THE MAN IN THE IRON CAGE (A sermon on apostasy) Hebrews 6:4-9
We come, this morning, to one of the most difficult passages in the entire Bible. The topic is apostasy. The text is Hebrews chapter 6…
Hebrews 6:4-9
As Christians who believe the teaching of the Bible, we have come to believe that our salvation is God's work, from beginning to end. We understand that people are saved when, in repentance, they turn in faith to Jesus Christ. There is a DECISION that must be made on the part of the individual. For people are not BORN Christians. As I often heard when growing up, the idea that just because one is born in America does makes one a Christian any more than being born in a garage makes one an automobile.
Where we were born, or
To what parents we were born doesn't make one a Christian.
Rather, we become Christians when we each, by faith, trust Christ as our Lord and Savior.
But, as Christians who believe the teaching of the Bible, we believe that even that act of deciding to follow Jesus is not made in some sort of spiritual vacuum that is void of God's Holy Spirit or His convicting of us of our sins. We are saved, the Bible says in Ephesians 2, "by grace, through faith" but even that faith didn't come out of the blue. It was a gift from God. So God's granting us the faith to believe in His Son was all part of God's plan to save us.
And God is not a quitter. So what He determined to do (in saving us) He has promised He would complete. The Haehnles – part of this congregation – have on the license plate of one of their cars PHIL 1.6, meaning Philippians 1:6 which reads, "He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion."
So, our salvation is of God. We are the recipients of God's plan to save some, and to save those whom He does save…completely. It's not a partial salvation, wherein God does 80% and we do 20% or even where God does 99% and we do the remaining 1%. It is not as though God has a plan to get us from the top of one skyscraper to the top of another and he promises, "I will get you 99% of the way there, but the final 1% is up to you!" That would be a plan for disaster.
It is all of God. Amen? Amen.
But then we have these verses in Hebrews, and it sure sounds like they are describing someone who at one time was in love with Jesus and now they are destined to hell. And how can that be if God finishes what he starts? Many years ago, I read (for the first time) John Bunyan's classic work, written back in 1670, The Pilgrim's Progress. Since then I have read that book 2 other times. Besides the Bible, it is, I would say, my all time favorite book. And each time I have read it I have read it in the old English.
Only 30 or so pages into the book, Christian (the pilgrim who is on his way to the Celestial City, i.e., heaven), comes across a man named the Interpreter. This Interpreter explains Biblical mysteries to Christian, usually making use of metaphors or real examples from life. After covering a few of these mysteries, the Interpreter introduces Christian to a man in an iron cage. Let me read that section to you…
pp. 31-33
Now, said Christian, let me go hence. Nay, stay, said the Interpreter, till I have shewed thee a little more, and after that thou shalt go on thy way. So he took him by the hand again, and led him into a very dark room, where there sat a man in an iron cage. Now the man, to look on, seemed very sad; he sat with his eyes looking down to the ground, his hands folded together, and he sighed as if he would break his heart. Then said Christian, What means this? At which the Interpreter bid him talk with the man. Then said Christian to the man, What art thou? The man answered, I am what I was not once. {85} CHR. What wast thou once? MAN. The man said, I was once a fair and flourishing professor, both in mine own eyes, and also in the eyes of others; I once was, as I thought, fair for the Celestial City, and had then even joy at the thoughts that I should get thither. [Luke 8:13] CHR. Well, but what art thou now? MAN. I am now a man of despair, and am shut up in it, as in this iron cage. I cannot get out. Oh, now I cannot! CHR. But how camest thou in this condition? MAN. I left off to watch and be sober. I laid the reins, upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light of the Word and the goodness of God; I have grieved the Spirit, and he is gone; I tempted the devil, and he is come to me; I have provoked God to anger, and he has left me: I have so hardened my heart, that I cannot repent. {86} Then said Christian to the Interpreter, But is there no hope for such a man as this? Ask him, said the Interpreter. Nay, said Christian, pray, Sir, do you. INTER. Then said the Interpreter, Is there no hope, but you must be kept in the iron cage of despair? MAN. No, none at all. INTER. Why, the Son of the Blessed is very pitiful. MAN. I have crucified him to myself afresh [Heb. 6:6]; I have despised his person [Luke 19:14]; I have despised his righteousness; I have "counted his blood an unholy thing"; I have "done despite to the Spirit of grace". [Heb. 10:28-29] Therefore I have shut myself out of all the promises, and there now remains to me nothing but threatenings, dreadful threatenings, fearful threatenings, of certain judgement and fiery indignation, which shall devour me as an adversary. {87} INTER. For what did you bring yourself into this condition? MAN. For the lusts, pleasures, and profits of this world; in the enjoyment of which I did then promise myself much delight; but now every one of those things also bite me, and gnaw me like a burning worm. INTER. But canst thou not now repent and turn? {88} MAN. God hath denied me repentance. His Word gives me no encouragement to believe; yea, himself hath shut me up in this iron cage; nor can all the men in the world let me out. O eternity, eternity! how shall I grapple with the misery that I must meet with in eternity! INTER. Then said the Interpreter to Christian, Let this man's misery be remembered by thee, and be an everlasting caution to thee. CHR. Well, said Christian, this is fearful! God help me to watch and be sober, and to pray that I may shun the cause of this man's misery!
