Sermon Text: Hebrews 6:4–20
Preacher: Pastor Brian Sauvé

A Word on That Cliff Over There

We’ve got a tough passage on multiple levels this morning, and I want to make sure we dig in, so we’re going to get right to work.  Go ahead and look with me at Hebrews 6:4, if you would, and we’ll read it and ask for the Lord’s help. This is the Word of the Living God:

“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

-Hebrews 6:4–20

Right There, 12 Inches From Your Nose

This text and texts like it in the Bible are, by consensus of most commentators, among the most difficult and complex issues to understand—this issue of salvation and the security of the believer.

It is a difficult issue, on the one hand, because if there is one thing clear about salvation in the New Testament, it is that it’s nothing like your car keys, your wedding ring, or your kid’s favorite stuffed animal every single night at bedtime—you can’t lose it. 

Our salvation isn’t our own, because we are not our own, but belong to God. Jesus isn’t property that we can misplace; we don’t own him, he owns us. To see this, all you need see is that the Bible says all kinds of things like this:

“…those whom he foreknew, he also predestined…and these whom he predestined, he also called; and these whom he called, he also justified; and these whom he justified, he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” 

-Romans 8:29-31

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 

-1 Peter 1:3-5

“May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he who calls you, and he also will bring it to pass.” 

-1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

-Philippians 1:6

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out…this is the will of him who send me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.” 

-John 6:37-39

All those passages—and more!—are in my Bible. What makes this complex, however—is that so are are passages ours today. Here it is, right there after Hebrews 6:3 and right before Hebrews 6:7, in the same Bible as the other verses:

“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.”

-Hebrews 6:4–6

So what do we do with these passages? Our job this week is to figure that out. Here’s how we’re going to approach that difficult task:

1. First, we’ll identify the sin he’s describing and how a person might commit this sin. There’s a cliff in verses 4–8 that we don’t want to fall off of. 

2. Next, we’ll find out the reason why the author of Hebrews is confident that the people he’s writing to are not going to fall to that sin—and in the process, we’ll discover the most effective way to avoid falling off of this cliff. That’s verses 9–12. 

3. Finally, in verses 13–20, we’ll locate the precise spot where our hope in all of this is bolted down on heaven’s granite foundation, which turns out to be a very sturdy thing.

A Real Cliff (4–8)

Let’s begin by naming the sin we’re being warned against and what it looks like to commit this sin.

The sin is that of apostasy. Remember, one of the great themes of the entire book of Hebrews is to convince these primarily Jewish Christians, first-generation, Jewish Christians, that Jesus is greater than all of the Old Covenant shadows that pointed to him, and that now that he has come, all of those shadows are finished. Never go back.

They are tempted to shrink back to the Temple, to the ceremonial law—in other words, to apostatize. Apostasy comes from the word “to stand,” and basically refers to someone who fell away rather than stood. As we speak of this sin, we need to establish, right here up front, that this is a real sin that real people really commit, that it is a real cliff that real people fall off of. 

It is falling away from some kind of relationship to God, to Christ, and to his church—a falling away that the author says is irreversible. Verses 4–6 tells us that and more about the nature of this cliff edge,

“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.”

-Hebrews 4:4–6

Let me give you my summary conclusion about what this passage is teaching—knowing that this is a difficult passage that people disagree about. That said, here’s my summary:

There are real people who will make a strong, believable, and theologically accurate profession of faith in Christ, who will look and sound like Christians, fellowship with Christians, who will be a part of the visible church—meaning all of the people alive right now who claim membership in Christ—who will prove by their falling away that they were never truly born again, and that this sin is so serious that the Lord gives those guilty of it over to hardness of heart, from which they will never repent. And God intends to use warnings like this one as a means of keeping his own.

Back to the House

This is a stronger restatement, in other words, of what we have already seen in the book of Hebrews back in chapter three. In Hebrews 3:6, the author described the Church like a house that God was building. 

And he said this, “…we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.” Remember that if/then statement? You are truly a part of this house if you persevere in faith. And the implication is that you are not truly part of the house if you don’t. You never were. You may have walked in. You may have visited. But you aren’t of it.

The point of these texts is not that you can be born again and then un-born-again. It’s not that you can be regenerate, that is, raised from the dead, and then spiritually die again. The point is that we will see people who seem to be part of God’s Church, who prove by their leaving that they are not.

