10.What two things do such backsliders do to Christ?

They crucify Him again and they expose Him to public shame.

Numerous Christian teachers have attempted to prove that once a person has made a genuine of belief in Jesus he can never be removed from the grace of God. Their position is based on a concept of grace as a sovereign action of God unrelated to man’s response.

The premise that redemption is an abstract Divine act that does not depend on human response is one of the deadliest, most subtle of all the errors that have corrupted Christian thinking. The Divine redemption, from beginning to completion, is an opportunity. The believer can choose to pursue the continuing revelation of God’s grace or can, after having begun, ignore and neglect the further challenges and demands.

The Christian walk is a way of faith, a way of righteousness. Whenever a believer ceases to press forward in faith he stands in danger of falling back into spiritual death. Satan never ceases his attempts to deceive the Christian away from the path of light.

The believer who, after repeated admonitions of the Lord, does not begin to bear the fruit of righteousness, will be cut out of the Vine, out of Christ.

Thesis of the Book of Hebrews is that we will be made a partaker of Christ on the condition that we press forward to the land of promise, to the rest of God, to the fullness of our inheritance in Christ. Hebrews was written to experienced disciples who now were losing their fervency.

The expression "If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance" must be interpreted in the light of the whole Book of Hebrews. It appears that these seasoned Christians were beginning to neglect their salvation and were not pressing into the rest of God, the perfection of salvation that is the mark of maturity.

The spiritual forces that govern the earth are so powerful, the currents so strong and swift, that is not press forward is to be swept backward. The experienced saint who loses the white heat of fervency slowly but surely loses ground. Satan works slowly and unremittingly. Before many years have past the believer who once had been a prophet of God is now living in the flesh. His spiritual life is dying.

Whether he would be able in this condition to rekindle his love for Jesus is questionable. We have known of a man in this condition. What at one time had been a vibrant Christian was now a shell of a man, sick, terrified that he had sinned away his day of grace. Our counsel to him was to sit in church every time the doors opened and hope that God would have mercy on him and give him the grace to repent and pray.

Our relationship to the Lamb of God is that of Bride to Bridegroom. We may stumble a few times, in which instances the Lord will pick us up so we may continue our journey toward His palace. But if we fall away, spurning His love, there may come a day when He loses interest in us.

We know of the parable of the prodigal son and the blessing this has been to countless sinners who have come to themselves and returned to Father’s house.

We know also of a faithless Israel who sinned until there no longer was a remedy and they lost the Glory that had been theirs. Twenty-five hundred years later they still are trying to retain control of their land and their holy city.

If we neglect our salvation we will not escape punishment and severe loss of inheritance--if not something worse!