This was originally a paper presented at the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Biblical Scholars conference in Auckland 2023. A fuller and more detailed article based on this presentation has been published in the Evangelical Quarterly 95:4 (2024), 289-306.

Abstract: This paper reviews the interpretation of Heb 6:4–6 by early Reformed interpreters (1500s–1700s) with respect to the identification of the people described therein. Particular attention is paid to their interpretive framework. All interpreters offered comment which was polemically oriented, with an eye on warding off Arminian rebuttals of the doctrine of perseverance. Some interpreters offered additional comment which was contextually oriented and gave an account of the function of the passage in its larger literary context. It is observed that those who framed their interpretation by the polemical considerations tended to diminish or even disparage the value of the markers in Heb 6:4–5. On the other hand, interpreters who paid attention to contextual considerations could point to the positive value of the markers. Those who focused exclusively on the polemical angle offered an interpretation which failed to account for the positive role of the markers, and led to later Calvinist interpreters adopting new interpretive strategies.

1.     Introduction and Issues:

When we read or study biblical texts, the questions we expect it should answer will shape the meaning that we find in it. If the questions we bring to the text are not aligned with the questions the text was originally intended to answer, we risk drawing a meaning from the text that may divert us from hearing what the text was intended to say, or worse, distort it.

As one theorist of biblical reception history has written on this subject:

The questions we ask should be appropriate for the subject matter of the text… A question must be related to and appropriate for the subject-matter of the text if we are going to judge it to be ‘right’. If this dimension of the question is absent, then we would classify it as an inappropriate question and possibly refuse to answer it.[1]

Bringing a question that is appropriate helps the interpreter to pay attention to what the text is meant to convey and to discern it clearly. On the other hand, bringing a question that is inappropriate, which demands answers which the text was not intended to answer, risks diverting the interpreter’s attention from where it should be with the text, as well as distorting the meaning that the text was likely intended to convey.

An “inappropriate” question here is not necessarily a question that should not be asked, but rather one that differs from what the passage appears to intend to answer. Such questions may yet be valid questions, but should be understood more in terms of “application” to contemporary concerns about Christian doctrine and practice.

This is not new thinking to a gathering of biblical scholars. But would like to illustrate this in action among some interpreters I have examined in my doctoral studies.

2.    A Few Definitions:

Calvinist/Reformed. These terms will be used synonymously in this paper, to refer to Christians from the theological tradition originating from the Reformation churches in and around Switzerland, perhaps best known today for adhering to a certain set of commitments in their understanding of the doctrine of salvation. Most importantly for this paper is the doctrine known as “Perseverance,” which teaches that God preserves his saints in the faith, and that the saints will persevere in their faith. This doctrine is (of course) connected to the Reformed doctrine of election and their understanding that the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in salvation is an indelible work which will not be undone.

The scope of this paper is limited to “early” (loosely termed) Reformed/Calvinist interpreters from the 1500s–1700s. During this time there emerged a fairly broad consensus that was not challenged within that tradition until the 1800s (which is another story—maybe next year!).

Hebrews 6:4–6 is an important passage because non-Reformed interpreters saw in it a proof against the doctrine of perseverance. It describes people who have had a range of experiences which may be taken to signal people who have experienced regeneration by the Spirit of God and been genuinely converted. It speaks of “those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted of the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age” (NIV).

An Arminian Puritan by the name of John Goodwin gives voice to that position on Heb 6:4–6. He said that the description not merely concerns genuine Christians but even “the most eminent among them” and “the greatest in this rank or order of men.”[2] The early Reformed interpreters could not accept this since the passage also describes these people defecting fully and finally from the gospel—thus undermining the otherwise accepted doctrine of perseverance. Because of this, in their own commentary writing they found it necessary to rebut this line of interpretation.

3.    Polemically Framed Interpretation

In light of these introductory matters, my aim in this paper is to show how early Reformed interpreters have framed and filled their interpretations of Heb 6:4–6.

