The Pulpit Commentary — Hebrews — Section 167

There o.re o!.hor passages in which Christians hub, but to the disciples themselves, after a nre regarded as already in the dawn of the warniug to them against" the leaven of the future daybreak, and irradiated by the Pharisees," and against being moved by the <'oming glory. The falling away (1ra.pa.1r•• fear of men, and immedi,ttely ufter the words 1T6na.s) after such enlightenment and such " Ho that denieth me before men shall b~ experience means (a.s aforesaid) total apos- denied before the o.ngels of God." Compare tasy fro_m the faith. This appears from the also the "sin unto death "spoken of by St. expressions that follow, and still more from John (1 John v. 16). Misconceptions of the those in the cognate passage, eh. x. 26-81. drift of this passage, once prevalent, or pos- "Non relapsos modo dicit in pristina, sed sible, remain to be noticed. (1) It ho.a been nova pernicie prreterlapsos a toto statu illo from early times a me.in support of the strict lnutissinw, simulque a fide, spe, et amore " Church discipline according to which deadly (Bengel). Such an utter aposta.sy was pos- sin committed after baptism precludes re sihle to Hebrews oscillating between Church admission to Church communion. It we.a so and synagogue: they might be so drawn at cited by Tertullian as early as the second last into the atmosphere of the latter ns, ce?tury (' De Pudicitia,' c. 20), and in the with the unbelieving Jews, to reject with con- third used to justify the Novatiims in their tumely, and so to tliemsclves recrucify, the refusal of commu[lion, even after penance Son of God. The force of "to themselves" to the lapsi. The passage, as above ex' is illustrated by Gal. vi 14, where St. Paul plained, was really irrelevant, since it refers, says that he so glories in the cross of Christ not to the treatment by the Church of that through Chri~t the world is crucified penitents, but to the impossibility of some to him, and he to the world; i.e. all fellow- persons being brought to penitence at all. ship between him and the world is broken (2) The Catholic Fathers, rightly rejecting off. So here the eaVToi's implies the breaking the Novatie.n position, generally uuderstood off of all fellowship with what a man is said the text as forbidding the iteration of bap- to crucify. " They ~ucify again the Son tism; thus turning it against the N ovatians, of God," repeating what their fathers had who rebaptized those who joined their done formerly when they gave him over to communion. So Ambrose, Theodoret, and the death of the cro,s ; and this, be it others. But, though their position on this observed, still more culpably, since it is subject was in itself sound, the passage, a11 after personal experience proving him to be above explained, is o.s irrelevant to it as to " the Son of God." And they not only make that of the N ovatians. (3) This, and the him as one dead to themselves: thev also other texts referred to in connection with it, expose him (1ra.pa.o,ryµa.TI(oll'l',u: cf. Numb. have led some Christians to despair of sal- xxv. 4, LXX.) to the reproach and mockery vation, however anxious for it, under the of tbe world. "Ostentantes, scil. aliis " idea that they had themselves committed (Bengel). The above explanation is adopted the unpardonable sin. This desperate view from Delitzsch. Be it observed next what goes beyond that of the Novatians, who only is said of those who do this-not that no precluded from Church communion, not of repentance can henceforth avail them, but necessity from the mercies of God (Socrates, that even unto repentance it is impossible to • Hist. Eccl.,' iv. 21). But the very state of renew them. Such falling away after such mind of those who entertain such fears is a experience precludes the possibility of re- sign that they are not of those to whom this pentance. On such persons the powers of text applies. They cannot have entirely fallen grace have been exhausted. It is not in the from grace, if they have the grace to repent nature of things that they should return to and long for pardon. (4) Oalvin's predesti- Christ, or see the things that belong unto ne.nan views compelled him and his follow- their peace any more. The correspondence ers to do violence to the plain meaning of between the state here described and the the passage. Holding the doctrine of the consequence of the "blasphemy age.inst the indefectibility of grace, which involved (a) Holy Ghost" (Matt. xii. 31 ; Mark iii 28; that one really regenerate cannot fall away, Luke xii 10) suggests itself at once; our and (b) that consequently one who falls Lord's words, in speaking of that nnpardon- away cunnot have been really regenerate, able sin, being rightly supposed to point to he had to explain a.way the clauses desorip- obduracy in spite of experience of the Holy tivo of the grace enjoyed, e.s meaning only a Spirit's power. Especially obvious is the superficial experience of it. With this view correspondence with St. Luke's account of htJ laid stress on the word -r•11ua.p.l110111 u the Saviour's warning-one of the not un- meaning "summie labrie gusto.re." Only freqneot instanceij of resemblance between dogmatic prejudice oould have euggoeted our Epistle and the writings of that evange- such o. sense of the word as intended in this list. For St. Luke records the saying as place, any more than in eh. ii. 9, where it i1 spoken, not to the Jews on the occasion of plainly ino.dmiesiblo. Nor can e.n impartial their attributinll' Ch.fist'j works to "3cel1",e- roe4er fuil to 88ll i,n the whot11 o.cc>Ulllub,iiop OU, VL 1-20,] 'l'HE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 161