When It was Impossible to Repent

Hebrews 6 teaches a truth that appears to contradict a foundational belief in the nature of God. God is a God who forgives sin – any sin. Yet, the passage in question states with no ambiguity that there is a person for whom it is impossible to repent and therefore cannot receive God’s unbounded forgiveness.

How can this be? Scholars and students have crafted a multitude of answers to this textual challenge. Indeed, this is a most difficult text for many reasons and deserves a full measure of discussion. Hopefully, this article will add to your understanding of this important portion of the scriptures.

The answering of three questions will help to bring clarity to it.

1.      What is Impossible?

The opening words of this verse call the action contained within them “impossible.” That is a most accurate translation. The Greek word comes from the particle “a” which is the particle of negation and form the word “dunatos” which means “powerful.” So, the word means having no power or unable to perform an action. This passage is then describing something this not hard or difficult. It is speaking of something that there is no power to accomplish.

The “impossible” act is stated to be the ability to “renew to repentance” the people of this verse that have “fallen away.” Unless one’s doctrine is that an “enlightened” person cannot fall away, the words here are as easy to understand as the word “impossible.” They are translated properly. This verse is describing those who have fallen aside from the gospel. Some argue that this verse is hypothetical and not truly possible.[1] Yet, that concept ignores the purpose of the writing of this epistle. The whole letter is focused on exhorting Christians not to “fall aside” and to turn back into their former life. The “care” needed in 3:12; the sorer punishment and certain judgment of 10:26-29; the call to continued endurance of 10:35-36; the destruction of those who shrink back of 10:39 are not just hypothetical or theoretical. The falling away possibility in Hebrews was a clear and present danger to their faith. And for those who succumbed to it under the banner of this passage, it would be impossible to renew their former walk of life.

It is not the words of this text that are so difficult. It is that the doctrine they express disproves what many currently believe that makes understanding them so hard for many.

2.      For Whom Would Repentance Be Impossible?

However, it is important to read the whole passage. This text describes a group of people for whom repentance would be impossible. It is necessary to understand the characteristics of these people before drawing a conclusion about the meaning of these verses. The people of this text had a particular relationship to the Holy Spirit. Five characteristics of these people are enumerated. Each one of them is a statement of prophetic empowerment:

• They have been Enlightened
• They have Tasted the Heavenly Gift
• They have Partaken of the Holy Spirit
• They have Tasted the Good Word of God
• They have Tasted the Powers of the Age to Come

These five items describe the work of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament church as succinctly and comprehensively as any place in the Bible.

In scripture, enlightenment comes from the revelation of God. Paul’s preaching enlightened men to see the mystery of God (Ephesians 3:9). Through the gospel, Jesus “brought to light” life and immortality (2 Timothy 1:10). It is God who brings light to man through Jesus (John 1:9) and reveals the hidden things (1 Corinthians 4:5; Ephesians 3:9). Enlightenment comes from the knowledge of God and His word. The audience of this verse had been “once” enlightened. This is not a statement then of their ongoing growth in the gospel. This phrase is looking back to a point in time when they were given the revelation of their enlightenment (cp. Hebrews 10:32). The source of the revelation is specifically spelled out in the four items that follow. It was at the time when they received the Holy Spirit.[2]

That reception is called receiving the “gift of the Holy Spirit” in Acts 2:38 and 10:45. Here it is referred to as “tasting the heavenly gift.”

Their receiving of the heavenly gift caused them to partake or share in the Holy Spirit. This is a statement of having, being given, or receiving the Holy Spirit. The effect upon the people of these verses is that whatever blessings the Holy Spirit provided the saints they had tasted, partaken, and shared of them.

What that sharing provided them was the same blessing that the “having” of the Holy Spirit “in” a person has always provided. When a man “has” the Holy Spirit, he is a prophet. Because of their participation in the Spirit, these saints had tasted the word of God.

However, just as Hebrews 2:4 states the preaching of the great salvation of the gospel needed to be confirmed as was spoken by the early prophets. That action was accomplished through signs, wonders, and miracles given through the Holy Spirit. The word of God came to the Hebrews in a demonstration of the Spirit’s power and this verse affirms that they continued to preach the word by the Spirit in the same manner.

This is an overlooked passage in defining and understanding the work of the Spirit in the church. Even thirty-plus years after the beginning of the gospel, the work of the Holy Spirit is still limited to prophetic influence.

What is important to understand then is the limited application of this passage. These verses do not make a unilateral statement about the ability of fallen Christians to repent. The people in this text are prophetically gifted individuals. Joel 2 affirms that “all flesh” in the kingdom was given access to the Spirit’s power. However, the distribution of the Spirit was ending by the time Hebrews was written. Within 5-7 years after the penning of this epistle, the Spirit’s work would have been accomplished. If church history is accurate, by this time some (maybe many) of the apostles had already died. The late writing of Hebrews means that a second and third generation of Christians had begun to populate the church. In other words, non-gifted Christians would have become increasingly common as the prophetic age approached its close.

That is significant in this text. The saints in danger of not being able to repent are those who had been Christians for some time. In the former days (i. e. nearer to Pentecost in Acts 2) they had been illuminated and empowered (Hebrews 10:32). These are the saints that are expected to be mature and teachers of others (cp. 5:12-14). Yet despite all the longstanding access to the Spirit’s teaching they had been provided, they were not maturing and were in jeopardy of falling back into their former lives.

