Brother, I’ve changed my position on Hebrews 6. I now believe the passage is describing genuine, born-again believers.
- καλὸν γευσαμένους θεοῦ ῥῆμα. “That the word of God is good.” The verb “taste,” which in the previous verse is constructed with the genitive (as in the classical Greek), is here followed by an accusative, as is more common in Hellenistic Greek. It is difficult to establish any difference in meaning between the constructions, though the latter may imply something which is more habitual—“feeding on.”
But possibly the accusative is only used to avoid any entanglement with the genitive “of God” which follows it. There is however no excuse for the attempt of Calvin and others, in the interests of their dogmatic bias, to make “taste of” mean only “have an inkling of” without any deep or real participation; and to make the beauty (καλόν) of the “utterance of God” in this place only imply its contrast to the rigour of the Mosaic Law. The metaphor means “to partake of,” and “enjoy,” as in Philo, who speaks of one “who has quaffed much pure wine of God’s benevolent power, and banqueted upon sacred words and doctrines” (De proem. et poen. Opp. I. 428). Philo also speaks of the utterance (ῥῆμα) of God, and of its nourishing the soul like manna (Opp. I. 120, 564). The references to Philo are always to Mangey’s edition. The names of the special tracts and chapters may be found in my Early Days of Christianity, II. 541–543, and passim.
δυνάμεις τε μέλλοντος αἰῶνος. Here again it is not easy to see what is exactly intended by “the powers of the Future Age.” If the Future Age be the Olam habba of the Jews, i.e. the Messianic age, then its “powers” may be as St Chrysostom said, “the earnest of the Spirit,” or the powers mentioned in Heb_2:4; Gal_3:5. If on the other hand it mean “the world to come” its “powers” bring the foretaste of its glorious fruition.
It will, then, be seen that we cannot attach a definitely certain or exact meaning to the separate expressions; on the other hand nothing can be clearer than the fact that, but for dogmatic prepossessions, no one would have dreamed of explaining them to mean anything less than full conversion.
That they are such as properly denote a renewed state. They obviously describe the condition of a Christian; and though it may be not certain that any one of them if taken by itself would prove that the person to whom it was applied was truly converted, yet taken together it is clear that they are designed to describe such a state. If they are not, it would be difficult to find any language which would be properly descriptive of the character of a sincere Christian. I regard the description here, therefore, as what is clearly designed to denote the state of those who were born again, and were the true children of God; and it seems plain to me that no other interpretation would have ever been thought of if this view had not seemed to conflict with the doctrine of the “perseverance of the saints.”
(2) There is a regular gradation here from the first elements of piety in the soul to its highest developments; and, whether the apostle so designed it or not, the language describes the successive steps by which a true Christian advances to the highest stage of Christian experience. The mind is:
(a) Enlightened; then.
(b) Tastes the gift of heaven, or has some experience of it; then.
(c) It is made to partake of the influences of the Holy Spirit; then.
(d) There is experience of the excellence and loveliness of the Word of God; and,
(e) Finally there is a participation of the full “powers” of the new dispensation; of the extraordinary energy which God puts forth in the gospel to sanctify and save the soul.
Heb 6:4 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,
Heb 6:5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,
Heb 6:6 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.
It is impossible to renew them again (adunaton palin anakainizein). The adunaton (impossible) comes first in Heb_6:4 without estin (is) and there is no “them” in the Greek. There are three other instances of adunaton in Hebrews (Heb_6:18; Heb_10:4; Heb_11:6). The present active infinitive of anakainizō (late verb, ana, kainos, here only in the N.T., but anakainoō, 2Co_4:16; Col_3:10) with adunaton bluntly denies the possibility of renewal for apostates from Christ (cf. 3:12-4:2). It is a terrible picture and cannot be toned down. The one ray of light comes in Heb_6:8-12, not here.
Seeing they crucify to themselves afresh (anastraurountas heautois). Present active participle (accusative plural agreeing with tous … parapesontas) of anastauroō, the usual verb for crucify in the old Greek so that ana- here does not mean “again” or “afresh,” but “up,” sursum, not rursum (Vulgate). This is the reason why renewal for such apostates is impossible. They crucify Christ.
And put him to an open shame (kai paradeigmatizontas). Present active participle of paradeigmatizō, late verb from paradeigma (example), to make an example of, and in bad sense to expose to disgrace. Simplex verb deigmatisai in this sense in Mat_1:19.
RWP
The difficulty here, as I see it, is that the Greek text does not introduce the warning with the conditional particle εἰ (“if”). @NetChaplian
Cambridge & Lange.
J.