It is worth commenting on the nature of these (or any!) commentaries. Some are quite lengthy (e.g. Gouge or especially Owen). But many are very brief – at times forming part of a single volume by one author on the entire Bible or the New Testament. Because of this, they do not say much on most parts of the biblical text, which requires them to make choices are about what they want to talk about and what they want to say about it. There is also at times little clarification given over what they precisely mean. It is worth recognising that the content that exists in each commentary to a degree reflects the choice made by the interpreter—conscious or unconscious—about what is important to say about the passage, or even what the passage is really about.

All of these early Reformed interpreters gave interpretation within a polemical framework: that of the theological question of perseverance—undoubtedly a “question” which is foreign to the text in its original setting, but certainly not irrelevant to it and which is at least in part a response to non-Reformed interpreters who have brought the same “question” to the text and found a different “answer” (hence “counterinterpretations” in my title).

The way I will show this is by cataloguing what made up the “filling” of their commentary content. That is, if they are going to spend (for example) two pages talking about Heb 6:4–6 and telling their reader what it means, I want to identify what they choose to talk about in those two pages. Where their efforts were focussed on polemical concerns, I have found that their efforts can be grouped into four categories:

• First, they differentiate the common vs the special works of the Spirit, with the experiences of Heb 6:4–5 falling into the former.
• Second, the diminish the quality of the experiences of Heb 6:4-5.
• Third, they demonstrate the consistency of Heb 6:4-5 with “false converts” elsewhere in Scripture – the interpretive rule known as the analogy of Scripture.
• Fourth, they provide theological rationalization for the interpretation by showing it was consistent with accepted Christian doctrine – the analogy of faith.

We will be looking at only the first two of these.

3.1 Differentiating Common from Special Grace

Their most common interpretive move made within the polemical framework is to differentiate between two kinds of grace. First, there is what is called “common” grace, which describes favours from God that are given widely. An example that would come to mind is Jesus’ words from Matthew 5:45, which says that God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous.”

Then there is grace which is “special”, which is reserved only for those who God has chosen especially for it. A biblical example that might be raised comes from 1 Thessalonians 1:4–5, which says “We know God has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.”

In the case of Heb 6:4–6, these interpreters saw these experiences as “common” graces that came upon all or at least many who came under the influence of the early church and their preaching of the gospel, rather than the “special” grace that involves regeneration and genuine conversion.

In keeping with that, virtually all of these interpreters made efforts to show how these experiences are “common graces” rather than “special graces” (those who didn’t I think simply assumed it). For example, and most succinctly, Robert Duncan (1729) wrote that these were “convincing and illuminating” operations of the Spirit, as opposed to “regenerating and sanctifying” ones.[3] John Dickson had earlier said that the Holy Spirit is the author: “both of thefe common Spirituall Giftes, and of thefe fpecial Saving Graces [in vv9-10]”[4] ]

There was some variance between interpreters over how this was done.

One manner of differentiation was that of posing a hard separation between the way these experiences were had by “the elect” and “the wicked”. Edward Dering (1576) and William Gouge (1655) are prime examples of this. Dering said (on “tasted of the good word of God”):

“The wicked haue but tafted the Gofpell of Chrift Iefu, and his fauinge health: the electe are fedde with his mercies, and ftill they hunger and thirste after his righteoufneffe, and fee with exceeding ioye, the height, the breadth, the length, the depth, of the mysterie of their redemption.”[5]

Gouge developed on this and posited as an initial vs a more mature experience—both the “wicked” and the elect have had an initial experience, but the elect have gone on to have a fuller experience.

Others were less prone to parse the markers into different kinds or levels of experiences, and to simply hold that these were experiences had by both genuine believers as well as by mere professors. As John Owen (Perseverance, 1654) said the the author “wrote promiscuously to all that profess the name of Christ and his gospel.” This is seen in Owen’s treatment of the individual markers, which shows these as experiences in the church common to all.[6]

3.2 Diminishing the Experiences

Another effort made by many (but not all) early Calvinist interpreters was to downplay the significance of the experiences. They did this by limiting the depth implied by the markers or by otherwise diminishing their value, so as to confine these within the experiences of false converts and exclude the markers of Heb 6:4–6 from among the Spirit’s special graces, thereby defending the doctrine of perseverance.

