You may have touched on this in some email responses, but I haven't found one yet. If God crucifies the old man in Rom. 6 and the scriptures also say that we are not to join together what God has put asunder. And we can't open what God has closed, how does Heb 6:4 refer to Christians falling away. What will they fall away to, or backslide back to the old man if he is dead. I don't know of anyone who can raise the dead except God.
Michael
Actually, Michael, the Scriptures do NOT say that "we are not to join together what God has put asunder." What they say is,
Mar 10:9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Not everyone is "baptized into Jesus Christ." Most are merely baptized in water. They go down dry and come up wet, and other than that there are few changes in their lives. Notice carefully that we are to "Reckon ye also yourselves o be dead indeed unto sin...." If we actually were totally dead to sin, there would be no reason to "reckon." One does not need to "reckon" that which has already been completely accomplished.
Paul goes on to say, Let not sin therefore REIGN in your mortal bodies...." This admonition would be superfluous if it were an impossibility. Paul said he fought his flesh daily so as to not be a "castaway" even after living a godly life for many years (See I Cor. 9:27, etc., etc., etc.).
You ask what Christians will fall away from? Read Jesus' parable of the sower of seed:
Mat 13:18 Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.
Mat 13:19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.
Mat 13:20 But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;
Mat 13:21 Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.
Mat 13:22 He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.
These are some of the ways that Christians fall away. And the reason they fall victim to these pulls of the flesh and sins of the world is that the "old man" has NOT died in them. That is why one needs to be baptized into Jesus Christ, rather than into water.
Jesus has plainly taught that "He that endures unto the END, the same SHALL BE [even then it is yet future] saved." Jesus wasn't lying when He said these words.
God be with you,
Ray
