Hebrews 5:11-6:12- Can someone lose their salvation?

Hebrews 5:11-6:12

Matthew 13:24-30

Can a person lose their salvation?

Well brothers and sisters, as we look at this passage today, we are going to try and answer a question that believers disagree upon.

It is a really important question………however like many issues in the bible, it is not a question that should cause us to divide……..but it is, just like many issues, something Christians can agree to disagree upon.

There are some issues, some dare I say, there are some “Fundamental” beliefs that all Christians must hold, such as Jesus is God, such as the trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, such as justification though faith alone in Christ alone…….but this issue, this question is not one of those core doctrines, but never the less, it is a really really important question, because how you answer this question will determine how you perhaps treat others….and how you actually live out your walk with God.

The question is this……..

Can a person ever lose their salvation?

Or let me put it another way…..

Can someone who was a genuine believer in Christ, stop believing and become an unbeliever?

You may know someone personally.

Someone who you knew once believed, they perhaps came to church with you, they perhaps prayed with you, they perhaps read the bible with you, they perhaps worshipped God with you, but now, they have openly and proudly rejected Jesus.

They simply stopped believing.

As we look at chapter 6, verses 4-6, it seems on face value that not only can a person lose their salvation, but more tragically, it also appears, that once a person has lost their salvation there is simply no way back for them- it seems they have been lost forever.

Look at verses 4-6 with me:

 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, ⁵ and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, ⁶ and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

The writer of Hebrews describes these people, the ones who fall away as those who previously:

1.        Had been enlightened, which means they had received the knowledge of God’s truth,- these are people who heard the gospel and joyfully embraced it, but then fell away.

2.        The author describes those who fall, as those who Had tasted the heavenly gift, which probably means they had been part of God’s community, a local church family, they had perhaps shared in the Lord’s supper, but then fell away.

3.        Those fallen, had shared the Holy Spirit, which means they had probably been worshipping God with His people, but then fell away.

4.        Those fallen, had tasted the goodness of the word of God- these people had heard God’s word taught to them clearly, but then fell away.

And so on face value it seems that this passage is saying that someone can truly be a believer, but then fall away, become a non-believer.

However, before I explain this passage further, it is worth thinking about how this passage weighs up with the rest of scripture, the rest of the bible.

Because a good way of interpreting a difficult passage is to compare it with other clearer passages in the bible.

For example, Romans 8:30 says the opposite, it tells us that it is impossible for someone to lose their salvation, listen to these words….And those whom God predestined, he also called, and those he called he also justified, and those he justified he also glorified.

Paul makes it clear that God has put an unbreakable chain of events in motion, those who God saves will also be Glorified, those who God calls will enter glory, will enter heaven. There is no mention of this chain being able to be broken. There is no “might” in there, those whom God justifies, he “might” glorify…. No, he will glorify- in fact so sure is this unbreakable chain, that it is all past tense, Gods has already glorified- good as done.

And what about the words of Jesus himself when he said this from John 10:27-29

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will 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 the Father's hand. ³⁰ I and the Father are one.”

There is no hint in the words of Jesus here, that he will lose those whom he has saved, there is no hint that some will believe at first and some will fall away.  There is a clear promise that Jesus will never let them go. Jesus does not drop the ball-ever- he never loses one.

In fact this is my first big problem with the idea that believers can fall away, if believers can fall away, we are conceding that Jesus is not able to keep his own. It is like we are conceding that Jesus isn’t powerful enough, not big enough to keep his own.

We know He is.

And so what would my answer be to this question?

Can a person ever lose their salvation?

My definite, short answer would be NO.

A person can never lose their salvation, because their salvation comes from God and God doesn’t fail.

Some people call this assurance of faith, some call it perseverance of the saints, I just like to call it “God is able to keep those whom he saved”

So what do we do with these verses from Hebrews chapter 6, which suggest otherwise.

Well reading these verses in context of the whole bible and the letter of Hebrews, it becomes obvious that the writer of Hebrews isn’t talking about true believers who fall away, but he is talking about those who “appeared to be”, “looked like true believers, but were never true believers in the first place.

We can get that from just the way he the writer of Hebrews described these people who had fallen away. He uses language which presents people who were in a sense just “dabbling” in belief, without ever actually really believing, they were ones who had heard the gospel and embraced it at first, but never really committed to it. They may have thought the gospel offered at lot at first but didn’t fully commit, and so when suffering came, they showed their true colours of unbelief, or when riches of the world came, they showed their true colours of unbelief.

They were the ones who may have gone to church, even partook in communion, but never really believed what they were doing, these were the ones who may have sang all the worship songs but never really believed in their hearts, these were the ones who heard the word of God, nodded at the right time, but never really believed what was being taught in their hearts.

