Can someone get to a point where repentance is impossible?
Hebrews • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Hi Folks. Welcome to another edition of The Messianic Jewish Expositor.
I feel burdened to discuss with you today a difficult but important subject. Can a person who is not saved get to a point in his life where repentance leading to salvation is impossible? Sadly, I believe that the answer is yes. But I also believe that you and I should never stop hoping and praying for a person to be saved because you and I can’t know whether a particular person has reached the point at which repentance to salvation is impossible. Only God knows that. But why does this question even come up? It comes up because of passages like Hebrews 6:4-8. Let me read the passage to you:
Hebrews 6:4-8 “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 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. 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; but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.”
So folks we have a category of people here who are described as having these characteristics:
once enlightened, have tasted the heavenly gift, have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come.
And we are also told this about these people:
It is impossible 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.
And we are also told of the consequences to this group of people:
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; but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.
The people described in this passage (Hebrews 6:4-8) are clearly those that bear thorns and briers. How could it be otherwise? They have crucified Christ again for themselves and put Him to an open shame. By the way, folks, I’d like to make an observation. Bearing thorns and briers is not equivalent to bearing no fruit or to bearing wood, hay, and stubble, which may be worthless and is burned up. Bearing thorns and briers seems to me to represent negative fruit or harmful things.
Who could this group of people be? By that I mean who could they be spiritually? I can think of two major categories. They’re either saved or unsaved. Or, put another way, they are either born again or they have never been born again. Which of these two categories this group of people belong to is of profound importance. We must know to which category they belong if we are to know whether a person can get to the point of not being able to repent to salvation. In addition we must know to which category they belong if we are to properly understand the letter to the Hebrews.
Now there are those who say that people who are enlightened, have tasted the heavenly gift, have become partakers of the heavenly spirit, have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come can only be people who are born again. That surely seems to be correct, does it not? But can saved people fall away or become apostate and be unable to be renewed to repentance, to repentance leading to salvation? Saved people can come before the throne of mercy and grace and ask their Messiah and Lord for forgiveness when they sin; they can definitely repent in that sense. But do they crucify Christ again and put Him to an open shame? Do they lose their salvation, and lose it permanently, by being unable to repent to the point of salvation? Can we definitely, on the basis of sound Biblical doctrine, show that that cannot happen? I believe that we can. But let me interject something here. The word repentance is metanoia in the Greek. That word is never used for anything other than repentance leading to conversion in the New Testament.
But getting back to the question of can a person lose his salvation?
The Bible does not contradict itself because God does not contradict Himself and the Bible is the word of God. Let me read to you three short Bible passages:
Romans 8:38-39 “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
John 10:27-30 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. 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. I and My Father are one.””
1 Peter 1:23 “having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,”
I believe that these three passages clearly indicate that born again people cannot lose their salvation. That being the case, Hebrews 6:4-8 cannot refer to born again people because the people in that passage have become apostate. They have denied Jesus and have fallen away from the faith.
It’s impossible for these people to repent to salvation because they’ve already received everything anyone could ever need to repent: they were enlightened, they tasted the heavenly gift, they became partakers of the heavenly spirit, they tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come
Receiving these things produced intellectual belief but because it was not mixed with faith these people were never converted. They were never born again.
And as the three passages that I just read to you demonstrate, a born again believer cannot lose his or her salvation. So these verses do not describe people who are born again and have lost their salvation.
But could these people still be born again or saved? In other words could these people be born again believers and become apostate without losing their salvation? This has become a popular view with some expositors. Could the people in this passage willfully deny Jesus, deny that He is the Messiah and the Son of God? Could they crucify Him again and put Him to an open shame? Christ cannot be crucified again; His crucifixion happened once and that was all-sufficient. I believe therefore that “crucify him again” is a figure of speech. That sounds awfully like what we read in:
Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?
So here we read about someone who has trampled the Son of God underfoot - another figure of speech - and has counted the blood of the covenant - that’s the New Covenant, folks - by which he was sanctified, a common thing.
By the way, sanctified in this verse cannot refer to the person who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace. A sanctified person would never do such things! No, sanctified in this verse refers to Someone else and I believe that Someone is Jesus Christ, our Messiah and the Son of God. He said that about Himself in John:
And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.
But getting back to the main point, I do not believe that it is possible to be born again and to be apostate.
No, these people came to believe that which they previously did not believe, that Jesus was Messiah and Son of God, but they were not born again because their belief was not mixed with faith.
The people described in Hebrews 6:4-8 have done more than sin. Hebrews tells us in no uncertain terms that these are people who are crucifying again for themselves the Son of God and putting Him to an open shame, and more (Hebrews 10:29). These are people who cannot be renewed to repentance. These are people who professed faith in Yeshua, who appeared to walk closely in His ways, and then did an about face. They resoundingly rejected Him. They’d have to have done that to be described as people who crucified Him again and put Him to an open shame and more. This group of people are not saved and never were saved.
But now someone has a question. How is it that these people, the people in Hebrews 6:4-8, cannot be renewed to repentance? How is it that they can never be saved in the future? Isn’t that what the Scripture is saying here? Are there really people who can never repent and so never be saved? YES, there are such people! But you say to me, Art, where is your example or proof? Let me give it to you.