We have already seen this in the work of Dering and Gouge (cf. Diodati, Poole) when they downplay all the markers by identifying these as a lesser experience had by the non-elect, and comparing with a fuller and corresponding experience had by the elect.[7]

The intention of weakening of the experiences can be seen in some of the language used to describe these markers. Calvin writes concerning these experiences that some people have “some taste of his grace… irradiate their minds with some sparks of his light… some perception of his goodness… in some sort engrave his word on their hearts”[8] (emphasis mine). The language is a little vague, but it is clear that his aim is to distance these from full orbed experiences by downplaying their potency.[9]

There are other interpreters who use much firmer language to soften the significance that might be read into these markers.

• Gouge (1655) says on tasting that they have “a shallow apprehension of the good and benefit of a thing.”[10]

• Diodati (1648) says that they have been enlightened by the word and by “some beam of the holy Ghost, which… through their vice, hath not penetrated so farre as to transforme them, and regenerate them wholly to the divine image.”[11] On tasting, he says they “have felt some transitory comfort, peace and joy of God’s grace offered by the Gospel, and received of them by a certaine shadow of faith for a time,” and they “have had a sleight and superficiall participation of it with some delight, but have not wholly digested it, nor are fully nourished, and satisfied with it.”[12]

• Trapp (1656) emphasised that the taste is a “mere” taste.[13]

• Robert Duncan (c1729) describes the enlightening as powerful enough to make people leave an old life behind in order to adopt a profession of Christian faith, “but this light was and is still transient, giving no steady views of gospel truth, not planting them in the will and affections as sanctifying saving light doth.”[14] And the act of tasting as having “slight experience,” in distinction from “a more thorough sense.”[15] 

• John Gill (1748)—perhaps the most rigorous of all on this tendency—avers that “true believers have a real taste, but hypocrites have only a speculative notion of them,” and that their tasting is “vitiated by sin”, an “imaginary pleasure,” “carnal,” had only “externally,” and “superficial[ly]” and “arises from selfish principles.”[16] Gill goes on to parse out in diverse ways the kind of tasting that “hypocrites and formal professors” do: a displeasing (“disrelishing”) taste, that is a superficial taste of unexperienced knowledge.[17]

These quotes show a strong desire to play down or even disparage the value of the experiences denoted by the markers of Heb 6:4–6. As we will see, this tendency was not shared by all early Calvinist interpreters, and some of them (Calvin, Gouge) do pull in both directions. 

The interpreters who focus largely or even exclusively on the polemical and post-Hebrews question largely neglect to give an account of what this passage is doing in relation to its context and the author’s purposes. They tend to either play down the potential soteriological significance or the markers, or even interpret them in overtly negative ways. Many of them spend more time saying what these are not rather than positively what their significance is. Polemically framed interpretations dominated the work of early Reformed interpreters of Heb 6:4–6.

4.    Contextually Framed Interpretation

However, the commentary sections on Heb 6:4–6 were also filled—albeit to a lesser degree—with content which aimed to explain what the purpose and function of this passage was. This framing is more in accordance with the original “question” the author of Hebrews was aiming to answer. In the terminology of the Reformation and post-Reformation eras, this approach paid attention to the “scope.” This referred to the aim or the purpose of a text, and essentially worked by examining the parts of a passage or book in light of the purposes of the whole. This served to limit exegetical options by excluding interpretations that did not fit with the scope of the wider passage or book.[18] Today, we might talk instead about the literary context or the rhetorical function of a text. So…

Some early Reformed interpreters, including John Calvin and David Dickson, wrote about what the practical aim of the passage was for its readers, drawing out meaning from the text in the form of direct imperatives to their own sixteenth-century readers. Calvin understood that this ‘warning passage’ was addressed to all who profess faith in order to keep them “on their guard”, while Dickson saw the author’s aim here as to awake us out of “our natural security.”[19]

Others recognised that having these experiences played an aggravating role in the guilt of those who rejected them: the liability for judgement is higher for those who have had such experiences from God and knowledge of him, than those who have not. This, together with the claim that it is impossible to restore these people to repentance, led many interpreters to identify the sin in view in Heb 6:4–6 with the “sin against the Holy Spirit” that Jesus spoke about in the synoptic Gospels [but for the sake of time I won’t be talking about that today].   

