The Hardest Passage
The Warning Everyone Quotes
Hebrews 6:4-6 is the passage most often aimed at anyone who says God's saving purpose reaches all. It contains the word adynaton, the Greek word for impossible. It describes people who experienced the Holy Spirit, tasted the heavenly gift, and fell away. It says renewing them to repentance is impossible.
The warning is real. The word is real. The author means it.
What the author also means is everything he wrote around it. The warning sits inside an argument that starts at Hebrews 5:11 and ends at 6:20. Pulling the warning out and treating it as the whole message is like reading the diagnosis and skipping the prescription. The author gave both.
Here is the full argument, from start to finish.
The Problem: Hebrews 5:11-14
The author is frustrated. His readers have stalled. They should be teachers by now. And his frustration is specific. He names exactly what they are missing.
Hebrews 5:11-13
About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.
Two phrases in this passage carry weight the reader should not miss.
First: "the basic principles of the oracles of God." The Greek for "oracles of God" is ta logia tou theou. These are not general Bible facts. Logia means the spoken words of God, the things God Himself said. The readers need to be re-taught what God actually spoke.
Second: "the word of righteousness." The Greek is ton logon tēs dikaiosynēs. Logos is the word. Dikaiosynēs is righteousness. This is the word that carries righteousness in it. The readers are unskilled in it. They do not know what it is or how to handle it.
The author does not say his readers lack information. He says they lack skill in a specific Word. A Word that comes from God's mouth. A Word that carries righteousness.
If this sounds familiar, it should. The foundation of this entire site is the same claim: the Word of God is what came from God's own mouth, and that Word is the Gospel. The author of Hebrews opens his argument on readers who do not know it. Everything that follows is his attempt to show them what it is.
The Call: Hebrews 6:1-3
The author tells them to move past the basics. He lists what counts as elementary: repentance from dead works, faith toward God, instruction about washings, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, eternal judgment.
That list matters. The author of Hebrews calls eternal judgment an elementary teaching. The very doctrine most of Christianity treats as the final word on human destiny is placed by this author in the category of things you should already know and move past. The solid food is somewhere else. The solid food is the Word of righteousness the readers have not yet learned to handle.
Then he writes a phrase that governs the whole argument.
Hebrews 6:3
And this we will do, if God permits.
The maturity he is calling them to depends on God's permission. The author places the outcome in God's hands before the warning even starts.
The Warning: Hebrews 6:4-6
Hebrews 6:4-6
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 coming age, and then have fallen away, to renew them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.
The Greek word behind "impossible" is adynaton. It means unable, incapable, impossible. The author uses this same word in Hebrews 6:18 for God's inability to lie and in Hebrews 11:6 for the impossibility of pleasing God without faith. He does not use it loosely.
The people described are not outsiders. The author stacks five descriptions to make this clear. They were enlightened. They tasted the heavenly gift. They shared in the Holy Spirit. They tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age. Then they fell away.
Notice what these people tasted. The goodness of the word of God. The same word the author just said his readers are unskilled in. These people had it. They tasted it. And they fell away from it. The warning is about people who encountered the Word and turned from it.
The verdict: adynaton to renew them again to repentance.
Three things matter about this verdict.
First, the word "renew" in Greek is anakainizein. The prefix ana- means again or back. The word assumes these people were once in a state of repentance and need to be brought back to it. The impossibility is about restoring them, not about whether they were ever in.
Second, the sentence does not name who is trying to do the renewing. The impossibility is stated, but the agent attempting the renewal is left open. This matters when the author arrives at his resolution.
Third, the reason given for the impossibility is a present, ongoing condition: "since they are crucifying once again the Son of God and holding him up to contempt." The Greek uses present participles. The crucifying and shaming are continuous. As long as that condition holds, renewal is impossible. The impossibility is tied to the mechanism, not declared as a permanent category.
The Land: Hebrews 6:7-8
Hebrews 6:7-8
For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
The land that bears thorns is called adokimos, failing the test. It is kataras engys, "near to a curse." The Greek says near. The curse has not landed. The land is approaching it.
Its end is "unto burning." The text says what it says. The author does not say what the burning produces or whether the land recovers. The metaphor stands where the author left it.
The Softening: Hebrews 6:9-12
Hebrews 6:9
But, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation, though we speak in this way.
The author just delivered the harshest warning in the letter. In the very next sentence he tells his readers it does not describe them. The Greek for "we feel sure" is pepeismetha, a perfect passive: we have been persuaded, we stand persuaded. He is not guessing. He is certain.
He calls the better things echomena sōtērias, "things connected to salvation." The warning was a cliff. He was pointing at it. He does not believe his readers are standing on it.
He then urges them to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. The Greek word for patience is makrothymia, meaning long-suffering, endurance over a long stretch. The promises are inherited through endurance.
The Resolution: Hebrews 6:13-20
Here is where the author lands. Everything from 5:11 forward has been building toward this. The readers are unskilled in the Word of righteousness. They need to be re-taught the oracles of God, the things God actually said. The author has warned them about the danger of falling away from that Word. Now he takes them to it.
Hebrews 6:13
For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself.
The author does not resolve the warning with a general principle. He resolves it with a specific oath made to a specific man. God swore by Himself to Abraham. The reason He swore by Himself is that no higher authority exists. The oath rests on God's own being.
The promise the author is referencing is in Genesis.
