What if we've "Fallen Away?"

Scripture Passage that caught my attention today: Hebrews 6:4-6 For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, since on their own they are crucifying again the Son of God and are holding him up to contempt.

Observation: Hmmm.

Application: This would be one of those troubling passages. What if we’ve “tasted the heavenly gift…and then have fallen away?” The author of this book says we can’t be restored.

That’s a tough pill to swallow. Is that what this really means?

Two responses come to mind.

First, all of us sin every day. Each of us has a daily need for repentance. As the Apostle Paul explains in Romans 7, we do not do the good we want and the very things that we do not want to do we do. Our human condition is corrupt, we have a virus of sorts deep in our soul. The good news of the Gospel is that, through the cross, Jesus is at work on that virus of corruption. It will not win the day. The power of life will triumph over the power of death. And so, it would seem, that it is possible to restore again such people to repentance.

Second, and conversely, there’s also a part of me that wonders if it’s possible to really fall away once we have really tasted the heavenly gift. In other words, if we “fall away,” is it because we never really tasted the heavenly gift in the first place?

It’s possible to be a great pretender, to convince others and even ourselves that we “have been enlightened” when, in fact, it isn’t necessarily so. Sometimes such people “fall,” sometimes in a very public way, and yet, perhaps, they were never totally enlightened in the first place. Maybe parts of their life reflected the good news of the kingdom, but other parts did not reflect the good news of the kingdom. It’s as if God had a hold of part of them, but they wouldn’t let God have all of them. In that case, sometimes, their “fall” can be a good (albeit painful) thing, an event that leads to the kind of repentance through which God can really work.

In some ways I think this may in fact describe most if not all of us. I’m curious what you think.

Prayer: Lord, whatever it is that you are doing in our lives, keep doing it. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

(readings today included: Hebrews 5-8)