Active Faith: From Tasting to Trusting
The book of Hebrews calls us to a new level of faith.
Mature faith that introduces us into God’s promises and leads us to a godly life.
Today, we will start a series we are calling Active Faith.
This series reaches its high point in Hebrews 11, but we will start in chapter 6 today.
We will try to address the controversies related to this chapter, which is often taken as the ultimate statement of “losing one’s salvation,” when the context clearly aims to give assurance of eternal salvation and to persuade readers to a godly, fraternal, serving and generous life.
God calls us to abandon self-righteousness and to trust completely in Christ’s completed work.
Beyond mere intellectual understanding and emotional excitement, God desires real conversion and sincere trust in His word.
Hebrews 6:1-2 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
Hebrews 6 says the Christian faith has basic starter truths. Like the concrete slab a house sits on.
Christian life starts with a foundation, but can’t stay there.
Here are the six truths in this chapter. Scholars understand them as three pairs.
The first pair is Repentance from dead works and Faith in God.
Repentance from dead works:
It is very important to define repentance here.
Repentance in Hebrews 6 is not a mood, an emotional state—it’s a change of mind (μετάνοια), a turning from one way of thinking to another.
Sometimes that change comes with grief and remorse: you realize you’ve trusted yourself, your performance, your religion, your “good deeds,” and you feel the weight of how empty and exhausting that striving has been. So you grieve. You commit a wrongdoing and regret that, so you mourn your wrongs.
But repentance can also come with joy—because the moment you finally see that you can’t buy what God only gives, it’s a relief, not a funeral.
It’s like a person who has been working overtime to pay off a debt, only to discover the debt was already paid in full; they might feel sorrow for the wasted years, but they also laugh with joy at the freedom.
In Hebrews 6, the context shows that repentance here was turning away from trying to earn God’s acceptance through performance, religion cerimonies, or self-effort.
We repent from dead works by changing our mind about trying to earn God’s approval through performance, religious effort, or “good deeds as payment,” and we put faith in God by resting in what Christ has already finished for us;
The second truth is linked to the first one.
Faith toward God
Faith toward God is the other side of repentance from dead works: when you change your mind about earning, you must also choose what you will trust instead.
Repentance says, “I’m done paying with performance,” and faith says, “I will rest in what God has provided—Jesus has already finished the work.”
So faith isn’t just believing the Cross happened; it’s placing your full confidence in the Cross as enough for your acceptance, your forgiveness, and your future.
It’s like a person who has been trying to climb to God on a ladder of good deeds, only to realize the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.
Repentance is when you step off the ladder, and faith means you start walking on the solid ground of Christ.
It is when you stop serving God to be loved and start serving because you are loved; you stop obeying out of fear and begin obeying out of trust.
The second pair is Instructions about washings and laying on of hands.
Instructions about washings (baptisms)
Remember that this letter is written to a Jewish audience; therefore, "Instructions on washings” addresses the differences between many of the Jewish purification rituals and the once-for-all Christian baptism.
Under the Law, “washings” included repeated purification rituals such as (1) priestly washing at the bronze basin before approaching God’s service (Exodus 30:17–21), (2) washing clothes and bathing after becoming ceremonially unclean through bodily discharges (Leviticus 15:5–13), and (3) purification using “water for impurity” after contact with a dead body (Numbers 19:17–19).
Once you stop trusting dead works and start trusting God, the next most basic step is to accept that your old life has ended and a new identity has begun. You do that through baptism.
Your baptism is the funeral of your old practices, the end of the old man, the closing of a chapter where you tried to define yourself by effort, cycles of sin, or attempts toward self-salvation.
Baptism is when you are identified with Christ. Practically, this means when you’re tempted to return to old patterns—whether shame, striving, or religious performance—you remind your soul:
“That person died with Christ through the baptism; I’m not living that life again.”
Active faith doesn’t just feel cleansed; it walks as someone cleansed—leaving the old behind and living from the new life God has given.
Laying on of hands is the companion truth to the teaching on washings.
Laying on of hands
If continuous washings are compared to the once-and-for-all baptism, now the comparison is turned to the laying on of hands.
In the Old Testament, when a worshiper laid hands on the sacrifice, it was a moment of imparting and transfer of sin and curses:
“This animal, that would be sacrificed, now represents me, with my sins and my curses.”
Leviticus 1:4 — “He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.”
