WWUTT 1832 It’s Impossible to Renew Them to Repentance (Hebrews 6:6-8)

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Now here's your host, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of Hebrews, we're in chapter 6 this week, and I'm going to pick up where I left off yesterday.

So let me come back to our text. I'll read verses 1 through 8 out of the Legacy Standard Bible and then do our exposition.

This is the word of the Lord. Therefore, leaving the elementary teaching about the

Christ, let us press on to maturity. Not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of teaching about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

And this we will do if God permits. For in the case of those once having been enlightened, and having tasted of the heavenly gift, and having become partakers of the

Holy Spirit, and having tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and having fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the

Son of God and put him to open shame. 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.

But if it yields thorns and thistles, it is unfit and close to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

I covered all of this yesterday. I made it through all eight verses. But like I said, there's more

I wanted to say about this before just moving on into the next lesson, especially when you consider how controversial a passage this is.

This is a section of text many will use to try and say it is possible for a person to lose their salvation.

After all, we're talking about someone here who has tasted of the good word of God and of the powers of the age to come, as said in verse 5, and they have fallen away.

And so the preacher goes on to say it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the

Son of God and put him to open shame. So why is it impossible to renew them again to repentance?

They claim to have been repented once. I left my dead works. I've come to the good things of God.

I believe in the gospel. I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. But they've fallen away. And so why is it impossible to renew them to repentance?

Well, the preacher goes on to say it's because they again crucify to themselves.

They don't really crucify Jesus again, but it's as if they crucify to themselves the

Son of God and put him to open shame. So such a person is being described here as being like those who put

Jesus to death. And it would be more so with regards to the Hebrews, not so much the

Romans. After all, this is a sermon that's being addressed to the Hebrews. So we're thinking more along the lines of the scribes and the

Pharisees and all the people that they rallied up with them who were shouting to Pilate, crucify him.

After all, they had the oracles of God. As said in Romans chapter three, they had the word of God.

They had tasted of the heavenly things. They could look into the word and know the truth, but they rejected it.

They rejected the son whom the father had sent and put him to death rather than following him and worshiping him.

So it's those persons that are kind of being set up here as having crucified the

Savior. If they had the ability to, they would have crucified him again. Now we know from Romans that he died to death once and he will never die again.

Death no longer has any dominion over him. That's in Romans chapter six. So we know that about Christ.

Once he rose from the dead, he was not going to die again. He conquered death. Death cannot touch him. And we likewise have the promise of resurrection from the dead.

We who put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. So death was not going to take him again.

But if the Jews could have done it, those people who hated Christ, they surely would have arrested him again and put him to death again.

If they could have done it, they would have. And so the preacher here is talking about those who have fallen away in that kind of context.

So it's impossible to renew them again to repentance because they would be just like scribes and Pharisees who would have crucified the

Son of God again if they could. They again crucify to themselves the

Son of God and put him to open shame. Now this is something that's not just limited to this text here in Hebrew six, even though this is kind of the controversial passage in verses one through eight, it's talked about elsewhere.

Later on in chapter 10, the preacher says, if we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left.

It's the same thing as being said here in chapter six. So this is a recurring thing. We had read in chapter two, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

That salvation for spoken by the Lord was confirmed to us by those who heard God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and gifts of the

Holy Spirit, according to his own will. You've heard the message. You've seen the signs.

You claim to have left dead earthly deeds and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ to walk in his ways.

And yet you walk away from him and go back to the world. Then what hope do you have?

How do you expect to be delivered from the judgment that is to come? How will you escape if you neglect so great a salvation, which you have seen and heard and tasted of and can testify to?

And suddenly you walk away to what? What else is there? What greater savior is there than what you have already seen and heard and testified to?

That's what's being talked about here in chapter six. That's why it's impossible for them to again come to repentance.

How are they going to find anything better? Now those who truly do come to repentance, like say you have someone who for a period of time professed to be a follower of Jesus Christ, but then by our best perceptions, they fell away.

That's the language that's used here in Hebrews six. So it's okay for us to use that language too, even though we may have an understanding by other scriptures that they were never actually saved to begin with.

And to know what I'm talking about, go back and listen to the devotional yesterday. But even through other scriptures, we know they were never saved at all.

If they fell away, then they were never truly saved. Even though we know that we can still use that language. They fell away from the faith because the preacher here uses that language.

The apostle Paul, who's spoken elsewhere about assurance of salvation and that it cannot ever be snatched away from us.

We are sealed by the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption is talked about in Ephesians one. So we can certainly say of that person, they fell away from the faith.

