INVESTIGATING ADVENTISM PHILIPPINES
Pastoral-Apologetic Response
A POINT-BY-POINT REPLY TO:
"Does the Book of Hebrews Teach
That We Cannot Lose Our Salvation?"
Prepared by Ronald V. Obidos II | Former
Adventists Philippines / Investigating Adventism Philippines
|
PREFATORY NOTE TO THE
READER The
article under review asserts that the Book of Hebrews teaches unconditional
eternal security (commonly called 'Once Saved, Always Saved' or OSAS). While
we deeply respect those who hold this position sincerely, our concern is not
merely theological preference it is faithful, grammatical-historical
exegesis of the biblical text itself. The response below will demonstrate
that the article in question: |
RESPONSE TO POINT 1: 'Salvation Is a Finished Work in Christ'
The article quotes Hebrews 10:14 'By one
offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified' and
concludes that this teaches that salvation is unconditionally permanent. This
is an exegetically inadequate reading.
Exegetical Weakness: The
Article Ignores the Participial Grammar
The phrase 'those who are being sanctified'
(τοὺς ἁγιαζομένους tous hagiazomenous) is a PRESENT PASSIVE PARTICIPLE in
Greek. This is not a static noun describing a fixed group. It is a dynamic,
ongoing description of those who are presently, actively in the process of
being sanctified. The perfection spoken of in 10:14 is applied to this group as
they continue in that process it does not flatten the ongoing nature of
sanctification into a guarantee that removes the possibility of apostasy.
|
Hebrews 10:14 (Greek note) tous
hagiazomenous: present passive participle, describing those currently in an
ongoing process of sanctification. This grammar is never acknowledged in the
article. |
The article treats 'perfected forever'
(τετελείωκεν: perfect active indicative) as if it seals every person who ever
professed faith regardless of their continued trajectory. But the perfect tense
here refers to the completed nature of Christ's sacrifice not to an
irrevocable application to every individual who once believed.
|
FALLACY IDENTIFIED: Non
Sequitur The
article argues: Christ's sacrifice is complete → therefore no believer can
fall away. This does not follow. A finished atonement does not logically
entail unconditional perseverance, any more than a finished meal guarantees
everyone at the table will eat it. |
RESPONSE TO POINT 2: 'The New Covenant Promise: God Keeps the Relationship'
The article cites Hebrews 8:10–12 and
emphasizes that 'God is the one acting.' It concludes from this that 'this
covenant does not depend on human consistency but on God's faithfulness.'
This argument sounds devotionally attractive, but it commits a critical
hermeneutical error.
Exegetical Weakness: The
Article Assumes What It Needs to Prove
Yes, God says 'I will...' in Hebrews 8. But
the New Covenant promises in Jeremiah 31 (cited in Hebrews 8) are spoken to
those who genuinely enter into covenant relationship with God. The New Covenant
does not eliminate the human covenant partner it transforms and empowers him.
The 'I will' statements describe the quality and character of God's covenantal
work, not a mechanical guarantee that no one who once entered can ever exit.
Furthermore, the article never engages with
the background of the audience: Jewish Christians who were being tempted to
abandon Christ and return to the Levitical system. The New Covenant warnings
are not incidental to Hebrews they are the entire reason the letter was
written.
|
AUDIENCE CONTEXT IGNORED The
recipients of Hebrews are Jewish Christians under severe pressure social
ostracism, persecution, economic hardship (cf. Heb 10:32-34) being tempted
to apostatize from Christ and return to Judaism. The entire letter is
structured as a pastoral-theological argument meant to prevent genuine
believers from making a catastrophic and irreversible choice. The article
under review never engages with this audience context at all. |
RESPONSE TO POINT 3A: Hebrews 6:4–6 'Falling Away'
This is arguably the most critical section
of the article, and it is here that the exegetical failure is most glaring. The
article states that Hebrews 6:4–6 describes not a believer losing salvation,
but 'someone who comes close, yet turns away from fully trusting Him.' This is
the standard OSAS interpretation and it cannot survive contact with the
actual Greek text.