Genesis 22:16-18
By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore... and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
All the nations of the earth. The oath the author of Hebrews builds his resolution on is itself a universal promise. The scope is not Israel. The scope is every nation.
And this oath, this specific Word spoken from God's own mouth, is what the author has been leading his readers toward since 5:11. They were unskilled in the Word of righteousness. They needed to be re-taught the oracles of God. Here is the oracle. Here is the Word. God spoke it to Abraham, swore it by Himself, and its content is the blessing of all nations.
Hebrews 6:17
So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath.
The Greek word for "unchangeable" is ametatheton. It means immovable, unalterable, unable to be shifted. The word is applied to God's boulē, His purpose, His deliberate will. His purpose does not move. And He backed it with an oath so the heirs of the promise would know it does not move.
Hebrews 6:18
So that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
The word "impossible" is adynaton. The same word from verse 4.
The author used the same word twice in sixteen verses. In verse 4, it describes what humans cannot do: renew the fallen. In verse 18, it describes what God cannot do: lie about the oath He swore to Abraham.
Verse 4: it is adynaton for humans to renew the fallen.
Verse 18: it is adynaton for God to lie about His oath.
The two impossibilities are not parallel. The argument moves from one to the other. What humans cannot do is stated and left standing. What God cannot do is stated and made the ground of the hope. The author placed both inside the same argument because the second answers the first.
The "two unchangeable things" are the promise and the oath. Both are ametatheton, immovable. God made a promise. God swore an oath on the promise. Neither can be altered.
Hebrews 6:19-20
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
The anchor holds. The hope enters behind the curtain. Jesus has already gone in as a prodromos, a forerunner, one who goes ahead so that others follow. The word assumes others are coming after.
What the Argument Does
Read in its full boundaries, Hebrews 5:11 through 6:20 moves from a problem to a resolution, and both are about the same thing: what God actually said.
The problem: the readers do not know the Word of righteousness. They are unskilled in the oracles of God. They have stalled on milk when the solid food is the Word that came from God's own mouth.
The warning: people who tasted the Word of God and fell away from it cannot be renewed by human effort. The word adynaton is real. The author means it.
The softening: the author does not believe the warning applies to his readers. He is persuaded of better things.
The resolution: the specific Word the readers need is the oath God swore to Abraham. That oath contains the promise of blessing on all nations. God backed it with His own being. His purpose is unchangeable. He cannot lie about it.
The argument opens on readers who do not know what God said. It closes on God saying it. The adynaton in verse 4 says humans cannot fix the problem. The adynaton in verse 18 says God cannot break the promise. The author placed both inside one argument because the second resolves the first.
The solid food the readers could not handle is this: the oath God swore by Himself, the Word of righteousness they were unskilled in, is a promise whose scope is every nation on earth. And the God who spoke it cannot lie.
What Paul Called It
Paul names the Abrahamic promise and identifies it.
Galatians 3:8
Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed."
The Greek word Paul uses is proeuēngelisato. The prefix pro- means before, in advance. The root is euangelizō, to announce good news. Paul says the Gospel was preached to Abraham in advance.
The word "beforehand" requires a later, fuller announcement. You do not preach something in advance unless there is a main event it comes before.
Paul then names who the promise points to.
Galatians 3:16
Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say "and to offsprings," referring to many, but referring to one, "and to your offspring," who is Christ.
The promise sworn to Abraham, the one the author of Hebrews calls the ground of unchangeable hope, the one Paul calls the gospel preached beforehand, points to Christ. The scope of the promise is all the nations. The fulfillment of the promise is Christ.
This is the Word of righteousness. This is what the oracles of God contain. This is what the readers of Hebrews were unskilled in, what Paul was commissioned to make fully known, and what the author of Hebrews spent sixteen verses walking his audience toward. A Word spoken from God's own mouth, sworn by God by Himself, whose content is the blessing of all nations through Christ.
The Verdict
The hardest passage raised against the universal scope of God's saving purpose is Hebrews 6:4-6. It says human renewal of the fallen is impossible. The word is adynaton. The warning is severe.
The same author, in the same argument, sixteen verses later, uses the same word to say something else is impossible: God lying about the oath He swore to Abraham. That oath contains a promise Paul calls the Gospel. The content of that promise is the blessing of all nations. God backed it with His own being. He did it so the heirs would see His purpose does not move.
Two impossibilities. One human. One divine. The argument resolves on God's side. The hardest warning in the New Testament ends on the oldest promise in the Bible, and the scope of that promise is every nation on earth.
The warning is real. So is the oath.
The oath is what the argument lands on.
What Jesus Said
In Matthew 19, Jesus is asked who can be saved. His answer is one sentence.
Matthew 19:26
With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
The author of Hebrews just showed you what that looks like. Human renewal of the fallen is adynaton. God's oath is ametatheton. What humans cannot do, God's purpose overrides.
Two verses later, in the same conversation, Jesus names what God makes possible.
Matthew 19:28
Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, in the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne..."
The Greek word is palingenesia. Palin means again. Genesis means birth, beginning. The word means the rebirth of all things.
The word the author of Hebrews used for what humans cannot do is anakainizein: to renew. The word Jesus used for what God will do is palingenesia: the renewal of all things. Same concept. Same conversation about what is impossible for man and possible for God.
Hebrews says humans cannot renew the fallen. Jesus says with God all things are possible. Then Jesus names the thing God makes possible: the renewal of all things.
All things.