Hebrews 6:4–6
Bible verses · Also called: Hebrews 6:4-6, Heb. 6:4-6, Once enlightened, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, Apostasy warning in Hebrews
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4 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,
5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
6 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.
The text is the New Korean Revised Version (1998), shown under a licence from the Korean Bible Society. Wording may differ slightly from the Korean Revised Version and the Revised New Korean Standard Version. Read in the Korean Revised Version
A warning that those who were once enlightened and made partakers of the Holy Spirit cannot be renewed again unto repentance if they fall away. It is a key text in the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism over whether a true believer can lose salvation.
Context
The original readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews appear to have been believers who, amid persecution and discouragement, were tempted to return to their former faith (Judaism). Beginning at 5:11, the author rebukes the readers for still being like infants who need milk, and in 6:1 he urges them to move beyond the foundations and go on unto perfection. Verses 4–6 form a solemn warning within this exhortation, and immediately afterward, in verse 9, the author adds, "But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak."
Interpretation
- Arminian and Wesleyan reading: The phrases "once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost" are taken to describe true believers, so the passage is read as a warning that even a true believer who deliberately forsakes Christ can fall away from salvation. Many in the Methodist, Holiness, and Pentecostal traditions read it this way.
- Calvinist (Reformed/Presbyterian) reading: In keeping with the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, which holds that those who are truly born again will be kept to the end, one interpretation takes the people described here to be those who have merely "tasted" grace without being regenerated. Another interpretation regards the passage not as describing something that will actually happen but as a serious warning that God uses as a means of preserving believers to the end.
- The meaning of "impossible to renew unto repentance": Interpreters differ on whether it means that there is no human means of bringing such a person back to repentance, that God will never again receive them, or that it applies only while the person continues in the state of rejecting Christ.
Debates and Issues
In the early church, this passage was cited in debates over whether grave sins committed after baptism could be forgiven. Martin Luther placed Hebrews separately toward the end of the New Testament, and this passage's statement about the impossibility of repentance is often cited as one of his reasons. In pastoral ministry, an important question is how to help people who are distressed by this passage and fear that they have committed an unforgivable sin. Across traditions, pastors tend to offer the reassurance that such distress is itself a sign that the heart is still turned toward God.
Related Passages
- Hebrews 10:26–31
- John 10:27–29
- 1 John 2:19
- 2 Peter 2:20–22
See also 6
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