Hebrews 5:11-14
11 Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.
14 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
Hebrews 6:1-8
1 Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,
2 of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.
3 And this we will do, if God permits.
4 For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,
6 and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.
7 For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God;
8 but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.
It is a common interpretive principle among Bible scholars that “context is king.” That is, the meaning of a particular word, phrase, verse or passage is best understood within its immediate context. That immediate context constrains, qualifies and clarifies whatever meaning we may draw from a particular part of Scripture.
In the case of Hebrews 6:4-6, the immediate context extends back into the preceding chapter (joined to it by the use of the word “therefore” at the beginning of 6:1) where the writer of Hebrews is addressing the matter of spiritual immaturity. In chapter 5, verse 11, he remarks that his intended audience cannot understand all that he would tell them concerning Christ the High Priest of the “order of Melchizedek” because they are still those who “need milk and not solid food.”
Hebrews 5:12
12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
The writer of Hebrews points the way to greater maturity in verse 14 of chapter 5 through to verse 3 of chapter 6:
Hebrews 5:14
14 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
Hebrews 6:1-8
1 Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,
2 of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.
3 And this we will do, if God permits.
Here, then, is the context, the line of reasoning, that brings the reader of Hebrews to verses 4-6 of chapter 6. In view are the spiritually immature and recommendations for remedying their immaturity. The writer of Hebrews begins verse 4 by establishing a contrast between the spiritually immature he’s been addressing and those he describes in verses 4-6. He writes:
4 For in the case of those…
Not “For in your case” or, “For you who have been…” but “…in the case of those…” which indicates the writer of Hebrews is now speaking of a group distinguishable from the group that he is addressing. This is the purpose of the demonstrative pronoun “those,” showing distance between the speaker and a noun and in doing so distinguishing them from each other. Of this other group, the writer of Hebrews says:
4…who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,
6 and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.
The writer of Hebrews at this point has established two groups: the merely spiritually immature who, despite their immaturity, are nonetheless genuine members of the faith and “those” who have brushed up against the truths and spiritual power of Christianity but have ultimately rejected it. The former are part of God’s family, immature though they be, but the latter have never actually entered into God’s family, though they have been close enough to that family to participate in its spiritual activities.
4 For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
The phrase “once been enlightened” is assumed by those with a saved-and-lost doctrinal filter to mean “once been saved.” One can, however, be “enlightened” in varying degrees. For example, compared to a person who has never seen an airplane, my knowledge of airplanes is quite extensive. I am, in comparison to those totally ignorant about airplanes, quite enlightened about them. In comparison to an aerospace engineer, however, my enlightenment, my knowledge, of airplanes is extremely superficial. To say one is “enlightened” about something does not, then, necessarily mean they have a good understanding of that thing.
The spiritually-immature in view at the end of Hebrews 5 are a good biblical example of enlightenment in a weak degree. This is, in fact, exactly what being spiritually-immature means: One has a superficial, weak understanding of spiritual living; one is enlightened in a poor measure concerning the faith.
The word “enlightenment” in Greek carries the idea of “bringing light” or “illuminated.” As the examples above demonstrate, one can be only partially illuminated concerning a given matter. This is, I believe, the case in the instance in Hebrews 6:4-6. The “once enlightened” have had some light concerning the Gospel but their enlightenment is superficial at best, not resulting in actual conversion, which is supported by how the description of them continues:
4 … and have tasted of the heavenly gift…
The idea of a partial experience and understanding of the Christian faith is confirmed here with the use of the word “tasted.” If I say, “I tasted the soup,” obviously I don’t mean I’ve consumed it all. If such a meaning was intended, would I not say, “I ate the soup”? If I say, “My team tasted the bitterness of defeat last week,” do I mean my team existed in a perennial state of defeat? No, I mean the team encountered defeat in a single, limited instance last week.
“Tasted,” then, typically expresses a partial or limited experience of something - in this case, “the heavenly gift.” Here are some examples from Scripture of “tasted” meaning “partial” or “limited”:
Matthew 27:34
34 They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.
John 2:9
9 When the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter *called the bridegroom…
What is the “heavenly gift” referred to in verse 4? Is it something of which one can have a limited or partial experience? Only in Hebrews 6:4 does the phrase “heavenly gift” appear in the New Testament. But the notion of a “heavenly” gift, that is, a gift given from God in heaven, points naturally to Christ the Saviour (John 4:10), or to the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38; Acts 10:45), which is more likely given the reference to him at the end of verse 4.
Can one have “tasted” of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9-10), in a partial way? How so, if it is possible? A lost person "tastes" of the Spirit in any instance where they are evangelized directly; for Scripture says that no one can come to God except He has first acted to draw them to Himself by His Spirit (John 6:44; 2 Timothy 2:25), and given them a measure of understanding concerning the Gospel, and convicted them of the need of repentance and faith toward Christ. The Spirit does this to many of the lost as the Gospel is preached to them, but few, Jesus said, find the Narrow Way (Matthew 7:14), spurning the preparatory work God has done in making them able to take in the truth of the saving work of Christ at the cross of Calvary and perhaps to be saved.