That's as best as we can perceive it from our earthly vantage point. We who live on this linear timeline, we cannot see the end from the beginning.

We don't know if they will ever actually come to repentance again. So as best as we can tell, they were professing believers at one point and they have fallen away from the faith.

Now, even though that's our observation, who's to say whether they will genuinely come to faith later on.

If they do, then they genuinely repent the next time. The first time when they said they were followers of Jesus Christ, their repentance wasn't genuine.

The seed did not fall on good soil, according to Matthew chapter 13. And so they, you know, professed faith for a time, but it was a fleeting opinion that after it didn't serve them any longer, it wasn't convenient for them.

You might put it that way. It wasn't convenient to be a Christian anymore. It got too hard or there was stuff in the world that I liked better.

So they walked away from the faith back to those other things. Well, if they ever become like the prodigal and come to their senses and turn from their sin to the

Lord Jesus Christ, the second repentance by our perception, the second repentance was the genuine repentance.

It was the actual repentance. The first one never even actually happened because they didn't truly repent.

They didn't truly turn from the world. Their heart and their mind was still in it. They were like Lot's wife who didn't really want to escape from Sodom.

As she was running away, she turned back because she longed for the things of Sodom, even though it's being destroyed by fire, even right there in her very presence.

The judgment of God is falling upon the city that he had just delivered her from. But her heart and mind were with those people and her desires was with the wickedness of that crowd.

And so she turned back and was turned into a pillar of salt. She came into judgment right along with them because she wanted

Sodom more than the salvation that was being offered to her in Christ. So even though she fled the city bodily, even though she was taken out of the city, she never really left the city.

Her heart was still there, which is what caused her to turn back. The desires that she had for the stuff of Sodom.

And so those things, again, I believe is really what's being addressed here in Hebrews 6.

From our earthly vantage point, it looks like a person professed faith and then fell away. But from a heavenly vantage point, from God's vantage point, they were never really of him in the first place.

It's impossible to renew them again to repentance. Now, as I said yesterday, I think that we should share the gospel with everybody.

Everyone who still has breath in their lungs, we should share the gospel with them in hopes that they will be convicted of heart and they will genuinely repent and come to faith in Jesus Christ.

But if they don't, that's not on us. It's not because of something that we did.

I didn't do this right. I didn't communicate it right. Why does this person in their hardness of heart continue to turn away from those things maybe that they had even professed faith in at one point, and yet they won't come back to it?

They still wander off and go their own way. They go astray. Why do they keep going that way?

If a person never genuinely comes to true repentance and faith, we know why.

Because of what's said here in Hebrews 6, 1 -8, they tasted the greatest thing that there was to experience, to know

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died for us and rose again from the dead so that whoever believes in him, our sins are forgiven and we have everlasting life.

They came to hear that truth and experience it and taste of the heavenly things, and yet they walked away from it.

They had the greatest thing that there ever is to have, Jesus Christ, and he wasn't enough.

A number of years ago, a friend of mine walked away from the faith, and this was one of those that was particularly hard -hitting.

I had seen people before profess faith and then walk away. Even in my own household, my own siblings, all of my brothers and sisters have at some point claimed to be

Christians and have walked away from it, either redefining their faith to be something that doesn't look anything at all like biblical

Christianity, or they just renounced faith in Jesus Christ altogether. Anyway, in this particular occasion,

I had a friend that walked away from the faith, and it was one of those, you never saw that coming. You never would have thought this person would have left the faith.

I had a mutual pastor friend who also knew this person, and he and I were talking about it after it happened.

I even remember where we were sitting, where we were having this conversation. It's very vivid in my mind.

As he was recalling the whole thing, the attempts to try to appeal to this person, to try to win them back, everything you try to do to say, don't do this, don't walk away.

You know the truth. Why are you walking away from the truth? Anyway, he and I went through all of that together for this person.

We're sitting there, and we're talking about it, and we're kind of recalling everything that happened. It's kind of a, how could this happen, sort of a conversation.

At one point, he said to me, I have always believed, once saved, always saved, that when a person genuinely believes in Jesus Christ, they will remain in it, and they won't ever fall away.

I believe this person truly believed in Jesus, and yet here they've fallen away.

I don't know. Maybe a person can lose eternal life. I just simply said, well, if they lost eternal life, then it was never eternal.

He kind of laughed and said, okay, fair point. I said, consider it this way. If someone gave you the greatest thing in the universe, they told you this is the greatest thing that you could ever possess, and you even experienced it, and you knew it was the greatest thing, there is nothing greater than this, fulfilling every desire that you could ever have, every longing, all the answers and the puzzlings of life, all of it is answered in this greatest thing that's been handed to you.