The man in the iron cage is the apostate. He is the man of Hebrews chapter 6. At one time he seemed like he was on his way also to the Celestial City. He calls himself a former "fair and flourishing Professor." But no longer. Indeed, now he cannot get out of his iron cage, the inference being that he will spend eternity in that cage.
The questions before us this morning are two. They are questions that every generation has had to deal with that takes the scriptures seriously. The two questions are these:
1. Does Hebrews 6 teach that a person can LOSE their salvation? 2. What does it take to reach a point that one can never get out of the iron cage…that is, they can NEVER repent and be forgiven, accepted and saved by Christ?
So, let's take these two questions as the outline for our examination of Hebrews 6…
1. Does Hebrews 6 teach that a person can LOSE their salvation?
There is within the church, as there has been from the very early years of the church's formation, a bit of a divide among those who call themselves Christians.
On the one hand there are those…like the Haehnles, with their Philippians 1:6 license plate…who are quite convinced that what God starts He finishes. By the late 16th century, in general, these people came to be called Calvinists. Not because they agreed with EVERYTHING that John Calvin wrote, but because they were in basic agreement with him that salvation is God's work, not man's.
But even as Calvinism has continued to have a bit of an upper hand among evangelical schools, seminaries and churches, there are plenty that would say, "Wait a minute. Are you suggesting that once a person is saved they can live however they want and that God is going to say, 'Oh, that's fine with me?'" And so while those who have called themselves Calvinists have, rightly or wrongly, sort of adopted the idea that "once saved, always saved," this second group has latched on to the many warnings that are found in the scriptures wherein even people like the apostle Paul warn about becoming spiritually "shipwrecked." And, they would say, "Did not Jesus warn of many who would call Jesus 'Lord' and he would say, "Depart from me you workers of iniquity, for I never knew you?" So just because someone SAYS they believe in Jesus, or PRAYS a prayer of asking Jesus to save them doesn't mean their eternal state has been set. And, yes, maybe even if they truly did start on the road of salvation, it is possible that they may have turned off that road.
If the first group was called by the name "Calvinists" the second group has been called "Arminians" (named after James Arminius, who argued against the teachings of people like Calvin).
So, two schools of thought. (And then there are always those who say, "I'm neither a Calvinist or an Arminian. I'm a Calvinian…somewhere in the middle.")
Well, when we come to a text like Hebrews 6, the Arminians have no problem with the text, for they have no problem saying, "Yep, this is what can happen to a Christian: starts out strong, shows a great love for God and His word, has "tasted of the Holy Spirit" and BAM, they're lost!
The Calvinists have, by and large, tended to say, "Well, this person in Hebrews 6 may have LOOKED like a Christian, may have ACTED like a Christian, and may have even SMELLED like a Christian… but clearly they never were. For if they really had been a Christian they would have continued in their faith to the end.
And so there has been plenty of debate.
It is interesting that in Bunyan's story of the man in the iron cage, Bunyan (a Calvinist, by the way) doesn't actually say that the man was ever a true Christian. To quote that section again,
"The man said, I was once a fair and flourishing Professor, both in mine own eyes and also in the eyes of others; I once was, as I thought, fair for the Celestial City, and had then even Joy at the thoughts that I should get thither."
That is, this is what the man thought of himself. But Bunyan doesn't suggest that is what GOD thought of him. The man was a PROFESSOR but he apparently was never a real POSSESSOR.
C.S. Lewis once wrote – and you have heard me give this quote many times – "Even a parrot can be taught to speak Greek." Meaning, just because someone mouths the right words, or acts the right way, doesn't mean they truly are saved…that they truly have the spirit of Christ within them.
