Guard against hard-heartedness

Live to Love Scripture Encouragement - A podcast by Norm Wakefield

Hebrews 6:6 and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. As we consider this verse, I want to begin by making a few comments. First, the context is that the author has decided to leave the elementary teaching of Christ because some of his readers had heard enough, and still thought Jesus to be an imposter. If he were to keep going over the same basic truths about Jesus which they already had heard, he knew they couldn’t have a change of mind about Jesus. There’s nothing new to be said that they hadn’t already heard. It would only provide another opportunity for them to in essence crucify Jesus and publicly shame Him.  Second, I don’t think this means that these people can’t be saved. His thinking was that repeating the elementary things about Christ wouldn’t cause them to think again about who Jesus is and what He has done. ——If God was going to use his letter to lead them to repentance, then he had given the Holy Spirit enough to work with. That doesn’t mean that God could not at some future time in different circumstances bring them to repentance and salvation. The Saul to Paul transformation is an example. Surely many who have at one time thought Jesus to be an imposter, namely, of Jewish origin, have been saved by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Today, I want to encourage us guard against all hard-heartedness. When a person’s heart is hard, they are not receptive to God’s word and Spirit. As the author said in chapter 3 about an evil unbelieving heart; it hardens the heart. That’s how these were who could not be renewed to repentance. As we live to love with Jesus, abiding in Him, we want to be sensitive to the moving of the Holy Spirit. We want our hearts to be like clay in His hands which is easy to fashion and mold into the image of Christ. We want to be easily guided into His will today. May the Spirit of Christ be free to do in us what He wishes to do for the glory of God.