Heb. 6:6, "impossible to renew"

From: DBWILLIS@aol.com
Date: Fri Aug 11 1995 - 00:01:24 EDT


David Willis here,

Many of us, whether we have or have not accepted the Calvinistic concept of
"impossibility of apostacy" have had some difficulty understanding what is
meant by "it is impossible to renew them to repentance" in Heb. 6:6. Some
may say that Heb. 6:6 is properly understood to say that a person who is
saved and falls away can never be saved again, but I think that most would
reject that implication. But I think that our common "explanation" of this
passage might also be a bit off the mark. The "impossiblity" of a person's
being renewed unto repentance after falling away, usually is explained by the
distinction between one's "repenting himself" and someone _else_ renewing him
to repentance. That is, it sort of implies that while the apostate may
"pull himself up by the bootstraps" and "renew himself", no one can help
bring this about.

While reading these verses Sunday, I noticed something that might indicate a
different understanding of them which at least for me, was one I hadn't
considered before. The tense of the aorist participles "were enlightened",
"tasted", "made partakers" and "fell away" changes to a present participle
for "crucify afresh" and "put to an open shame". There is also the use of
the adverb "once" along with the aorists which accentuates the purposeful
time distinction being made. In Greek, the tense of the participle indicates
the time of action of the participle in relation to the leading verb.
 Present participle means at the same time as, aorist means previous to the
time of the leading verb, which here is ~adunaton~ "it is impossible." The
impenitent HAD tasted... and fallen away etc. prior to this "becoming
impossible", but their actions of crucifying afresh and shaming were still in
an ongoing state. It was this continuing ongoing offense against Christ that
is the cause of this impossibility. So long as that state continues, no one,
not the impenitent himself nor anyone else can bring about a renewal. But
this would not mean that either the impenitent or another could not help
bring a cessation to the offense, so that the obstacle to "renewing" would be
removed.

The English "seeing" of the ASV and KJV and especially the "since" of the
NASB suggests some explanitory or causal preposition here. But there is (as
far as I could find in checking for variants) no preposition at all, just the
juxtoposition of the time relationships of the aorist and present participles
to serve as the basis for translating the word "since" here. The words
"since" and "seeing" do imply some sense of causation rather than a temporal
meaning. (The word "since" in English DOES have a time significance too,
like "ever since", but we usually think of it as indicating a reason or
cause.) This suggests to me that a better translation might be "SO LONG AS
they crucify afresh..." which would imply that there is no permanence to the
condition of "impossibility" but it remains only so long as they continue to
"crucify and shame" Christ. Interestingly, the footnote for the ASV here
confirms this "time rather than cause" indication. It suggests that instead
of "seeing..." the translation could be "the while...", which is a little
awkward, but conveys the time significance less ambiguously.

I would suggest that with this meaning, we should be more resolute in never
giving up on an effort to bring about the return to faithfulness of a fallen
brother. It DOESN'T have to be all left up to them, because (as some have
said) Heb. 6:6 tells us they can't be outwardly influenced. Instead, Heb.
6:6 teaches that this impossibility is ongoing "the while" there is this
ongoing hindering state, and we may rightfully hope that our efforts can help
to convince the impenitent to stop continuing in that state, so that their
repentance and renewal is no longer "impossible."

David Willis
DBWILLIS@aol.com
6728 Silver Tree Dr.
Indianapolis, IN 46236
(317) 823-4858



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