Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Hebrews 6:6

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Hebrews 6:6. If they shall fall away — και παραπεσοντας And having fallen away. I can express my own mind on this translation nearly in the words of Dr. Macknight: "The participles φωτισθεντας, who were enlightened, γευσαμενους, have tasted, and γενηθεντας, were made partakers, being aorists, are properly rendered by our translators in the past time; wherefore, παραπεσοντας, being an aorist, ought likewise to have been translated in the past time, HAVE fallen away. Nevertheless, our translators, following Beza, who without any authority from ancient MSS. has inserted in his version the word si, if, have rendered this clause, IF they fall away, that this text might not appear to contradict the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. But as no translator should take upon him to add to or alter the Scriptures, for the sake of any favourite doctrine, I have translated παραπεσοντας in the past time, have fallen away, according to the true import of the word, as standing in connection with the other aorists in the preceding verses."

Dr. Macknight was a Calvinist, and he was a thorough scholar and an honest man; but, professing to give a translation of the epistle, he consulted not his creed but his candour. Had our translators, who were excellent and learned men, leaned less to their own peculiar creed in the present authorized version, the Church of Christ in this country would not have been agitated and torn as it has been with polemical divinity.

It appears from this, whatever sentiment may gain or lose by it, that there is a fearful possibility of falling away from the grace of God; and if this scripture did not say so, there are many that do say so. And were there no scripture express on this subject, the nature of the present state of man, which is a state of probation or trial, must necessarily imply it. Let him who most assuredly standeth, take heed lest he fall.

To renew them again unto repentance — As repentance is the first step that a sinner must take in order to return to God, and as sorrow for sin must be useless in itself unless there be a proper sacrificial offering, these having rejected the only available sacrifice, their repentance for sin, had they any, would be nugatory, and their salvation impossible on this simple account; and this is the very reason which the apostle immediately subjoins:-

Seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God — They reject him on the ground that he was an impostor, and justly put to death. And thus they are said to crucify him to themselves-to do that in their present apostasy which the Jews did; and they show thereby that, had they been present when he was crucified, they would have joined with his murderers.

And put him to an open shame. — παραδειγματιζοντας. And have made him a public example; or, crucifying unto themselves and making the Son of God a public example. That is, they show openly that they judge Jesus Christ to have been worthy of the death which he suffered, and was justly made a public example by being crucified. This shows that it is final apostasy, by the total rejection of the Gospel, and blasphemy of the Saviour of men, that the apostle has in view. See the note on "Hebrews 6:4".

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

5:11-6:20 CHRISTIAN GROWTH AND PERSEVERANCE

Warning to the unstable (5:11-6:8)

The writer would like to say more about Christ’s priesthood, but he feels his readers will not understand. Instead of being mature Christians they are spiritual babes, in spite of having received so much instruction in the Scriptures that by now they should be teachers themselves (11-12). They have not made the effort to study and understand the Word, and therefore are not able to apply its teachings to life’s problems. Like children who have to be fed on milk, they have no ability to decide for themselves, but can only follow the lead of others. Mature Christians, by contrast, are like adults who can eat any food. They have trained themselves to discern between what is good and what is not (13-14).
Many Jews were of the childish kind just described. They said they were Christians, but they had made no progress. They seem to have merely added the name of Christianity to their former Jewish beliefs. Christianity, like Judaism, includes belief in sin, repentance, faith, cleansing, resurrection and final judgment, but Christianity involves more than mere acceptance of certain truths. If people do not progress beyond these basic beliefs, their Christian profession may soon be in danger. When persecution makes it uncomfortable for them to be known as Christians, they might give in to the temptation to go back to Judaism without changing their beliefs (6:1-3).
Christianity is not another name for Judaism. It completely replaces it, because Christ’s death on the cross has made Judaism dead and useless. If people have joined in the life of the church and tasted the blessings that come through Christ’s death, then deliberately renounce Christ, nothing is left for them but judgment. They have disowned and shamed Christ by an action similar to that of the people who crucified him (4-6).
Just as all the earth receives rain, so all who meet in the church receive God’s blessings. But as some soil later proves to be bad, so some in the church later prove to be without life. Those with true faith prove it by their perseverance (7-8).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

For as touching those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

It is astonishing to behold the lengths to which people have gone in their writings to diminish the plain import of these words. The Calvinistic concept of the impossibility of apostasy, or the final perseverance of the saints, has always been nothing but a delusion. All efforts to resolve the matter by the judgment upon apostates to the effect that they were never really converted fail in the light of this passage, where there can be no doubt of the true conversion of them that later fell away. As Bruce noted, the passage can be abused in two ways. He said,

This warning has both been unduly minimized and unduly exaggerated … (as by them that say) the sin in question cannot be committed today … The warning of this passage is a real warning against a real danger … On the other hand, our author’s meaning can be exaggerated to the point of distortion when he is understood to say that for sins committed after baptism there can be no repentance. F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1967), p. 122.

The most difficult word in this passage is "impossible," which seems to perplex most of the writers. Macknight wrote that "The apostle does not mean that it is impossible for God to renew a second time an apostate; but that it is impossible for the ministers of Christ (to do so)." James Macknight, Apostolic Epistles (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Company, 1960), p. 532. Allow that God might indeed do what is here called impossible does no violence to truth, since all things are possible with God, except that he should lie or deny himself; and if the renewing of an apostate is not an action included in that exception, it would, of course, be possible with God. But the practical impossibility still stands; and it appears likely that the state here described as "impossible" of renewal should be identified with the "eternal sin" of Mark 3:28. Barmby noted this, saying,

The correspondence between the state here described and the consequence of "the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost" suggests itself at once; our Lord’s words, in speaking of that unpardonable sin, being rightly supposed to point to obduracy in spite of experience of the Holy Spirit’s power. J. Barmby, The Pulpit Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962), Vol. 21, Hebrews, p. 160.

AN ETERNAL SIN

A careful reading of Mark 3:28 and context reveals that the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is designated as "an eternal sin," thus one of a class of sins that are called eternal and which are without forgiveness. In addition to the scripture before us, there are other New Testament passages bearing upon this important matter. The Thessalonians were warned, "Quench not the Spirit" (1 Thessalonians 5:19); the pleasure lover was described as "dead while she liveth" (1 Timothy 5:6); willful sin after knowledge of the truth results in there being "no more a sacrifice for sin" (Hebrews 10:26-27); "there is a sin unto death" (1 John 5:16) for which there is not even any need or commandment that people should pray; certain Corinthians were spoken of as being in a state of "sleep" (1 Corinthians 11:30); and Peter described a certain condition as being worse than lost (2 Peter 2:20-21); and the only condition that can answer to such a description is one from which recovery is impossible. All of these words of the Holy Spirit, and including the strong words of the Saviour (Mark 3:28), speak of a condition from which there is no recovery in this life or in the one to come. Yet in spite of terrible warning uttered here, no morbid fear should be allowed to fasten upon the soul as a result. What is spoken of may be simply stated as spiritual death, having its everyday counterpart in physical, or natural death. Once a man is truly dead, life cannot be breathed again into his body, death being final. Just so, once a Christian quenches the sacred Spirit within his soul, that too is final, the destiny of that soul being then and there fully determined.

