The author of Hebrews has not asserted that his listeners have committed apostasy, though he is obviously concerned that some are in significant danger of falling over this precipice. He has warned the whole congregation of the irreversible consequences of apostasy. His warnings, along with other elements in his exhortatory material, together with his doctrinal expositions that provide the presuppositions for the exhortations, are intended to prevent these disastrous consequences from occurring.

The Book of Hebrews daunts even the most gifted preachers and scholars. For one thing, we don’t know the author. He quotes the Old Testament at length and repeatedly, but his method of interpreting these passages doesn’t always make sense to readers. His arguments about angels, Moses, and the temple require more than cursory understanding of the Hebrew Bible.

And then there are the s0-called warning passages. It might be hard at first to grasp the significance of the priest Melchizedek, but many Christians viscerally understand the practical importance of these warnings. Can I lose my faith? What if I doubt? Fail to overcome sin?

To answer these questions and more, I turned to the acclaimed scholar Peter O’Brien, professor emeritus at Moore College in Sydney, Australia. Many who have studied Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians have benefited from his rich, insightful, and faithful commentaries. He has also written an immensely helpful commentary on the Letter to the Hebrews. He draws on some of that study to help us understand the famous warning passages in their immediate and canonical context.

Some Reformed teachers find it hard to teach the five warning passages of Hebrews (2:1-4; 3:7-4:13; 5:11-6:12; 10:19-39; 12:14-29). How do we reconcile our theology with what appears to many to be the plain meaning of these passages, that believers can lose their faith?
The warnings of Hebrews have presented many challenges to believers throughout Christian history. And the misapplication of them has caused pastoral problems for Christians of all traditions, including the Reformed.

These warnings have troubled earnest Christians by raising doubts about their assurance of salvation, an assurance that is so clearly affirmed, for example, in Romans 5:1-11 and Romans 8:18-39, and in Jesus’s promises for his disciples in John 6:39-40, 44 and John 10:25-30.

Even within Hebrews itself there are powerful words of encouragement and assurance based on God’s faithfulness to fulfill his promises to his people (Heb. 2:10; 6:10-20), and so because of the finality of Christ’s sacrifice (Heb. 9:11-28; 10:14-18), and his permanent high priesthood by which Jesus is able to save his people completely and eternally since he always lives to intercede for them (7:25; cf. 9:24).

Does Hebrews show us how we might resolve our theological and pastoral difficulties?
A key to addressing the tension between the severe warnings and the seemingly contradictory promises and words of encouragement lies, first, in recognizing the distinction Hebrews makes between “a kind of transitory faith, a form of conversion which, like the seed sown on rocky places [in the parable of the soils, Mark 4], has all the signs of life, but which does not persevere.” [1] Such faith is spurious; by contrast, genuine faith is tied to perseverance.

The conditional sentences of Hebrews 3:6 and 14 fit an evidence-inference category, in which “the observation of a piece of evidence leads the observer to infer a certain logical conclusion.” [2]

We are his [God’s] house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory (Heb. 3:6).

We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold firmly till the end our original conviction (Heb. 3:14).

Accordingly, the author maintains that the listeners’ continuance in faith to the end will demonstrate that they are members of God’s household, not that they will become this in the future (v. 6). Similarly, holding on to their confidence will reveal the reality that they already share in Christ, not simply that they will share in him on the final day (v. 14).

The listeners’ perseverance is the evidence of what has taken place in the past and is an essential ingredient of what it means to be a Christian, a partaker of Christ. So Hebrews “virtually defines true believers as those who hold firmly to the end the confidence they had at first.” [3]

This distinction between genuine and spurious faith is clearly evident elsewhere in Hebrews. This indicates that the author’s “word of exhortation” (Heb. 13:22) is addressed to a mixed audience: there are two kinds of soil with dramatically different responses to the frequent showers of God’s blessings (Heb. 6:7-8), two kinds of hearts (Heb. 3:12; Heb. 10:22), and a distinction made between “we” who “have faith and are saved,” and “the one” who belongs “to those who shrink back and are destroyed” (Heb. 10:38-39). Also the author has concerns for certain individuals within the community who may be in particular danger of apostasy (“any one,” “someone”: Heb. 3:12, 13; Heb. 4:1, 11; Heb. 6:11-12; Heb. 10:24, 25, 28; Heb. 12:15-16).

Hebrews is not alone in describing true believers as those who hold their confidence firmly to the end. In other New Testament documents there are warnings against or descriptions of spurious faith (Matt. 7:21-23; John 2:23-25; Col. 1:22-23; 1 John 2:19; cf. 2 Pet. 1:10-11). Our Lord’s parable of the sower (or the soils) makes a similar point (Mark 4:1-29 and parallels). The initial growth of the seed scattered on the rocky ground and among the thorns appears to all observers, except God himself, to promise the best harvest. But it does not bear fruit. It has the signs of life but does not persevere. This spiritual life proves transitory (Carson 2000: 266).

So how does Hebrews address the audience with its warnings and encouragements?
In view of Hebrews’s distinction between true and spurious faith, and its definition of genuine believers as those who hold fast their confession of Jesus Christ to the end, we consider that the images describing the audience in the warnings point to an initial work of grace in the lives of the congregation members.

The author knew that the audience had been exposed to the preaching of the gospel and that God had done a mighty work within the congregation (Heb. 2:1-4). It is evident that some had been truly converted and had genuinely appropriated Christ’s saving work for themselves. How many and who they all were, the author does not know exactly. But he addresses the whole congregation on the basis of what he has observed, and urges them to hold firmly to their confession of faith in Christ, their Christian hope without wavering, and their confidence in God (Heb. 3:6, 14; Heb. 4:14; Heb. 6:18; Heb. 10:23).

Significantly, however, even when the author refers to those who commit apostasy he uses the third person plural rather than the second (e.g., “those who have once been enlightened . . . and who have fallen away,” Heb. 6:4-6), and does not explicitly identify them with his listeners. Though some are apparently in great danger he does not assert that they have committed apostasy. The warnings, like the divine promises, are intended to prevent this from happening.

Read More