These were the ones who on the outside for all the world looked like one of God’s people, but never really were, because they didn’t believe.

These were like the Israelites who wandered the wilderness for 40 years, the ones that the writer of Hebrews mentions back in chapter 3 verses 16-19. They reaped all the benefits of God’s grace, but never believed, never trusted.

Just look at those verses with me:

For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? ¹⁷ And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸ And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? ¹⁹ So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

Those Israelites that God saved from the Egyptian army had been enlightened, they had heard God speak to them through his servant Moses, they had been given God’s very words, the Ten Commandments, they had been part of God’s community, giving sacrifices to the tabernacle, week after week. These were the people, God had brought through the waters to the other side, and yet, despite all of that, all of that privilege- they still didn’t believe and so they were not able to enter the promised land. Sure, they were part of God’s community but they weren’t God’s children.

As verses 7-8 of chapter 6 tell us, that people are like a piece of land or soil.

A land that God has blessed abundantly, he has given it life giving rain and yet some land will produce crops and be productive and other land will produce thorns and thistles and eventually be burned because it is useless.

Friends, God shows his common grace to all people, He causes the sun to shine on both good and evil, he causes rain to fall on both good and evil. It tells us in Romans 1, that all people can look at this universe and know there is a God. Not only that, but God has revealed himself fully to this world, when He sent his son into this world, to live die and rise again. Not only that, but God has given us his word- the bible, which testifies to his Son, testifies to his life, death and resurrection.

God has poured out his rain of blessing on all mankind, and yet some refuse to let that rain, that goodness of God, sink in.

And so, the land which produces thorns and thistles actually in the end prove not to be God’s people and yet the land which produces crops prove to be believers.

Friends, we live in a world where the weeds and wheat grow together.

We live in world where the believer and non-believer live side by side.

We live in a world where even within the local church weeds and wheat grow together and sometimes it is hard to distinguish between the weeds and the wheat, but we know and can be assured in the end that when Jesus returns and gathers the crop, He will sort the wheat from the weeds.

As we heard from our first bible reading today, the master didn’t want his servants to dig up the weeds because he knew that they would dig up the wheat as well. Instead the master told them to wait until harvest time when the reapers will sort out the weeds and the wheat.

Friends, ultimately it is Jesus’ job when he returns to sort out the weeds from the wheat. The believers from the non-believers.

And so there are three applications I want to draw from this:

First of all, in one sense it is not up to us to judge a person’s salvation, that ultimately rests with God, and if it is not up to us to judge someone’s salvation, that means that we/ I can continue to pray for that person who may appeared to be a believer but then fell away, because I don’t know if God had already called them or not….and so while it is still today, I will keep praying for the salvation of all people, even those who may have appeared to have fallen away.

The second application is this:

We must be very careful not to divide people based on anything other than Jesus.

For example, we cannot determine whether a person is a true believer based on secondary issues.

It is wrong to say that true believers only read the king James version of the bible and people who read other versions are not true believers. This will cause unnecessary division.

It is wrong to say true believers are Presbyterians, and all other denominations are not real believers. This will cause unnecessary division.

It is wrong to say true believers give money to Israel, so another temple can be built in preparation for the return of Jesus and those who believe Jesus is the temple, are not true believers. This will cause unnecessary division.

And this brings me to the third application today which I will spend less time on- and it is what the rest of this passage talks about.

It is this…..

In order for us not to be deceived by what is good and what is evil, we need to keep maturing in our faith, we need to keep asking God to give us a hunger for his word, we need to read his word, so we will not be swayed by different teachings.

Yes, let us hold onto those basics of our faith as the writer of Hebrews tells us in. chapter 6, verses 1-3, like we know we are saved since God gave us the gift of repentance and belief. We don’t work for our salvation, but we know we have been saved though the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Let us hold onto the baptism we received by water, which is symbolic of the spirit of baptism in our hearts. Let us hold on to the fact that because we know Jesus rose back to life, we too, even though we die, will be raised back to life. Let us hold onto that basic belief that Jesus will judge all the world, the living and the dead and give them either what the wages of their sin deserve- eternal death, or give them what they don’t deserve- eternal life through his sacrifice.

So, yes let us hold onto those core truths, let us know them more and more and yet we also need to be able to discern between good and evil, and we do this by soaking in the word of God, by soaking in the rain of the bible.

And so when a teaching comes along which tries to divide us, we can say, where from the bible does that come from?

Friends, this is why it is important for you guys to be part of a bible study in the week. We need more than just a bit on Sunday, we need to be thinking and praying and discussing God’s word in the week, so we can be wise and distinguish between good and evil.

We need to ask God when we open and read our bibles, that his word will sink into our hearts. We need to plead with God, that this word will not just be some dead letters written years ago, but his word becomes living and active in our hearts, as it changes and transforms us.

Let us pray