What then is THE SIN that can cause so fatal and final a result? The answer is ANY SIN engaged in, loved, and preferred over fellowship with God. The sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit was the sin judged by Jesus to have been terminal with the Pharisees; but in making it "an eternal sin," Jesus clearly made room for the view that other sins as well could be just as disastrous. The unpardonable or eternal sin is thus any sin that results in the death of the spiritual life; and therein lies the danger of all sin. The counterpart is in the physical world where the fatal disease is the one inscribed on the death certificate and which varies with all kinds of circumstances. The Christian attitude toward sin should therefore be like that of a mother’s concern over any threatened danger to a child. What mother could be indifferent to a splinter in her child’s knee? She is aware that POTENTIALLY death is involved; and just so the Christian should move against the sin, no matter how slight or inconsequential it might appear. The paranoic fear that some feel in thinking that they might have committed such a sin is unjustified as revealed by the analogy in the natural realm. No person physically dead is concerned about his condition. Thus, no person whose life has already been severed eternally from God could have any feeling of guilt, remorse, or anxiety. "Dead while living" is the apt description.

Fortunately for all people, the spiritual life is quite persistent and hardy; and it may be that relatively few even of those most hardened rebels against God, have actually gone so far as to reach the "impossible" state. Peter’s description of the condition, cited above, does not affirm that those "who are entangled" in sins are in that "worse" state, but those who "are again entangled and OVERCOME."

Then, O child of God, keep the holy fire alive. Just as the vestal virgins of the ancient Roman temple guarded the holy fire with their lives and constant vigilance, so Christians should alertly mind the sacred flame of the Holy Spirit within their hearts.

And then fall away poses the question of the true conversion of those that fell; were they really and truly born again Christians, or were they in some vital manner deficient, either of true faith or of possession of the Holy Spirit? The more one studies this passage, the more it comes through as absolutely certain that those who, in this instance, are spoken of as falling away, were at first good Christians, genuinely converted, enlightened, partakers of the Holy Spirit, and having tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the age to come! If such a description as this does not indicate a truly converted Christian, as distinguished from one who is not really so, it would be impossible to imagine just how it could done at all.

The only thing one needs to give up in order to understand this is Calvinism; and why should any concern be felt over such a speculation as that of Calvin? Angels of God sinned and were cast out of heaven (Judges 1:6; 2 Peter 2:4); Judas, an apostle, fell, and a genuine apostle at that, one who was commissioned to cast out evil spirits and raise the dead (Matthew 10:1-7); even THAT apostle "by transgression fell" (Acts 1:25); and all of the repeated warnings of the holy scriptures against falling — what are those, if they are not stern words designed to keep people back from real dangers? If not what could be their purpose? "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12).

Despite the obvious truth, the bias of Calvinism is discernible in half the commentaries one may read on this passage. Hardly any passage of the New Testament having any bearing on the question has escaped some subtle distortion or outright contradiction. Thus, it is attempted to make out that Judas was never "truly" an apostle, overlooking the fact that one cannot possibly "fall" from an eminence that he has not attained. Again, Simon the sorcerer is usually represented as not having been actually converted; and to support it, the word of Peter to him are sometimes amended to read, "thou art STILL in the gall of bitterness" etc. (Acts 8:23), notwithstanding the colossal fact that the word "still" is not in the text; and not even the present tense is in it, as a glance at the Greek margin will show; for Peter’s words were actually, "thou WILT BECOME gall of bitterness," etc. And as for the question of Simon’s being saved or not, Christ said, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved"; and the inspired writer of Acts said, "Simon also himself believed and being baptized," etc. (Acts 8:13). Was he saved? If the word of God is true, he was saved.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

If they shall fall away - literally, “and having fallen away.” “There is no if in the Greek in this place - “having fallen away.” Dr. John P. Wilson. It is not an affirmation that any had actually fallen away, or that in fact they would do it; but the statement is, that “on the supposition that they had fallen away,” it would be impossible to renew them again. It is the same as supposing a case which in fact might never occur: as if we should say, “had a man fallen down a precipice it would be impossible to save him,” or “had the child fallen into the stream he would certainly have been drowned.” But though this literally means, “having fallen away,” yet the sense in the connection in which it stands is not improperly expressed by our common translation. The Syriac has given a version which is remarkable, not as a correct translation, but as showing what was the prevailing belief in the time in which it was made, (probably the first or second century), in regard to the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. “For it is impossible that they who have been baptized, and who have tasted the gift which is from heaven, and have received the spirit of holiness, and have tasted the good word of God, and the power of the coming age, should again sin, so that they should be renewed again to repentance, and again crucify the Son of God and put him to ignominy.”

The word rendered “fall away” means properly “to fall near by anyone;” “to fall in with or meet;” and thus to fall aside from, to swerve or deviate from; and here means undoubtedly to “apostatize from,” and implies an entire renunciation of Christianity, or a going back to a state of Judaism, paganism, or sin. The Greek word occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It is material to remark here that the apostle does not say that any true Christian ever had fallen away. He makes a statement of what would occur on the supposition that such a thing should happen - but a statement may be made of what would occur on the supposition that a certain thing should take place, and yet it be morally certain that the event never would happen. It would be easy to suppose what would happen if the ocean should overflow a continent, or if the sun should cease to rise, and still there be entire certainty that such an event never would occur.

To renew them again - Implying that they had been before renewed, or had been true Christians. The word “again” - πάλιν palin - supposes this; and this passage, therefore, confirms the considerations suggested above, showing that they were true Christians who were referred to. They had once repented, but it would be impossible to bring them to this state “again.” This declaration of course is to be read in connection with the first clause of Hebrews 6:4, “It is impossible to renew again to repentance those who once were true Christians should they fall away.” I know of no declaration more unambiguous than this. It is a positive declaration. It is not that it would be very difficult to do it; or that it would be impossible for man to do it, though it might be done by God; it is an unequivocal and absolute declaration that it would be utterly impracticable that it should be done by anyone, or by any means; and this, I have no doubt, is the meaning of the apostle. Should a Christian fall from grace, he “must perish.” he never could be saved. The reason of this the apostle immediately adds.

Seeing - This word is not in the Greek, though the sense is expressed. The Greek literally is, “having again crucified to themselves the Son of God.” The “reason” here given is, that the crime would be so great, and they would so effectually exclude themselves from the only plan of salvation, that they could not be saved. There is but one way of salvation. Having tried that, and then renounced it, how could they then be saved? The case is like that of a drowning man. If there was but one plank by which he could be saved, and he should get on that and then push it away and plunge into the deep, he must die. Or if there was but one rope by which the shore could be reached from a wreck, and he should cut that and cast it off, he must die. Or if a man were sick, and there was but one kind of medicine that could possibly restore him, and he should deliberately dash that away, he must die. So in religion. There is “but one” way of salvation. If a man deliberately rejects that, he must perish.

They crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh - Our translators have rendered this as if the Greek were - ἀνασταυροῦντας πάλιν anastaurountas palin - “crucify again,” and so it is rendered by Chrysostom, by Tyndale, Coverdale, Beza, Luther, and others. But this is not properly the meaning of the Greek. The word ἀνασταυρόω anastauroō - is an “intensive” word, and is employed instead of the usual word “to crucify” only to denote “emphasis.” It means that such an act of apostasy would be equivalent to crucifying him in an aggravated manner. Of course this is to be taken “figuratively.” It could not be literally true that they would thus crucify the Redeemer. The meaning is, that their conduct would be “as if” they had crucified him; it would bear a strong resemblance to the act by which the Lord Jesus was publicly rejected and condemned to die. The act of crucifying the Son of God was the great crime which outpeers any other deed of human guilt. Yet the apostle says that should they who had been true Christians fall away and reject him, they would be guilty of a similar crime. It would be a public and solemn act of rejecting him. It would show that if they had been there they would have joined in the cry “crucify him, crucify him.” The “intensity and aggravation” of such a crime perhaps the apostle meant to indicate by the intensive or emphatic ἀνὰ ana in the word ἀνασταυροῦντας anastaurountas. Such an act would render their salvation impossible, because:

(1) The crime would be aggravated beyond that of those who rejected him and put him to death - for they knew not what they did; and,

(2) Because it would be a rejection of the only possible plan of salvation after they had had experience of its power and known its efficacy.

The phrase “to themselves,” Tyndale readers, “as concerning themselves.” Others, “as far as in them lies,” or as far as they have ability to do. Others, “to their own heart.” Probably Grotius has suggested the true sense. “They do it for themselves. They make the act their own. It is as if they did it themselves; and they are to he regarded as having done the deed.” So we make the act of another our own when we authorize it beforehand, or approve of it after it is done.

And put him to an open shame - Make him a public example; or hold him up as worthy of death on the cross; see the same word explained in the notes on Matthew 1:19, in the phrase “make her a public example.” The word occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Their apostasy and rejection of the Saviour would be like holding him up publicly as deserving the infamy and ignominy of the cross. A great part of the crime attending the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, consisted in exhibiting him to the passing multitude as deserving the death of a malefactor. Of that sin they would partake who should reject him, for they would thus show that they regarded his religion as an imposture, and would in a public manner hold him up as worthy only of rejection and contempt. Such, it seems to me, is the fair meaning of this much-disputed passage - a passage which would never have given so much perplexity if it had not been supposed that the obvious interpretation would interfere with some prevalent articles of theology. The passage “proves” that if true Christians should apostatize, it would be impossible to renew and save them. If then it should be asked whether I believe that any true Christian ever did, or ever will fall from grace, and wholly lose his religion, I would answer unhesitatingly, no! (compare the John 10:27-28 notes; Romans 8:38-39 notes; Galatians 6:4 note.) If then it be asked what was the use of a warning like this, I answer:

(1) It would show the great sin of apostasy from God if it were to occur. It is proper to state the greatness of an act of sin, though it might never occur, in order to show how it would be regarded by God.

(2) Such a statement might be one of the most effectual means of preserving from apostasy. To state that a fall from a precipice would cause certain death, would be one of the most certain means of preserving one from falling; to affirm that arsenic would be certainly fatal, is one of the most effectual means of preventing its being taken; to know that fire certainly destroys, is one of the most sure checks from the danger. Thousands have been preserved from going over the Falls of Niagara by knowing that there would be no possibility of escape; and so effectual has been this knowledge that it has preserved all from such a catastrophe, except the very few who have gone over by accident. So in religion. The knowledge that apostasy would be fatal, and there could be no hope of being of the danger than all the other means that could be used. If a man believed that it would be an easy matter to be restored again should he apostatize, he would feel little solicitude in regard to it; and it has occurred in fact, that they who suppose that this may occur, have manifested little of the care to walk in the paths of strict religion, which should have been evinced.

(3) It may be added, that the means used by God to preserve his people from apostasy, have been entirely effectual. There is no evidence that one has ever fallen away who was a true Christian, (compare John 10:27-28, and 1 John 2:19); and to the end of the world it will be true that the means which he uses to keep his people from apostasy will not in a single instance fail.

(This view seems not opposed to the doctrine of the saint’s perseverance. It professes indeed, to meet the objection usually raised from the passage, if not in a new mode, yet in a mode different from that commonly adopted by orthodox expositors. Admitting that true Christians are intended, it is asserted only, that if they should fall, their recovery would be impossible, It is not said that they ever have fallen or will fall. “The apostle in thus giving judgment on the case, if it should happen, does not declare that it actually does.” And as to the use of supposing a case which never can occur, it is argued that means are constantly used to bring about what the decree or determination of God had before rendered certain. These exhortations are the means by which perseverance is secured.

Yet it may be doubted, whether there be anything in the passage to convince us, that the apostle has introduced an “impossible” case. He seems rather to speak of what “might” happen, of which there was “danger.” If the reader incline to this view, he will apply the description to professors, and learn from it how far these may go, and yet fall short of the mark. But how would this suit the apostle’s design? Well. If “professors” may go “so far,” how much is this fact suited to arouse all to vigilance and inquiry. We, notwithstanding our gifts and “apparent” graces, may not be “true” Christians, may, therefore, not be “secure,” may fall away and sink, under the doom of him whom it is impossible to renew. And he must be a very exalted Christian indeed, who does not occasionally find need of inquiry, and examination of evidences. Certainly, the whole passage may be explained in perfect consistency with this application of it.

Men may be enlightened, that is, well acquainted with the doctrines and duties of the Christian faith; may have tasted of the heavenly gift, and been made partakers of the Holy Spirit in his miraculous influences, which many in primitive times enjoyed, without any sanctifying virtue; may have tasted the good word of God, or experienced impressions of affection and joy under it, as in the case of the stony ground hearers; may have tasted the powers of the world to come, or been influenced by the doctrine of a future state, with its accompanying rewards and punishments; - and yet not be “true” Christians. “All these things, except miraculous gifts, often take place in the hearts and consciences of people in these days, who yet continue unregenerate. They have knowledge, convictions, fears, hope, joys, and seasons of apparent earnestness, and deep concern about eternal things; and they are endued with such gifts, as often make them acceptable and useful to others, but they are not truly “humbled;” they are not “spiritually minded;” religion is not their element and delight” - Scott.

It should be observed, moreover, that while there are many “infallible” marks of the true Christian, none of these are mentioned in this place. The persons described are not said to have been elected, to have been regenerated, to have believed, or to have been sanctified. The apostle writes very differently when describing the character and privileges of the saints, Romans 8:27, Romans 8:30. The succeeding context, too, is supposed to favor this opinion.

