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant, but solid food is for the mature who become, because of patience, have their senses, practice, have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

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So there was a lack of understanding of spiritual truth on behalf of his hearers. This concerned him, and he's stopping for a moment to address this lack of maturity, this lack of godliness and discernment, and the ability to discern.

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Chapter six, verse one, he calls on them to move on from these elementary principles.

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Therefore, leaving the elementary teaching about Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment, and this we will do if God permits.

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He wants them to press on from these milk things into topics and subjects which are more mature to grow up in their

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Christian faith, as it were. He's unable to go on about Melchizedek simply because of their immaturity, and he wants them to press on toward maturity.

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Now, there's some question here. Here's one of the first theological issues that we have to tackle is, what are these elementary principles?

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When he says in verses one and two, he talks about instructions concerning washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment, what is he describing?

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And it sounds as if these are the trappings and attachments of the old covenant and the Old Testament, the Levitical priesthood.

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And so having described the new priesthood, he is telling them, you still want to go back to those elemental things, the old covenant.

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That's the baby talk, that's the baby food. You need to press on to lay hold of what is in Jesus Christ.

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So here's one of the first questions that come up. What does this tell us about the audience to whom he is writing? Are these genuine believers who are just immature in their faith, or are these people who are still caught in the

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Old Testament, old covenant sacrificial system, wanting the animal sacrifices and Aaron's priesthood and all of the stuff that goes with the temple, the feast and the festivals and all of that, are these believers or are these people who have not yet come to saving faith in Christ?

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That's the first interpretive question right there. Who is the audience? Who is intended by the warning passage? So it is either an educational concern or an evangelistic concern.

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If it's an educational concern that the author has, then it is Christians to whom he is speaking. He's saying, look, I don't want to retread all of this ground concerning these elementary things.

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We need to press on to greater and better things. Who is Melchizedek and what does it say about the priesthood of Christ? Or it's an evangelistic concern and he is appealing to people who are still caught in that Old Testament system and he's saying, abandon those elementary things for the fullness which is in Jesus Christ.

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So it's either believers or unbelievers that he is describing here in these first three verses of chapter six. Beginning in verse four, this is where the crux of the issue comes to bear.

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Verse four, for in the case of those who have once been, and now there are five descriptions given.

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In the case of those, count them with me, who have once been enlightened, they've been enlightened, they have tasted of the heavenly gift, they have been made partakers of the

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Holy Spirit, and they have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then they have fallen away.

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Those are those five descriptions. They have been enlightened, they have tasted, they've been made partakers, and they've tasted the good word of God, and they have fallen away.

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Those are the five descriptions of this group of people. And this is the crux of the passage. Now you'll notice that it sounds as if these are

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Christians that are being described here, doesn't it? They have been enlightened, they've tasted the word of God, they've become partakers of the

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Holy Spirit, they've enjoyed the powers of the age that is to come. It sounds as if these are believers that are being described in chapter six, and that these are genuine

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Christians. And those who are Armenians or on the other side of the aisle would say, if those descriptions were given of a person in any other context but a warning passage, it seemed to suggest they would lose their salvation, you would readily and quickly affirm that that is a genuine believer that is being described in those verses.

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And that's true, the description does seem to sound a lot like a Christian in genuine salvation, but this is the issue, is this describing genuine salvation or the appearance of genuine salvation?

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That's the crux of the issue. Now, if you're an Armenian, you believe you can lose your salvation, then there's something even in this passage that you have to deal with, and that is that phrase, that next phrase at the end of verse six, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify to themselves the

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Son of God and put Him to open shame. The impossibility of being renewed again to repentance seem to suggest those who believe you can lose your salvation and get your salvation, and lose your salvation and get your salvation, and lose your salvation and get your salvation, that seems to suggest that once you have lost your salvation, you're one and done, it's over with.

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It's impossible to renew them again to repentance. So that's a struggle for those who are in the other camp to explain what that is describing there.

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Unless you want to suggest that having lost your salvation, you can never get it again, you are therefore completely out of the kingdom of God.

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Then there was an illustration in verse seven, for the ground that drinks the rain, so we have in verses to review, chapter five, verse 11, through chapter six, verse three, a rebuke to them for their immaturity.

