by Lane Rogers

The Peril of Falling Away

I. A Few definitions of words

A. "the elementary teachings about Christ" is literally "the word of the beginning of Christ."

"let us press on to maturity" means a swift or energetic movement.

B. As F. F. Bruce comments, the opening words of this section are surprising since in the former verses, they were scolded and told they were not even able yet to understand the teachings about Melchizedek because they were so immature. Notice, our author uses the word "therefore." It seems that he is telling these brethren their minds need to be stretched and prepare for the teachings of the priesthood. In other words, you have remained immature much too long.

C. They are then to leave the "first teachings about Christ" and move on. "do not make us start all over again" (lay the foundations of dead works again).

D. Before moving on, the author list some matters of those rudiments they are to leave behind. There are exactly 6 things mentioned.

1. "repentance from dead works"

2. "faith toward God"

3. "the teachings about baptisms"

4. "laying on of hands"

5. "resurrection of the dead"

6. "eternal judgment."

(1) Notice that I have these listed in pairs. For example, the repentance from dead works is directly related to the issue of faith in God.

(2) The teachings about baptism and the laying on of hands are linked.

(3) The resurrection of the dead is closely tied to eternal judgment.

D. Repentance from dead works These are works that must be repented of; in Ch. 9:14 they are works that linger on the conscience. These in my view are not works of law but the remnants on the human conscience left from the failure of the law. Ch. 9 and 10 will tell us that the short coming in the law was precisely because animal sacrifices could not cleanse the conscience. As we will see later on, the dirty conscience will affect our standing before God in His throne room.

E.  Faith toward God then is directly related to the above. That is, why should a Christian have a dirty conscience? We can understand why one might under the law since the consistent killings of animals was required. But in Christianity where we have the promise that our sins are not written down (Romans 4:7-8) and the promise of a continual cleansing (1st John 1:7), there is no excuse not to trust God and of course, that is the meat of the issue. If one has dead works on his/her conscience then that person has not trusted God nor put their faith in God to the extent to cleanse their conscience.

f. The teachings of baptisms. (Here for the Mikvah) If you happen to be on the web while reading this the above article is very good. In it Dr. Moseley explains the Jewish roots of Christian baptism. The early Jews had an elaborate system (sadly translated in the Bible as ceremonial washings) The point of course is that baptism was not a new idea and especially a Jewish group more than any other should have understood the purpose of baptism. For our purpose, we will not elaborate on this at the minute since there is an entire section on this found at http://www.lipanhousechurch.org/index4.html

Now notice the word. Yes, it is plural but it is a reference to the many different washings in the OT. The Mikvah was required when a dead body was touched, when a woman was on her monthly cycle and even washings (baptisms) for unclean pots and pans. It is those "baptisms" "washings" that are no longer valid. The word βαπτισμός is only used when talking about washings prescribed by the Mosaic law and of John's baptism. In no fashion does this say that Christian baptism is done away with. To the contrary. The "washings" or "baptisms" found in the OT were part of the shadow system (Hebrews 10:4ff). If baptisms of the OT were a shadow of things to come in the NT where does that lead one? Right back to Acts 2:38.

g. Laying on of hands__there are several possibilities here as to which laying on of hands out author is addressing. In the OT, laying on of hands was a requirement in the sacrificial system. As related to the sacrifices, it stood for the symbolic transferring of sin from the worshiper to the victim. (Lev. 3:2, 8, 13, , and many more). The laying on of hands was also an early Christian practice associated with the impartation of the Holy Spirit. See Ch. 2:4 and 10:29. This idea is also found through the NT and is called the "Empowering of the Holy Spirit" (see Acts 6: 6) as only one example. Again, in the OT it was used to commission someone to public office and in rabbinical Judaism used as a sense of ordination. (Mishnah, Sanhedrin iv. 4.) For our purposes it is enough to realize that whichever of the above our author is referring to, they were to leave this things and move on.

h. The resurrection of the dead: This doctrine was not a new idea to the New Testament. As we remember, the Pharisees believed in such (Acts 23:8) and it was taught expressly in the Old Testament (cf. Isaiah 26:19; Dan. 12:2.) Jesus pointed this out (see Mark 12:26f). I can well imagine there were endless discussions going on about the resurrection.

i. Eternal Judgment The Jewish belief of the resurrection of the dead was closely related to the idea of eternal judgment. They held that the God of Israel was the God of all the earth and of His people in particular. This was an essential part of OT revelation (Gen. 18:25; Isa. 33:22). His recurring judgments in history will one day be summed up in a final judgment (Dan. 7:9 ff). In this case, eternal judgment is valid for all the ages to come (forever) as opposed to temporal judgments. Eternal judgment was foundational to the OT way of thinking. This put the reader of this letter in a very unique position. If a person who had been converted from paganism renounced Christianity and 'backslid' the likelihood of that individual giving up all of Christian doctrine is high. But these could renounce Christianity by returning to Judaism and still keep some of the same doctrine at minimum concerning the resurrection of the dead. But more to the point, I think the author is saying here that believing in the resurrection of the dead is not a valid thing to do if you renounce Christianity. Believing in the resurrection of the dead in the context of Judaism will not help you.