“They (the characters in question) are, in the following verses, compared to the ground on which the rain often falls, and beareth nothing but thorns and briars. But this is not so with true believers, for faith itself is an herb special to the enclosed garden of Christ. And the apostle afterward, discoursing of true belief, doth in many particulars distinguish them from such as may be apostates, which is supposed of the persons here intended. He ascribeth to them, in general, better things. and such as accompany salvation. He ascribes a work and labor of love, asserts their preservation, etc.” - Owen.

Our author, however, fortifies himself against the objection in the first part of this quotation, by repeating and applying at Romans 8:7, his principle of exposition. “The design,” says he, “is to show, that if Christians should be come like the barren earth, they would be cast away and lost.”

Yet the attentive reader of this very ingenious exposition will observe, that the author has difficulty in carrying out his principles, and finds it necessary to introduce the “mere” professor ere he has done with the passage. “It is not supposed,” says he, commenting on the 8th verse, “that a true Christian will fall away and be lost, but we may remark, that there are many professed Christians who seem to be in danger of such ruin. Corrupt desires are as certainly seen in their lives, as thorns on a bad soil. Such are nigh unto cursing. Unsanctified, etc., there is nothing else which can be done for them, and they must be lost. What a thought!” Yet that the case of the professor in danger cannot very consistently be introduced by him, appears from the fact, that such ruin as is here described is suspended on a condition which never occurs. It happens “only” if the “Christian” should fall. According to the author, it is not here denounced “on any other supposition.” As then true Christians cannot fall, the ruin never can occur “in any case whatever.” From these premises we “dare not” draw the conclusion, that any class of professors will be given over to final impenitence.

As to what may be alleged concerning the “apparent” sense of the passage, or the sense which would strike “the mass of readers;” every one will judge according to the sense which himself thinks most obvious. Few perhaps would imagine that the apostle was introducing an impossible case. Nor does the “connection” stand much in the way of the application to professors. In addition to what has already been stated, let it be further observed, that although the appropriate exhortation to awakened, yet unconverted persons would be, “to become converted; not to warn them of the danger of falling away;” yet the apostle is writing to the Hebrews at large, is addressing a body of professing Christians, concerning whom he could have no infallible assurance that “all of them” were true Christians. Therefore, it was right that they should be warned in the way the apostle has adopted. The objection leaves out of sight the important fact that the “exhortations and warnings addressed to the saints in Scripture are addressed to mixed societies, in which there may be hypocrites as well as believers.”

Those who profess the faith, and associate with the church, are addressed without any decision regarding state. But the very existence of the warnings implies a fear that there may be some whose state is not safe. And “all,” therefore, have need to inquire whether this be their condition. How appropriate then such warnings. This consideration, too, will furnish an answer to what has been alleged by another celebrated transatlantic writer, namely, “that whatever may be true in the divine purposes as to the final salvation of all those who are once truly regenerated. and this doctrine I feel constrained to admit, yet nothing can be plainer, than that the sacred writers have every where addressed saints in the same manner as they would address those whom they considered as constantly exposed to fall away and to perish forever.” Lastly. The phraseology of the passage does not appear to remove it out of all possible application to “mere” professors.

It has already been briefly explained in consistency with such application. There is a difficulty, indeed, connected with the phrase, παλιν ανακαινιζειν εις μετανοιαν palin anakainizein eis metanoian, “again” to renew to repentance; implying, as is said, that they, to whom reference is made, had been renewed “before.” But what should hinder this being understood of “reinstating in former condition,” or in possession of former privilege; Bloomfield supposes, there may be an allusion to the non-reiteration of baptism, and Owen explains the phrase of bringing them again into a state of profession by a second renovation, and a second baptism, as a pledge thereof. The renewing he understands here “externally” of a solemn confession of faith and repentance, followed by baptism. This, says he, was their ἀνακαινισμος anakainismos, their renovation. It would seem then that there is nothing in the phrase to prevent its interpretation on the same principle that above has been applied to the passage generally.)

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

6.To renew them again into repentance, etc. Though this seems hard, yet there is no reason to charge God with cruelty when any one suffers only the punishment of his own defection; nor is this inconsistent with other parts of Scripture, where God’s mercy is offered to sinners as soon as they sigh for it, (Ezekiel 18:27;) for repentance is required, which he never truly feels who has once wholly fallen away from the Gospel; for such are deprived, as they deserve, of God’s Spirit and given up to a reprobate mind, so that being the slaves of the devil they rush headlong into destruction. Thus it happens that they cease not to add sin to sin, until being wholly hardened they despise God, or like men in despair, express madly their hatred to him. The end of all apostates is, that they are either smitten with stupor, and fear nothing, or curse God their judge, because they cannot escape from him. ⁽⁹⁹⁾

In short, the Apostle warns us, that repentance is not at the will of man, but that it is given by God to those only who have not wholly fallen away from the faith. It is a warning very necessary to us, lest by often delaying until tomorrow, we should alienate ourselves more and more from God. The ungodly indeed deceive themselves by such sayings as this, — that it will be sufficient for them to repent of their wicked life at their last breath. But when they come to die, the dire torments of conscience which they suffer, prove to them that the conversion of man is not an ordinary work. As then the Lord promises pardon to none but to those who repent of their iniquity, it is no wonder that they perish who either through despair or contempt, rush on in their obstinacy into destruction. But when any one rises up again after falling, we may hence conclude that he had not been guilty of defection, however grievously he may have sinned.

Crucifying again, etc. He also adds this to defend God’s severity against the calumnies of men; for it would be wholly unbecoming, that God by pardoning apostates should expose his own Son to contempt. They are then wholly unworthy to obtain mercy. But the reason why he says, that Christ would thus be crucified again, is, because we die with him for the very purpose of living afterwards a new life; when therefore any return as it were unto death, they have need of another sacrifice, as we shall find in the tenth chapter. Crucifying for themselves means as far as in them lies. For this would be the case, and Christ would be slandered as it were triumphantly, were it allowed men to return to him after having fallen away and forsaken him.

(99) Some render the verb “renew” actively, in this way, — “For it is impossible as to those who have been once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and have been made partakers of holy spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, and have fallen away, to renew them again unto repentance, since they crucify again as to themselves to Son of God, and expose him to open shame.”

This is more consistent with the foregoing, for the Apostle speaks of teaching. It is as though he had said “It is impossible for us as teachers;” as they had no commission. To “renew” may be rendered to “restore.” It is only found here, but is used by the Sept. for a verb which means renewing in the sense of restoring. See Psalms 103:5; Lamentations 5:21. Josephus applies it to the renovation or restoration of the temple. The “crucifying” was what they did by falling away; for they thereby professed that he deserved to be crucified as an imposter, and thus counted his blood, as it is said in Hebrews 10:29, “unholy,” as the blood of a malefactor; and they thus also exhibited him as an object of public contempt. — Ed.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 6

Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, [that is the primaries, the word at the beginning of the gospel of Christ] let us go on to maturity; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this will we do, if God permit ( Hebrews 6:1-3 ).