Now, in the New Covenant, laying on of hands is the way God wants His gifts, not sin or curses, to be transferred to one another.
Laying on of hands is the way we bless one another.
Today, laying on of hands is used to transmit spiritual gifts, anointings, and impartation.
The final pair is the Resurrection of the dead and the Eternal judgment.
The resurrection of the dead
In the Old Testament “law-and-temple” world, the resurrection of the dead was a real hope, but it sat mostly on the horizon. No certainty guaranteed. Youcan perceive that in some of the Psalms, such as Psalm 88.
Psalms 88:1-3 O LORD, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you.
2 Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry!
3 For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol.
Psalms 88:10-12 Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah
11 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
12 Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
In the New Covenant, the resurrection becomes clearer and closer because it is anchored to a historical fact: Jesus has already died and risen. So resurrection isn’t just a distant doctrine we agree with, it’s a secured promise we stand on.
Under the old covenant, the believer looked forward, saying, “God can raise the dead”; under the new covenant, the believer looks to Christ and says, “God has raised Christ, therefore my future is guaranteed.”
We don’t cling to rituals to feel safe—we rest in Christ’s finished work, and we live today with steady hope because resurrection life is not a wish, it’s a certainty established by the empty tomb.
1 Corinthians 15:53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
When your body is weak, when a situation looks “dead,” when you grieve, don’t collapse into despair. Stand and say, “Because Jesus conquered death, my future is secure, and God can bring life where I see none.”
In Christ, and even if the worst happens, death doesn’t win; God raises the dead and fulfills His promises.
Philippians 1:21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
The final foundational truth concerns eternal judgment. That is paired with Resurrection of the Dead because both look ahead—your future is resurrection, not condemnation
The Eternal judgment
In the Old Testament Hebrew worldview, eternal judgment was understood through the covenant lens of God as the holy Judge who holds His people and the nations accountable, with a coming day when God would set everything right—rewarding the righteous and judging the wicked.
Ecclesiastes 12:14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
The New Testament sharpens this truth around Christ: judgment is still real and final, yet for those in Christ, it is no longer a terror of condemnation because Jesus has borne condemnation in our place.
Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
The Old Covenant highlighted God’s holiness over the sinners, while the New Covenant proclaims that whoever actively trusts in Jesus will face God’s holy judgment and be secure from condemnation.
Romans 5:9 — “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.”
Yet the one who rejects Christ remains under judgment because there is no other remedy.
The danger
Hebrews 6:3 And this we will do if God permits.
The author of Hebrews mentioned only six essential truths and focused on the major danger facing Hebrew believers.
The true danger is not that a believer did not profoundly understand all the implications of those truths and end up stumbling or missing the fullness of God’s promises and plans.
The problem was that some listeners of the word, church goers, sympathetic to the faith, people who had been near the truth, were now rejecting Christ and going back to the sacrifice system of the Law.
In our case, some church attenders, religious ones, have not yet completely given their lives to Jesus.
Some who have experienced the supernatural, even tasted miracles, are convinced of the truth, but are not converted to the truth yet.
These people were having the same problem as the Galatians.
Galatians 5:1-4 1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.
Their faith was not fully and completely on the Son of God.
They were going back to the:
“But if I do this or do that?” “But if I do not do this or that?”
They were refusing the only sacrifice that saves.
Definitions before contradictions
Important definitions for the reading of Hebrews 6.
“Falling” here does not mean “falling into sin,” but it means “falling from grace into the law.” It means returning to a religious consciousness and to a merit-based system. Like the Galatians.
“Tasted” here means experience superficially and emotionally, but with no full commitment to the implications of that experience.
You can “taste" and still not drink (Matthew 27:34). People can come to the church and have an intellectual agreement, or an emotional experience and still be without saving faith (James 2:19 says “even the demons believe—and shudder”).
Like Judas Iscariot, Judas “was numbered among us…,” yet “turned aside to go to his own place.” (Acts 1:17, 25.)
Two types of readers are referred to in the text: “Those” (Heb 6:4) and “Beloved” (Heb. 6:9).
“ Those” are not saved, are not born-again believers; they are church attenders and sympathetic with the faith.
Finally, don’t trade the clear, established truth of the gospel for an obscure, confusing interpretation that shakes your confidence in Christ. It’s amazing how people can ignore the many passages that clearly teach salvation is God’s gift, and then cling to one difficult text as if it cancels everything else.
