Question: Please give a full explanation of the meaning of the scripture in Hebrews 6:4-6.
Answer: Hebrews 6:4-6, reads thus: “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, And have tasted the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted of the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.”
Adam Clarke restricts the application of the terms in these verses to one class of individuals, and only one, and them of the very worst kind apostates from the Christian faith. He says this has no reference to anyone professing Christianity, nor to any backslider, but that it applies to apostates from Christianity; those who reject the whole Christian system and its author, the Lord Jesus.
He further restricts this to only that particular class of apostates who join with the blaspheming Jews, call Christ an impostor, and vindicate His murderers in having crucified Him as a malefactor; and thus they render their salvation impossible by willfully, maliciously rejecting the Lord that bought them (II Peter 2:1) and bring upon themselves swift destruction. Adam Clarke further says, “No man believing in the Lord Jesus as the great sacrifice for sin, and acknowledging Christianity as a divine revelation, is here intended, though he may have unfortunately backslidden from any degree of the salvation of God.”
Many who may read this knew and will remember Brother Sam Barton. I knew him well and when I first met him he was a backslider from a high degree of grace. I was holding a meeting about 20 miles or so from his home. He took my wife and me and our three children home with him and maintained us throughout that meeting, and took us to meeting every night that distance in his car and attended every service himself. I left him sitting on his front porch crying when I left that time. He would go about to the various camp meetings, taking his wife to the meetings and helping in the meetings with money, labor, etc. The saints were his people and he reverenced the truth and never wanted to see it tampered with or compromised even when he himself was outside of its covenant provisions. But he obtained mercy and found favor with God after twelve years as a backslider, and no one among the saints ever questioned the genuineness of his conversion or his sincerity in Christ. He obtained grace from God to prove himself a real champion of faith in the closing months of his life when he suffered very greatly from cancer. Never once did he complain against the Lord in all this.
We see from this experience that a full and complete recovery is possible for one who under some peculiar circumstances or combination of circumstances may be overcome and go down in defeat and fail utterly of the grace of God, and yet maintain a right attitude of reverence toward God and His truth and His people. This man and others have been reclaimed and recovered and used mightily of God after having suffered crushing defeats.
Also, I heard Brother I. C. Chandler bring out this observation which is worthy of note. He said he had seen numbers of people recovered after they had been overcome and lost the victory if they had maintained an attitude of reverence for God and His truth and the saints. He also said that he could only remember a very few, if any, that ever lost their experience with God and began to faultfind, criticize, brow-beat, and chastise the saints and blame them and seek to modify or change the principles and standard of the truth that ever got back to God. To receive a hard and wrong attitude when one has been overcome and to lose his hold on God is a dangerous thing to do, and if persisted in, could bring him to the condition covered in this passage we are considering.
We learn from this scripture that it is possible to apostatize from the highest degree of God’s grace, and that those who are highest in the favor of God may lose it and perish everlastingly; and we are warned to never be led away from the truth, either by the persuasions or persecutions of our fellows.
The people referred to in this passage have been “once enlightened.” They have been thoroughly instructed in the Word of God and the ways of the Lord, and have received the knowledge of the truth which has convinced them of sin, righteousness and judgment to come (John 16:8) and led them to Jesus Christ, the only Saviour of sinners and the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world (John 1:9). And the God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in their hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (II Corinthians 4:6). They had given heed to the more sure word of prophecy until the Day Star had arisen in their hearts (II Peter 1:19).
They had “tasted of the heavenly gift.” They had tasted that the Lord is gracious (I Peter 2:3). They had received that bread of life which came down from God out of heaven to give life unto the world (John 6:51). They had received into their hearts the gift of God’s love Jesus Christ (John 3:16). Through Him they have received the knowledge of salvation through the remission of sins and witnessed the full effects of salvation and the Christian religion.
They had been “partakers of the Holy Ghost.” They have been blessed with the full witness of the Holy Spirit as to the fullness of God’s mercy toward them. Also they have the witness of the complete soul-saving, sin-purging efficacy of the atonement, and have been filled with the Spirit which is the greatest and crowning grace of heaven upon any individual.
