Expert: Brenda Martin - 4/8/2004

Question
I would like a fresh perspective on these verses.  I cant seem to find any that strikes me as absolutely correct. Thank you so much.

Answer
HEB. 6:4-6--"For it is impossible as regards those who have once for all been enlightened, and who have tasted the heavenly free gift, and who have become partakers of holy spirit, 5 and who have tasted the fine word of God and powers of the coming system of things, 6 but who have fallen away, to revive them again to repentance, because they impale the Son of God afresh for themselves and expose him to public shame."

The apostles who were inspired to write these words showed that some who were “bought” and “sanctified” by the blood of Christ's ransom sacrifice and who had “tasted the heavenly free gift” and “become partakers of holy spirit . . . and powers of the coming system of things” would fall away beyond repentance and bring destruction upon themselves. (2Pe 2:1, 2, 20-22; Heb 6:4-6; 10:26-29)

The apostles unitedly urged those to whom they wrote: “Do your utmost to make the calling and choosing of you sure for yourselves; for if you keep on doing these things you will by no means ever fail”; also, “Keep working out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” (2Pe 1:10, 11; Php 2:12-16) Paul, who was “called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ” (1Co 1:1), obviously did not consider himself individually predestinated to eternal salvation, since he speaks of his strenuous efforts in striving to attain “the goal for the prize of the upward call of God” (Php 3:8-15) and his concern lest he himself should “become disapproved somehow.”—1Co 9:27.

These here mentioned who did fall away with no possibility for recovery had had the benefits of the ransom applied to them, had been bought by Jesus' blood. If not, they could have availed themselves of it for salvation. However, they had already used the benefits of the sacrifice and thereafter fallen away. Now they themselves deliberately impale Christ afresh in personal rejection of him, attaching no more value to his sacrifice than the death of a criminal. Christ died for them once; he will not come to earth to die for them again. “This he did once for all time.”

KEEP YOUR PLACE BY BEARING FRUIT

Christ Jesus, gave a very fitting illustration-- “I am the true vine, and my Father is the cultivator,” he said. Now, “every branch in me not bearing fruit he takes away, and every one bearing fruit he cleans, that it may bear more fruit.”

Further underscoring the necessity of holding on to one's place, Jesus continues: “Remain in union with me, and I in union with you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it remains in the vine, in the same way neither can you, unless you remain in union with me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He that remains in union with me, and I in union with him, this one bears much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing at all.”

Note, now, the terrible consequences befalling anyone who has his own way of doing things and is not at oneness with the Head and others in God's organization. “If anyone does not remain in union with me, he is cast out as a branch and is dried up, and men gather those branches up and pitch them into the fire and they are burned.”—John 15:1-6.


Describing the fiery destruction awaiting those who fall away from their place in Jehovah's sacred vinelike organization, it is written: “For it is impossible as regards those who have once for all been enlightened and who have tasted the heavenly free gift and who have become partakers of holy spirit and who have tasted the right word of God and powers of the coming system of things, but who have fallen away, to revive them again to repentance, because they impale the Son of God afresh for themselves and expose him to public shame. For example, the ground that drinks in the rain which often comes upon it and . . . [then] produces thorns and thistles, it is rejected and . . . it ends up with being burned.”—Heb. 6:4-8.

All the best
brenda