Hebrews 6:4 - 6 Part 1

“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). I have given much thought to these verses over the years and read the comments of others on them and have decided to express a possibility concerning them. What I am going to write is something that will probably be rejected by many and they may tell me that I am wrong, but I want to at least express my thought as a possibility.

Physical life begins at conception and continues through a gestation period to birth. The fetus is a live human with limited awareness, which expands greatly at birth. Is it not possible that spiritual life is similar? The human family uses seed as the means of propagation, but that seed is “perishable” and is capable of decay. There is, however, another seed that is “imperishable” that produces a new creation that in eternal. In 1 Peter 1:23 we read: “since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;” (ESV). I am suggesting the possibility of a variable length of time from when that seed is placed and when the birth occurs. Today some say that human life does not start until birth. That is the general belief concerning spiritual life because it accommodates the idea of free will.

If one allows a spiritual gestation period then that period could be described with the terms found in Hebrews 6:4 – 6, such as, “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.” Do not the terms “enlightened”, “tasted”, an “shared” suggest a condition before birth? As this spiritual fetus grows, a point is finally reached when the Father causes the new creature in Christ to be born (1 Peter 1:3).

In Hebrews 6:4 – 6, there are the words “impossible” and “fall away” that we need to consider. That will be the topic of the next lesson. (Use next lesson as a link)

Prayer

Father, I pray that I am not misleading anyone with this idea, but to me it has some merit. I believe that I experienced this gestation period in my life because I was experiencing the beginnings of spiritual life. Then one day I knew I was ready because I felt compelled to surrender and pray and experienced a definite explosion of spiritual life. There is absolutely no question when I was born spiritually and that it followed a period of being enlightened when I tasted the heavenly gift and the goodness of the word of God.