It is noteworthy that those who downplayed the significance of the markers (§2.2) and those who instead played up their significance were usually different interpreters. The two exceptions to this are Calvin, who alluded to the aggravating role of the experiences, and Gouge, who held that these were initial and lesser experiences which ought to lead on to fuller and greater experiences: Gouge rebuked those who contented themselves with a bare taste and did not desire after more of what they had been given.[20]

Jonathan Edwards highlighted the guilt that would be incurred by rejecting the privileges entailed by the markers, and Matthew Henry also emphasized their value when he said that Heb 6:4–6 showed “show “how far a person may go in religion, and, after all, fall away, and perish forever.”[21]

Some Reformed interpreters did indeed highlight the positive value these experiences were meant to have.

But by far the most emphatic valuing of the markers of Heb 6:4–6 comes from John Owen. He strongly played up their value (unfortunately, some of his efforts in this direction are tucked away in Perseverance book as part of a rebuttal to John Goodwin).

On the enlightening mentioned at the beginning of the passage, Owen refers several times to it as a “great mercy, a great privilege.”[22]

On the act of “tasting”, it is important to pay careful attention to how Owen precisely understood the significance of the term. Owen advocates understanding the verb γεύω (‘to taste’) on its own terms rather than in relation to eating and digesting. Γεύω is certainly diminutive when compared with eating and drinking, but here in Heb 6 and without regard to those related terms, he says “it denotes that apprehension and experience of the excellency of the gospel as administered by the Spirit, which is a great privilege and spiritual advantage, the contempt whereof will prove an unspeakable aggravation of the sin, and the remediless ruin of apostates.”[23]

In response to the Arminian theologian John Goodwin, in his book on Perseverance, Owen concurs that the “tasting” in view here is not an “extenuating expression” (i.e. downplaying, as other Reformed authors would understand it) but rather an aggravating factor in their apostasy.

He notes that “tasting” can denote a full or temporary experience (i.e. tasting followed by eating, or tasting without continuing to feed but rather ultimately rejecting) but argues that this makes no difference in light of the scope of the passage.[24]

5.    Conclusions:

For many early Calvinistic interpreters of Heb 6:4–6, much of the focus was on what the markers were not. This was in response to questions about the coherence between doctrine and text, or Arminian polemic against the doctrine of perseverance. This focus is shown by the content of the commentaries being dominated by material showing how Heb 6:4–6 referred to common graces rather than special graces, material which diminished the significance of the experiences in those verses, as well as material which demonstrated a consistency with other biblical texts showing false conversions, and other theological rationalizations.

While each of these strategies can stand or fall on their own merit, what I want to point out is that the matter of perseverance was a question that could become the primary question that Heb 6:4–6 was required to answer. Because of this, interpretations emerged which might fairly be recognised as a diversion from or even a distortion of the subject matter of the text. John Gill was probably the most egregious example of this.

However, some of these interpreters—particularly John Owen—were better able to grasp the purpose that Heb 6:4–6 had on its own terms, recognising the role the passage played in the author’s own purposes. This showed interpreters asking a question that was more appropriate to the subject matter of this text, while still offering an interpretation which preserved the doctrine of perseverance.

The subsequent history of Reformed interpretation of this passage shows the impact of the dominance of a different “question” to that which Heb 6:4–6 was aiming to “answer.”

The later cultural or theological memory of Calvinist interpretations of this passage is dominated by interpreters like Gill, who allowed their theological criticism to override more careful historical and literary analysis (Owen might just have been too long-winded for many people to read and be informed by!). This, I believe, resulted in some later Calvinists in the nineteenth century rejecting a traditional Reformed interpretation in favour of other solutions which aimed to interpret Heb 6:4–6 in good conscience and preserve Perseverance.

