I’ve read Heb 6:5-6 in context and wondered how that could possibly be reconciled with our eternal security in Christ? Then I realized something: the Bible is not saying that God withdraws his love and salvation from one who falls away. Rather, that verse in Hebrews states that the man who falls away — who outright and deliberately rejects the salvation of which he was a part and turns away from God — is exactly the kind of man who can never be convinced to come back to Christ….

To put this apostasy concept another way, if I have repented of my past sins and accepted Christ as Lord and Savior in faith, then I am saved. If, after this, I read a porno magazine or shoplift a pencil, I am still saved, and I should come back in repentance to be forgiven by our Gracious Advocate, Christ.

If, however, I suddenly say that Christianity is a lie and Jesus was a sham, and stamp my foot three times and walk out of the church in a sudden agnostic huff…. if I commited such a rejection, I could not be saved because I am the kind of person who will not come back. It’s not because God has turned his back on me — never! Our God is too kind and lovng for that! — but because I have irrevocably turned my back on God, and the Epistle to the Hebrews confirms that as an observation, not as a pronouncement.

I’m just a layman, of course, so in no way do I put my view forward as authoritative. How do the eminent Christian scholars around me respond?