Let's leave these basic principles, doctrines of salvation and redemption. Let's go on into maturity. Let's go on into a mature experience with God. Let's develop in our walk with the Lord. Let's mature. Let's grow up.

For years in my ministry I sought to be a preacher. I was a preacher. And I sought to be an evangelist. Just about every message that I preached was evangelistic, because within the denomination where I was serving, evangelism was the big thing. First thing on my report I had to put how many people were saved, and if you don't have some in that box, then you're not going to look good to the bishop. So I sought to be an evangelist. I preached the gospel. But I came to the realization, after years of frustration, that preaching is for the unconverted. What the converted needs are teaching. God had called me to be a teacher. I was seeking to be a preacher. As I preached, the church never developed. It never matured. The people didn't mature. I kept them in a state of spiritual arrested development. All they knew was the doctrine of salvation. They knew it well. They knew they had to be born again. They knew they had to repent from their sins. They knew they had to be baptized, because that is all they ever heard. And we never took them beyond that state of spiritual infancy until we began to teach the Word of God. Leaving these first principles, the doctrine of Christ, going on into the full maturity, not going back over and over again the foundations of faith, but building on that foundation the whole knowledge of God through the Word.

The author here says something that is difficult to understand.

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame ( Hebrews 6:4-6 ).

I know that this is a passage of scripture that Satan loves to use. Satan loves to use scripture. He came to Eve with scripture, "Hath God said you could eat of any of the trees?" He came to Jesus with scripture. "It is written He will give His angels charge over Thee to carry Thee in all Thy ways lest at any time You dash Your foot against a stone." He came to Jesus with scriptures, but what Jesus then did was balance scripture with scripture. Taking a scripture out of its context, you can make it mean something else. Taking scripture and isolating it, you can make it mean something else. We must compare scriptures with scriptures.

What do we know that the scripture teaches? That a man may fail, that a man may even blaspheme and still find forgiveness. For we remember that Jesus said to Peter, "Before the cock crows, you are going to deny Me three times." Peter said, "If they would kill me, I would never deny You." After the cock crowed twice, Jesus turned over and looked at Peter and Peter realized he had denied Him three times. The last time was blasphemy, saying, "I don't know the man." And he went out and he wept bitterly, but Peter found forgiveness. He found restoration and he became one of the pillars of the early church, an apostle, a leader of men. So it doesn't mean that if I falter or if I fall or if I fail that I'm out, that God puts me out and I have no hope of redemption. It's impossible that I might be renewed unto repentance.

We know that God is gracious. We know that God is merciful. We know that God is long-suffering. We know that He is patient and He has not rewarded us according to our iniquities. But as high as the heaven is above the earth so high is the mercies of God towards those who fear Him. Satan often uses this verse to a person who has backslidden. He says, "Man, you are out. Do you see what it says here in Hebrews? You've had it. That was the unpardonable sin that you committed and there is no way to renew you to repentance. You are out of the game." This is one of those scriptures that we have to deal with often as a pastor as people come and they have . . . you can tell it, you can see it in their eyes, and they say, "I think I've committed the unpardonable sin." We even have them calling on the phone long distance. "I believe I've committed the unpardonable sin." And I always tell them, "I know you haven't." "Well, how do you know?" "Because you called." If you committed the unpardonable sin you wouldn't care. The Holy Spirit wouldn't be dealing with you at all. You'd be so cold, callous and indifferent that you wouldn't even care if you did. The fact that you're concerned and care is the sign that you haven't. God's Spirit is still dealing with you. But Satan loves to use this as a club over people's head and he beats them to death with it.

There are those who suggest that he is writing to Jews who have been enlightened with the knowledge of Jesus Christ but who halted short of a full faith in Christ. And halting short of the full faith in Christ, they went back to the practices of Judaism, and thus, it was impossible to renew them unto repentance as they crucified the Son of God afresh, putting Him to open shame. I cannot accept that position totally. It seems to me where he refers to being "enlightened and tasting of the heavenly gift, made partakers of the Holy Spirit, tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come," it sounds to me like they had a pretty good dose.

We do know that Jesus taught that the seed fell on different kinds of soil. Some of the seed fell by the wayside, some of it fell on stony ground, while others fell among the thorns and some fell on good ground. That which was sown by the wayside, immediately Satan came along and plucked it up, the birds came and ate it up. It never took root. It never developed. We have met people that have no response or reaction to the Word of God. It doesn't penetrate. Then that which fell on the stony ground are they who hear the Word with gladness, there's a quick spurt, comes up fast because there is not much dirt there. It's nice and warm because of the rocks, but as soon as the sun is out and all, because there is no root, there is no depth, it withers and dies. I believe this is the class that is being referred to here. You come and you get that shot and you get excited. There is a lot of enthusiasm and zeal over the things of the Lord, but there is no depth, no root, no root system. And so the moment the storm comes, the sun, the little problem, they're gone.

Now, the biggest problem I have with this, because I can understand it, because I have seen that experience and it is confirmed by the words of Jesus. Of course there is that among thorns; it grows up but it is choked and never bears fruit. And I've seen a lot of Christians that don't bear fruit. I mean, there is the growth there. They're there, but there is no fruit coming forth from their lives. The difficulty that I have with the passage is this impossibility of renewing them again unto repentance. And I will frankly confess to you I don't understand what it means. I'm sorry. I cannot give to you some glorious revelation that I have and this is what the text is saying, because I do know that Jesus said, "Whoever will come unto Me I will in no wise cast out." And I know tonight that no matter what your background may be, what exposure you may have had to the gospel in the past or what you have done in the past, I do know that if you will just come to Jesus Christ, He will in no wise cast you out. So this verse would not, then, be applicable to you. But if you say, "Well, I don't want to come and I won't come," then it probably does apply to you. There is no place for repentance. Impossible to renew and you have that hardened heart. And if a person has that kind of a heart, you say, "Hey, I know. I've been there, man. I used to go and sing. And I used to sit there. No way, man. I don't want anything to do with it." Then you may have a case. You may have met one that fits here. But if there is any yearning in your heart for God and the things of God and that desire to come back and get right, then this does not apply to you. So we don't have to worry about it, unless your heart is completely calloused to the things of God. Then you have a real concern.

For the earth which drinks in the rain that comes often upon it, and brings forth the vegetables that are fit for them by whom it is dressed [or for the people who planted the vegetables, the people who took care of the garden], receiveth the blessing from God: But that which bears thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned ( Hebrews 6:7-8 ).

So there is, again, the idea and he goes back to the parable of the sower and the seeds. There are those seeds that bring forth vegetables, bring forth the fruit for those, and it is blessed. They are blessed. The earth is blessed. The good ground that brings forth the vegetables for the person who have dressed the garden or planted the garden. But the thorns and the briers, they're a curse, and they are going to be gathered and burned.

