The Assurance of Hope

Friday, February 21, 2025

Today’s Readings: Leviticus 15-18; Psalm 31; Hebrews 6

And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Hebrews 6:11–12, ESV

I hate to end the week with such a stern warning, but Hebrews chapter six demands it. “It is impossible,” it says “to restore them again to repentance” who have “fallen away” from their former experience of God’s grace (verses 4-6). These verses are often vigorously debated. What is at stake is whether or not they say a person can “fall away” from a genuine experience of salvation. Some say yes; these verses describe how a believer can “backslide" or “lose his/her salvation.” Other disagree. They insist that these verses do not describe a sincere believer, or that they only describe a theoretical scenario to make the point that it is actually impossible. Either way they are a warning to us about the deceitfulness of sin and the importance of abiding in Jesus Christ.

For the record, I believe Hebrews 6:4-8 does teach that it is possible for someone who has had a genuine experience of God’s grace to fall away from that experience. Whether or not they were/are actually saved is known only to God, and, really, it’s immaterial isn’t it? What does it matter if the person Hebrews describes was or was not saved? In the end they are lost! Why are they lost? Because “they have fallen away” from their previous state. It is not because they “lost their salvation,” and it is certainly not because Jesus lost them (See John 6:39), but because they have been cut off from Christ.

Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned” (John 15:5,6). This is pretty much the same metaphor that Hebrews 6 uses to describe the person who has fallen away: “For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned” (verses 7,8).

Hebrews describes someone who at one point received spiritual life from Christ, but had become dead, dry, and unproductive. Such a person is in jeopardy and is in danger of being cut off and burned. The warning in Hebrews is also reminiscent of God’s words to Israel in Leviticus 18:24-30 when He says, “For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people” (verse 29). It is a fearful thing to consider that anyone who has followed Christ might betray Christ, but it has happened!

But it does not happen often and it does not happen easily! Hebrews 6:9 says, “Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation.” Be encouraged, Friends, for no one who has had a genuine experience of God’s saving grace in Jesus Christ is likely to “lose his/her salvation” because the Holy Spirit is at work within us to produce the “earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end” (verse 11). In fact, I believe it would be difficult even for a sincere believer to “backslide” because that suggests passive inactivity whereas the Bible says Jesus Christ is actively interceding on our behalf! We may choose to reject Him, and consciously resist the Holy Spirit to the point that the Father finally cuts us off, but if we abide in Christ God has promised to save us and He cannot lie! Therefore, “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain” (verse 19.

Have a wonderful weekend!