3.      Why is it Impossible to Repent?

The question of why these Christians would not be able to repent remains unanswered. That question has plagued commentators of all kinds. The specific statement in the text is that they had “crucified once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.” Yet, Jesus specifically stated that sins against Him would be forgiven: “And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” (Matthew 12:32).

It is in this point where much of the difficulty is created. Hebrews 6 does not affirm, as some suggest, that these individuals could not be forgiven for holding up Jesus to contempt. It states that it would not be possible for them to repent. Those are two different statements. One is the action of man. The other is the action of God. This text denies the action of man, without making any statement about the work of God.

Some have held then that this text is based on the hardening of people’s hearts to the point that they will not repent. In practical terms, that statement is a truth. Man can so persist in sin that his heart becomes resistant to the word of God. Yet, in an absolute sense, it is doubtful that a man is ever truly passed the capacity of repentance. His hardened heart may be stony, but it is not beyond the power of the gospel. His task is difficult, but it is not impossible. This text demands the impossibility of repentance.

So, when does it truly become impossible for a man to repent? The book of Hebrews states that man is appointed to die once and after that to be judged (9:27). It becomes impossible to repent only after a man is dead.

It is here that keeping the book of Hebrews in its historical context is most helpful. It was penned just a few short years, perhaps months, before the fall of the capital city of the Hebrews: Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the home of the temple. It was the seat of Israel’s national identity. Its pull on the hearts and minds of Jewish Christians was strong. And during the days leading up to its fall, it appeared to have rebelled successfully against the Roman authorities. Jewish nationalism and hope would have been at its peak when the letter to the Hebrews arrived.

Jerusalem’s long-standing place before God is found in this text. Many students fail to appreciate the impact of verses 7-8 on the meaning of this context:

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.

Prophetically, Israel was the nation that had long-drunk from the cup of God’s blessings. It was His precious vineyard (Isaiah 5). Yet, it had failed to produce the fruitful crop it was intended to. For that reason, it was about to be destroyed. In the words of the Hebrews’ writer: “It is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.” The immediacy of the impending judgment on Israel stated again in 10:37: “For, ‘Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay.’” God was about to move against Israel. Why this matters in this text is the impact that the coming judgment would have had on Jewish Christians who fell away from the gospel in the time of this letter.

Into what would they have fallen away? They would not have turned to paganism. The danger in Hebrews is of falling back into their former life. They had seized a hold of the better covenant, the better promises, and the better mediator. They needed to remember that they had not come to a physical Zion, but the spiritual one (12:22ff). The exhortation was to endure and not “shrink back” into their former life (10:39).

What would have happened in A. D. 68 to a Jew who turned from the gifts of God given him through the Holy Spirit? He would have returned to his people. What then? Simply put, he would have died. The reason he would never be able to repent, was that his life would have ended because he failed to heed to prophecies of Jesus to leave Jerusalem and Judaism behind when Rome came in judgment of Israel:

By your endurance you will gain your lives. “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it, for these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written. (Luke 21:19-22)

Jesus’ call for endurance that leads to the gaining of their lives is the same plea found in Hebrews: “Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised” (10:35-36). It is they who had long been Christians and who long received the outpouring of God’s prophetic word from the Holy Spirit, who should have been leading the church away from Judaism. But instead, they were the ones wavering. The simple point of the Hebrews’ writer is that if they failed this last test, all hope for them was gone. Just like their countrymen, their end would be the fires of God’s judgment on Jerusalem.

 The reason that it would be impossible for them to repent is that the Roman armies which surrounded the city into which these fallen Christian fled had removed the opportunity of repentance from their lives. Death would catch them before they could return to Jesus.

Conclusion

In summary, Hebrews 6 is a warning to the mature Christians in Jerusalem, those who had been given the Holy Spirit from the apostles not to waver because their lives were quite literally at stake in the days to come. It is a misuse of this text to suggest that the same circumstances exist in the world today. The prophetic gifts of the Spirit are gone. There is no prophesied national judgment to come upon us.

However, there is a truth that needs to be taken from these verses. It is that each person will face a point in his or her life when it does become impossible to repent. We all have an appointed date that we must keep. When that touch of death comes to you, make sure your life and soul is ready for that time when repentance will be beyond your reach.

[1] Albert Barnes, for example, equates this verse to one’s supposing what would happen if the ocean overwhelmed a continent, “It is material to remark here that the apostle does not say that any true Christian ever had fallen away. He makes a statement of what would occur on the supposition that such a thing should happen – but a statement may be made of what would occur on the supposition that a certain thing should take place, and yet it be morally certain that the event never would happen. It would be easy to suppose what would happen if the ocean should overflow a continent, or if the sun should cease to rise, and still there be entire certainty that such an event never would occur.”

[2] It is possible the reception of their enlightenment in this passage is looking to the point of their conversion. Enlightenment comes through revelation. It does not matter whether that revelation is given directly or through the preached word. The content of the revelation is still the same and so the effect of bring illumination to the hearer would be the same. If this verse does look to the point of conversion, then this passage exactly parallels Acts 2:38 in that the hearing of the preached word led to the Jews of Jerusalem repenting and being baptism and then receiving the “heavenly gift.”