For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.

 Good morning. For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. This is a toughie. It can be interpreted as believers losing their salvation. They have been enlightened, but that does not mean that they are believers; they may simply have heard the truth of the gospel. That would go along with “they have tasted the good word of God”. However, it does say that they have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit. That would imply that they were believers. In modern-day Christianity, we interpret the phrase “then have fallen away“ as meaning they lost their salvation. We do have to be careful about using modern day interpretation of words and phrases in the Bible to be the interpretation of what was intended by the authors of the books of the Bible. It does, however, say that it is “impossible to renew them again to repentance“. But does that mean repentance unto salvation or simply repentance to live the Christian life the way they should? Some groups believe that you can lose and then regain your salvation. This would seem to imply that if they lost it, then they could not regain that salvation. Whichever this means – Father help us to not fall away from believing You and Your word.

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