Let me walk through these verses and see what the author says this looks like, specifically, how these words could apply to someone who isn’t actually regenerate: He lists four experiences this person has had:

1. They have once been enlightened. This enlightenment, as becomes clear in chapter 10, is the recognition that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Hebrews 10:32–33, 

“…recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.”

-Hebrews 10:32–33

For a Jew to say, “Jesus is Messiah!” was to face public excoriation. They have done this. But you can be enlightened in this way, yet not saved, as is plain from Demons who knew that Jesus was the Christ, but who were still… well, demons.

2. They tasted the heavenly gift, and shared in the Holy Spirit. They had experienced something of the Spirit. The Spirit strives with and uses even unregenate people. 

We see this with Saul in the Old Testament, who prophesied. We see it in the New Testament from the lips of Jesus, who says that there will be people who stand before God on the last day, who say, “Did we not prophesy in your name?” to whom Jesus will say, “Depart from me, I never knew you!”

3. They had tasted the goodness of the Word of God. They heard the Scriptures taught. They tasted the goodness and glory of God’s Word.

4. They had tasted the powers of the age to come. They were there to see the power of the Kingdom of God, evident in the local church as the spiritually dead are raised, as Christ is proclaimed in power, and as the world-reorienting power of God’s Spirit brought the power of the Kingdom there.

All of these things are things that regenerate people have also tasted, but you can taste them without being regenerate. It’s like this: Everyone in the military has a uniform, but not everyone who wears a uniform is in the military. That’s affirming the consequent, and we know from Philosophy 101 that that’s a fallacy. Every cow has four legs. A dog has four legs. Therefore, a dog is a cow. Uh…

Everyone born again person has been enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, shared in the Holy Spirit, tasted the goodness of God’s Word and th powers of the age to come, but not every person who has tasted all of those things is truly regenerate. 

Some of them are there, with the team, but they’re not on the team. Some have visited the house, had meals there, stayed there for a time, who are not of the house. Some have said they were of us, but they went out from us, as John wrote in his first epistle, and so we know that they are not truly of us.

He gives an illustration, verse 7,

“For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.”

-Hebrews 4:7–8

It’s as if the cleansing rain of God’s good gospel has fallen down on some, but rather than growing up a useful crop, it has grown thorns, thistles—it has shown that it is cursed land, not covenant land.

And none of this is a momentary backsliding, as many true believers will experience, but permanent, irreversible hardness of heart: Apostasy. 

Think again of the Jewish audience and their temptation to go back to the Old Covenant shadows. To restore someone who had trampled down the Son of God to return to the blood of bulls and goats—that is a blasphemous thing. It holds Jesus up to contempt.

“It is impossible…to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.”

-Hebrews 6:1a, 6b

It’s like what God says in Romans 1, that some sin is so serious that God will give a person up to a hard heart, basically say, “You may have your god and your idols and your sin—see if it can save you and satisfy you.”

This is a real sin that real people really commit. It is a real cliff that people really fall off of—who say, “I’m a Christian!” And participate in the life of the Church, and see and taste and touch and experience, who know doctrine and say they believe the gospel, and then abandon the faith, abandon Christ for an idol, return to their vomit.

Friends, I have seen it in this church. There are faces in my mind, names, as I read this section. I remember one man, who seemed to radically come to Christ, who professed faith, learned theology. He was even in a small group of men being discipled and tested for ministry calling.

And he left. He walked away. He is gone. He now denies it all, denies the Bible he learned, the Christ he professed, the faith he claimed. And he is hard as flint.

Further Up & Further In To Keep From Falling (9–12)

This is very, very real.

This is a firm, sobering warning. It’s a warning that leaves—or at least should leave—all of us in a position of a kind of trembling self-examination; if someone could fall away who has experienced all of those things, certainly this isn’t a warning that I can ignore.

But in the next section, he author of Hebrews expresses a confidence that these Christians to whom he is writing are not going to do that. Why? He points to a specific thing to justify his confidence. Look at verse 9, if you would:

“Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation.”

-Hebrews 6:9

In spite of the warning, in spite of the fact that he can see them in danger of this sin, the author is confident that they will not fall away—not these Christians. Verse 10 tells us why not, and we’ll see two reasons that work together like a hand and a glove:

“For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.”

-Hebrews 6:10

Two reasons for his confidence: God’s justice and their work. God isn’t the kind of God who will look at this people, who are bearing the fruit of living faith—namely, love for his name working out in serving the saints, the Church.