I'm not going to settle this debate between the Calvinists and the Arminians this morning. I do recall at the Calvinistic seminary that I attended (Westminster Theological Seminary) a teacher once pondering out loud if maybe…just maybe…true apostates – those TRUE PROFESSORS AND SEEMINGLY TRUE POSSESSORS OF CHRIST who have now TOTALLY TURNED AWAY FROM CHRIST – might they be the ONE EXCEPTION to the general understanding that those whom God chooses to save will be found faithful in the end. This is a question we cannot settle. And only in eternity will we find the answer for certain.
But now on to the second question from this text…
2. What does it take to reach a point that one can never get out of the iron cage…that is, they can NEVER repent and be forgiven, accepted and saved by Christ?
For years…indeed…right up until this year, I was of the understanding that the apostates of whom Hebrews 6 is speaking, were those like many of us have known:
• kids who grew up in church, were baptized, but now show little interest in Christ or the church, or maybe • some individual whom we all knew and who at one time was very active in church life and now they have no church involvement, or maybe • a person who was, at one time, a church leader and then they got involved in some cultic teaching and, in our minds, went totally off the deep end, or maybe • a man we knew who seemed, at one time, solid in Christ, but then his marriage broke up, he became embittered, and he ended up quitting the church and becoming a Buddhist
It was these kinds of people that I thought, "This is what it the writer of Hebrews chapter 6 is talking about." At one time all of these people SEEMED like they were really Christians. Whether they really were or were not, God will have to decide (because I surely cannot). But then something happened to them and now they are very far from Christ. Their sins…their abandonment of the faith…it sure makes it sound like they are NEVER going to be able to come back to Jesus.
For that word "impossible" in Hebrews 6:4 makes it sound like we have an open and shut case.
And so I wondered about our son. At one time he SEEMED like he was in the faith. He went to the Moody Bible Institute to major in MISSIONS (of all things). Yet today he rejects it all. He has fallen away. Hasn't he, in a sense, "crucified once again the Son of God" (verse 6)? And if so, doesn't it say he simply cannot ever come back to Christ? And so I have thought of our son, and these others, as the man in the iron cage: stuck there for eternity, and unable to get out.
And then…and then…I ran across Matthew Henry's commentary on Hebrews 6 and it opened up my mind to something I had never thought about before. Let me read you what Matthew Henry wrote (back in 1706),
Here, in writing about these from Hebrews 6, verse 6 and following who have fallen away, Henry writes, "(Regarding) The greatness of the sin of apostasy. It is crucifying the Son of God afresh, and putting him to open shame. They declare (catch this now…) that THEY APPROVE OF WHAT THE JEWS DID IN CRUCIFYING CHRIST, AND THAT THEY WOULD BE GLAD TO DO THE SAME THING AGAIN IF IT WERE IN THEIR POWER…THEY DO WHAT IN THEM LIES TO REPRESENT CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY AS A SHAMEFUL THING, AND WOULD HAVE HIM TO BE A PUBLIC SHAME AND REPROACH." I don't know if you see the difference here, but for all my life I have read about these apostates in Hebrews 6 that their sins are such that IT IS AS IF they were crucifying Christ all over again. But Henry is suggesting that the teaching of Hebrews 6 is about those who have not just turned away from Christ but have TURNED AGAINST CHRIST . And their sin is not as though they have crucified Christ again but rather that, if given the chance, they would gladly nail him to the cross again and even thrust the spear into his side.
And when I start thinking in THOSE terms, then suddenly all those kids that grew up in youth group who are now spiritually lost (and they are lost), or that man who no longer goes to church, or my son who no longer believes, or that fellow that became a Buddhist…NONE OF THESE that I know have ever come to the place that they DESPISE JESUS. They're not yelling, "Crucify Him, Crucify Him." They've drifted away. But they haven't taken up a sword against our Savior.
And if Matthew Henry is right – and in all fairness, he is just giving his opinion on the text – then I think we need to PULL BACK…pull in…on our use of the term apostate and how quickly we may have been using it to speak of those who have not continued in the faith as we had hoped and expected they would. And, again, if Matthew Henry is right, then maybe there are a LOT LESS MEN (and women) IN AN IRON CAGE than we may have thought.
And maybe…just maybe…God WILL be bringing many of these that we have so desperately prayed for (some for many years, even decades)…maybe God will yet draw them back to his side, back to the church, and even back to our fellowship.
Could that be? Oh, let us pray that it will be so.
And it is with that that I introduce to you Jeff Mason, who is here with his wife Sheri, and who, at this time, will share with you his story of Christ's work in his heart…