Warning to Pretenders
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2024 · 1 September 2024
The Lord was bringing to mind individuals who are struggling, individuals who are suffering. My life was really swept up with the spiritual needs of people. And it really has to do with people who are in the church but not in the kingdom. We’re Christians but we aren’t what we ought to be, and that is a concern. But someday we’ll be in glory and the Lord will make us perfect.
The church is not a good place to go to hell from, because to whom much is given, much is required. Far worse eternal punishment falls to the one who has heard the truth and rejected it. And if you’ve been in this church for any length of time, you surely have heard it. And the more you have heard it, the more responsible you are. You are better off to have never heard the gospel.
We need to examine ourselves, to see our spiritual condition. Certainly self-examination starts with am I really a Christian? Have I genuinely repented and embraced Jesus Christ as Lord? Open your Bible to Hebrews 5. This passage is a warning to someone who knows the truth, the truth about Jesus Christ death and His resurrection, but still loves his sin and will not come to the Savior.
Hebrews 5:11-14, “We have a great deal to say about this, and it is difficult to explain, since you have become too lazy to understand. 12 Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the basic principles of God’s revelation again. You need milk, not solid food. 13 Now everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced with the message about righteousness, because he is an infant.”
14 But solid food is for the mature—for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil. Hebrews 6:1-8, Therefore, let us leave the elementary teaching about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, faith in God, 2 teaching about ritual washings, laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
3 And we will do this if God permits.” 4 For it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who tasted God’s good word and the powers of the coming age, 6 and who have fallen away. This is because, to their own harm, they are recrucifying the Son of God and holding him up to contempt.”
7 For the ground that drinks the rain that often falls on it and that produces vegetation useful to those for whom it is cultivated receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and about to be cursed, and at the end will be burned.” No passage is more dramatic than this in warning the person who has heard the truth, knows the truth and has rejected the Savior.
This is the severest of all dangers because if you fall away, you cannot be renewed to repentance. Here is the problem in the end of Hebrews 5 in those four verses. The problem is, people have become dull of hearing. They have become like babies. They lack discernment. That’s what is basically stated there. Now let me give you the context. Hebrews is as profound as any book in the Bible.
Hebrews is a book that demands an extensive knowledge of the Old Testament. Nothing is more profound than the relationship of Jesus Christ to everything past, the relationship of Jesus to the Law, the relationship of Jesus to God, the relationship of Jesus to creation, the relationship of Jesus to the sacrificial system, the relationship of Jesus to the priesthood, and the relationship of Jesus to the covenants.
And in Hebrews5, the writer has begun to address some of the most profound elements regarding Jesus. He is identified in Hebrews 4:14 as the great High Priest, Jesus the Son of God. Down in Hebrews 5:5 He refers to Christ again as a High Priest, as the Son of God, in verse 6, as a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Jesus Christ as one who learned obedience from suffering.
Christ suffered in verse 8, and in verse 9 became the source of eternal salvation. And He is far from done. Hebrews 7, 8, 9 and 10 continue this discussion of the profundities of the priesthood of Jesus, greater than the priesthood of Melchizedek, greater than the priesthood of Aaron and all the priests that followed in the Aaronic priesthood. He says in verse 11, “We have a great deal to say.”
I’m about to go into things that are profound and I have to say there are some of you for whom this is not going to be comprehensible. You are so dull of hearing. Which is a gracious way of saying stupid. You understood Jesus, the incarnate God coming into the world, living a perfect life, dying a substitutionary death, rising from the dead, and providing salvation by grace through faith.
But you didn’t respond to it. The letter to the Hebrews was written to a Jewish church. But on the edges of that church were Jews who had acknowledged the truth intellectually but never embraced the Savior. And they were there, maybe for social reasons, maybe for reasons of relationships. Whatever the reasons, there are warnings to these non-believers sitting on the edges mingling with that congregation.
He says in verse 12, “Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the basic principles of God’s revelation again. You need milk, not solid food.” This isn’t talking about somebody who comes on Easter and Christmas. This is talking about somebody who’s been there a long enough so that they have been exposed to enough truth that they should be teaching it.
Hearing the truth and rejecting the truth, you lose the truth. You’ve had full instruction in the gospel, but by indecision and by hard-heartedness, you have become stupid and dull of hearing, and you require basic teaching all over again. You’re like a baby. You’ve regressed to an infantile position where you have to be taught the way a baby is taught, the simple matters of truth.
Verse 13, “Now everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced with the message about righteousness, because he is an infant.” The word of righteousness is the Word of God. It’s primarily the gospel. It’s the word about the righteousness of God in Christ imputed to the sinner, the great doctrine of justification, of the imputation of righteousness. These are not Christians.
Verse 14 says, “But solid food is for the mature—for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil.” Solid food is for believers who by the practice of hearing the truth and believing it have had their senses trained to discern good and evil. You see, the characteristic of being an adult is that you have discernment. You don’t know what to choose in life.