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In verses four through six, a description of this audience and a warning to them of the danger of falling away, and then verses seven to eight is an illustration, and here's the illustration, verse seven, for ground that drinks the rain, which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God.

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In other words, the ground that is tilled and the rain comes on it and it brings forth vegetation, that's what the intent of it is, it produces fruit out of the ground, it receives the blessing of God, verse eight, but if it yields thorns and thistles, it's worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.

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So the imagery is of ground, which has produced thorns and thistles with all the benefits that is received, and the benefits seem to be that described in verses four through six, you've been renewed, you have partaken of the

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Holy Spirit, tasted the good word of God, tasted the powers of the age to come, enjoyed all of those blessings and benefits, and it's fallen on this ground, and instead of producing fruit, which ought to be blessed by God, instead it produces thorns and thistles, which is fit only to be burned.

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Now that illustration causes people on both sides of this issue, conundrums and difficulties, and here's how.

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For those of you who are in my camp, the illustration seems to speak of these people being burned.

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If it's genuine Christians that are described in verses four through six, what is the burning in verse eight?

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They're plucked up with like thorns and thistles and cast into the fire. That seems, if I admit that this is genuine believers in verses four to six, they're burned in verse eight.

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But if you're on the other side, and you believe that it's possible to lose your salvation for genuine Christian to lose their salvation, then here's the conundrum in the illustration for you.

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How is it that these people have only ever produced thorns and thistles? This is ground that has never produced fruit.

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That doesn't seem to sound like he's talking about believers there who have lost their salvation and been burned. This sounds to be like people who have received these blessings, whatever they are in verses four to six, and have produced nothing for it.

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No fruit, nothing redeemable. And so it's that that is burned up. See, whatever side you're on, we both have issues here that we've got to address in the text.

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It's not a slam dunk. Then he moves in verse nine to some encouragement. But beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you and things that accompany salvation though we are speaking in this way.

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He seems to be saying, I'm using a figure of speech or I'm speaking in a certain way, but I'm not speaking in a certain way concerning whom?

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Concerning you. But you brethren, I'm convinced of better things concerning you. There is ground that produces thorns and thistles and it's burned up.

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But concerning you, I'm convinced of better things, things concerning salvation. Now, if you believe you can lose your salvation, here's another question for you.

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Why does he use the words, they and those and them and themselves when describing these people who are perishing, who are burned up?

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And then he talks about you and us and we when he's describing salvation and genuine redemption.

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See, if you believe you can lose your salvation, you have to explain to me why the change in pronouns? Why does he seem to describe this other group?

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Maybe it's a hypothetical group that has lost their salvation and perishes and is burned up.

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But then when he's talking to his audience, I'm convinced of better things concerning you, things that accompany salvation. Look at the encouragement beginning in verse, continuing in verse 10.

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For God is not unjust to us to forget your work and your love, which you have shown toward his name in having ministered and is still ministering to the saints.

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And we desire that each 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 kingdom and the promises.

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See, that's the fruit that you would expect from a genuine Christian, right? So if these are genuine Christians who can be lost or have been lost, how is it that they have never produced anything when he says of them, but concerning you,

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I'm confident of better things concerning you, things pertaining to salvation. Even though I'm speaking this way, when it comes to you,

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I'm absolutely confident that you have ministered and your patience and your love and your ministry to one another, it continues, your firmness in the faith is there, it's evident, you have the fruit that is supposedly missing in verses seven and eight.

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You have that fruit and you bear that fruit and that gives me confidence of your salvation. Then verses 13 through 20, he turns back here to the assurance that is ours in Jesus Christ and listen to the language that he uses.

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Now, if you want to argue that you can lose your salvation, you would turn to verses four through verse eight and you would try and make that case.

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I would argue that you cannot lose your salvation and I'm going to turn to verses 13 through 20 to make this case, because here he comes back to the nature of God, the nature of his promises and the nature of what

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Christ has done. And ultimately our hope of salvation rests on that and that alone. That is what we turn to, we rest upon him.

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So taking our eyes off of, this is the danger that we face, these are the realities that confront us, we take our dangers back on that, he says to them,

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I'm convinced of better things concerning you, things that accompany salvation. Now, we're talking about salvation, let's talk about what

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God has done. Not whether you're able to hold on or not, what God has done in Christ. Verse 13, for when

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God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself saying, I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.