And now, here Paul, or the writer, is saying...obviously I believe that Paul is the writer. The writer is saying,

But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you ( Hebrews 6:9 ),

In other words, "This doesn't really apply to you. We're persuaded better things of you." He doesn't seek to make a personal application to them of this particular curse that he is talking about.

and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak. [It is important that I give this warning but I am persuaded better things of you.] For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which you have showed toward his name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister ( Hebrews 6:9-10 ).

God won't forget you. You're His child. You may be failing. You may be a babe. You may have arrested spiritual development. You may have slipped and fallen, but God won't forget you. He remembers you and that work of love.

And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end ( Hebrews 6:11 ):

Be diligent in the things of the Lord that you might have the full assurance of the hope. This full assurance is a glorious thing. I have full assurance in my hope of salvation. I have no questions, no qualms, no doubts. I am fully assured that I am eternally secure in the arms of Jesus. I have not even the slightest qualm that I will not be with the Lord in His glorious kingdom. I have the full assurance of that hope of eternal salvation, and how I thank God for it. I did not always have it, and so it means a lot more to me having it now, when I didn't have it for so many years. Because I was depending for many years upon myself and my own works and my own efforts. As long as I was depending upon myself, I never had the full assurance of the hope. You say, "Oh, you mean that you can't be lost?" Of course I can't, because I'm never going to turn away from Jesus Christ. I have no intention. That doesn't even enter my mind. It's the furthest thing from my mind. I'm going to walk with Him and stay with Him until the end. After all, you come this far there is no turning back; the thought isn't even there. The concept isn't even there, and that is why I have that full assurance of the hope unto the end. All right!

So be not slothful ( Hebrews 6:12 ),

Now, this doesn't create a slothfulness in me, but even a greater determination to give of myself completely and fully to the things of the Lord.

Be not slothful, but be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises ( Hebrews 6:12 ).

God has given to us His word that He will do just about anything for us that we might need or want. How many rich and precious promises! You probably all have a little promise box somewhere around the house. You go and pick out a promise and it's great. I love it. The Spirit can minister to us as we read the promises of God. I think we need to be reminded of the promises of God. We love to put them on the walls of our house. For years in our little daughter's bedroom we had the promise written on the wall "Fear not for I am with thee; be not dismayed for I am thy God. I will help thee, I will strengthen thee. I will uphold thee with the right hand of my power." What a great thing to have on the wall of a little girl who gets sacred at night. There on the wall, "Be not afraid for I am with you." Glorious promise!

Now, there are promises that God has given that we have not entered into. Remember back in chapter 4, "Let us beware, lest a promise having given to us of rest that we should fail from entering into it." There are many promises that God has given to us that we haven't really laid claim to. And so we live in fear. We live in anxiety. Though there is a promise that we can take and we could just accept that promise of God and say, "Well, God, You've promised."

I like it when Jacob...man, talk about a stressful situation. He had left his uncle Laban with the two daughters and all of the cattle and the sheep that he had gathered during his time of service there. Unbeknownst to him, his wife Rachel had taken some of the father's little gods. And so Laban got a bunch of fellows and they came pursuing after Jacob, ready to wipe him out. But the night before he caught up to him, the Lord spoke to Laban and He said, "You don't touch that man or you're in big trouble." So Laban is wanting to wipe him out, but he is fearful of God who said, "Don't you touch him." But he at least is going to get his word in, so he catches up with Jacob and he really tells him off. "You ripped me off." "What do you mean I ripped you off? I labored for seventeen years and you changed my wages ten times. God's blessed me. Don't tell me I ripped you off." Well, he said, "You've not only took my daughters, you didn't even let their kids kiss their grandpa good bye and you've taken off with all the cattle and sheep and everything." And he said, "You've even stole my gods." Tragic to have gods that can be stolen, isn't it?

So there was this big tense scene and, of course, if you've ever been over there and seen the way these people talk when they are excited like this, just tension fills the air. You'd think that at any moment they would pull back the robe and pull out the dagger and go at it, because, oh, they really get into it. So you can picture the scene of Jacob and Laban, tough day. Emotions now drained.

And as Laban takes off, a messenger comes up and says, "Your brother Esau is coming to meet you and he has two hundred men with him." The last time he saw Esau, Esau was saying, "I'm going to kill you. Soon as Dad is dead, you're dead man. I'm going to kill you." So here he is coming back. He just had a big blowout with Laban, and now word is Esau is coming. He's got two hundred men with him, and Jacob's really under stress. And he did the wisest thing you can do when you are under stress. He said, "Oh Lord, You told me to come back and that You would be with me." He reminded God. "I'm in this predicament, Lord, because You told me to come back. But You promised that You would be with me. Now I know I am not worthy the least of Your mercies. I don't deserve anything. I know that, God. But I am here because You told me to be here. And You promised that You would do well by me." So he is reminding God of the promise.

When you're under stress, when the pressure is on, when tomorrow is going to be one rough day, because your brother who is mad enough to kill you is on his way with two hundred men and all looks hopeless, it is good to remind yourself of the promises of God. "Lord, You promised that it would be well with me." The resting in the promises.

Now, the two things: faith and patience, these are the two things necessary in order to receive the promises of God. "He that comes to God must believe that He is and a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him" ( Hebrews 11:6 ). I must have faith in God's Word. Faith in God. Faith in the abilities of God. Faith to know that God is able to do that which He has promised. That which He has promised He is able also to perform.

The second thing I must have is patience, because God doesn't always respond to my prayer the minute I pray. God allows many times the test of my faith and a period of time between my prayer and the answer to that prayer. That patience in which faith is tested. So let us be followers of those who through faith and patience inherit the promise. Believe the promise and then wait patiently for God to keep His word. But in the meantime, you flee into that promise. You hold on to that promise and don't let it go. Now, the promises of God are something that you can trust and rely upon.

For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no [higher or] greater, he swore by himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee ( Hebrews 6:13-14 ).

God made a promise to Abraham and then He confirmed the promise with an oath. "And so, after Abraham patiently endured, he obtained the promise." How long did he patiently endure? Over thirty-five years. "Oh God, I don't have that much time left." We are so impatient, aren't we? We want God to do it right now. We want immediate results. And usually we have a time limit set, at the most a week, for God to work. "But after he waited patiently he obtained the promise." God did give to Sarah a son, as He promised He would, even when the likelihood of having a son became humanly totally impossible.

Impossible is a word that we can use and talk about. Because we face it all the time. With our human limitations, we are always running up against impossible situations. But when you introduce God into the factor, the moment God is introduced into the factor, then you have to eliminate the word impossible. There is nothing impossible with God. In fact, I'll tell you there is nothing hard for God. There is nothing that puts God under pressure or strains Him in the least. So when God is introduced the word impossibility has to be deleted.

Difficulty must always be measured by the capacity of the agent that is doing the work. "Let's get out and build the church of Jesus Christ." Oh, that's difficult. It may even be impossible. Jesus said, "Upon this rock I will build my church." No strain, He is able to do it. So difficulty measured by the capacity of the agent doing the work. Who is doing the work? Is God doing the work? Then you've got to throw away the word difficult. If it is up to me, oh yes, it is difficult. It may even be impossible. That's why I dare not trust in myself or rely upon myself and my own resources or my own talents and capacities. I dare not trust in that. I must trust in the Lord, because then I can eliminate difficult and impossible in these kind of things. God is able . . . able to what? Able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you ask or think. So Abraham endured patiently, the impossible became the reality. God did what was impossible.

