Dr Paul Allen

Faith is central to Christianity . The New Testament repeatedly calls people to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a definite body of content to be believed, which is part and parcel of our religious activity. At the time of the Reformation, the debate involved the nature of saving faith. What is saving faith? The idea of justification by faith alone suggests to many people a thinly veiled antinomianism that claims people can live any way they like so long as they believe the right things. Yet James wrote in his epistle: “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (2:14, 17).  Luther said that the sort of faith that justifies is fides viva, a “living faith,” one that inevitably, necessarily, and immediately yields the fruit of righteousness. Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. A faith without any yield of righteous...

“If they then fall away, since they are crucifying again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt” (Heb. 6:6). Hebrews 6:4–6 paints the dreadful picture that it is impossible to restore to repentance those who fall away. It is impossible to restore those who may have done many things in order to show that they were genuine Christians (6:4–5).  As such, many believe that the passage teaches that genuine Christians can lose their salvation. But this position does not fit the evidence of this text or the rest of the Bible. Since the characteristics of the group that falls away may be true also of unbelievers in the church, we cannot automatically interpret the text as teaching that genuine Christians can lose their salvation. However important this may be, the most compelling reason for believing that 6:4–6 does not teach that genuine Christians may lose salvation is found in 6:7–8, which we will look at tomorrow. Let's examine Hebrews 6:6, which tells us ...