The Wicket Gate

Introduction

Good morning! Go ahead and open your bible to the book of Hebrews. This will surely bring you great joy and excitement, but we are going to be focusing on apostasy this morning. Right out of the gate here I want to take a moment to articulate the 3 main views or interpretations of this passage. I won’t take much time on those views we will not be teaching but I do want you to know them and be aware of them so that you can give an adequate defense against them or at least to fully understand why we land where we do. I will also note that I did not come up with these views myself, many throughout church history have summarized this including many modern pastors/teachers like Dr. Sproul, Alister Begg, and Ferguson. Maybe that tips my hand as to who I listen to the most.

The first view with respect to “who is the apostate” is that the author is communicating that these are genuine Christians, who have genuinely lost their salvation. This is the view that Christians can indeed lose their salvation and totally fall away. The contradiction that this view has to deal with is the reality that John 10: 28-29 is in the bible.

John 10:28–29
ESV

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

Bible interpretation 101, scripture interprets scripture, right? To hold to a view that creates such an obvious contradiction with no other way around other than favoring one text over the another is simply not how we are to read the bible.

The second view is that the author does have genuine believers in view here but that the apostasy that he is referencing is only a hypothetical one. He is not necessarily communicating that this will happen in reality only warning that it could happen if it were permitted by God. This view makes the whole idea of Apostasy only a hypothetical reality and not an actual warning.

I will again turn your attention to the words of Christ.

Matthew 7:22–23
ESV

On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Maybe it’s just me but that doesn’t sound like our Lord is speaking in hypotheticals there. There are plenty of other references we could look to that support our understanding that apostasy is far from simply hypothetical.

The final view, the one in which I hold and the one in which the whole of the reformed and certainly the particular baptist traditions have held is this: The apostasy referenced is in fact a real thing, and this warning is a real warning for real people. The subject of this warning though is not to genuine Christians but rather only to those “professing Christians”. Those who at one time or perhaps many times professed Christ, or said a prayer they were asked to say, maybe they even went into the waters of baptism out of some feeling of obligation but at some point Christ and the church lost it’s initial appeal and they moved on to something else. Maybe even these people have stayed in the church their whole lives and even served in some capacity or another, perhaps even stood in the pulpit and preached the word but it was all a show.

The desire and the motivation was to receive the external benefits of Christ and his body or to use the name of Christ to advance some personal social or moral agenda but they never really knew him, never really cared to have the Christ of the bible. Never really desired to have the truth of God’s word do something to them. Never really wanted to put off the old man and put on the new. “Yes I am a Christian” they would say, but the God they think they know, the Christ they presume to serve, is not the one revealed in scripture. Woe to that person this morning, because apostasy is not hypothetical and neither is the judgement of hell.

On that happy note, stand with me as we read our text. Hebrews 6: 4-8

Hebrews 6:4–8
ESV

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. 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 Beginnings of Apostasy

How does apostasy begin? I want to use two examples from the bible to illustrate this for us this morning, one from the old and one from new. Considering the author to the Hebrews has very often referenced the Old Testament it is not at all far fetched to presume that he has apostate Israel in view. Consider how he says that apostasy begins. “Those who have once been enlightened.” Was not Israel led through the desert by Christ, a pillar of fire? The word was their light.

Psalm 119:105
ESV

Your word is a lamp to my feet

and a light to my path.

Isaiah 9:2
ESV

The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light;

those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,

on them has light shone.

Did not Israel also taste of the heavenly gift? Certainly they did when they received manna (bread) from heaven to sustain their lives. They shared in the holy spirit, they tasted of the goodness of the word of God through Moses and they absolutely witnessed the power of the ages to come in the many awesome things God did for them to reveal himself and his power to them. What we can see then, with Israel as the illustration is that it is entirely possible for someone to experience and even witness the goodness, mercy, and power of God revealed to them through God’s word and after having been a recipient of those things turn away to something else.

Thousands of Israelites perished in the wilderness, not receiving the promised paradise of God because after having tasted the goodness and the glory of God, tasted the truth of his word, they said, “ya that’s not for me.”

We all went to the new ice cream shop in Rockdale several weeks ago now, and since they have so many unique flavors they will give you a tiny spoonful of any of the flavors so you can have a little taste and see if you like it before you buy a whole scoop or two. It’s exciting having a bunch of tastes isn’t it? “Oh, that looks nice, I wonder what that will taste like, let me try the Mexican Hot Chocolate.” That’s all fine and good but what if you walked out of the shop and said, “No that’s good for now, I’ll come back next week and taste again, before I commit to anything.”

