From chapter 31 of Help Heavenward by Octavius Winslow.
God's children who have wandered often become deeply distressed and discouraged by certain passages of His Word. They read descriptions of people's character and warnings of coming misery, and assume these apply to them. Applying the passages to themselves can increase their spiritual distress and mental anguish beyond measure. It can make them unable to receive God's promises or accept His comfort. Yet in His Word God offers that comfort generously and graciously to His returning children. They come back weeping and mourning, confessing their sins and praying.
One passage seems to such people especially threatening and directly aimed at them. It is Hebrews chapter 6 verses 4 through 6, a passage often quoted and just as often misunderstood and wrongly applied: "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age— and then have fallen away—to be restored to repentance, because they themselves are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to open shame."
God's children often read and ponder these solemn words with terror and despair. We now want to consider and explain them briefly.
Before I attempt that explanation, let me state my judgment clearly and emphatically. These words do not refer in any way to people who have been spiritually born again. No clever interpretation or mistaken twisting can make these words apply strictly to someone who truly has God's saving grace, or weaken in the slightest the revealed teaching that everyone God has chosen will finally be saved. We therefore affirm that the people the apostle describes were not genuine converts to Christianity. They had never been spiritually born again.
With that conviction, let us take each clause of these remarkable verses separately. In reverence for God, let us seek to explain His truth correctly and apply it properly.
"Those who have once been enlightened." They were not enlightened spiritually or in a way that saved them. The people described here understood something of Christianity's teachings and principles. Their minds understood, and their judgment was informed, but that was all. Their intellect had received knowledge of the truth. Their hearts had not received its power to give life and make them holy. Only their minds had been enlightened.
They had enough light to "see the harmful effects of sin, but not the evil within sin itself. They could see the good things that come from Christ, but not the goodness within Christ Himself. They could change their outward behavior without becoming holy within. They could know the gospel's teachings without experiencing its reality. They might even understand it well enough to preach it to others while still having none of God's grace."
That is the enlightenment the apostle means, and nothing more. In modern language, we would call theirs a religion of the intellect. Its beliefs may be entirely correct, and its reasoning may be thoroughly logical. Yet it remains like a palace of ice floating among the snows and darkness of the polar seas.
But this description cannot fit you, God's repentant child! The truth found in Jesus has enlightened your judgment and then entered your heart. In its light, you see how sinful your wandering has been. Knowing this has brought you to the Savior's feet in sorrow and confession.
You can therefore safely conclude that you are not one of the people the apostle describes. They were once enlightened but turned away from the truth, and it was impossible to bring them back again. They had rejected the evidence on which they claimed to believe in Christianity and commit themselves to it. That is the only evidence Christianity offers to establish that it comes from God.
"Who have tasted the heavenly gift." Interpreters have disagreed slightly about the "gift" mentioned here. Some, including Owen, understand the next clause as explaining this one. We will not trouble you with unnecessary debate over the text. Following the traditional attribution of Hebrews to Paul, our view is that the "heavenly gift" is the same as the "indescribable gift" he mentions elsewhere.
Someone who abandons the truth may have the kind of enlightenment we have described. Such a person could know something about Christ, "the heavenly gift," without having been made new, made holy, or saved. Does not Paul say that he no longer regards Christ according to the flesh, although some people still know Him only in that earthly, fleshly way? Elsewhere, does he not describe people who had tasted this heavenly gift enough to "preach Christ," yet did so "out of envy and rivalry" and "out of selfish ambition, not sincerely?" And does not the same apostle also warn certain people against the sin of eating the bread or drinking the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner?
What does this prove? These people who have tasted the heavenly gift know Christ only through their natural understanding, ideas, and speculation. They do not love Christ or find their highest delight in Him. Nor do they have Christ in them the hope of glory.
But that is not how you have come to know Christ, trembling, repentant soul! God has been pleased to reveal His Son within you. Through a living faith that takes hold of Him personally, you have tasted, felt, and handled the Lord Jesus. You have tasted this heavenly gift by experiencing in your heart how precious He is and how fully He meets your need.
You have wandered like a lost sheep. Yet you have not forgotten the power and sweetness of His precious name. Now, more than ever, that name is to you as ointment poured forth.
Your heart aches and your soul longs to retrace its steps. You want to walk once more with the Shepherd you deserted and lie down again with the flock you left. What does this movement within you prove? Your sorrow for sin, disgust with yourself, and hatred of your sin prove that you have not abandoned the faith. You have only wandered from the fold. The faithful Shepherd is gently leading you back to its pasture and rest.
"Who have shared in the Holy Spirit." This clause is clearer and more definite. People have long debated how far someone can share in the Holy Spirit without being genuinely converted and saved. These words, however, settle the matter. The unhappy people they describe undoubtedly shared in the Holy Spirit. But in what sense?
Remember a distinctive feature of the early Church. Within it were people who had received gifts from the Holy Spirit, some ordinary and some extraordinary. These included the power to work miracles, prophesy, and speak in tongues. In many cases, people possessed and used these gifts to serve their pride, greed, and ambition. The works of the flesh were joined to the gifts of the Spirit! Simon Magus provides an example. He wanted these supernatural gifts for profit and to satisfy his earthly ambitions, rather than to glorify God.
In his famous letter to the Corinthian church about love, Paul recognizes this possibility. He might share in the Holy Spirit enough to speak with the tongues of men and of angels and understand every prophecy and mystery. Yet he could still lack the Holy Spirit's grace that gives new life.
Our Lord clearly describes such people in His direct, solemn, and terrifying account of the judgment. He says, "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'" His answer to them will be "I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!"
