3779—Impossible to Repent
Jer. 3:12-14 is just simply one of God's many calls to the backslider to return. "Return, thou backsliding Israel," "only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God," etc. It is God's everlasting, earnest plea to those who are in sin. This is God's side of the question. Heb. 6:4-6 presents the human side. It warns us that one may go so far that no power whatsoever can reach him. "It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance." Read the American Revised Version, which makes it clearer—those once enlightened, who have tasted of the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come, and then fall away, it is impossible to renew again to repentance. The text reveals those who had had a very high and clear experience, those who had known the power of God to save, the mercy of God to forgive, the wisdom of God to guide. If from all this wonderful knowledge they fall away, turn away, choose of themselves to go, it is impossible to bring them back to repentance, and we are told why,—"seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." In Heb. 10:29 the thought is expressed, they tread underfoot the Son of God, and count the blood of the covenant wherewith they were sanctified an unholy thing, and do despite to the Spirit of grace. That is to say, they so turn away from the agencies that God has for saving men, that He has no others left. They so turn from all His wonderful manifestations of love and goodness, their minds become so perverted, that they can not tell when good comes. They have made the sacred thing common, consequently can not discern between the sacred and the profane. This the writer of Hebrews proceeds to illustrate: "The earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God." That is the fruitful garden that grows continually, and supplies the need of its owner. But here is another piece of land, that instead of bearing that which is good, bears thorns and briers, and continues to bear thorns and briers, notwithstanding all the rain that falls upon it and the cultivation that is given it. We know what we would do with such a piece of land as that; we would reject it. The only thing that God can do with such a soul as that is to leave him to himself. The heart reaches that condition where there is no repentance or sorrow for sin felt, and it is unforgivable only because it is unrepentable. There is no end to God's mercy—"His mercy endureth forever." The danger does not lie there; it lies in the fact that the human conscience can become so hardened that God can not touch it by any means which He can bring to bear upon the soul.