Apostasy then begins much like Israel and much like the ice cream shop where you have a lot of tasting but you never commit to two scoops in the waffle cone. You keep coming back maybe for that little “community” dopamine hit or to have your battery recharged, as they say, but you don’t commit to anything, you aren’t really changed by anything. Church do you know how dangerous it is to attend service but never commit your life in faith to Christ? If you keep coming only for the taste eventually the shop owner’s patience will come to an end and is going to say, “no, you are done with tasting.” How presumptuous of us is it to leave after an only a taste and say maybe next week, as though the mercy of God is something we just get to pick and choose from. As though the revelation of his power and goodness and grace is something we can just toss in a sticky trash can as we walk out the door.

If today the call of God is given to you to repent and believe, if you have tasted his mercy and his glory and received his call to trust and commit to the Lord Jesus Christ and you refuse, hear the warning that there is no guarantee that you will receive such a mercy again. If you have been shown the light, do not return again to the darkness.

John 8:12
ESV

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

The Rejection of Christ

You may be tempted to say, well sure but aren’t we really just talking about Old Testament Israel who didn’t have the full knowledge of the revelation. They were ignorant to some degree of the full promise of God so it makes a little more sense that they turned away. Surely no one today or in the New Testament who encounters the person Christ in such a real and powerful way would ever reject him or turn away. Let me offer you up the most familiar biblical character who did just that, Judas Iscariot. I want to read a passage from John’s gospel that gives us some insight into the apostates rejection of Christ. Turn to John, chapter 12. This is just following Christ’s resurrection of Lazarus from the dead and they are in Bethany and they throw a little dinner party in celebration of this great miracle that Jesus has performed and in the joy that Lazarus is alive.

I will resist the temptation to go off on a tangent about how dinner parties are the God ordained model of celebrating the coming of Christ, the Resurrection, and the hope of glory. Maybe another day…

John 12:1–8
ESV

Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it. Jesus said, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”

Let me first say, as you probably have footnoted in your bible, that a denarius is equal to a days wage. So for Mary to pour out a pound of expensive oil onto the feet of Christ that is worth 300 denarii this is the equivalent of nearly an average years salary. To use today’s inflated currency, this is roughly equal to someone pouring out about 50 Grand in oil onto the feet of Christ. Can you imagine pouring out 50,000 dollars onto someones feet? “Think of what we could have done with that money.” “Think of all the people we could have helped” That was the reply from Judas but John notes that this was fake outrage, or virtue signaling we might say. He didn’t really care about the poor, he cared about being cozied up to Christ so that he could keep dipping his hand into the coffers, or receiving the benefits of being associated with Christ.

When witnessing this almost unbelievable show of faith and worship his response was not awe of his savior and the worship of him but rather his response proved that to him Christ, the person, was not worth that. This man who had been with Christ for years by this point, had seen all the miracles, heard all the teaching, been an eye witness to everything that Christ had done, had in a sense tasted of the goodness of the incarnate word of God, who should have known that Christ was the only way to eternal life but rather witnessed this act of worship and said, “ya he’s not worth it.”

We say how could this be. How is it possible for Judas to not trust Christ after all that he has seen and experienced? But this is precisely the warning from our text this morning. “Since they are crucifying him once again” How can Jesus be crucified once again? I wonder in how many churches, filled with people every Sunday if Christ himself were to show up and preach from the pulpit the truth of his word, revealing himself and expounded the clear and only way to salvation, how many would join in with the same crowd Jesus stood in front of previously and shout, “crucify him” This is why it is impossible to restore the apostate to salvation, not because God can’t but because they don’t want anything to do with the real Jesus and if they actually met him they would almost certainly hate him. They would call him a narrow minded bigot. They would accuse him of preaching an outdated, irrelevant message. They would accuse him of not being accepting of who they are. They will hold him up to contempt that is to publicly disgrace the true Christ. I could go on but you get my point.

The modern apostate, like Judas, loves the idea of Jesus and the potential benefits he brings but the true person of Christ, ya he’s not worth it. The bible doesn’t even tell us these things subtly, it comes right out and proves these realities to us in the gospel narrative. John 6, the chapter I told you a while back to memorize. Jesus feeds the five thousand and tries to slip away but the crowd follows him. Jesus then confronts the crowd and tells them that he knows they are seeking him for the wrong reasons. He tells them them its not him they are seeking but rather following him because he is filling their stomachs with fish and bread. They want a saviour who will satisfy their flesh, and he says, no your aren’t getting it. He then goes on to expound the reality that the manna from heaven given to the Israelites was actually a foreshadowing of him. Jesus Christ is the manna from heaven that sustains our lives, he is the bread of heaven and the salvation of God. “Eat my flesh and drink my blood” he says “My flesh is true food, my blood is true drink.” Whoever feeds on me will live, he says. Who cares about the stuff he can give you, who cares about 50 thousand dollars worth of expensive oil, I’ll pour it all out at your feet if I can only have you, my Lord. He is worth it. Amen.

