AN IMPOSSIBLE IMPOSSIBILITY

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 who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to public disgrace (Heb. 6:4-6).

A much misunderstood and a much feared passage of Scripture! With God there are very few impossibilities. Only that which is contrary to His nature is impossible with Him.

But what the writer is talking about here is not something God cannot do. It is something we cannot do. When a human being renounces the truths God has laid down as the foundation of his walk with Him, he cannot return to the path of God’s grace and mercy. Jesus is, categorically, the only way to the Father and, to repudiate Him is to remain lost, forever, in the wilderness of sin and death.

The writer clearly enumerates the blessings and benefits of believing in Jesus and in His atoning sacrifice as the foundation of our response to God. There is no other way to return to the Father but by the way of the cross. It is the Holy Spirit who opens the eyes of our understanding that Jesus is the only way back to God. Though faith in Jesus we are fused to Him, we are in Him and He is in us. We are given our status as God’s sons and daughters, spiritual brothers and sisters of God’s Son (Heb. 2: 10, 11).

The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple (Psa. 119: 130).

God’s word becomes our daily bread – the manna from heaven which feeds and nourishes our souls as we journey from this life to the next.

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! (Psa. 119:103).

We have tasted of the powers of the coming age, the victory that Jesus won over the devil and the hope of the resurrection. The benevolent rule of God is here. We are no longer subject to the devil; his deception has been exposed. He is not God and he no longer has the power to hold us in slavery to his will.

For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Col. 1: 13-14).

To fall away means to apostatize – to renounce and turn ones back on the truths one once believed. This is not about wandering off the path through sin and getting lost in the wilderness. This is about a deliberate choice to repudiate the work of Jesus and all the benefits and blessings of His salvation. Once someone has done that, there is no way back because that person has effectively put Jesus back on the cross.

For those who have wandered away, there is always a way back but for those who have deliberately chosen to take a wrong turn, knowing that the deviation will lead to another destination, there is no way back to God; as I heard an evangelist say, ‘There are many gods, but only one Jesus.’ Jesus is the only way to the Father. He said:

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’ (John 8:12).

Can you see how impossible it is to return? Faith is what pleases God. It matters in whom you place your faith. Like the Bedouins in the desert who need to anchor their tents lest the wind blows them away, you need to fasten your “tent” to the “peg” that will not be moved when the winds of false teaching and the howling gales of life threaten to blow you away. God and His word are the only reliable and immovable anchor.

The writer of this letter urges us to make sure that we are anchored to the only “tent peg” that will never shift or come loose in the winds of life. To change metaphor, God has given us a solid foundation upon which to build the superstructure of our lives. Without that foundation, like Jesus’s foolish builder in Matt 7: 26-27, our house will crash when the storms of life blow against it.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.