6 if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.
crucify again for themselves the Son of God,
“For themselves” means on their own account. The readers must take full responsibility for what they had done. The reason these Christians could not be renewed again to repentance was that they rejected the finished work of Christ on the cross. This is to trod underfoot the cross of Christ (He 10:29). The readers were in the process of doing this at the time of the writing of Hebrews (present participle).
To re-crucify Christ by going back to Levitical sacrifices was what kept people from being renewed again to repentance. These people repudiated Christ’s finished work on the cross by going back to Old Testament sacrifices, which never completed the payment for sins.
and put Him [Christ] to an open shame.
Crucifying Christ again by going back to Levitical sacrifices put Him to public shame. This would imply that His finished crucifixion was incomplete. He would have left something undone. Those who did this would reaffirm Judaism. It was a disgrace to claim that Jesus’ crucifixion was not final but that they needed their sins forgiven again and again.
The coordination of “crucify again” and “put Him to open shame” is the dual condition whereby it was impossible for the readers to enter repentance. So long as they were in this condition, the impossibility remained. If they stopped these conditions, then they could be restored to fellowship. Hebrews 6:9–12 shows that the author was speaking about Christian restoration, not salvation itself.
PRINCIPLE:
Our attitude toward God’s Word determines our attitude toward Christ.
APPLICATION:
We cannot divorce the living Word from the written Word. Without the written Word we cannot formulate God’s principles for living. Without these values we will remain stuck in reversionism in our lives. We will drift from the truth (He 2:1–4).
