If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
If, х kai (G2532) parapesontas (G3895)] - 'And (yet) have fallen away' (cf. a less extreme declension, Galatians 5:4). Here a total apostasy is meant. The Hebrews had not yet so fallen away; but he warns them that such would be the end of retrogression, if, instead of 'going on to perfection,' they should need to learn again the first principles (Hebrews 6:1).
To renew them again. "Once" (Hebrews 6:4) already made anew, now they need 'renewal' over "again."
Crucify to themselves - `are crucifying to themselves' Christ, instead of crucifying the world unto them by the cross of Christ (Galatians 6:14). So Hebrews 10:29.
The Son of God - His dignity marks the heinousness of their offence.
Put him to an open shame, х paradeigmatizontas (G3856)] - 'make a public example of' Him, as of a malefactor suspended on a tree. What the carnal Israel did outwardly, those who fall away from light do inwardly: they virtually crucify again the Son of God: 'they tear Him out of their hearts, where He fixed His abode, and exhibit Him to the open scoffs of the world as something powerless and common' (Bleek in Alford). The Montanists and Novatians used this passage to justify the lasting exclusion from the Church of the lapsed. The Catholic Church always opposed this, and re-admitted them on repentance, without re-baptism. Persons may be in some sense 'renewed' yet fall away finally; for "renew ... again" implies that they have been ONCE RENEWED; but not that 'the elect' can fall away (John 10:28). A temporary faith is possible, without one thereby being of the elect (Mark 4:16-17; John 8:31; John 8:35; John 15:2; John 15:5-6).
God's grace is not limited, as if it were "impossible" for God to reclaim even such a rebel so as yet to look on Him whom he has pierced. The impossibility rests in their having known in themselves once the power of Christ's sacrifice, yet now rejecting it: there cannot possibly be new means for their renewal afresh: the means provided by God's love they now, after experience of them, deliberately and continuously reject: their conscience being seared, "twice dead" (Jude 1:12), they are past hope, except by a miracle of God's grace. 'It is the curse of evil eternally to propagate evil. The bar to repentance is in the apostate's present attitude toward God, not in his past history, nor in God's attitude toward him. He who abides not in the Christian experiences which he had objectively, was, at the very time when he had them, not subjectively true to them; otherwise, on the principle, "Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance" (Matthew 13:12), he would have abided in them, and not have fallen away' (Tholuck). Such a one was never a Spirit-led disciple of Christ (Romans 8:14-17). The sin against the Holy Spirit, though similar, is not identical with this; for that may be committed by those outside the church (as in Matthew 12:24; Matthew 12:31-32); this, only by those inside.