You know there have been so many situations that I have said, "Well, that is impossible," and yet God did it. There have been people that I have said, "Oh, they're impossible. Them saved? No way, man. That's impossible," and God did it. When you have God as the agent doing the work, impossibility disappears, difficulty disappears.

Now men take an oath by something that is greater: and the purpose of an oath is to confirmation what is said and it is intended to end all strife ( Hebrews 6:16 ).

Here I am saying, "Well, I'm going to do it for you." "How do I know you are going to do it?" "Well, I'm going to do it. I promise you I'll do it." "How do I know?" "Well, I'm just telling you I'm going to." And here we are striving about whether or not I'm going to do it. Finally, I say, "Man, I swear on the Bible I'm going to do it." "Well, all right, good." Ends the strife, that's the purpose for taking an oath, to end the strife. In an argument, "No, I didn't." "Yes, you did." "No, I didn't." "Yes, you did." "No, I didn't. Swear on the Bible I didn't do it." "All right. Thought you did." So the taking of the oath, you take the oath by something greater than you. As I said this morning, you don't . . . I swear by my cat that I'm going to be there tonight. That is something lesser. You don't swear by something . . . you swear by something greater.

During the time of Jesus they had a big thing on swearing, taking oaths, and which of the oaths were binding and which were not. Now, if you swear by the altar, that is not binding, but if you swear by the gold that is on the altar, oh, you have to keep it, man. That is binding. They were all into this taking these oaths and, of course, you try and be tricky. "I swear by the altar I'll do it. Oh, I'm free because I didn't say the gold on the altar." And so Jesus addressed the issue of this thing of taking oaths of swearing, and people have carried that too far, too.

People are concerned if I have to go to court and witness, "Do I swear before God I'm going to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?" When Jesus said swear not at all. Can I as a Christian, then, swear by God I'm going to tell the truth? When Jesus said swear not at all, in the context He was saying "Let your yes be a yes and let your no be a no. Be a man of your word so that you don't have to take an oath to prove to a person that what you are saying is true. If you say yes then let it be yes. If you say no then let it be no. Be a person of your word." But the purpose of the oath was to bring an end to the strife. Fighting over this thing, take an oath that ends the strife. All right, that settles it.

Now God, willing more abundantly to assure unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel ( Hebrews 6:17 ),

How God is unchanging. He will not change. He will not say something and then renege on it. He will not make a promise to you and then back down on it. God wants to abundantly assure you of this. Willing more abundantly to assure you of this unchanging character and nature of God, the immutability of God and of His counsels. His counsels are His words, His promises. He confirms with an oath.

And so there are two unchanging things, in which it was impossible for God to lie ( Hebrews 6:18 ),

The two unchanging things: God's Word, it doesn't change. The Word of God is forever established and settled in heaven. "Heaven and earth will pass away but God's Word cannot pass away, will not pass away" ( Matthew 24:35 ).

The oath is the second thing, when God made the oath to confirm the Word and His counsels. Now you have two unchanging things. Having made an oath, you can't change. You've got to go by it. You cannot renege. You swore that you're going to do it. You've taken an oath to do it and you cannot back away. God has declared to you what He will do for you and then He took an oath saying, "I will." Swearing by no greater as He has no greater to swear by, He swears by Himself. Promising to do it, you've got two unchanging things. And we know that it is impossible for God to lie, therefore, the result is that

we have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us ( Hebrews 6:18 ):

What great comfort we have. What great confidence we have. What a strong consolation we have when I can just take the Word of God and say, "Here, God has said it, and that settles it. It is going to be. Here is the Word of God and the promise of God and I flee to this refuge." It becomes a place for me to flee when the enemy would come and say, "Well, what are you going to do? You know they are going to be coming around next week when they come for their rent. What are you going to do?" "Hey, my God shall supply all of my needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. It will be here." Strong consolation. I flee to the Word. I flee to the scripture. I read it over and I read it over and I read it over as I find my place of refuge in this promise of God to me that is applicable to this current situation that I am facing.

Whenever you run up against a difficult problem, go to the Word of God. Find a promise of God that is applying to you and to that situation, and then just flee as a refuge to that promise every time the enemy would hassle you. Every time you become upset, flee for refuge to that hope that is set before us.

Which hope we have as an anchor to our soul ( Hebrews 6:19 ),

My soul is anchored in this. I cannot be moved. I cannot be swayed. My soul is anchored in this hope.

that is both sure and steadfast ( Hebrews 6:19 ),

That glorious hymn of the church, "We have an anchor that keeps our soul steadfast and sure though the billows roll. Anchored to the rock that cannot move, founded firm and deep in my Savior's love." Oh, the anchor for our soul. I don't get tossed by the storm. I don't get wrecked by the storm. My soul is anchored in the promises of God.

and which entereth into that within the veil ( Hebrews 6:19 );

I come right into God's presence. Again, back to coming boldly to the throne of grace that we might find mercy and grace in our time of need. Within the veil I can come right into the Father, because Jesus has made the way. My great High Priest has entered into heaven for me. By Him and through Him I can come boldly now right to the Father within the veil and stand upon the Word.

Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made the high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec ( Hebrews 6:20 ).

And next week as we go into chapter 7, we will really get into this order of Melchisedec in comparison with that of Levi and showing the complete superiority of our High Priest and the priesthood of Jesus over that of the Levitical order. That goes on in the next couple of chapters. In fact, it goes on into chapter 10. Next week chapter 7 and 8.

Is your soul anchored in the Word of God tonight and the promises of God to you? Is that your place of refuge? Do you have that strong consolation, comfort, assurance? Hey, God is going to do it. He's promised. He has given His Word. How grateful we are and should be for Jesus Christ who has made us the heirs of the promises. Who has made it possible for us to lay hold upon these glorious promises of God, becoming a child through our faith in Him.

May the Lord bless you and may you just grow and develop into a full maturity in your walk and in your relationship with Him. May there be that work of the Spirit in your life this week. And in the maturing processes as you grow up in all things in Christ into the full assurance of the faith, rooted and grounded in His Word and in His love. May you begin to comprehend the length, the breadth, the depth, the height of God's love and the commitment "

Contending for the Faith

6

If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

If they shall fall away: The pronoun "they" refers to those who have the previous five characteristics. Other translators translate this clause: "then have fallen away" (NRS, NAS), or "and having fallen away" (Young’s Literal Translation), or "and then fell away" (ASV). Regarding this phrase, Milligan quotes Macknight, saying:

The verbs photisthentas, geusamenous, and genethentas being all aorists, are rightly rendered by our translators in the past time; who were enlightened, have tasted, and were made partakers. Wherefore, parapesontas, being an aorist, ought likewise to have been translated in past time, have fallen away. Nevertheless, our translators following Beza, who without any authority from ancient manuscripts, inserted in his version the word si (if), have rendered this clause, "if they shall fall away"; that this text might not appear to contradict the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. But as no translator should take upon him to add to or to alter the Scriptures for the sake of any favorite doctrine, I have translated parapesontas in the past time, have fallen away, according to the true import of the word as standing in connection with the other aorists in the preceding verses (222).

