"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, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 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." (Hebrews 6:4-6, ESV)
A lot of the time people will read this verse and wonder "is this me?". Especially those who have been caught up in some certain sin or another. But one thing that has struck me about these verses after reading this is the corporate nature of the language in these verses. If you look you will see words like those and them. If you follow the more Redemptive Historical explanation offered in the paper listed above (or here) its hard not to conclude that at least part of the authors intentions were to address them in a corporate manner. In other words, if we (church/corporate body) fall away from God in the same way that Israel fell away from God, then that we will not be able to be restored again. But this falling away is not just any falling away. In the events at Kadesh-Barnea the Israelites were ready to stone Moses, God's mediator, and expose him to the shame of being cast outside the camp and killed. But here if there is not forward progression, then the author says that the consequences are much worse now that we are in the New Covenant, for it's not Moses now, but Jesus that we will put to an open shame if we fall in this way!
Now the big question is to what extent did they fall away at Kadesh-Barnea? In other words, what did it look like to those looking on? I hope to deal with that in the next post.
Go back and look at the story of Israel in the wilderness and the events leading up to Numbers 14 through the lenses of Hebrews 5 and 6. To me this corporate approach makes more sense than the individualistic interpretations that we've all heard.
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