You've been told it's the greatest, and you've experienced it as the greatest. How could you possibly reject it?

How is that even possible? How could you say, I think there's something better, and then you go walk off to find something better?

You've been told it's the greatest, and you've experienced it as the greatest. So how could you leave it and go find something else?

There isn't anything else. You even know there isn't anything else. I said the only possible explanation for that is that they never actually knew it was the greatest thing, and I said apply that now to Christ.

How can a person who has found Jesus Christ, the son of God himself, the only way to salvation, the only way to eternal life, the only solution to this thing called death, how could you have known that he is the only answer, and then decided

I'm going to go walk away and find something better? The only possible explanation for that is that you did not actually know, you did not actually experience or understand from your heart of hearts that he is the way, the truth, and the life.

It would be impossible to renew such a person again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the son of God and put him to open shame.

And so the preacher goes on here in Hebrews 6, verses 7 and 8, to lay out that a person who genuinely believes is going to produce fruit.

There's going to be the genuine fruit of repentance. Remember that the,

I was going to say the apostle John, it was John the Baptist, John the Baptist said to those who came to him, bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Prove that you're repentant. Prove that you are a genuine follower and a believer in Jesus Christ by producing the fruit of repentance.

I've said this to many, a person who has said to me, you know, they got caught in sin and they're sorry.

They come to me and apologize and they ask for forgiveness. I've said many, many times to such a person, bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

You have said that you're sorry, I forgive you. But from this point forward, you must show that you're genuinely repentant.

There must be fruit in keeping with repentance. And so the illustration that's being given here,

Hebrews 6, verses 7 and 8, demonstrate if a person is genuinely repentant, they're going to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

If they don't bear that fruit, then they were never truly repentant. Verse 7, for ground that drinks the rain, which often falls on it.

And again, remember, we're talking about someone who is tasted of the heavenly things. So they drink the rain, which falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God.

When we receive, when we taste of the heavenly things and we are of that good soil that has been tilled up to receive the rain, to receive the seed and produce a harvest, we receive a blessing from God.

That blessing is the fruitfulness that is produced as a result of genuine repentance and faith.

Verse 8, but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is unfit and close to being cursed and its end is to be burned.

This is like other places where we've read in Hebrews thus far, these warnings that we would not fall into disobedience and therefore unbelief, but that we would continue to hold to the faith that was delivered to us in the message of the gospel.

As I had quoted to you earlier from Hebrews 10, 26, let me read that again and go on to the next verse.

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.

There's no other sacrifice except Jesus Christ and him crucified. There's no longer a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume his adversaries.

Consider a couple of chapters later, Hebrews 12 verses 28 and 29, therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe for our

God is a consuming fire. So what are you going to do?

Are you going to repent and come to the Lord and follow him and continue to be obedient? Or are you going to reject

God and go off into unbelief and perish in judgment in the consuming fire that God is?

This reference here to bearing good fruit in Hebrews 6, 7 and 8, these are recalling the words of our

Lord who says, I am the vine and you are the branches so that you may go and bear fruit. And we have it said in Matthew 7,

I referenced this yesterday. I can't remember if I read it or not, though, in Matthew 7, beginning in verse 15, beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

What's the reference here in Hebrews 6, 8 to thorns and thistles? Same terminology that Jesus used

Matthew 7, 17. Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

So then you will know them by their fruits. And so my friends continue bearing fruit in keeping with repentance, bearing fruit to demonstrate that you are in Christ and he is in you and that you are saved.

You have eternal life. And as Jesus promised in John chapter 10, you will never be snatched out of his hand.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the good word that is given to us here, a comfort even of assurance of salvation.

If we're bearing good fruit in keeping with repentance, we know that we are in Christ Jesus and he is in us.

Keep us from disobedience that will lead to unbelief so that we may continue in the ways of Christ in the good faith, which we have been taught through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Give us boldness and courage in this gospel that we may share it with others. So they too would turn from their sin to the

Lord Jesus Christ and live. Keep Christ the focus of our faith, knowing that we have been given the greatest thing in the universe.

Every answer to every question we could ever ask is answered in Christ.

Conform us to Jesus. We ask in his name. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

Text with Gabriel Hughes. Pastor Gabe is the author of 25 Christmas Myths and What the Bible Says, examining some of our most common

Christmas beliefs and traditions and bringing them back to the truth of scripture. You can find this and other books at our website, www .utt