We believe the Spirit's miraculous gifts ceased in the Church with the last apostles. Even without those miracles, people may still possess many ordinary spiritual gifts. These can give them a reputation, raise them to a prominent place like the pinnacle of the temple, and win others' admiration and honor.
Yet those people may still lack the Spirit's converting grace. This is all that is meant here by having been "shared in the Holy Spirit."
But your case, repentant believer, is nothing like this. What do your present repentance, distress, and anguish of soul prove? They prove that you have been given spiritual life and that the Holy Spirit lives in you. You have been sinful, stubborn, and foolish. You have grieved and wounded Him and smothered His influence. Despite all this, the Spirit has not completely left you. Your body is still His temple, and your heart is still His home.
"Who have tasted the goodness of the word of God." This clause has an obvious meaning. It can refer only to God's revealed Word, and especially to His gospel. The apostle is writing about people who falsely claimed faith and deliberately abandoned it. They had heard God's Word with their physical ears. They had felt enough of its power to agree intellectually with its teachings. They had even experienced passing emotion. Their natural affections had been stirred by the majestic and awe-inspiring tenderness of what it revealed.
They had also seen the truth act with extraordinary power and victory in other people's souls. Sympathy with those people gave them a natural joy that lasted only a while. They had seen Satan's power in a human soul and how the gospel overcame it. They had seen the world cast its spell around a heart and how the gospel broke that spell. They had seen the gospel guide people through confusion, comfort them in sorrow, and strengthen them in sickness. They had seen it ease the deathbed and bring light into the darkness of the grave. They had seen it calm the fear of eternal ruin, confirm the hope of salvation, and reveal the glory of immortal life.
All this gave their hearts a passing thrill of gladness.
Herod experienced such feelings when he sent for John, did many things, and heard him gladly. The hearers represented by stony ground were like this too. They heard the Word and immediately received it with joy. But later they took offense and fell away, because they had no root within themselves. These are the people who had "tasted the goodness of the word of God," and that was the full extent of their experience of its power.
Your experience, sorrowing soul, is different! You have done more than taste God's good Word. You have eaten it, and His Word is the joy and the rejoicing of your heart. Your longing, sorrowful soul now places its hope in that Word. Weary and sad, your heart rests on it. There it waits until God fulfills His promise and restores the joy of His salvation to you.
"And the powers of the coming age." The word rendered "world" in older translations can also be translated "age," and we think that translation is right. The reference is clearly to the age of the Messiah, the period of His rule. This is the age, or "world to come," which the apostle mentions elsewhere: "The world to come, about which we are speaking." He clearly means the gospel era, as distinct from the era governed by the law.
In the era of the law, angels spoke the word. In the gospel era, Christ spoke it. The gospel age was to begin and be distinguished by "signs, wonders, various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit."
It is not difficult to see how this applies to the people who abandoned the faith in these verses. They had lived at the dawn of the gospel age, surrounded by its most wonderful and stirring events. They had seen these signs and witnessed these wonders. Perhaps they had even performed these miracles.
In that sense they had tasted the powers of the coming age. None of this describes your case, child of God who has wandered but is now returning!
Now comes the Holy Spirit's sentence on these people who abandoned the faith they once professed. No sentence has ever fallen on a human soul that is more solemn or more terrible. "It is impossible ... and then have fallen away—to be restored to repentance, because they themselves are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to open shame." The key to understanding this dreadful mystery lies in the word "repentance." There might be hope if they could truly repent, but for them that was impossible.
No repentance had been provided for the terrible sin they had committed. No sacrifice had been offered for the deep guilt they had brought on themselves. They had plunged into rejecting the faith, and no path back from that rejection had been opened. In short, no forgiveness had been granted for the crime of which they stood accused. Their salvation was IMPOSSIBLE!
They had claimed to believe in and receive the Messiah as God's Son and humanity's Savior. Then they openly, deliberately, and completely rejected Him. In effect, they had gone to Gethsemane and approved Judas's treacherous betrayal of Christ. They had gone to Calvary and endorsed His Jewish opponents' cruel murder of Christ. They had made themselves companions of His enemies and joined their cry: "Away with Him! away with Him! Crucify Him! crucify Him!"
In this way they had crucified the Son of God all over again and subjected Him to open shame.
They had passed through all these stages of sin, crime, and guilt. They had utterly rejected and renounced the only way to repent, the only One to turn to, and the only grace that makes repentance possible. After that, it was IMPOSSIBLE for them to be made new, brought back, or saved! For them, "no further sacrifice for sins remains, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume all adversaries."
But, dear child of God, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation. The Holy Spirit has given you the truest and strongest evidence of spiritual life within you: a broken and a contrite heart. You grieve over your sin and turn back to God. Bring that sacrifice and lay it on Christ, our "Altar," and God will accept it.
What holy lessons should we learn from the apostates described in this passage—those who deliberately ABANDON THE FAITH? Their condition is sorrowful and hopeless, with no way back.
We must not rely on spiritual understanding, however great it may be. We must not rely on spiritual gifts, however outstanding, or religious feelings, however ecstatic. Instead, we must seek to put sin to death and live in closer fellowship with the Lord. We must increasingly produce the "fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."
These terrible words cast no dark shadow over you. "The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining brighter and brighter until midday."
"Welcome, weeping penitent;
Grace has made thy heart relent:
Welcome, long-estranged child;
God in Christ is reconciled.
"Welcome to the cleansing fount,
Springing from the sacred mount;
Welcome to the feast divine,
Bread of life, and living wine.
"Oh, the virtue of that price,
That redeeming sacrifice!
Come, ye bought, but not with gold,
Welcome to the sacred fold."