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And so having patiently waited, he obtained the promise, that is Abraham. For men swear by one greater than themselves and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute.

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In the same way, God desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise, the unchangeableness of his purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge, would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

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This hope we have as an anchor for the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

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Are you scared that you're gonna lose your salvation? What does he say to these genuine believers who have shown forth the fruits of salvation?

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Verses 13 to 20, look to Christ, right? What has he done? Listen, God has sworn to you as a believer that he will fulfill his word to you because of what

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Christ has done. And God cannot lie and his purposes cannot change.

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Do you think that you can perish and be lost? Do you fear for your eternal redemption? Having laid hold of Christ, he is our anchor within the veil, beyond the veil where the

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Holy of Holies sat. That is where Christ has done his work. That is what he has accomplished. He is our anchor, he is our hope, he is our stay, he is our rock.

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And in the conclusion of this warning passage, the author points us back to Christ and what he has done.

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He has become a priest forever, not temporarily, forever, having accomplished eternal salvation, chapter five, verse nine.

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Remember we talked about that last week? Having accomplished eternal salvation, this Jesus, who is a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek, has done exactly what

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God has purposed and promised that he would do. And this is his promise toward you, the heirs of the promise.

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He cannot lie. If God has said, I will save you because you trust in Jesus Christ, God cannot lie.

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And if his purpose today is to save me, how can his purpose tomorrow be to damn me if his purposes do not ever change?

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His purposes do not change. From eternity past, he knew exactly every sin I would commit, every mistake

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I would make, every error in my judgment. He knew it all. Every day of my life has been written before in his book, and he knows it all thoroughly, the day of my birth and the day of my death.

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And he has said concerning me, an heir of the covenant, an heir of the promise, I will save him and no purpose of his can be thwarted.

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Can I fall out of his hand? Nobody can pluck us out of his hand. I can't jump out of his hand.

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I can't change any of that. Why? Because the purpose of salvation doesn't rest upon a promise that I have made.

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It rests upon a promise that the father has made and that the son has made and that the Holy Spirit has made.

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And our triune God cannot fail. And our triune God cannot be surprised by something that we have done.

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And our triune God has promised to the heirs of the promise, to the heirs of the kingdom, that he will see through to the very end and keep all those who are his to the very end.

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That is his promise. So that's verses 13 to verse 20. So you wanna argue you can lose your salvation?

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You turn to one of the warning passages. I would argue that the warning passage doesn't teach you can lose your salvation.

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I would say that the entire book of Hebrews teaches the exact opposite. So how then do we explain the warning passages in light of the whole context of the book of Hebrews?

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There are four views regarding these warning passages. I'm gonna break down the four major views for you real quickly.

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There are actually, as I said earlier, I think probably eight of them that I could give you off the top of my head. I know that there are more than that because I've read some that I haven't even included in this list.

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But I'm gonna give you the first four, the four big ones. And as we work our way through this, I might allude to this at one time or another, but I'm not going to be bringing them up and examining all four of these as we're working our way through Hebrews, the warning passage.

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What I'm gonna do is we're just gonna work through and exegete the warning passage. And we're gonna let these possibilities sort of fade into the distance and become impossible as we look at the details of the text.

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So we'll let the text tell us whether something is possible or impossible in these scenarios. So here's the first one.

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Some people say this describes one who is saved, but then loses their salvation. So they would look at verses four through six, and they would look at the analogy and say, that is burned.

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So those are genuine Christians who have lost their salvation at some point. It might be that they have just fallen into sin and lost their salvation, or it might be that they have literally, completely apostatized and repudiated

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Jesus Christ and turned their back on him and become atheists hardened in their sin with a total repudiation.

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But somebody who was genuinely saved and then has lost their salvation because they've either fallen away or completely repudiated

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Christ. Now, within that camp, and that would be what we call typically the Arminian camp, within that camp, there would be people who say, if you just fall into sin and you're kind of living a carnal lifestyle, you might've lost your salvation, but you haven't actually apostatized.

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And therefore, the thing that says that you cannot be renewed again to repentance, that salvation is one and done for you, that doesn't apply.

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It only applies to those who turn and depart and are complete apostates. It's only once you have totally turned from Christ and repudiated that, and God only knows when you've crossed that line at some time in between there.