Exegetical Weakness: The
Language Describes Genuine Believers
Let us examine the five descriptions in
Hebrews 6:4–5 closely:
|
Greek Term |
Translation |
Significance |
|
hapax phōtisthentas |
Once enlightened |
In early church usage, phōtizō refers to baptismal/regenerate
illumination (cf. Eph 1:18, Heb 10:32) |
|
geusamenous tēs dōreas tēs epouraniou |
Tasted the heavenly gift |
Geuomai in Hebrews 2:9 refers to Christ genuinely experiencing
death not a superficial taste |
|
metochousgenethentas Pneumatos Hagiou |
Partakers of the Holy Spirit |
Metochos is used in Heb 3:1 ('holy brethren, partakers of the
heavenly calling') clearly of genuine believers |
|
geusamenous kalon Theou rhēma |
Tasted the good word of God |
Active reception and experiential knowledge of the revealed Word |
|
dynameis melloutos aiōnos |
Powers of the age to come |
Eschatological Spirit gifts experienced language paralleling
the genuine believer's share in the New Age |
The article's claim that these descriptions
apply to 'someone who comes close, yet turns away from fully trusting' is
exegetically untenable. This reading must import a meaning foreign to the text
to make the OSAS framework survive. No honest Greek reader can reduce metochous
genēthentas Pneumatos Hagiou ('having become partakers of the Holy Spirit') to
mere proximity to salvation.
|
FALLACY IDENTIFIED: Special
Pleading The
OSAS interpreter must systematically re-read every experiential description
in Heb 6:4–5 as 'not quite salvation' when the same vocabulary is used
elsewhere in Hebrews for genuine believers. This is special pleading driven
by a doctrinal conclusion, not by exegesis. |
The Decisive Argument the
Article Completely Ignores: 'Renew Again to Repentance' (Heb 6:6)
Perhaps the single most damaging omission
in the article is its complete failure to engage with the phrase 'to renew them
again to repentance' (anakainizein eis metanoian) in Hebrews 6:6. This phrase
is the exegetical key that destroys the 'near-but-not-saved' interpretation' and the article does not even mention it.
|
Hebrews 6:6 (Greek) anakainizein
eis metanoian 'to renew again to repentance.' The prefix ana- ('again') is
not decorative. It is the grammatical proof that these people had already
repented before. |
The logic is simple and devastating to the
OSAS reading:
•
The Greek word anakainizein means 'to renew' or 'to
make new again.'
•
The prefix ana- means 'again' it necessarily
presupposes a prior occurrence of the same action.
•
'Renew AGAIN to repentance' therefore presupposes that
these people had ALREADY experienced genuine repentance before their falling
away.
•
You cannot renew what was never initially there. You
cannot restore what was never possessed.
•
If these people had never truly repented and been
saved, the author would have no grammatical basis for using anakainizein he
would simply say 'lead them to repentance,' not 'renew them again.'
|
THE ANA- PREFIX IS
CONCLUSIVE The
ana- prefix in anakainizein is not theologically neutral it is lexically
decisive. It means 'again,' 'back,' or 'once more.' Its presence presupposes
an original state that existed before it was lost. The author is not saying
these people need to be led to a repentance they never had he is saying it
is now impossible to restore them to a repentance they genuinely possessed
and then abandoned. The OSAS interpreter must either ignore this prefix
entirely (as this article does) or explain how 'renew again' can apply to
something that never existed in the first place. |
The Irrevocability Clause
Confirms Genuine Prior Salvation
The author adds: 'since they crucify again
for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame' (Heb 6:6b). The
reason renewal to repentance is now IMPOSSIBLE is not that these people were
never saved it is because their deliberate, willful apostasy constitutes a
re-crucifixion of Christ in their own reckoning. They are treating the
sacrifice of the Son of God as something to be discarded. This is the language
of someone who KNEW the weight of that sacrifice from the inside and chose to
reject it anyway.
This is consistent with the entire pastoral
logic of Hebrews: the author is not warning strangers about the danger of
rejecting a message they never received. He is warning genuine Jewish Christian
believers that if they deliberately return to the old covenant system effectively declaring Christ's sacrifice worthless they will have placed
themselves beyond the reach of further repentance. Not because God refuses to
forgive, but because the apostate has so hardened himself that the renewal of
repentance itself becomes impossible.
|
SUMMARY: What 'Renew Again
to Repentance' Proves 1. These people HAD repented ana- requires a prior genuine repentance. 2. Their repentance was real not superficial or counterfeit. 3. They then fell away deliberately and willfully. 4. It is now impossible to renew them again not because God is unwilling, but because their apostasy has rendered the conditions for repentance itself impossible. 5. The article's interpretation
that these were never genuine believers is grammatically impossible in light
of anakainizein eis metanoian. |
RESPONSE TO POINT 3B: Hebrews 10:26–29 'Willful Sin'
The article claims that 'willful sin' in
Hebrews 10:26 is not about a believer stumbling, but about 'the deliberate
rejection of Christ's sacrifice.' We partially agree with this description but the article fails to see that this is exactly what makes the passage a
genuine apostasy warning to genuine believers.