They have “tasted the good word of God.” They have actually experienced the gospel of Christ which is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16) working in them and have received the engrafted word which is able to save their souls (James 1:21). They have found the Word of God to be good and sweet to the taste of their souls. The Psalmist speaks of the sweetness of God’s Word to him in Psalm 19:10 and 119:103. And Job said, “…I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.” Job 23:12. It is the good word of a good God and by it we are warned, admonished, instructed, corrected and throughly furnished unto every good work (II Timothy 3:16-17). Peter exhorts us to desire the sincere milk of the word that we may grow thereby. (I Peter 2:2.)
They had also tasted “the powers of the world to come.” Adam Clarke says that the Greek word here translated “taste” signifies to experience or have full proof of a thing. The same word is translated in Hebrews 2:9 in respect to Christ’s death, “He tasted death for every man.” And surely no one would question but that Christ actually experienced death to the full extent and died just as fully as it would be possible for a man to die. Also, the same word is translated in I Peter 2:3, “…ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious,” and no one would surely question that this would refer to one actually receiving and experiencing the graciousness of God in salvation and the “…things that accompany salvation,…” (Hebrews 6:9), which God has prepared for them that love Him.
Adam Clarke further says, “Accordingly, the statement here would refer to something these people had actually already experienced and received the full benefits of and consequently ‘the world to come’ in this case would refer to this gospel age which was just being ushered in at that time.”
It could also refer to the eternal world. But let us realize that one who receives salvation in its fullness receives a foretaste of that heavenly world. The elements of heaven are imparted to him and he receives an earnest of his eternal inheritance when he receives the Holy Spirit (II Corinthians 5:5 and Ephesians 1:13-14). So it is clear that “the world to come” could and does refer to both this gospel age and the eternal world depending upon the context.
The “powers of the world to come” would, no doubt, refer to the signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit by which God witnessed to the preaching of His gospel in the early church and by which He confirmed His Word (Mark 16:20 and Acts 2:22). Throughout the writings of the prophets there are prophecies of the coming of Christ and the miraculous powers which would accompany His ministry, among which was specified the healing of the blind, deaf, dumb and lame. All these things Jesus did and His apostles after Him which gave definite witness and proof from heaven of His true Messiahship and of the genuineness of the gospel message. Peter said in Acts 2:22, “…Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know.” Jesus said if He had not come and done among them the works which no other man did they would not have had sin (John 15:24). He said, “…The works that I do…they bear witness of me.” (John 10:25.) Again He said, “…Though ye believe not me, believe the works:…” (John 10:38.) These people had witnessed and experienced all these things, and the gospel had been confirmed to them by these means.
Then it says, if these people “shall fall away.” Adam Clarke says that the Greek word translated here signifies a happening already past and that the proper rendering here would be “having fallen away,” signifying a thing already done. This would signify that the people who had experienced all these things and had been actually confirmed in this faith had fallen away from it or apostatized, and that to the extent they had “crucified to themselves the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame.” In their apostasy, they do in themselves what the Jews actually did to Christ, and reject Him as an impostor, and justify His death on that ground. They hereby show that if they had been present when Christ was crucified they would have joined with the murderers in the actual deed.
Adam Clarke says further that the Greek phrase which is here translated, “Put him to an open shame” properly means, “And have made Him a public example;” or the entire thought would mean, “Crucifying unto themselves and making the Son of God a public example.” In other words, they show openly that they judge Jesus Christ to have been worthy of the death which He suffered, and was justly made a public example by being crucified. Thus, it is clear that final apostasy by the total rejection of the gospel and the blasphemy of the Saviour of men is what is referred to in this passage.
But why no repentance? Repentance is the first step a sinner must take to return to God. But true repentance is based on a genuine godly sorrow for sin. To whatever extent a person may be sorry for his sins it is utterly useless unless there be a proper, efficacious sacrifice for sin. The only sacrifice for sin now standing and valid is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Since these people had utterly, willfully, maliciously, and finally rejected Christ as the acceptable sacrifice for sin and the author of salvation, it rendered their salvation permanently impossible because there is salvation in no other (Acts 4:12).
NOTE: These last three or four paragraphs are taken mostly, if not in their entirety, from Adam Clarke’s comments on this passage, and there are other thoughts of his interspersed throughout the discussion which I have altered some to fit in with my channel of thought and discussion which accounts for the absence of quotation marks in some instances.
