Great stories are told by Preachers that wish to toss away the teaching of Apostasy today. I have heard many good men, I do mean good men, go to great lengths to show how God does not mean that a believer can commit apostasy but that the apostate was really only a pretender, just someone that liked religion but never made a true confession and conversion to Christianity.

One of the favorite ways of describing these pretenders is to say that they only nibbled on salvation, they never really completely swallowed or partook of God’s Grace.

I was talking to a Calvinistic friend of mine once and I took him to Heb 6:4 and we were talking about how this obviously “my was talking about people who had been Christians, in fact my argument was that these people could be nothing less than genuine Christians because of the great length Paul goes through explaining these Christians and what they had experienced, which is common to all Christian experience.

The next day I was given a page copied out of a commentary by my friend, I can’t remember which one it was, but the commentators view was to show how this verse 4 and 5 does not explain a Christian at all but He showed how that each explanation showed a person that had only come close to being saved.

His statement on “v.4 and have tasted of the heavenly gift, v.5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,” was completely unexpected. He stated that the word “taste and tasted” meant that the person had only nibbled on salvation and had not completely experienced salvation.

Well you can assume how I felt, not being a Greek scholar and having never written a commentary, I was floored. So I got out the old trusty concordance and I started looking, I did not have to look to far. Heb 2:9 is a great example of how this word” tasted” found in the Strong’s Concordance under number G1089 is used. The definition of this word tasted γεύομαι, geuomai ghyoo’-om-ahee: A primary verb; to taste; by implication to eat; figuratively to experience (good or ill): – eat, taste. Used figuratively to experience whether good or ill, that makes perfect sense because if we read Hebrews 2:9 or 6:4,5 naturally we get the sense that is what is exactly being said.

Christ did not taste death, death has no literal taste, He experienced death. Just as those in Heb 6:4,5 experienced the heavenly gift, and experienced the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come. My friend did not take this well and to be honest he was not persuaded. It is hard for a man to change his mind on something he has so committed himself to.

Notice how Vine”s Complete Expository Dictionary Old and New Testament Words handles this problem, Vine being very Calvinistic with Eternal Security. On page 619 under the definition for taste, (b) metaphorically, of Christ’s “tasting” death, implying His personal experience in voluntarily undergoing death, Heb 2:9; of believers (negatively) as to “tasting” of death, Matt 16:28; Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27; John 8:52; of “tasting” the heavenly gift (different from receiving it), Heb 6:4; “the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come,” Heb 6:5.

Notice how his commentary is very different when it comes to those who tasted it in Heb 6:4,5, that the use of the word gets changed so as to not allow for the literal natural use. Clearly he lets his interpretation dictate the meaning of the word taste rather than allowing the meaning of the word to dictate his interpretation. So the conclusion we get is that according to Vine’s, it doesn’t mean what it says. Since his definition supports “once saved always saved” you will not hear any objections from Calvinist because the important thing is to preserve the doctrine. Rules of Biblical Interpretation get thrown out when obstructions to Calvinism are meet.

Heb 6:4,5 mean exactly what it says, these are Christians. We know they are Christians because those of us who are Christians have experienced exactly the same as these. We have been enlightened, we have tasted of the heavenly gift “Salvation”, we have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and we have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come. This explains my experience as a Christian and probably yours too. It also explains the experience of the Christians Paul was writing to that were in danger of turning from Christ and going back to Judiasm.