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God only knows when you've crossed that line, but when you do, it's no longer possible to be renewed again to repentance. You come past the point of no return.

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But if you don't pass that point of no return, you can get your salvation back because not being renewed again to repentance doesn't apply to you.

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So that's the first camp. Some would suggest, and you can notice that there are two positions within even that camp. There are two possibilities there of how they would break that down.

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So each of those two positions within that one position would kind of describe the details here in a little bit of a different way as they would work their way through the passage.

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Now, the second position, and you don't have to take notes of this if you don't want to, I know I'm going fast. First position, they're genuinely saved people who have lost their salvation.

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The second view of Hebrews chapter six describes people who backslide. So these would be people who believe, the people who hold this view would say, we believe that it's impossible to lose your salvation, but there are people who say when they get saved early in life, they pray a prayer when they're four years old, and they demonstrate all the fruits of repentance and all the fruits of salvation while they're going to church with their family all the way through until they get to be about 15, 16 years old.

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And suddenly hormones click on, and then they go off and they live their own life for 15 or 20 years. And when they're 30 and 35, they finally come back to the

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Lord and realize Him. And during that period of time, they were never really lost. They were saved early.

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They never got lost, and they never lost their salvation because you can't do that. But then later on, they came back to the

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Lord. So it's just a temporary backsliding as it were. That's the perspective. And they would say that if you do that, and you are always saved in the midst of that, you haven't actually lost your salvation, but that the not being renewed again to repentance and crucifying

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Christ and putting Him to open chain, that that refers to, that's basically saying this. If you've fallen away for a period of time, you haven't really lost your salvation.

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You can't go over and start again. So it's not like you can hit the reboot button because you haven't lost your salvation. You can't crucify Christ all over again and get saved all over again.

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You just need to sort of turn back to the Lord and start producing the fruit that accompanies salvation and not be a piece of ground with thorns and thistles.

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That would be the third position, or the second position. The third view of the warning passage says that it describes professing believers who were never really saved to begin with.

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So this position would quibble with the understanding that verses four through six describe actual genuine Christian conversion and experience.

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And they would say that those are only the outward realities that are experienced and understood by those who are close to the

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Christian congregation, that it's possible for you to come in here, for instance, week after week, and hear the word of God preached, and be warmed in your heart, and see the changed lives of the people around you, and you yourself remain unchanged by it.

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And you would experience in an outward sense and as a distance as it were, all of these realities of genuine

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Christian profession. And you might even say that these are things that you would say have happened to you, that you had a religious experience and you were warmed for a period of time and your heart was really stirred and you love all that God talk with all those

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God people that meet down at the Kootenai Community Church every once in a while, but you've never genuinely been saved.

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These are people who are professors and that verses four to six don't describe what is actually true of them.

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It describes how they would describe what is true of them. For instance, they would say,

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I have been enlightened. I have partaken of the Holy Spirit. I have tasted of the word of God. I have tasted the powers of the age to come.

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I have enjoyed these things. I have my heart has been warmed. Of course, I'm a believer, but they're not actually saved or regenerated.

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They're people who look like they are saved. They're people who act like they are saved. They're professors, but not actually possessors of eternal life.

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In that case, the author's concern is evangelistic. And he is saying to them, you need to embrace

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Jesus Christ and stop pretending because you are pretending. And even though you are pretending and you say that these things are true of you,

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I've been enlightened and I've tasted and I partaken, you're gonna perish and be burned because there's no fruit in your life to show that these things are actually genuinely true of you.

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That's the third position. The fourth position is that this describes a hypothetical case intended to illustrate the absurdity of apostasy.

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This would be basically, Hebrews chapter six, that is what we would call a reductio ad absurdum.

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It's reducing it to the absurd. The author is taking on a position to show the ludicracy of the position.

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You think it's possible for you to perish from that eternal priesthood that Christ has done, that eternal salvation I mentioned, chapter five, verse nine, you think it's possible for you to lose that?

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Well, here's what that would mean. It would mean that you having once been enlightened, having tasted the Holy Spirit, partaken of the Holy Spirit, tasted of the word of God, tasted the ages to come and enjoyed all of these blessings.

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And that you having produced all of these fruit that you would then all of a sudden be completely fruitless and be burned up.