Exegetical Weakness: The
Article Does Not Engage With 'We'
Notice the pronoun: 'If WE sin willfully
after we have received the knowledge of the truth...' (Hebrews 10:26). The
author includes himself. This is not written about outsiders or near-believers.
The author is writing to the covenant community and including himself among
those who could, in principle, make this catastrophic choice.
|
Hebrews 10:26–29 "For
if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there
no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of
judgment... Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought
worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the
covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit
of grace?" |
Note especially: 'the blood of the covenant
by which he was sanctified.' The word 'sanctified' (ēgiasthē: aorist passive
indicative of hagiazō) refers to the person who fell away. The plain reading is
that this person was genuinely sanctified set apart by the covenant blood and then apostatized. The article never grapples with this pronoun or this
aorist passive.
|
CRITICAL EXEGETICAL
OMISSION The
article claims this passage is about 'abandoning Christ as the only source of
salvation' as if describing an outsider. But Hebrews 10:29 explicitly
describes someone who was hagiasthē sanctified by the covenant blood.
This is regenerate covenant language applied to the apostate. The article is
silent on this word. |
RESPONSE TO POINT 4: 'The Anchor of the Soul'
The article cites Hebrews 6:19 'This hope
we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast' as evidence of
unconditional security. This is a valid and beautiful passage. But it is taken
out of context.
Context: The Anchor
Passage Is Surrounded by Warning Passages
Hebrews 6:19 does not stand alone. It
follows directly from 6:4–8 (the apostasy warning) and 6:9–12 (the pastoral
encouragement to press on). The anchor language in 6:18–19 is given to 'those
who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us' i.e., those
who are actively fleeing and actively holding fast. This is not a passive
guarantee; it is the security of an anchor that holds while the believer is
actively clinging to it.
The article treats the anchor metaphor as
if it eliminates all human responsibility in perseverance. But the same letter
says: 'We have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our
confidence steadfast to the end' (Heb 3:14). The 'if' (ean) is a third-class
conditional real and contingent, not hypothetical or rhetorical.
RESPONSE TO POINT 5: 'Union with Christ'
The article asks: 'Can Christ lose what He
has secured?' This is rhetorically powerful but theologically incomplete. Union
with Christ is real and glorious but the New Testament is equally clear that
this union is maintained by faith (John 15:1–6; Colossians 1:23). The
vine-branch language in John 15 explicitly speaks of branches that are 'in Me'
(en emoi) being removed if they do not bear fruit.
The article frames the question as if
apostasy would require Christ to fail. But apostasy, biblically understood, is
the voluntary, willful abandonment of Christ by the human partner not a
failure on Christ's part. God does not lose; people walk away. The article
never engages this distinction.
|
ASSUMPTION-BASED REASONING The
article's entire Union with Christ argument assumes that union is irrevocable
and unconditional. But it cites no exegetical basis for this assumption from
within Hebrews. This is systematic theology being imported into exegesis, not
exegesis informing systematic theology. |
RESPONSE TO POINT 6: 'The Purpose of the Warnings'
The article claims the warnings are written
to 'expose false confidence outside of Christ' and 'prevent drifting into
unbelief' but then says they are not written to 'create fear in true
believers.' This creates an incoherent reading of the warnings.
The 'Hypothetical
Warning' View Cannot Be Sustained
If the warnings describe scenarios that are
impossible for true believers, then they function as warnings about nothing
real. A warning with no actual danger is not a warning it is theater. The
entire rhetorical force of Hebrews depends on the readers understanding that
the danger is real and the stakes are eternal.
