In the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.
For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.
Of the possible interpretations of this passage, the one that does not contradict the scriptures' teaching that God responds to whomever calls on him in truth would say that the impossibility of return after apostasy is found within the nature of the human soul, rather than in God's patience running out before the judgement day. I have experienced something like this myself. Old enthusiasms, once renounced, are difficult to renew in the soul. The more involved the experience renounced, the more final the renouncement.
This leads me to wonder whether a similar phenomena is found in a society. Do we come up through American culture with a sense about religion that "we've been there and found it false?" Do we have a predisposition against the supernatural because of the great apostasy our nation underwent at one time? Is this why it is so difficult to convert our countrymen to a true, traditional Christian faith?
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