This is probably one of the most misused passages in the New Testament. For that reason, we have this note. There is a tendency to pull this passage out of the context of the book and assign a meaning to it that the original author never had in mind. If we leave this section of text in the context of the book, we are forced to interpret this part of chapter 6 only in light of what we know has already happened in chapter 2. Notice this passage:

(3) "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard

(4) God also testifying with them by both signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the holy Spirit according to His own will."

The people spoken to in Hebrews chapter 6 were people who resided in a congregation that had been at minimum visited and probably established by an apostle. This apostle distributed miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit (v.4). It then was those people (those who had seen the apostolic miracles and gifts) who had been enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit. They in fact did get a glimpse of the "age to come."

It was those recipients of the letter to the Hebrews that experienced all of this and not us. No living person has witnessed apostolic miracles since the purpose of apostolic miracles was to confirm the Word (the Bible) and that has already been done.

Here is the jest of the argument the Hebrew author is putting forth. God sent an apostle to this congregation with the ability to distribute miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit which you have participated in. God did this to prove to you that this apostle was in fact speaking the Word of God. Yet you now have rejected that and returned back to Judaism. If you won't believe apostolic miracles and gifts of the Spirit, there really isn't anything else that God will do for you. You have reached the (Hapex) or the summit. If what God has done for you did not convince you, the only other thing that might be done is to crucify Christ and start all over again and that will not happen. See notes on Lesson six above for more on chapter 6.

Verse 7-8 Such people (as those above) are compared to land that in spite of cultivation and care refuses to give a good crop. (See Isa. vineyard 5:1ff).

This land and these people are worthless and close to being cursed. They are very near lost. The idea of fire and being burned up is a common one in this book and even describes the actions of God toward people

as these, "our God is a consuming fire."

I. Better times are Coming!

A. Our author is in a hurry here to reassure his readers. He does not believe these people are lost.

B. The reason our author is not thinking so ill of them is the fruits of their righteousness were evident (the things at accompany those saved). He even refers to the readers as "Beloved."

C. V.10--God has been a witness to those fruits. How they labored in love all in the name of God.

Further explanations of the acts of charity and the circumstances they were performed under are elaborated in Ch. 10:32-34.

D. (11-12) But these people need to continue what they started. But the exhortation here is to continue to the end and now our author uses OT examples to explain how faithful God is in keeping His promises that He makes to those who are to inherit salvation.

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Verses 13-15_______________________________________________

I. The example of Abraham being the father of all Christians is an example invoked long before our writer uses it. Even John the Baptist pointed out that something more than a biological descent was necessary for acceptance to God. That is, "God did indeed desire 'Children of Abraham' but if need be, He could bring them into being by His own creative act (Matt. 3:9 and Luke 3:8).

A. We find these same ideas in passages such as Romans 4:3, and Gal. 3:6.

B. James quotes the same passage but uses it to tell us that "faith without works is dead" (Jas. 2:2ff).

C. To our author, the story of Abraham is extremely important, not just for the reasons described above (we are all Abraham's seed) but it is with the story Abraham that we encounter Melchizedek. God's faithfulness to His promise is also related to the promise of the eternal priesthood of Melchizedek. The "two promises" are intrinsically linked together. Once again, the idea is that along with the fulfillment of Abraham's promise, we must also accept the eternal priesthood of Melchizedek.

D. We find the promise Given to Abraham in Gen. 22:16 and following. Our author has already spent a good deal of time discussing Melchizedek. In fact, in the prior chapters (Ch.5) he was upset with these people because they were not ready to be taught about Melchizedek. This discussion on Abraham in chapter 6 is sandwiched between a discussion of Melchizedek in chapter 5 and chapter 7. That is, it is impossible to separate Abraham's promise from the order of Melchizedek.

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I. Our author emphasizes the fact that God repeated His promise to Abraham after offering up Isaac, and confirmed it with an oath.

A. Abraham himself swore by God and made others do the same (Gen. 14:22; 21:23f. 24:3).

B. But our author says that God has none greater than Himself to swear by. God then confirms His own promise. This insistence on the reliability of God's promise to Abraham prepares the reader for the significance of the fact that the order of Melchizedek was also confirmed by an oath: (Ps. 110:4) "YHWH has sworn and will not repent."

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I. There are two unchangeable things

A. God cannot lie.

1. Our author just used the fulfillment of Abraham's promise as proof of that fact.

2. We who have taken refuge can rest assured of our hope.

3. Because, unlike the OT figures who could not go behind the veil in the Temple and approach God, Jesus can go behind the veil, because He is after the order of Melchizedek.

by Dr. Warren L Rogers Ph.D