What happens when Jesus tells them this? Many of his disciples turned their backs and walked away. What did Peter say in response to Christ telling the twelve, “do you all want to leave too?” “Where else will we go?” “You have the words of eternal life. “ Interestingly Jesus responds by saying, “Did I not choose all of you and yet one of you is a devil.” The difference then in context of John 6 and with reference to our passage this morning between the true believer and the apostate is the difference between Peter and Judas. Not that they both didn’t sin, because they did, they each had their own issues and each denied Christ in different ways. The difference was, apart from the intercession of Christ, that one wanted nearness to Christ so that he may benefit from all the temporal things he had to offer and one wanted Christ because he recognized Christ for who he was, the giver of eternal life. The Holy One of God. The Christ, the son of the living God. The very words of life. To one, the true Christ was worth it. Such a confession is in and of itself sufficient to ground us and sustain us as Christ says that it is on that confession, that petros, that rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

The Christian Crop

As we close out this section this morning with the last couple verses let me try to show what the true Christian looks like. First, let me say that it is actually more than just saying you believe in God. Many who sit in that interrogation room (that we mentioned last week) would assume that they are going to heaven simply because they believe in God. Many a church attender will find themselves apostate because they believed the lie that all one has to do to be saved is simply believe in “God”. I put “God” is air quotes because such a confession rarely ever defines who God is, what he has done, and why I need to actually believe in him. Our brother James says:

James 2:19
ESV

You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!

So to simply confess that you believe God is real makes you no better or worse than demons. “But what about John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” I am not going to go into an exegesis of John 3:16 except to say that the emphasis of the verse is not that we believe in some general, even benevolent God who loves you and will save you because he loves you but rather the emphasis is that we believe in the means by which God saves us, namely his son, Jesus Christ.

Necessarily that means we have to know and trust in the actual Christ that has been revealed to us in Scripture and not some fake, fraud, or caricature version of him. To trust in and commit to the real Christ. It also means that true belief is always accompanied by a crop.

Hebrews 6:7
ESV

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.

I am a terrible gardener and I know I need to get better. A couple years ago I had the great idea that I was going to grow a bunch of different peppers and if not for Amanda stepping in and actually growing the peppers it would have been a complete failure I think. I bring that up because I am reminded, as we get close to spring, the wonder and quite honestly magic that is planting an otherwise dead seed in soil and adding water to it and somehow little buds of new life spring up from the ground.

In the providence of God, some crops (i.e. some people) produce acres upon acres of corn, (heirloom, non-GMO of course), while others can’t seem to make it beyond the pepper sprouts. Some seasons of life produce an abundant harvest while other seasons leave us on our hands and knees rejoicing over just this little sapling coming out of the ground. The point is that when the rain of God falls upon the life of the Christian there is always a crop, however big or however small it is not thorns or thistles but a useful crop.

James again says this:

James 1:2–4
ESV

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,

for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Or later in Hebrews.

Hebrews 12:11
ESV

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Conclusion

How do know the apostate from the true believer? The Christian when met with trials produces the fruit of steadfastness because they trust and believe in the true God. The Christian, when faced with God’s discipline produces the fruit of righteousness because they have committed to the true savior. Belief then is God, that is true belief, not only knows and trusts in the real Christ, revealed in Scripture but also submits to the trials of God that are necessary for the production of steadfastness and submits to the discipline of God that is necessary for the cultivation of righteousness. In short, the true believer perseveres in all things trusting in the true God who has revealed himself in the Scriptures and who will transform us into his image.

The question is, is Christ worth it to you? Will you pour out your life for him and walk with him wherever he leads. Is he, the one who has and is the very words of eternal life, who you desire to serve? Do you desire to bear fruit for his name and his glory however that looks? Or do you want to just keep your hand in the money bag? Do you want to just keep coming back for a taste or to just feel a little better about yourself for a week. One will wither and be burned. One will walk away when the teaching gets hard. One will desire to crucify him again when the trials come or the sin is exposed. The other, however small or big the crop, will persevere, will produces steadfastness, righteousness, obedience, mountain moving faith and will receive a blessing from God, eternal life in glory.

There are only two roads for the one who tastes the goodness of God. Apostasy or glory. Please hear the warning and please believe that Christ is worth it. As we will see next week, though I give the warnings, I do feel sure of better things for you, things leading to salvation. May the God of all glory give us faith, grant us repentance and produce in us a useful crop for his glory. We can trust that his grace will do just that.

Here the words in closing from the beloved hymn Amazing Grace

Through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come;
His grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

Amen.