Repentance, Impossible to Renew
Notes
Transcript
Intro; Last Sunday night we looked at Hebrews 6:1-3, as we began studying this sometimes controversial and difficult passage to interpret. I have personally struggled with this passage in the past to grasp it’s full meaning and application to the christians life. Even this past week in my studies and prayers God has given me a better grasp on it than I’ve had in the past.
We started with “Repentance from Dead Works” as the writer of Hebrews was warning the Jewish Christians to grow and mature in Jesus Christ and not to “fall away” back into Judaism and legalism of the Law. The reason I stress this point is because we have to understand the audience of this letter, “Hebrews, Jewish Converts to Christianity”.
If we don’t settle this fact now, the rest of this scripture we are going to read becomes controversial and difficult to understand.
I will also let you know beforehand that tonight I will intentionally plagiarize some of my message from notes by J. Vernon McGee and a message I preached on this passage several years ago entitled “The Cost of Spiritual Immaturity”.
Tonight we will look at “Repentance, Impossible To Renew”
Text: Heb. 6:4-9
4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit,
5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,
6 if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.
7 For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God;
8 but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.
9 But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner.
The writer of Hebrews sets forth a tragic dilemma for the christian who fails to progress in spiritual maturity. If they do not move forward, then they will retreat and his situation will be grim because he would be a Christian trying to live in the flesh, what Paul calls a “Carnal Christian”.
1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ.
1. Things that Accompany Salvation; 9
1. Things that Accompany Salvation; 9
Beloved- [agape-tos] agape; love of God, salvation in Christ; fellow believers in Christ
Then the writer gives encouragement by saying “better things are ahead that accompany salvation”. So the question is not about their salvation, but the fruit that will come from it if they grow spiritually.
If you build/buy a home, move into it and through the years neglect the maintenance or improvements that are needed, then that home will become run down and unsuitable to live in. Our spiritual house must be maintained and improvements made [spiritual growth] or we will end up the same as a physical house that is run down.
5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge,
6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness,
7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.
8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble;
2. It Is Impossible; 4-5
2. It Is Impossible; 4-5
Impossible- out of the question, unthinkable, beyond the bounds of possibility; it ain’t gonna happen
Enlightened- conversion experience
6 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
32 But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings:
Tasted Heavenly Gift- to partake of, take in, experience [salvation]
10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Partakers Holy Spirit- engage in, enter into, filled with
19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Tasted the Word- goodness of the Word, instruction, guidance
8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
Powers of Age to Come- the age to come is resurrection to eternal life in Christ
15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
29 So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s,
30 who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life.
28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.
29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.
It is Impossible for one who has come to faith in Christ to lose salvation in Christ. It is not a question of your ability to hold on to Him; it is His ability to hold on to you.
3. Repentance Impossible to Renew; 6
3. Repentance Impossible to Renew; 6
Fall Away- [para pito] apostasy; to drift off course and withdraw support from; weakened.
Fall- [pip to] means simply “to stumble, to fall down.”
There are many examples in Scripture of men who “fell away”, stumbled in faith.
Samson [Heb. 11:32], Lot [2 Peter 2:7], David [2 Sam. 12], Peter [Luke 22], John Mark [Acts 15, 2 Tim. 4]
31 And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat.
32 But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”
33 But he said to Him, “Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death.”
34 Then He said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me.”
37 Now Barnabas was determined to take with them John called Mark.
38 But Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia, and had not gone with them to the work.
39 Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus;
11 Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry.
Neither Samson, Lot, David, Peter nor John Mark lost his salvation, but they certainly failed and they suffered loss for it.
Many of the Jewish believers were returning to the temple sacrifice at that time, and the writer to the Hebrews was warning them of the danger of that. Before Christ came, every sacrifice was a picture of Him and pointed to His coming, but after Christ came and died on the Cross, that which God had commanded in the Old Testament actually became sin.
You see, those folk were at a strategic point in history. The day before the crucifixion of Jesus they had gone to the temple with sacrifices in obedience to God’s command, but now it was wrong for them to do it. Why? Because Jesus had become that sacrifice—once and for all. Today if you were to offer a bloody sacrifice, you would be sacrificing afresh the Lord Jesus because you would be implying that when He died nineteen hundred years ago it was of no avail—that you still need a sacrifice to take care of your sin. It would mean that you would not have faith in His atonement, in His death, in His redemption. As someone has said, we either crucify or crown the Lord Jesus by our lives. Today we exhibit either a life of faith or a life by which we crucify Him afresh—especially when we feel that we have to get back under the Mosaic system and keep the Law in order to be saved. It is a serious matter to go back to a legal system.
McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Epistles (Hebrews 1-7) (electronic ed., Vol. 51, p. 112). Thomas Nelson.
1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
2 Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.
3 And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law.
4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
5 For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.
6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.
It is a serious thing to have accepted Christ as Savior and then to live in sin, to nullify what God desires for you by staying a spiritual baby and not growing to spiritual maturity!
4. Fruit of Salvation; 7-8
4. Fruit of Salvation; 7-8
The writer of Hebrews is not talking about a persons salvation, but the fruit that comes from it through spiritual growth!
11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,
13 each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is.
14 If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward.
15 If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
The whole focus of the text is speaking to a believers rewards which are the result of salvation. He is warning them of the possibility of losing their rewards. If the believer’s life brings forth fruit, it receives blessing from God; if it brings forth thorns and briers, the works are rejected.
Close;
A Finish infidel died and left his farm willed to the Devil. The courts after deliberating on such a ridiculous set of circumstances decided the best way to carry out the wishes of the infidel was to permit the farm to grow up in weeds and briars, allow the house and barn to remain unpainted and to rot, and permit the soil to erode and wash away. The court said, “the best way to let the Devil have it is to simply do nothing.”
What are you doing with God’s salvation?
Are you building up or are you falling away?
There is a high cost to spiritual immaturity and the question is, “Are you willing to pay the price?”
I would rather Grow in Grace!
