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HARD SAYINGS IN HEBREWS Here we offer up a few more entries to our upcoming publication, "Hard Sayings in the Bible." The last of these three entries (Heb. 10:26) is actually from a post a few weeks back, but the other two are new. HEBREWS 3:6, 14 “But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” (Hebrews 3:6) “For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end.” (Hebrews 3:14) First, it should be noted that the term “the end” occurs five times in the book of Hebrews, and it likely has some application to Israel in the tribulation period when “all Israel shall be saved” (Rom. 11:26) during a time when believers must “endure unto the end” (Mat. 24:13). This does not mean that the passage in Hebrews has no application for the church age, only that it likely includes a tribulation application as well. As for the church age, it must be understood that these words were written to Hebrews. This doesn’t mean that the Jews have a different salvation plan than us, but it is important to realize that the Jews being addressed in Hebrews were often more professors than possessors, which could be why three of the Bible’s four uses of the word “profession” are found in Hebrews (3:1; 4:14; 10:23). As Scofield points out in his note on Hebrews 6:4, these were Jewish professed believers who halted short of full faith in Christ. This is why the book of Hebrews spends so much time contrasting the things of Christ to the Old Testament set-up. The writer is showing Jewish professed believers that the Lord Jesus Christ is BETTER than the old covenant and is the replacement and fulfilment of the old covenant. Many of them had merely “added” Jesus to their religious system without a full faith commitment to Him as their Lord and Saviour, their only hope for salvation. A slow and careful reading of the book of Hebrews as a whole clearly indicates that the writer does not believe that these Jewish “believers” fully understood what it means to have true saving faith in Christ. For instance, there’s no need to tell a true believer that the Old Testament priesthood cannot save him, yet the Hebrews WERE told this in Hebrews chapter 10. This shows that the Hebrews being addressed were not the same caliber of believers as blood-washed Christians are today, saints who trust Christ fully and place no confidence in the old Mosaic covenant. In fact, the language used in the immediate context shows that the writer did not believe that many of these professed believers were saved. Notice some of the wording between verses 6 and 14. Block caps used for emphasis: “Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day IF YE WILL HEAR HIS VOICE, HARDEN NOT YOUR HEARTS, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do ALWAY ERR in their heart; and they have NOT KNOWN MY WAYS. So I sware in my wrath, They shall NOT ENTER INTO MY REST.) Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an EVIL HEART OF UNBELIEF, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be HARDENED THROUGH THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN.” (Heb. 3:7-13) Paul never spoke this way to born again believers in Christ. These are PROFESSED believers who have not come all the way to “the end” of themselves and their law of Moses and fully realized their need for Christ. The statements “if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end” (vs. 6) and “if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end” (vs. 14) are admonitions to the Hebrews to become POSSESSORS and not mere professors. That is, a full faith commitment to Christ, fully receiving Him as Saviour unconditionally would amount to the final step that would place them INTO Christ as born-again believers where HE does all of the holding and keeping (John 10:28-29; I Pet. 1:5; Philip. 1:6). But failing to fully receive Christ would amount to them holding back and never coming to “the end” of their law and fully finding Christ. Please read Romans 10:3-4 very carefully: “For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is THE END of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” (emphasis added) Granted, for a Jew to endure unto “the end” in the Great Tribulation is for him to endure till the end of “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer. 30:7), but today “the end” is when he sees himself and his system of self-righteousness through the law of Moses as mere “filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6) and he takes one giant step of faith into Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. So, “the end” is where the law was to take him: to Christ, Who FULFILLED the law (Mat. 5:17) and brought it to an END. The Jews had to come to the realization that the law was a mere schoolmaster that took them to Christ (Gal. 3:24). The road ended at Calvary, and that’s where the Jews should have realized that their journey was complete and that the time had come to be justified by faith in Christ. But most Jews rejected this truth outright, and others were very slow to come around and fully commit to it. It is to these people that Hebrews is written, people who did not fully believe that Christ was “the end” and that full salvation was to be found in Him alone. The writer of Hebrews is telling these half-hearted Jews to let their road come to an end and receive Christ, since Christ IS “the end” (Rom. 10:4; I Pet. 1:9). Keeping the law AND claiming to trust Christ was not the answer. They had to come all the way and receive Christ as the end of the law for righteousness (Rom. 10:3-4), and many of them had not done this, which is why the chapter ends with telling us that they couldn’t enter in because