Creating a conversation with Bon Bon

I wanted to take a quick detour and answer a question/comment/response that Bon Bon posted. I don't know how many people actually read this (it might just be her, my wife, Eileen, and Jason), but I am going to write it as if more read it so no one is confused. Bon Bon wrote about the last blog Hebrews 2:1:

ok. i agree with you to a point. if you stop doing nice things for melissa, you are still married. but the intimacy of your marriage is not there. it's about relationship.

once you are a new creation, there is no going back to an old one, however, i think that if we fail to continually seek God, we lose the beauty and depth of an intimate relationship with Him.

but He is so good and so full of grace. we can come back to Him. if it were that once someone fell away they could not come back to Him, then His grace would be insufficient. and to say we would have to come to salvation again does not align with what Jesus accomplished on the cross. He died for our sins. all at once. for us to recieve it. once.

Bon Bon, I think you are spot on here. I guess my illustration was not the best one. First let me clarify a quick point then explain who I was thinking of when I wrote this so that it might clarify what I was saying a bit further.

First, like I said I think you are spot on (and Paul will write in a little bit how one cannot re-crucify Jesus). God's grace is bigger than our sins past present and future. I do not want anyone to think that if they have sinned against God, then they are not welcome to repent and turn to his grace and live for him, through him, and by him again. WE ALL NEED CONTINUAL REPENTANCE.

Now what I was thinking about when I wrote this. Some teachers (more reformed in theology than I am) believe that CHRISTIANS CANNOT LOSE THEIR SALVATION. However if you hold that belief and THEN approach this text and interpret it with this idea already in mind (and several other sections in Hebrews) you have to do some hermeneutical back flips to understand it. They will teach things like that Paul was not writing to Christians here, but only people who were about to become Christians (even though Paul calls them holy brothers, and those how share in the heavenly calling in 3:1). Anyways I was thinking of the more reformed teachings when I wrote this (I think I wrote like this because I use to believe in hard line reformed beliefs).

However, let's look at the setting to see what is going on. The situation that these Christians are facing (and we will get to see this idea throughout the text) is that these Jewish Christians in Jerusalem are being attacked for their conversion to Christianity (we believe that this belief is the fulfillment of Judaism). Paul is writing to them to because their family (other Jewish people in Jerusalem) are tempting them to return to their old beliefs (Judaism) or face further persecuation. When Paul here warns against losing their salvation, he is writing to a people who are being tempted to return to a faith that is similar to Christianity (monotheistic Judaism). They are not being tempted to pull off a robbery or launder money (sins on the outside), but being tempted to change their very faith. However if they return to that faith, they are rejecting God's grace. If they return to the old Jewish system of faith they are rejecting the very person they chose to follow and the very person they found God's grace in (and we will get to see this throughout the book).

Knowing the setting of the book of Hebrews helps immensely in interpreting it (as it is with anything ever written).

So to sum it all, if we turn away from the very faith that says we can find grace, then we will no longer have the grace (and this intial grace we receive all at once when we come to have faith in Christ) the grace we once knew. One of the big messages of Hebrews is to stay faithful to the person of Christ, because it is only in him we find grace (and then Jesus is contrasted against the old Jewish system). Most every Christian will agree with this concept in general, but different theological beliefs will get there in different ways (More reformed theology will say they were never Christians, less reformed will say if you walk away, you walk away from grace). I believe Paul here teaches that if one turns away, they turn away.
If you are a Christian and commit a sin (and who doesn't), be like the Apostles (I mean the Apostles sinned here in a great way and they found grace) who deserted Jesus and collectively said "I do not know the man," weep over your sin and find the great grace that God offers. That is one of the foundational teachings of our faith (Matthew 18:15-35, how much he forgives us).

Let me know what you think Bon Bon (and anyone else out there).