Hebrews Chapter Six, Blessing Or Burning

 

Hebrews 6:7 For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God; [8] but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.

 

The primeval curse in Eden is recalled in this passage. “Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,” Genesis 3:17, 18. The visible manifestation of sin’s curse lay in the ground Adam was taken from, verse 19. By nature the cursed earth would yield thorns and thistles: the symbols of sin.

They germinate naturally, just like sin germinates naturally in the heart of humankind. It can be reasonably deduced that the “thorns and briers,” in Hebrews 6:8 symbolize the dead works that sin manufactures in us, offered by our defiled minds to replace or supplement faith, Titus 1:15, 16. What are briers? A brier, also known as a thicket: “is a very dense stand of trees or tall shrubs, often dominated by only one or a few species, to the exclusion of all others. They may be formed by species that shed large numbers of highly viable seeds that are able to germinate in the shelter of the maternal plants.” Self-perpetuating and self germinating, briers dominate the land to the exclusion of other fruitful plants. Sin cannot abide with the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Either the saint bears the fruitful ground that drinks in God’s rain, or it is a parched wasteland, in proximity to being cursed, doomed to be burned.

 

We read in John, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away (or lifts up); and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit,” John 15:2. Jesus iterates in verse 3 that those hearing this message are already clean because of the word He preached; in other words, His disciples (outside of Judas Iscariot) were already saved. To these saved men Jesus taught this lesson. We observe that every branch is in Christ, fruitful or barren. Like the field of Hebrews, or the building in 1 Corinthians, Jesus uses the allegory of a vine and the vinedresser, verse 1. Above being in Christ (being saved) Jesus desires an abiding, fruitful relationship with His disciples, verse 4. Verse 4 likewise diagnoses the issue with barrenness and poor worskmanship: “the branch cannot bear fruit of itself.”

 

The branch’s abiding in the vine naturally produces the results the vinedresser is looking for, verse 5. “For without Me you can do nothing.” Like the thorns and briers naturally produced by sin’s abiding presence in our lives, abiding in the Lord produces the fruit of the Spirit, pleasing to God and beneficial to men. To produce the former we need do nothing; our sin nature will naturally do what it does of itself. To produce fruit we don’t work harder, we abide in Christ. It is not at all astounding or surprising that Paul, after cautioning the Galatian church about being estranged from Christ and falling from grace, later in that same chapter leads us to the conflict between the flesh and God the Holy Spirit. “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish,” Galatians 5:16, 17. Paul then summarizes the works of the flesh and contrasts them against the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:19-23. Taking a page from his Lord, Paul differentiates between living in the Spirit (having Spiritual life) as opposed to walking in the Spirit, tantamount to abiding in Christ and producing the fruit the Father seeks, Galatians 5:25.

 

John 15:6 refers to a believer’s fruitfulness, not to the status of their salvation, which is eternal. Refusing to abide in Christ produces by nature what we have seen in James, Jude, 1 John, 1 Corinthians, and Galatians. Sundered fellowship produced by sinful deceit produces only one thing: death, James 1:15. “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear,” Isaiah 59:2. Whereas John 15:6 reflects the state of a believer in Hebrews 6:8, John 15:7, 8 demonstrate the fruitfulness we ought to be manifesting by abiding in Him through faith, again paralleling Hebrews 6:7. A disciple ought to do what his Lord commands. But there is a distinct difference between “ought” and “must.” Not every Christian listens as often as we should; all Christians fail to heed at least sometimes. That is why John consoles us with Christ our Lord’s mercy when He forgives our sins, should we confess them, 1 John 1:9.

 

Can a Christian fall away? This passage, wrested out of context with the epistle of Hebrews and the whole of the Bible, may be twisted to suggest that. Historically, the burden of proof rests on the advocates of “falling away” to demonstrate that loss of salvation is what is meant in this passage. Bear in mind that this is not specified, no matter how the advocate of the doctrine spins it, unlike actually obtaining salvation which is clearly explained a hundred times throughout the New Testament alone. This leaves the saints in the realm of conjecture. At what point is salvation lost? What sin/sins leads us to finally lose it? How many sins? How grievous of sins? How long a time before we fall away, etc.? All of this must be explained, not by clear doctrinal teaching, but conjectural windmill tilting by advocates that want to motivate Christians out of fear instead of love. The teacher in question, not the Bible, becomes our source for truth, because the Bible is remiss in sharing these apparently vital details…unless these vital details are absent because the saints cannot forfeit salvation once it is genuinely obtained. There is a distinct difference Scripture makes between professors (those whose faith is in words) and possessors (those whose faith manifests in their lifestyle). The former are unsaved, whose profession is mere lip service but do not know Christ; while the latter are indeed saved, whose good works testify of the faith in Christ already seen by God. Yet Scripture is clear: this warning is for those who turn from grace and pursue other things to their own hurt. In this instance, Judaism’s allure. Heed Scripture’s warning about abiding in Jesus Christ and walking in the Spirit. Sound doctrine will reveal even this to us, and we may have comfort and confidence as we, by the Holy Spirit sent from God, seek to serve the Lord we confess.