A good brother and friend from my undergrad days at Multnomah, Kene Panas (he pastors a church in the Pac NW), just asked me what I thought about the crux interpretum reflected by the text of Hebrews 6:4-6 which says:

¹ Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, ² instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. ³And God permitting, we will do so.

 ⁴ It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, ⁵ who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age ⁶ 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. ⁷ Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. ⁸ But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.

 ⁹ Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are convinced of better things in your case—the things that have to do with salvation. ¹⁰ God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. ¹¹ We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. ¹² We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

Kene asked:

What is Hebrews 6:4-6 talking about in your opinion? Some views as you know are 1. you can lose it. 2. Hypothetical scenario. 3. Speaking to unbelievers. 4. Hardened heart: impossible to repent for a season.

Here is my response off the top, back to Kene:

I still follow a view, that I haven’t heard much of (not in your list for example); that it is talking to believers, but that the loss being referred to is not salvation but reward and thus cursing. How “reward” is parlayed is where I would part ways from some commentators who advocate this position (like Joseph Dillow). Some commentators see the “reward” referencing the ability for “some” of the faithful now to have as an aspect of their reward, to rule and reign with Christ for the 1000 year millennium (with the implication being that some Christians, the less faithful now, will not get to reign with Christ). I find this to be too particular, and too dependent on an elaborate schema of interpretation that I don’t think was present when the letter to the Hebrews would’ve been written (namely Dispensationalism). In fact I am very close to being amil at this point. Anyway, I would think that genuine Hebrew believers are in mind here; and so since we know, theologically, that salvation can’t be lost, the referent must be to something else. And I think a legitimate case can be made that “reward” or more OT “blesssing” (and “cursing”) is in mind. I.e. Yahweh’s people in the Torah-Pentateuch experienced either His cursing or blessing based upon their obedience or disobedience. I would take the language from Heb 6 of “there no longer remaining a sacrifice for sin” as appealing to the “cursing” aspect we see taking place with Israel (esp. in the exilic period) wherein they no longer had the Temple or the functioning Levitic priesthood in place in order to offer sacrifice for them. Thus there would be loss of communion with Yahweh, but not a loss of union with Him [i.e. they still remain His Covenant people even through the loss] (and that only because of who He is, and not who they are or what they’ve done—or that He is merciful and gracious). This is the kind of development that I would detail and work through in order to provide a more Covenantal nexus and canonic intertextual connection for folks to better grasp the beautiful thematic flow and continuity of the text of Scripture. I think our dogmatic theological categories often skew this.

From a theological exegetical approach I would start with the premise (like from the analogy of scripture or faith principle of interpretation or “rule of faith” really) that our salvation is grounded in the vicarious humanity and faith of Christ for us; and thus if salvation can be “lost”, it would have to be possible for Christ to lose salvation first (which is not possible)—I would really press into Heb 7.25 and His ongoing priestly intercession for us; thus ensuring that salvation is securely guarded by Him through His ongoing mediatorship for us. I would then proceed to interpret Heb 6 with this guiding theological principle in mind. Through this approach, I would probably posit that we should read Hebrews 6 very contextually in a way that the writer to the Hebrews was addressing a “particular” issue that we are not privy to all of the info on.

Something I don’t think we should do though; is to frame this pericope in a way that we assume that it fits with all of our systematic theological categories (like the concepts of justification, sanctification etc). With the idea that this letter ever intended to answer these kinds of “theological” questions to begin with [at least in the way that they have often been construed]. I think we need to be more sensitive to the original context, and thus work from there; instead of imposing our theological proclivities upon this text.

This is definitely one of those “crux interpretums”, and yet I think all too often it is made to walk on all fours; in order to satisfy our need to have all of “our” modern soteriological questions answered. I do think that the best way to approach this is first through considering the broad theological point of all of Scripture—which is Christ—and then to proceed through that lens, with an eye to developing the inter-textual theological-canonical themes through which the epistle of Hebrews takes shape (like paying attention to the Torah/Pentateuch and how that informs the assumptions of the author to the Hebrews, and also paying attention, again, to the high Christology that is present within this epistle–as I get at in my 1st paragraph above).

I thought I would share this here; since I am a blogger, and that’s what I do 😉 .