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That's what you think? That it would be possible for you as a believer to repudiate

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Christ and hold him to open shame, having embraced him and walked away from that? You think you can lose that?

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Because if you go back to the animals, if you're considering going back to the animal sacrifices, then it means that you would be shaming publicly

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Jesus Christ whom you professed and loved. And having professed and loved him, you cannot abandon that because it would require, again, for you to crucify

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Christ openly and put him to open shame. This is a ludicrous position that you could lose your salvation. He is reducing it to the absurd to show them not that they can lose their salvation.

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He is reducing it to the absurd to show them how safe and secure their salvation is. So wouldn't it be ironic if the one passage that Arminians think proves that you can lose your salvation is actually a passage intended to show the absurdity of that theology?

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Now, where am I? Well, you know, I don't believe that you can lose your salvation. And I don't believe that somebody who is once saved can produce absolutely no fruit and then come back to the

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Lord. Between all four of these positions, oh, and there are two more. I'll just bounce these two off of you. There's one view, and it's not a popular one, that says all of the warning passages describe the judgment that came upon Jerusalem in 70

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AD. When Titus came in with the Romans to destroy Jerusalem, tore down the temple and destroyed that, that temporal judgment upon the nation of Israel, all five warning passages are written prior to the 70

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AD, and they describe that judgment and that sacking of Jerusalem. I don't think there's, it's curious, it's interesting, and I read a whole,

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I don't know, a book or a chapter or something on it at some point, and I know it's interesting and curious, but it's not, I don't think there's any merit to it.

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The other position is the burning in verse eight describes discipline, and what really being described here is rewards for service and not salvation at all.

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Those two views I don't think really have any merit. I'm not gonna deal with those. We're just dealing with these four. I don't believe you can lose your salvation, so of the four that I've just given to you, and I've actually given you six, but of the four that I spent time on, of those four,

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I'm somewhere between those last two. I either believe that this is describing people who are not really saved, but would describe themselves as saved, and he is warning them about the danger of perishing even though they think they are real partakers of Christ, or it is describing a reductio ad absurdum, and he is taking their position to its logical conclusion, what we call taking the roof off, taking its position to its logical conclusion to show just how absurd it is.

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In order to do that, you'd have to be fruitless, and you're not fruitless. In order to do that, you would have to put Christ to an open shame, and you haven't put him to an open shame.

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You've embraced him, so you can't lose it. Because that would be absurd to think that way.

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I think it's one of those two, and if you'd asked me a month ago which one of these I believe in, I would have said, look, I don't believe that Hebrews 6 teaches you can lose your salvation.

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I think there are at least two very good arguments, two very good positions that make sense of the argument of the author, the context of the book of Hebrews, and the whole argument of the entire book, and fits with all of the warning passages that fits well here in Hebrews chapter six, and answers a lot of issues in the text.

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One, that it describes people who are not really saved, or two, that it is a reductio ad absurdum, and showing the exact opposite of what you say when you think you can lose your salvation.

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I would have said it's one of those two things. Now today, what position do I take? I still think it's one of those two things.

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Here's what I'm asking you for, is patience. Because we're going to work through all the details of the passage, and I promise you that by the time the days start getting shorter again,

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I will have a decision on to which one of these two I think that it is. Either one of them, both of those two positions have certain issues that I think need to be resolved in the interpretive process of going through it.

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Neither of those two positions is without its challenges. They both have their challenges, and I think that both of them do a better job of answering the details of the text.

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So we will wait until at some point in the future to figure out exactly what it is that I believe.

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Free to believe whatever you want. I just don't think you should believe you can lose your salvation, because I don't think Hebrews chapter six teaches that at all.

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There's nothing to fear in the details, and Lord willing, we'll get into the details next week. So let's pray. Father, we just pray that this time that we have had here together in going through this as detailed as it is, and difficult as it is, has not been a waste, has not been fruitless at all, but that it would be something that you would use by your grace to encourage our hearts together in the faith that we have in Jesus Christ, and the security of the salvation that we have in him.

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Help us in the weeks ahead as we apply our minds and hearts diligently to discern the truth in these pages.

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Help us to think clearly as we pray, and we pray that your word would have its way in our hearts and accomplish that which you have designed and intended for it.