you have no sense of reasoning. Is the writer writing to saved or unsaved people? The teaching here is sound doctrine not an evangelical message. Since there is no middle ground it is either one or the other or both. So to be safe let us say it is both saved and unsaved he is writing to. Do you think this will make any sense to an unsaved person?....what will be the point? What unsaved person does the will of God? Which unsaved person lives by faith? How can an unsaved person draw back? If any man draw back his soul will have no pleasure in him, stands to reason if any man does not draw back his soul will have pleasure in him. . . .
[SUP]39 [/SUP]But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
[SUP]39 [/SUP]But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
It is sad to converse with such a one who seems so insistent on not trusting Christ as Savior.
The writer is writing to a real group of human beings. I take it they are those who claim that Jesus is their Messiah in Jerusalem. In any real group of humans in any local church, there are both saved and unsaved (persons who do not trust the Lord Jesus with their destiny). He writes professed Christians, some of which will be saved and some unsaved. I take the "we" in the passage to mean the writer and anyone else who actually trusts the Lord Jesus with his eternal destiny.
Yes, a man is either a saint or an ain't. But among the unsaved there are various types: from satanists, to self-righteous pretenders of Christianity, to holy wives and children of saved persons (Rom 7) -- yes the wife of a saved man is "holy," something set apart as special, even if not saved. Then I take it from Heb 6 that there is a special class of the unsaved who were enlightened too much but never trusted Christ as Savior, men who are so hard that they will never be saved (though I would not say I knew that such was the case about anyone. Are you one of these? Or are you discovering the truth now?).
IMHO:
there are men who are like Israel at Kadesh-Barnea, at the point of entry to the Promised Land. The Lord Jesus told a man that he was not far from the Kingdom. Some are at a cross roads, under conviction.
The just live by faith. They are a different group from the any man who draws back. I realize you may think that the any man there refers to the just, but it does not. This is a strange passage in its construction. The verse about the just & drawing back comes from the OT. The Greek OT is much as this verse except for one thing, Hebrews presents two expressions out of OT order. (I can't call anything in Greek a quote of Hebrew; it may be a translation, an allusion, or the gist of the passage. So I may speak of "quote," when it really is not technically a quote.)
Here is the Greek OT translated into English:
If he should draw back, my soul has no pleasure in him:
but the just shall live by my faith.
Hebrews is evidently making 2 separate "quotes." First He "quotes" the 2nd half of the verse, and then the 1st half of the verse. Thus, in view of the following explanation "we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them who believe to the saving of the soul," one should not identify the just who live by faith with the back-shrinkers. The explanation of why this differs quite a bit with our Hebrew original (see Habakkuk 2:3) language text is another matter, which I have not studied in depth. But vs 9 remains clear.
At any rate, I won't tell you to go and say 100 hail Marys, but I will recommend reading over & over this verse until it sinks in:
[SUP]9 [/SUP]But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
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