Hebrews 6:4 Commentary and Bible Study

The thought that begins here is not completed until verse 6, which tells us that what is impossible is that we should get as far as the state described in verses 4 and 5, and yet we should fall away and then expect to come to genuine repentance after that. There is a solemn warning here. These verses tell us how much light and understanding people can have, without actually being truly saved. You can have an extraordinary amount of light; you can understand the message of the gospel. The Puritans used to call this natural impressions, natural convictions. Maybe you’re brought up in a Christian family or you’re a regular worshipper in an evangelical Bible believing church, and you can gain clear insight into the way of salvation, even naturally. ‘It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift.’ That is a very general statement. They have had a sense of the reality of the gift of conversion and life in Christ. They have seen people saved around them. They have had people that they have known closely and friends and so on converted, and they have had a real insight and impression, and it has even moved them to see this heavenly gift of salvation and how it operates, and they have longed for it, and they may in a completely mistaken way have laid claim to it. The phrase does not clearly indicate that they have been saved or that the Holy Ghost has entered into them as into a saved believer, but they've been partakers of the Holy Ghost in that they have been thrilled and excited perhaps by the movement of the Spirit. You can imagine, particularly in times of awakening, times of revival, times such as the New Testament church lived in, when people around them were being saved, when the word came upon great crowds with power and people were humbled and listened, and even if you were a spectator going into that crowd in an enquiring spirit, you could perhaps feel something of the power of God at work, and be temporally, naturally, awed, and even somewhat overwhelmed by it. In this case they are Jewish people, but it applies to Gentiles too. They have heard the gospel – ‘I am a sinner; this is a fallen world; I do not know God’ – they understand this much. They understand the fact that God has sent a Redeemer, Christ, who is God himself, to suffer and to die for sinners. They have some light, but they were evidently not enlightened enough to really repent of their sin and cast themselves on God, and they are incurring a lot of guilt because they have some light and yet have not properly responded to it. Furthermore, they have tasted of the heavenly gift. It is evidently possible for somebody who will be lost, who was never truly saved, to have some feeling for and realisation of the grace of God in Christ. They have felt it, and even been to some extent moved by it. ‘And were made partakers of the holy Ghost.’ We have to explain that, because they certainly have not had a saving work by the Holy Spirit wrought in their lives, so to what extent can it be said that they are partakers? Well, perhaps it means this: they have been around when wonderful things have happened. Some of them – their history may have gone back almost to Christ and the apostles – may have witnessed miracles and healings that were done by Christ and the apostles. They have seen astonishing things, they are like insiders in terms of what they have witnessed, and they have said to themselves, ‘This is astonishing; this is a divine work.’ Either that or else their friends have been converted and they have seen the tremendous change in character, and they have been astonished. They have been close observers of the powerful work of the Holy Spirit, even though they could not have been personal partakers by having an operation at the Spirit of God in their own hearts, otherwise they would have been saved and never lost.