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John MacArthur, Daily Study Bible

on Hebrews 6:4

"Understanding the gospel is not the equivalent of salvation (1137).

Hebrews 6:4-6

This "immediate context has no mention of [the listeners'] being saved....they were unbelievers who had been exposed to God's redemptive truth and, perhaps, had made a profession of faith but had not exercised genuine saving faith..., people who come in contact with the gospel but are spiritually unchanged by it. Apostate[s] are Christians in name only, not genuine believers who are often incorrectly thought to lose their salvation because of their sins. There is no possibility of these verses['] referring to [loss of] salvation. Many Scripture passages make unmistakenly clear that salvation is eternal (...John 10:27-29; Rom. 8:35, 38-39; Phil. 1:6; I Pet. 1:4-4). Those who want to make this passage mean that believers can lose salvation will have to admit that it would then also make the point that one could never get it back again" (1138).