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The Protestant Misuse Of Hebrews 3 In Reference To “Eternal Security”
Certain Protestants who believe in “once justified always justified” quote Hebrews 3:6 and Hebrews 3:14. They believe those verses teach that everyone who is a member of Christ’s Church will necessarily hold firm (or persevere) to the end; and therefore that every true member of the Church (i.e. every true believer) will be saved.
Hebrews 3:5-6- “… Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.”
Hebrews 3:14- “For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.”
Their error is connected to a failure to understand the context, which concerns a “heavenly calling” (Hebrews 3:1) and entrance into Christ’s eternal rest (i.e. Heaven). The context is not about simple membership in the Church on Earth. This is made clear in the same chapter and at the beginning of chapter 4, which draws an analogy between those who could not enter His rest in the Old Testament (i.e. the Promised Land) and those who will not enter the eternal rest of Christ.
Hebrews 3:17-19- “And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.”
Hebrews 4:1- “Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.”
Yes, one must hold firm to the end to enter His eternal rest. That doesn’t mean that everyone who is a member of the Church on Earth will hold firm to the end. Indeed, Hebrews 3:12 teaches that some believers can fall away from the living God.
Hebrews 3:12- “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.”
Hebrews 3:18 and Hebrews 4:6 also teach that some people don’t enter His rest because of disobedience, which contradicts the heresy of “faith alone.”
Hebrews 4:6- “Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience…”
Hebrews 4:11 also says that we must strive to enter that rest, and not fall short because of disobedience. This clearly refers to entering Heaven, not to entering the Church per se.
Hebrews 4:11- “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”
Hebrews 5:9 also teaches that obedience is necessary for salvation.
Hebrews 5:9- “And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.”
Further, in well-known passages, Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10 directly contradict the Protestant heresy of “once justified, always justified”. Hebrews 6 teaches that those who have been enlightened (a clear reference to justification in baptism), etc. can fall away.
Hebrews 6:4-6- “For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.”
Hebrews 10 teaches that people who have been sanctified can fall away.
Hebrews 10:26-29- “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?”
As these points prove, the false Protestant doctrine of salvation is contradicted throughout the Book of Hebrews.
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