And to the discerning you can present the book of Hebrews. To the discerning you can present the deep truths of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. And they love it. They embrace it. They glorify God for it. And they apply it in their lives. People who come to a church where the Word of God is faithfully being taught, are initially interested, but eventually unable to understand the basics of righteousness.
From the problem, there’s a plea that follows. Look at Hebrews 6:1-3, “Therefore let us leave the elementary teaching about Christ, and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, 2 teaching about ritual washings, laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And we will do this if God permits.”
This is really a call to salvation. God says to these people, look, you’ve got to get on past this elementary stuff. He carries on the analogy of the baby and the mature. Let us move on to maturity. Let’s become adults. And again I say mature or perfect means saved. Leave the elementary things, separate yourself from the basics, and come all the way to salvation. Come all the way.
You can’t just hold on even to the Word of God in the Old Testament about Christ, about the Messiah. That’s referring to Old Testament teaching, not New Testament teaching about Christ. And he tells us what they are. You cannot rely on dead works. And it’s not enough to just hold on to faith toward God. Jews believed in the true and living God but that wasn’t enough.
Furthermore, you can’t just relay the foundation of ritual washings, certain Old Testament purification rites and ceremonies. It’s not enough to hang on to the laying of hands. In Leviticus 1:4, when they brought a sacrifice to be offered, the person puts his or her hands on the sacrifice as a way of identifying with that substitute that was dying in their place.
It’s not enough to hold to the resurrection of the dead. The Old Testament taught that. Job said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him because though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” David’s baby son died and he said, “I’ll go to him.” David even said that God would not allow His holy one to see corruption but would show him the path of life.
It’s not even enough to fear eternal judgment. You cannot be holding tightly to your Judaism, that’s the elementary things. That’s not enough. Repentance from dead works must become repentance toward Jesus Christ. Faith toward God must become faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who is God. Ceremonial washings for cleansing on the outside must be replaced by the washing of the soul through faith.
Laying hands on an animal sacrifice must be exchanged for laying hold of the Lamb of God. Believing in the resurrection from the dead becomes full when you believe in the resurrection through faith in Jesus Christ. Eternal judgment is not enough. Jesus Christ has taken the full penalty for your sins, satisfied the judgment of God and will grant salvation and forgiveness to the one who comes to Him in faith.
And here is the warning. Verse 4-5, “For it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit. 5 who tasted God’s good word and the powers of the coming age, 6 and who have fallen away.” If you fall away, you’re forever damned. It’s better to go to hell from a pagan environment than from a church.
These are privileges that do not accompany salvation. The first one is to be enlightened. It means simply to be taught. That’s all it means. These Hebrews would have been taught. It means to be instructed in the gospel, to have an intellectual knowledge. Secondly, that you have tasted of the heavenly gift. Well that is salvation – Christ. Tasting is not consuming. They experienced the gospel.
They experienced it in the messages that were preached. They experienced it in the worship of the people as they celebrated their love for Christ. They experienced it in the life of other believers. They saw the power of Christ in the salvation of others. They saw their transformed lives. They tasted the heavenly gift of salvation in Christ. It’s that unspeakable gift of Jesus Christ, the Savior.
“You’ve also tasted the powers of the coming age.” What are the powers of the kingdom of Christ? Well this in some ways was unique to them, because the apostles were still alive at this time. They had experienced the powerful ministry of the apostles. Hebrews 2:3, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” These people heard the gospel from somebody who heard Jesus.
Verse 6, “and who have fallen away. This is because, to their own harm, they are recrucifying the Son of God and holding him up to contempt.” Why is it impossible? Because you can’t have any more revelation. If you’ve experienced all of these things and you walk away, you’ll never be saved. That is a definition of apostasy. Why? Because there’s no more opportunity.
You are affirming that Jesus was not the Savior, you are standing with the crucifiers who said, “We will not have this man reign over us.” You are saying, “Go ahead and kill Him. I want nothing to do with Him.” By walking away, you openly declare that Jesus was guilty as charged and deserved to die. This is the verdict of any person who rejects the full revelation of Christ.
This interpretation is secured then by a closing illustration. Verse 7 - 8, “For the ground that drinks the rain that often falls on it and that produces vegetation useful to those for whom it is cultivated receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and about to be cursed, and at the end will be burned.” Simple illustration. The rain falls.
What is the rain? The rain is the gospel. It falls and it lands on ground that brings forth vegetation. And that’s the blessing of God. That’s the gospel falling on people who respond. But the same gospel, verse 8, falls on others and it brings thorns and thistles, worthless, cursed and burned – same gospel. This is the free blessing of gospel truth, a free blessing of spiritual enlightenment.
One piece of ground reacts by producing vegetation that is good. And that’s the blessing of God. That’s the one who receives the gospel by faith in Christ. On the other hand, the ground the receives the same gospel produces thorns and briars, that’s the one who receives the pre-salvation work of the Spirit but rejects Christ and is cursed and burned. What a great tragedy of all tragedies. Let’s pray.