Commenting on the phrase εἰς τὸ παντελὲς (KJV: "to the
uttermost") in Heb 7:25, Barnabas Lindars wrote the following:
‘Always’ (eis to pantales) used only here and in
Luke 13.11 in the NT, can mean either ‘to the completion of time’, i.e. ‘always’,
or ‘to the completion of the purpose’, i.e. ‘absolutely’ (so NEB). ‘Always’
(better ‘for all time’) seems to me preferable because the point is that atonement is available to the readers both now and to
the end. (Barnabas Lindars, The
Theology of the Letter to the Hebrews [New Testament Theology; Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991], 78 n. 78, emphasis in bold added)
In other words, for Lindars, the phrase is not a statement that, contra
many Calvinists, that the believer could never lose their salvation and cease
to draw to the Father through Christ (which flies in the fact of sound exegesis
of Heb 6:4-6 and 10:26-29) but that the atoning sacrifice of Christ is
available to all those who place their faith in Christ, supportive of
universal, not particular/limited atonement.