Please consider a couple of things. One is that this group of people talked about in these verses (Hebrews 6:4-8) is a very select group of people. Consider Judas Iscariot. He was the one apostle out of the original twelve who fell away. He became an apostate. Surely he was enlightened. He sat under the Messiah’s teaching for 3 years. He surely tasted of the heavenly gift; he had mysteries explained to him that caused other people to scratch their heads as they tried to figure out the meaning of Jesus’ parables. He partook of the Holy Spirit when Jesus sent him out with the other apostles to cast out evil spirits, to raise the dead, and to heal the sick. He tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come - Jesus made it clear to His apostles that He was God and He had to have shared plenty of good words with Judas. And Judas experienced the powers of the age to come, the Messianic age also known as the Millennial Kingdom, as Judas walked with the King Himself for three years. Jesus gave Judas authority. Listen to what Jesus did:
Matthew 10:1-4 “And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease. Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him.”
So Judas was enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, became a partaker of the heavenly spirit, tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come but Judas was never saved! He would never have done the things that he did if he was. I believe that the people described in Hebrews 6:4-8 and Hebrews 10:27-29 are like Judas.
Let’s look at a few more Scriptures that have relevance here:
John 13:26-27 “Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I shall give a piece of bread when I have dipped it.” And having dipped the bread, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. Now after the piece of bread, Satan entered him. Then Jesus said to him, “What you do, do quickly.””
Satan entered or indwelled Judas. Satan does not enter a saved person.
Romans 6:1-2 “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?”
We who died to sin - we who were born again - cannot live in sin or walk in sin, any longer. We are not slaves to sin. A believer can backslide but he cannot walk in sin, he cannot willfully sin continually, he cannot be a slave to sin. Judas was a slave to sin. He denied the Messiah, arranged to have Him killed, and then killed himself. Judas definitely had remorse about what he did. But he did not repent and plead with God to save him.
1 John 2:19 “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.”
This verse is describing people who fell away from the faith. They were apostates. They were never saved. Saved people do not become apostates. Apostates are people who were never born again.
Can apostates ever repent? That’s a tough question and I’m not going to say that no apostate can ever repent. God forbid that I should say that. But I can definitely say that the group in Hebrews 6:4-8 could not repent and it seems to me that to get there they must have committed an unforgivable sin. Is it possible for a person to commit a sin that cannot be forgiven? I believe the answer is yes. Some verses from Hebrews 10 are helpful here.
Hebrews 10:26-29 “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?”
Folks, I want you to particularly note Hebrews 10:29 where the Scripture talks about insulting the Spirit of grace. That sounds awfully like blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Folks that is an unforgivable sin and one that a born again person cannot commit. There are some theologians who say that it is not possible for a person to blaspheme the Holy Spirit today, that the Pharisees who said to Jesus that the work that He did in casting out a demonic spirit was not done by the Holy Spirit but by Satan. Now it is true that in order for me to exactly reproduce the sin of the Pharisees there would need to be a mute man possessed by a demon standing close to me, Jesus would have to cast the demon out, and I would have to accuse Jesus of doing this by the power of Satan. That can’t happen today. But is there no other way in which the Holy Spirit can be blasphemed? Either in the first century A.D. or even today? What about the miracle of healing done to a particular person by the power of the Holy Spirit perhaps through the laying on of hands by an apostle or other minister of Christ in the name of Jesus? A person witnessing this says that the healing was done by Satan. Why is that not blaspheming the Holy Spirit? And the person who did this is likely one with a hardened heart, perhaps someone like Pharaoh who refused to believe in spite of all the miracles. Insulting the spirit of grace in Hebrews 10:29 sounds like a sin in this category. I don’t believe that it is possible for a born again person to do this.
So what conclusions can we draw from all this?
It is possible for an unsaved person to be beyond saving, to be beyond repentance.
Such a person must be a willful persistent sinner with a hardened heart. Such a person may well have blasphemed the Holy Spirit.
APPLICATION
Does it matter whether the people in Hebrews 6:4-8 are saved or not? Yes, it does. The people in this passage are persistent willful sinners. Think how much harm could be done if your brother or sister was taught that he or she could behave in this way, deny Christ, and still go to heaven. That would be dangerous. I think that the Holy Spirit has put this passage into Hebrews to warn us of this.
If you know someone who may be in this group, the group described in Hebrews 6:4-8, someone who professed faith in Christ and then rejected Him, someone who is not saved, wouldn’t you want to fervently pray for them, to counsel them, or to preach the truth to them perhaps from this very passage and similar ones?
I’d like to close in prayer. Father in heaven, would you please guide us, lead us, teach us, how to intercede for a person who once professed faith in Jesus and then willfully sins by despising His name? I cannot believe that such a person is saved and I recognize that such a person may even be beyond repentance. But please, Father, if such a one is not beyond repentance please pull him out of the pit, release him from Satan’s grip, and make him a new creation that he might spend eternity with you in heaven. Thank you, LORD. In Yeshua’s name. Amen.