Heb 6:4-6 | Abbott | STEP | For it is impossible, &c. This passage ( ) seems intended to induce those addressed to press forward in their Christian course, according to the injunctions of the preceding verses, by urging the danger and the fatal effects of apostasy, to which those who were remiss in their efforts were specially exposed.— Who were once enlightened; who have once been enlightened.

Hebrews 6:4-6

For it is impossible, &c. This passage (4-6) seems intended to induce those addressed to press forward in their Christian course, according to the injunctions of the preceding verses, by urging the danger and the fatal effects of apostasy, to which those who were remiss in their efforts were specially exposed.—Who were once enlightened; who have once been enlightened.

If they shall fall away; apostatize, renounce Christ, and return again to unbelief and sin.—Put him to an open shame; expose his name and his cause to public reproach. The defection of one from any cause, who has been ranked as a friend to it, always tends to this result. There can be no doubt that this terrible warning against the guilt and the hopeless ruin attendant on apostasy, (4-6,) is well as many others of similar import, contained in the word of God, (10:26-29,) is addressed to real Christians. But they ought not to lead us to question the certainty of the final salvation of all who truly believe. Indeed, the moral influence which such warnings are designed to exert, is a part of the system of means by which God fulfils his design, very distinctly made known in other passages, (John 17:2, Rom. 8:29, 30, 1 Pet. 1:4, 5,) effectually to keep those who once truly give themselves up to his care.