The author of Hebrews was writing to
genuine, believing Jewish Christians who were in real danger of apostasy. He
does not say 'this is impossible for you.' He says 'Let us therefore fear, lest
any of you seem to have come short of it' (Hebrews 4:1) using phobēthōmen
(aorist passive subjunctive of phobeomai — 'let us fear'). This is genuine
pastoral alarm, not theological window dressing.
|
Hebrews 4:1 "Therefore,
since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you
seem to have come short of it." |
OVERALL ASSESSMENT: What This Article Fails to Do:
|
Exegetical
Task |
Article's
Performance |
|
Engages Greek grammar of Heb 6:4–5 (participial forms) |
❌ Not addressed |
|
Explains hagiasthē (sanctified) in Heb 10:29 |
❌ Completely ignored |
|
Deals with the 'we' pronoun in Heb 10:26 |
❌ Never discussed |
|
Considers the Jewish-Christian audience context |
❌ No engagement |
|
Addresses the phobēthōmen (let us fear) in Heb 4:1 |
❌ Not mentioned |
|
Engages the conditional 'if' (ean) in Heb 3:14 |
❌ Redefines, not
exegetes |
|
Uses Hebrew lexical analysis for OT citations in Hebrews |
❌ Absent entirely |
|
Interacts with opposing scholarly exegetical arguments |
❌ None cited |
THREE MIC-DROP CROSS-EXAMINATIONS
|
MIC DROP CROSS-EXAMINATION #1 If
the five descriptions in Hebrews 6:4–5 do not describe genuine believers, why
does the author use metochos the exact same word used in Hebrews 3:1 for
genuine 'holy brethren' and in Hebrews 3:14 for those who are 'partakers of
Christ'? Your article claims Hebrews 6:4–5
describes people who merely 'come close' but are not truly saved. But
metochous genethentas Pneumatos Hagiou 'having become partakers of the Holy
Spirit' uses the same metochos vocabulary the author uses for genuine believers
throughout the letter. If metochos means genuine participation in Hebrews
3:1, 3:14, and 12:8, you must explain why it suddenly means
'near-but-not-real' participation in Hebrews 6:4. The Greek text does not
give you that option without special pleading. |
|
MIC DROP CROSS-EXAMINATION #2 Hebrews
10:29 says the apostate was 'sanctified' (ēgiasthē) by 'the blood of the
covenant.' If this person was never genuinely saved, whose covenant blood
sanctified them and in what biblical sense can an unregenerate person be
described as covenant-sanctified? Your article redefines the 'willful
sin' passage as being about an outsider who rejects Christ before truly
receiving Him. But the Greek aorist passive ēgiasthē ('was sanctified') in
Hebrews 10:29 is applied directly to the apostate. This is covenant-cleansing
language identical to what the author uses for genuine New Covenant members.
You cannot have 'sanctified by the blood of the covenant' mean something less
than covenant membership without dismantling the very New Covenant theology
your article appeals to. |
|
MIC DROP CROSS-EXAMINATION #3 If
the warnings in Hebrews describe an impossible scenario for true believers a 'hypothetical' that can never actually occur why does the author in
Hebrews 4:1 command the congregation to 'fear lest any of you seem to have
come short' using a genuine hortatory subjunctive (phobēthōmen)? Your article concludes that the
warnings do not create 'fear in true believers' and that the call is simply
to 'hold fast to Christ.' But Hebrews 4:1 uses phobēthōmen 'let us fear' a genuine pastoral command in the first person plural, including the author
himself among those who must take the warning seriously. You cannot harmonize
a pastoral letter that commands genuine fear with a theological position that
renders the feared outcome impossible. The grammar refutes the framework. |
|
FINAL
PASTORAL WORD We are not writing this to diminish the glorious
truth that Christ's sacrifice is finished, final, and fully sufficient. We
affirm it wholeheartedly. The atonement is complete. God's faithfulness is
unshakeable. The New Covenant is secured in the blood of Christ. But the Book of Hebrews was written to real
believers facing real danger of real apostasy and the author wrote it
precisely because the danger was real, not theoretical. Faithful exegesis
requires us to let the warning passages say what they say, to the people they
were written to, in the grammar and vocabulary the author chose. The gospel of grace is not diminished by taking its
warnings seriously. If anything, it is magnified because a grace that can
be walked away from is a grace that is genuinely, freely offered. And a faith
that perseveres is a faith that is genuinely, freely given. "Therefore,
let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it" — Hebrews 4:1 |
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