They are, in other words, bearing the kind of fruit that only Christians bear. Thorn bushes down’t grow apricots, and false converts don’t persist in costly, self-denying love of God expressed in service to God’s Church. And so he urges them, verse 11, 

“And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

-Hebrews 6:11–12

So if there is a cliff edge that we ought not even go near, where is the safe path? It is in love. Specifically, love of God expressed in service of God’s people. This is exactly what we should expect to hear, given Jesus’ words in John 13:35, 

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

-John 13:35

Look around this room: Your surest guard against this damning sin is to walk in living faith by loving your brother and sister. We don’t avoid this cliff by getting as close to it as possible; we avoid this cliff by traveling further up and further in. We avoid this cliff of apostasy by sprinting the other way. You can’t sincerely love the saints and be moving towards this cliff at the same time any more than you can stand up and sit down at the same time.

So let me urge you, as your pastor: Love these people. Don’t let it be theoretical or hypothetical theology—let your theology run out of your wallets and fingertips, let it be expressed in your words and your deeds. Let your kitchen and your dining table preach your love for the saints. Let your schedule preach the same. 

Do the costly thing. Let it be painful. Forgive the debt. Stop the gossip. Love the brethren. Babysit the kids. Whatever it takes, love the brethren, because to do so is to set a stiff pace further up and further in, away from this deadly cliff.

None of this should make us think that we avoid apostasy by being good enough for God, by loving the brethren enough, by loving our Lord enough—no, it’s all by grace and through faith. But it is a grace that is resurrecting grace, and it is a living, not a dead faith. Faith without works, remember, is dead. Jesus’ brother James taught us that.

Don’t fall into the error of the antinomian, here—which means “against the law,” an error where we make works and grace enemies where they are not. We work from grace and by grace and through faith; we don’t work for grace. 

But we do, we absolutely do, work. We do, we absolutely do, supernaturally love. We do, we absolutely do, repent of our sin, love our enemies and our brothers, by the resurrecting power of Jesus Christ. We are Christians, not unregenerate frauds and actors.

An Anchor At The Peak (13–20)

So faith without works is dead, but our faith is not in our faith or in our works, but in the anchor of our hope, the surety of our souls, the One who has died and risen and ascended and is right now reigning from the Father’s right hand. 

Our hope is in God’s promised salvation through the gospel. And in this final section this morning, the author of Hebrews would have us see that we can be confident in this promise. 

Verse 12 said that he wanted us to avoid sluggishness, but be “…imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” We’ll see that it is the gospel, the promise of Jesus, our High Priest, but first he wants us to see where this promise is anchored. Verse 13,

“For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.”

-Hebrews 6:13–15

This promises is anchored in the character of God. The author reaches back to Genesis, where God made his covenant with Abraham, to make this plain. When God swore to Abraham, on what did God swear? Himself! God said, “Look Abraham, I swear to me that I’ll do it.” Why did he do that? Verse 16,

“For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.”

-Hebrews 6:16–18

The promises of God are bolted to the granite block of God’s unchangeable character, to God’s trustworthiness, which is so sure that the author can say that for God to lie is an impossibility. They always have been, Genesis to eternity. Because of this, verse 19,

“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

-Hebrews 6:19–20

The promise is sure. What promise? That we have a great and an immortal High Priest forever, who has passed into the holy of holies in heaven—behind the curtain, the Temple veil—to intercede on our behalf and to bring us there by union with himself.

What is that? That is the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus! I’m going to jump ahead and give you a taste of something we will see in Hebrews 10, because this point of light here in Hebrews 6:20 will be expanded to a supernova in Hebrews 10,

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

-Hebrews 10:19–25

Through his work on the cross, Jesus became a passageway into the very holy of holies, into the sanctuary of heaven. Because of that, we have confidence to walk straight in. Why? Because he has paid our debt, washed us clean, united us to his own perfections, and beckoned us to come.

The call is indeed to come further up and further in—to love the brethren, leave this cliff edge behind us, and run the race with endurance. But there is an anchor bolted in the granite floor of heaven, and we are tethered to it with unbreakable links in a chain of grace. This gospel promise is the promise of God, sworn on God, to bring us to God.

Yes, there is a cliff behind us we are to avoid, but our hope is tethered to our souls on one end, and God holds the other end. So our hope—though it is confirmed through our fruit—isn’t our fruit; it’s God’s oath to provide his Christ, which he has already done.