---

---

[1] David P. Parris, Reception Theory and Biblical Hermeneutics, PTMS 107 (Eugene: Pickwick, 2009), 44. Parris draws on the work of Gadamer and Jauss. See also the following comment by Tait: “It may be that when we have examined and tested the various solutions, none of them totally satisfies. When in our study of the Scriptures we encounter a persistent difficulty or dissatisfaction, the possibility has to be considered whether we may not be asking the wrong question,” Henry A. G. Tait, “The Problem of Apostasy in Hebrews,” in Pulpit & People: Essays in Honour of William Still on His 75th Birthday, ed. Nigel M. de S. Cameron and Sinclair B. Ferguson (Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 1986), 139. I disagree with the conclusion Tait reaches in his essay.

[2] John Goodwin, Redemption Redeemed: Wherein the Most Glorious Work of the Redemption of the World by Jesus Christ, Is Vindicated against the Encroachments of Later Times: With a Thorough Discussion of the Great Questions Concerning Election, Reprobation, and the Perseverance of the Saints (London: Thomas Tegg, 1860), 386, 388; cf. Henry Knapp, “John Owen’s Interpretation of Hebrews 6:4–6: Eternal Perseverance of the Saints in Puritan Exegesis,” Sixt. Century J. 34.1 (2003): 34–35.

[3] Robert Duncan, An Exposition of the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews (Edinburgh: Robert Ogle, & Oliver & Boyd, 1844), 120.

[4] David Dickson, A Short Explanation of the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrewes (Aberdeen: Edw. Raban., 1635), 91.

[5] Edward Dering, XXVII Lectures, or Readings, Vpon Part of the Epistle to the Hebrues (London: NP, 1590), 449; cf. William Gouge, A Commentary on the Whole Epistle to the Hebrews (Edinburgh/London, 1866), 2:13–15; cf. John Gill, An Exposition of the New Testament (London: Aaron Ward, 1748), 3:381–82.

[6] John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, 24 vols. (London: Banner of Truth, 1991), 11:646, emphasis added. He does not make this comment in his Exposition. Cf. Owen’s comments on Heb 10:26 where he argues via 10:23 that those rejecting the faith are merely those who had made profession of faith; John Owen, An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews with Preliminary Exercitations, ed. William H. Goold (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1991), 6:530.

[7] Dering, Lectures on Hebrews, 446–49; cf. Gouge, Hebrews, 2:14–15; John Diodati, Pious Annotations Upon the Holy Bible (London: Nicolas Fussel, 1648), 59; Matthew Poole, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (London: Banner of Truth, 1969), 3:831–32.

[8] John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews, trans. John Owen (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1989), 138.

[9] Note “edge of lips” phrase.

[10] Gouge, Hebrews, 2:15. Emphasis mine.

[11] Diodati, Annotations, 59. Emphasis mine.

[12] Diodati, Annotations, 59.

[13] John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the New Testament (London: R.W., 1656), 674.

[14] Duncan, Hebrews, 119.

[15] Duncan, Hebrews, 119.

[16] Gill, Exposition of the New Testament, 3:381.

[17] Gill, Exposition of the New Testament, 3:382.

[18] Knapp, “Owen’s Interpretation of Heb 6:4–6,” 47; Sinclair B. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1987), 233.

[19] Calvin, Commentary on Hebrews, 136; Dickson, Hebrews, 27, [other edition].

[20] Calvin, Commentary on Hebrews, 136; Gouge, Hebrews, 2:16.

[21] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, ed. Stephen J. Stein (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1998), 15:176–77, 272; Matthew Henry, An Exposition of the Old and New Testament, ed. George Burder and Joseph Hughes, First American Edition. (Philadelphia: Ed. Barrington & Geo. D. Haswell, 1828), 6.717 emphasis mine.

[22] Owen, Hebrews, 5.75.

[23] Owen, Hebrews, 5:80. Emphasis added.

[24] Owen, Works, 11:649-651; cf. Knapp, “Understanding the Mind of God,” 345–46; Knapp, “Owen’s Interpretation of Heb 6:4-6,” 42; Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 235; Owen, Works, 2:246; 20:359.