In this way, then, a lost person may “taste” of the “heavenly gift” but remain spiritually-unregenerate. They experience a superficial or limited work of God’s Spirit in illuminating them to the truth of the Gospel and convicting them of their sin but do not respond in saving faith to that work, being distinct in this response from the truly born-again but spiritually-immature mentioned in Hebrews 5:11-14.
Surely, though, the end of verse 4 precludes any reading other than that which holds that it is genuine, born-again believers who are being described.
4 …and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,
Can one be made a “partaker of the Holy Spirit” and not be saved? Is such a thing in any way possible? It is helpful in answering this question to consider what the word “partaker” means in the koine Greek of the NT:
Greek Word: μέτοχος
Transliterated Word: metochos
Definition: sharing in
List of English Words and Number of Times Used
companions (1),
partakers (4),
partners (1).
“Metochos” signifies partnering with, or sharing in, something. In the case of Hebrews 6:4, in the Holy Spirit. In a second-hand, limited way, it is possible for a lost person to partner with, or share in, or partake of, the work of the Spirit through the various ministries and events of the Church. The lost who do are the “tares” within the Church of which Jesus spoke (Matthew 13:24-43), “false brethren” Paul called them (2 Corinthians 11:26), who participate in the life and work of the Church but who do not truly know Christ as their Saviour and Lord. These are they to whom Jesus says at the Final Judgment, “Depart from me I never knew you.” (Matthew 7:21-23)
These cast out people, these “tares,” did spiritual things: They prophesied in Christ’s name, exorcised demons, even performed miracles in his name. Such things could not be done except in the power of the Spirit, who, in honor of Christ in whose name they were done, made possible what these false brethren did. At no time, though, were these partners with the Spirit in these acts actually born-again children of God. As Jesus says to them, “I never knew you.”
A great OT example of the Spirit partnering with a person not living in a God-honoring way is that of Samson (Judges 13-16). Repeatedly, the Spirit came upon Samson, empowering him enormously, so that he was able to do incredible things – and some very stupid, selfish things, too. In fact, Samson’s life is generally characterized, not by a careful concern for God, but with low and sinful living. Nonetheless, the Spirit continued to act through Samson.
It is possible, then, to partake in the Spirit, to share in His work, partnering with Him in godly acts, while not actually being a spiritually-regenerate person. These are the people in view in Hebrews 6:4, set in contrast to the truly saved but spiritually-immature of Hebrews 5.
All of this is finally confirmed by the following:
Hebrews 6:6
6 and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.
It is not a surprise when those who are “false brethren” depart from the faith. They have been attempting to live in a way made possible only by divine power from which they are cut-off in their unregenerate state. As well, these “tares” being what they are, do not love God as they ought, and so find the self-sacrificial life of the disciple of Christ burdensome and frustrating. Over time, it makes less and less sense to a “tare” to endure such a life, which, finally, many of them abandon. It is, then, from this false spirituality, this superficial, partial, often second-hand experience of God that they “fall away,” rather than from a genuinely born-again condition.
What makes it impossible for them to be “renewed again to repentance” is that they fall away believing they have had a genuine experience of Christianity, of God, but have found that experience empty and futile. They have been close enough to the real Church to think themselves part of it which makes their “falling away” from it that much more “immunizing.” Like a person inoculated against a disease by having had an impotent variation of the disease introduced into their body by vaccination (making them immune to the real thing), “false brethren” have been “inoculated” to the Christian faith. They become profoundly, intractably convinced by their personal experience that Christianity has nothing real, nothing truly divine, to offer and will therefore never return to it.
Habituated to “religious activity,” many tares don’t “fall away,” going all their lives through the motions of Christian living, content with having a “form of godliness but denying the power thereof.” In so doing, they become hardened into this style of “Christianity” and thus impervious to the idea that they have all along been living a false version of the Christian faith. In this way, they, too, are “inoculated” against seeing that their “spirituality” is a counterfeit of the real thing. This is helped by their participation in religious rituals and paraphernalia and a totally uncritical acceptance of them by the Church as genuinely born-again children of God. Under such a circumstance, real conversion becomes impossible.
Please note: It is never that God has closed the door on these “tares” but that they have closed the door on themselves. They cannot be brought to repentance, not because God could not force them to repentance if He wanted to, or because God has made it unavailable to them, but because God respects our choices – even if they lead to the terrible and irreversible “spiritual inoculation” described above.
The writer of Hebrews eventually leaves off his comments on the "tares" and returns to addressing directly the spiritually immature believers of the end of Hebrews 5, distinguishing them again from the "those" he had just been characterizing:
Hebrews 6:9-12
9 But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way.
10 For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.
11 And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end,
12 so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Hopefully, you can see that Hebrews 6:4-6 does not actually support a SAL (saved-and-lost) view. What's more, the understanding of the verses I've laid out above comports far more readily with the rest of Scripture than does the way in which the SAL perspective construes them.
