6:4
These verses are ones that cause a lot of trouble amongst Christians, they are also ones where we need to make sure that we hear what God is saying, rather than trying to make the text fit into our preconceived ideas. So what is it clearly saying? It is saying that we need to take God’s word most seriously, there is absolutely no place for a casual attitude towards God, His word or His gospel.
The NIV has an unfortunate habit of missing out the word “for”, as it does here in v4 (see ESV). What is said here follows on from what has just been said. So when the writer speaks of “once been enlightened”, he probably means that when we first hear and believe the gospel we are enlightened, we have tasted the gospel, which is the heavenly gift. Ie the gospel comes from God, it is not man made, but is God’s gift to mankind. And we need the Holy Spirit to open our eyes in the first place, and then by the Spirit we are born again.
6:5
Once we are born again we taste the goodness of the word of God. We have a living experience of it, it cleanses us, it brings life into our lives. It brings love, joy and peace. We experience the “powers of the age to come”. We start to experience something of eternal life. There is, of course, much more to come, but we get a foretaste of it. So whatever else the writer is saying here, he is most definitely speaking of those who have had a genuine experience of meeting God, it is not nominal Christians. Something real had happened to them.
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