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FAQ # 69
QUESTION 69 : Did Heb 10:26-27
and 38-39 suggest a Christian losing his or her salvation?
Again,
I would advise anyone to first read the entire chapter and even the chapters
before and after to get the real context of a particular verse or verses.
Paul,
in this book, wrote an epistle to the Hebrews or them that are familiar
with Jewish Law. He started out this particular chapter by saying, “For
the Law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image
of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offer year by
year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.”
Let
us jump over verses 12, 14, 16, 17, 18 and 19 which made it clear that
born again believers are perfected forever by faith and let us go to the
first verse from your question:
“for
if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of truth,
there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins but a fearful looking for of
judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries” (Heb
10:26-27).
This
was not judgment of being eternally damned. If so, Paul wouldn’t have
admonished them in the same chapter to “call to remembrance the former
days…” This also showed that he was actually speaking to a group of people
that this incident occurred. And he didn’t say they were lost, but he
encourage them to be fervent by saying,
“cast
not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.
For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God,
ye might receive the promise” (:34-36).
He
went further to personally
encourage them with slight 'reprimandment' in verses 38-39 from your question;
which reads,
A. “Now the just [those who are
justified] shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall
have no pleasure in him” (:38).
The
phrase “shall have no pleasure in him” doesn’t for one second imply that
a believer looses his salvation or that he is eternally damned. I can
have “no pleasure” or dislike what my 3 year old Godson did, but that
doesn’t mean I’m going to banish him from the house or disown him. Moreover,
whose soul “shall have no pleasure in him,” God’s or Paul’s? Paul, here,
was not prophesying neither did he have any intension to say it was the
Lord. But being as rigid as he was he would have no part in any outright
willful “weakness.” This can be seen when he sent back John Mark on one
of his missionary journeys because he couldn’t keep up (Acts 15:36-40).
Nevertheless, John Mark eventually became a very effective evangelist.
It’s not that God would have pleasure in our willful weaknesses either,
but he would have shown more compassion being our real father, him knowing
all things and the one who died for us. For instance, a mother versus
a caretaker would be more willing to clean her baby who ‘poohed’, though
none enjoys the odor.
Verse
39 of Chapter 10 also reads,
B. “But we are not of them who draw
back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.”
i. “We are not of them who draw back” – means, those who believe in one’s own righteousness or another righteousness. For instance, back where I am from, every now and then we would see a new ‘rasta’ convert (some one who believed in Rastafarianism). He would then locks his hair, abstain from eating pork amongst other things. On several occasions, we sometimes find that same person back to eating pork and their head shaved. Why? That righteousness cannot and will not sustain them. Similarly, if one profess Christ and depend on their own efforts rather than becoming born again, he or she will wear out; and those onlookers will think and say a Christian backslide when in fact the person wasn't saved. We are not of them, but our righteousness and sole dependence is on Christ, evidence by becoming born again.
ii. “But of them that believe to the saving of the soul” – means, us who are justified by faith alone; through the born again experience. This righteousness is not of ourselves, neither can it be. So then we cannot draw back from it. Rather, “by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified (Heb 10:14).”
Now,
putting the two verses (38 & 39) together with the meanings I’ve explained
might give the impression that the two verses doesn’t correlate on it’s
own. But here is the summation of it:
In
verse 38, Paul first said, “the just shall live by faith.” Then he made
a “but,” and then he said that if any man
drawback (play with sin) he personally doesn’t like it and abhors it.
Why the but? Reason being, he knows that it is
faith that justifies us. And he also knows that faith is the substances
of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen. Therefore, he knows
that seeing the full evidence of justification/righteousness on the believer
all the time is impossible or else it wouldn’t be faith; why hope (faith)
for something that you can already see. That’s why he said the ‘just shall
live by faith: but if….’ Or, ‘I know some of you are not walking as you
should at the moment, but you are just; nevertheless, I can’t tolerate
it.’
In
other words, he knew that they were going to be pit falls of weaknesses
in the believer’s life; as he himself confessed of himself in the book
of Romans Chapter seven and eight. Nevertheless, anyone graced to have
as much of the presence of God as Paul did, would be easily disgusted
at the slightest sin, hence the term “my soul would have no pleasure.”
Then
he started out verse 39 with another “but.” “But we
are not of them who draw back unto perdition,” also stating that though
born again believers might draw back or sin, we will never “draw back
unto perdition” or go back to being an outright sinner. He knew that it
is the grace of God that keeps us and his Holy Spirit actually prevents
us from going back to our original state before salvation (Eze 36:27).
In other words, though we might regress in our walk from time to time,
it will never be back to the state we were in before salvation or completely
backslide, as in apostasy. Therefore, never losing our salvation.
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