Guardrails for Interpreting the Warning Passages in Hebrews

How should we interpret the warning passages in Hebrews? The warning passages in Hebrews contain some of the most ominous threats in all of Scripture and have undoubtedly troubled the consciences of the sincerest believers. They raise questions about the possibility of losing one’s salvation and stress the necessity of persevering the faith. But how should we understand these severe warnings? Paul Ellingworth provides us with some guidelines for interpreting these difficult passages in his commentary on Hebrews in the New International Greek Testament Commentary series. Let’s see what he has to say.

The “Rigorism” of Hebrews

The question of eschatological salvation leads to the much debated question of the fate of those who reject God’s final gift and revelation in Christ (see the commentary on 2:1–4; 6:4–6; 10:26–31). Relevant factors appear to include the following:

(1) The writer admits no limits to Christ’s authority, or to the scope of his sacrifice (1:2, κληρονόμον πάντων; cf. 1:3; 2:8, 9).

(2) The appropriation of the salvation of which Christ is the source depends on faith (5:9).

(3) An essential aspect of the purpose of Hebrews is to warn the readers against the danger of loss of faith; there is absolutely no reason to suppose that the writer deliberately exaggerated the danger in which he believed his readers to stand.

(4) The writer does not envisage for his readers any partial apostasy, whereby they would abandon faith in Christ but remain, for example, good Jews, or more generally believers in God; to lose hold on Christ (3:14) is simply “to fall away from the living God” (3:12).

(5) The writer associates himself with the danger in which his readers stand; there is no reason to dismiss the “we” forms in 2:1, 3; 10:26 as a tactful rhetorical device.

(6) The warnings, however, alternate with words of encouragement (6:9–12; 10:32–39); and this, too, is no mere rhetorical device, but a means of enhancing the contrast between, on the one hand, the blessings they have experienced (cf. 6:4f.) and the good they have done in the past, and, on the other hand, the greatness of their loss if they fall away.

(7) The warnings are clearly not addressed to nominal Christians, but to those who have shared, as fully as it is possible to share in the present time, in the blessings which accompany and follow entry into the Christian life (6:4f.).

(8) The writer does not precisely state that it is impossible for apostates to be saved, but that it is impossible for them to be “again renewed to repentance” (6:4); that is, it impossible for them to repeat the act whereby they may return to faith, and so be saved.

(9) The nature of apostasy is described, not merely passively, as “neglect[ing] such a great salvation” (2:3), but actively, as a deliberate (ἑκουσίως, 10:26) sin, which nullifies for the one who commits it the effect of Christ’s sacrificial death (10:26, 29), and identifies the apostate with those humanly responsible for that death (6:6). Indeed, it may be that the purpose of the writer’s warnings is to alert the readers to the danger of apostasy in which they stand, and to help them realize the nature of apostasy itself.

(10) Nowhere does the author state that any of his readers has already fallen into apostasy, or speculate on whether they will do so.

Conclusion

The question remains whether this teaching, perhaps against the writer’s intention, places limits on the scope of Christ’s sacrifice. In particular, it may be argued that the writer’s thought is still too much constrained by OT categories. If, under the old dispensation, sacrifices were effective in dealing with external or accidental infringements of the Law (9:10), but not with deliberate transgressions, so by analogy, under the new dispensation, deliberate rejection of the one sacrifice which can cleanse the conscience leaves the sinner with no further resource (10:26). Against this line of thought, it may be argued that the one sacrifice of Christ is effective not only in the past but also in the future, and that its efficacy does not cease at the time at which an individual comes to faith.

At this point, we reach the limits of what can be stated about the meaning and intention of Hebrews, and enter an area which has tended to be occupied by presuppositions and speculations of other places and times, relating for example to the fourth-century problem of the readmission of traditores, or theological controversy about the final perseverance of believers — issues which, however important in their own settings, are far from the concern of the author of Hebrews. It is probable that the possible apostasy of believers is part of a complex of related questions, including the origin of evil and the result of the last judgment, which in their very nature lie outside the range of human vision, and about which a reverent agnosticism is more prudent, more realistic, and in the end more faithful to scripture, than either positive (universalistic) or negative dogmatic statements. As Calvin expressed it (in a different though related context): “The best rule of sobriety is, not only in learning to follow wherever God leads, but also when he makes an end of teaching, to cease also from wishing to be wise.”

The New International Greek Testament Commentary

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