of UNBELIEF (vs. 19). HEBREWS 6:4-6 “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted 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.” It is argued that the passage is saying that a backslidden Christian cannot repent and restore his fellowship with God once he has fallen away. Obviously, this cannot be the point of the text, else we would have more contradictions in the Bible than we could count. Repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation are very common throughout God’s word, so there’s no reason for God saying that such isn’t possible here in Hebrews. Something else is being said. Notice how the passage does not speak of these people being born again and sealed with the Holy Spirit as we are (Eph. 4:30). It only speaks of them being “once enlightened,” “have tasted” and “made partakers” of the Holy Ghost. Then it says that if THEY (not US) shall fall away that THEY (not US) will crucify to THEMSELVES (not US) the Son of God afresh. The usage of the word “they” clearly points to someone other than you and I today who are born again and are sealed with God’s Spirit unto the day of redemption. This “they” refers to the Jewish professed believers that we mentioned when commenting on Hebrews 3:6 and 3:14. They had seen the apostolic signs and wonders, obvious works of the Holy Ghost, so they had “tasted” and “partook” in the things of God, in a limited sense, but they had not come all the way and received Christ. They had been partakers as eye witnesses to Holy Ghost power, both in the ministry of Jesus and the apostles, and some became professors, but they had not become POSSESSORS by believing on Christ. If this seems stretched, please remember that this same book of Hebrews has already warned the Hebrews that they had been eye witnesses to the “gifts of the Holy Ghost” (Heb. 2:4) and has warned them to not neglect the great salvation that was to be found in Christ: “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?” (Heb. 2:3-4) So, these hard passages in Hebrews are not dealing with someone who is saved and might lose their salvation; they are dealing with Jews who ran the risk of NEGLECTING salvation after having been eye witnesses to the powerful workings of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost CAME UPON Mary (Luke 1:35), but she wasn’t born again at that time as a new creature in Christ. The Holy Ghost FILLED Elisabeth and Zacharias (Luke 1:41, 67, but they were not born-again believers with the Holy Spirit sealed within. The Holy Ghost was UPON Simeon (Luke 2:25), but He wasn’t SEALED IN him. There was much Holy Ghost activity throughout the gospel period, yet John 7:39 tells us that “the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)” People had “tasted” and had been “partakers” of the Holy Ghost in a limited sense, but they had not been BORN OF THE SPIRIT (John 3:8) and SEALED WITH the Holy Ghost until the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30; II Cor. 1:22). The Scofield note on this is actually very good: “Heb 6:4-8 presents the case of Jewish professed believers who halt short of faith in Christ after advancing to the very threshold of salvation, even "going along with" the Holy Spirit in His work of enlightenment and conviction. Joh 16:8-10. It is not said that they had faith. This supposed person is like the spies at Kadesh-barnea De 1:19-26 who saw the land and had the very fruit of it in their hands, and yet turned back.” To see such Holy Ghost power first-hand and then still reject Christ would basically amount to the very blasphemy that was committed by the Pharisees in Matthew chapter twelve, which Jesus said would never be forgiven (Mat. 12:32) The old-timers called this “sinning away your day of grace.” Others just call it “crossing the line” or “crossing the point of no return,” but whatever one calls it, it concerns LOST people, not born-again believers in Christ. HEBREWS 10:26 "For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins." Like most problem verses, the verse is almost always extracted from its context and applied to the individual believer who "sins wilfully" after he has been saved, even thou he doesn't have a priest offering sacrifices with the blood of bulls and goats (vss. 1-11). The context is not born again believers in Christ today who fully understand and have benefitted from Christ's work on the cross, but rather first century Jews who felt the need to still trust in the "blood of bulls and of goats" (vs. 4) by "every priest" offering sacrifices that "can never take away sins" (vs. 11). For Jews still believing in the old Mosaic system, Calvary was of none effect. The whole point of verse 26 was that anyone really coming to the FULL "knowledge of the truth" would understand that continual sacrifices were useless, even blasphemous. Paul was basically saying, "You Christian-Jews just don't get it, even if you think you do, and the proof is in the fact that you still trust in your animal sacrifices, sacrifices that are no longer effective in dealing with sin. Sin was dealt with 100% at Calvary, so leave it there and stop trying to deal with it elsewhere." As for believers like us who DO get it, verse 39 applies: "But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." No doubt, the passage also has tribulation reference concerning Jews who turn to Christ at that time, but the above is how to handle the passage for concerned believers today. In closing, they key thing to remember about the book of Hebrews is that it was written to Jews who were at risk of turning back and not believing on Christ after having been given much gospel light. That is not the case with any born-again believer in the body of Christ.