John 10:28–29 (ESV). Here are Jesus’ words:
“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”
The gospel is simple: Jesus finished the work, and we receive it by faith for eternal salvation.
When a hard passage like Hebrews 6 confronts you, don’t let it overthrow what God has repeatedly made plain—read it in context, read it through the Cross, and let the clear Scriptures interpret the unclear.
Hebrews 6:4-9 4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. 7 For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
9 Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation.
From tasting to complete trust
The passage describes people who came very close to God, but never crossed the line into saving faith.
They were enlightened—they understood truth with the mind.
They tasted the heavenly gift—they sampled the reality of grace.
They shared in the Holy Spirit—they were around the Spirit’s activity in the church, benefited from it, and even witnessed power.
They tasted the goodness of the Word of God—they heard it, felt it, and were impacted by it.
They experienced the powers of the age to come—they saw glimpses of the kingdom breaking in. But notice the repeated language: tasted… tasted… That is proximity without possession.
That is exposure without surrender. That is emotion without conversion.
And then the text says something terrifying: “and then have fallen away.” This does not describe a believer who stumbled in sin and now can’t come home. (Remember the Prodigal - Luke 15).
This describes a person who was near grace and then deliberately turned back—back to rituals, to self-righteousness, back to religious performance, back to dead works, back to “I will handle righteousness my way.” In the Hebrews setting, it looked like returning to temple sacrifices as if Jesus’ sacrifice wasn’t enough. In our setting, it looks like someone who hears “It is finished,” but chooses “I will finish it myself.”
That is a person who came very close to the truth about Jesus—heard it, understood it, even felt its power—but then deliberately turns away and rejects Christ. Because they keep choosing, “I don’t want Jesus’ sacrifice,” they become harder and harder inside, until they won’t change their mind anymore—so it becomes “impossible to restore them to repentance,” not because God lacks mercy, but because they have settled into stubborn refusal.
By rejecting Jesus after knowing what He did, they are treating His Cross like it’s worthless—like He must be condemned again, like His sacrifice wasn’t enough. In other words, they are saying with their actions, “I don’t want the only sacrifice that saves.”
That’s why the writer says it becomes “impossible to restore them again to repentance”—because repentance here is a change of mind, and hardened rejection reaches a point where a person no longer wants that change.
And the text explains why: “since they are crucifying once again the Son of God… and holding him up to contempt.” They’re re-crucifying Jesus in meaning—declaring with their choices that His Cross is not sufficient, not final, not enough. They treat the only sacrifice God accepts as something to be replaced by human effort.
And the logic is simple: if you reject the only remedy, there is no other remedy left.
Don’t confuse tasting with trusting.
Many people taste: they taste worship, taste an atmosphere, taste a powerful meeting, taste a word that moves them, taste the presence of God—and they assume that because they felt something, they have faith. But feelings are not faith. Tears are not faith. Goosebumps are not faith. Faith is a decision of trust.
Good land “drinks” the rain
The rain is the repeated exposure to grace—hearing the gospel, being enlightened, tasting the Word, even being near the Spirit’s activity.
But good land “drinks” the rain and produces a useful crop—meaning the heart truly receives Christ, rests in His finished work, and the result is the fulfillment of God’s purpose in your life.
Bad land also gets the same rain.
Does this metaphor remind you of a parable?
Mark 4:5-7 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. 6 And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.
Hard land also gets the same rain, but it refuses to drink; instead of fruit, it produces thorns and thistles—a life still ruled by self-understanding and self-righteousness, and ultimately rejection of the only sacrifice that saves.
If you keep sampling truth without surrender, you harden into barrenness; but if you truly receive the gospel, your life becomes fruitful and you “receive a blessing from God.”
Heb. 6:9 Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation.
Conclusion:
When condemnation hits, you don’t run to dead works to feel clean—you run to Christ.
When you fail, you don’t hide in shame—you return in confidence because your standing is in His blood, not your record.
When you feel numb and empty, you don’t chase an emotional high—you cling to the Cross and say, “My salvation is not measured by my feelings; it is secured by Christ’s finished work.”
Beloved, God never called you to live on samples. He called you to live on substance.
He didn’t invite you to taste grace occasionally; He invited you to drink deeply and be made new.
Today, the call is simple: stop tasting and start trusting.
Place your full weight on Jesus.
Let God carry you forward into maturity—because the fullness of His promise is not for those who merely visit grace; it’s for those who trust in Christ completely and walk by active faith.