In referring to those who "fall away" (parapipto), Paul is speaking of all the people who "deviate from the right path" (Thayer 485) or those who "turn aside" (Vincent 445) and actually abandon their faith. He is giving a stern warning to Christians who are disloyal to Jesus Christ and who, through their actions, actually betray Him. Again, Paul is speaking of those men and women whose actions bear witness that Jesus is in their estimation a transgressor and deceiver who has been justly crucified.

to renew them again unto repentance: The word "renew" (anakainizo) is defined as to "renovate…so to renew that he shall repent" (Thayer 38). "Repentance" (metanoia) means "a change of mind…to give one the ability to repent, or to cause him to repent" (Thayer 406). Paul has given five expressions that describe Christians for whom it is "impossible…to renew them again unto repentance." His warning is simple and clear: it is that people may reach a point of no return and have nothing to look forward to but judgment and destruction, as he teaches later in this epistle:

For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? (10:26-29).

Paul teaches that these Hebrews have a choice: they can stay with Jesus or leave Him and return to the ways of the world. Some of Paul’s readers are on the verge of returning to Moses’ law. As long as Jesus is not in their lives, it is impossible for them to be renewed unto repentance. It is not that God withdraws His saving power from them; but it is that these people choose to abandon Jesus. Paul, in writing to Christians in Rome, teaches the same message:

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient (Romans 1:24-28).

seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame: When Christians abandon Jesus and His teachings, they "crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." To "crucify…afresh" (anastauroo) means they are figuratively crucifying Jesus for the second time and putting Him "to an open shame" (paradeigmatizo), meaning they "expose (Jesus) to public disgrace" (Thayer 480). Dods agrees with this interpretation:

The apostate crucifies Christ on his own account by virtually confirming the judgment of the actual crucifiers, declaring that he too has made trial of Jesus and found Him no true Messiah but a deceiver, and therefore worthy of death (299).

Paul is not speaking about a Christian who simply backslides into sin. Backsliding Christians, even though they do not obey Jesus and even though they will be lost if they fail to repent, still have faith in Him. They still recognize Him as the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). If these believing sinners repent, they can be restored; however, if Christians abandon Jesus and no longer have confidence in Him or in His teaching, they cannot be restored because repentance and forgiveness of sins are found only in Jesus. The Apostle Peter, speaking in Jerusalem, says:

Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:10-12).

Inevitable Punishment Exemplified by Facts of Nature

Verses 7 and 8 present an analogy in nature, illustrating the inevitable punishment coming to those guilty of apostasy. The comparison of human culture with agriculture is common.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

3. The dreadful alternative 6:4-8

The writer pointed out the consequences of not pressing on to maturity to motivate his readers to pursue spiritual growth diligently (cf. 2 Peter 1:5; 2 Peter 3:8).

Christians have interpreted this passage in many different ways. Some believe that those who fall away (Hebrews 6:6) are believers who lose their salvation. [Note: E.g., Westcott, pp. 148-53; Moffatt, pp. 76-82; I. Howard Marshall, Kept by the Power of God; and other Arminian writers.] Others hold that those who fall away are people who have professed to be believers but really are not. [Note: E.g. Bruce, pp. 118-25; Philip E. Hughes, pp. 206-24; Arthur W. Pink, An Exposition of Hebrews, pp. 298-320; E. Schuyler English, Studies in the Epistle to the Hebrews, pp. 160-68; Homer A. Kent Jr., The Epistle to the Hebrews, pp. 107-15; R. Kent Hughes, 1:156-57; and The New Scofield Reference Bible, p. 1315.] Still others take the whole situation as hypothetical. They believe that if a Christian could lose his salvation, which he cannot, it would be impossible for him to be saved again. [Note: E.g., Guthrie, pp. 140-46; Thomas Hewett, The Epistle to the Hebrews, pp. 106-11; Thomas, pp. 72-75; Kenneth S. Wuest, "Hebrews Six in the Greek New Testament," Bibliotheca Sacra 119:473 (January 1962):45-53; Wiersbe, 2:297; and The Ryrie Study Bible: New Testament. King James Version, p. 404.] Another view is that only Hebrew Christians living before the destruction of the temple could commit this sin, whatever it is. The view that I believe harmonizes best with the writer’s emphasis is that those who fall away are believers who turn away from God’s truth and embrace error (i.e., apostates). The majority of scholars view these people as genuine believers. [Note: Marshall, p. 142.]

"The transition from the first person (Hebrews 6:1-3) to the third person suggests that the author does not wish explicitly to identify the people described with the readers of the epistle. This may be partly out of tact; it is certainly (cf. Hebrews 6:9) in part because he believes that his readers can still avoid apostasy." [Note: Ellingworth, p. 318.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Earlier in this letter the writer warned his Christian readers about drifting away from the truth through negligence (Hebrews 2:1-4). He also warned them about failing to continue trusting God and walking by faith (Hebrews 3:7-19). Now he referred to the same apostasy as "falling away."

"The aorist tense indicates a decisive moment of commitment to apostasy. In the LXX, the term parapiptein has reference to the expression of a total attitude reflecting deliberate and calculated renunciation of God (Ezekiel 20:27; Ezekiel 22:4; Wisdom of Solomon 6:9; Wisdom of Solomon 12:2; cf. Michaelis, TDNT 6:171 . . .). [Note: Cf. Philip E. Hughes, "Hebrews 6 . . .," pp. 146-50.] In Hebrews it is equivalent to the expression apostenai apo theou zontos, ’to fall away from the living God,’ in Hebrews 3:12. Apostasy entailed a decisive rejection of God’s gifts, similar to the rejection of the divine promise by the Exodus generation at Kadesh (Hebrews 3:7 to Hebrews 4:2 . . .). . . . What is visualized by the expressions in Hebrews 6:6 is every form of departure from faith in the crucified Son of God. This could entail a return to Jewish convictions and practices as well as the public denial of faith in Christ under pressure from a magistrate or a hostile crowd, simply for personal advantage (cf. Mark 8:34-38 . . ." [Note: Lane, p. 142. Cf. J. C. McCullough, "The Impossibility of a Second Repentance in Hebrews," Biblical Theology 20 (1974):2-3.]

Falling away from the truth is no hypothetical possibility but a tragic reality in too many cases among believers (cf. Numbers 14:27-32; Genesis 25:29-34; Hebrews 3:7-19; Hebrews 10:23-25; Hebrews 10:35-39). [Note: Lane, p. 141.] Christians departed from the faith in the first century (e.g., 2 Timothy 2:17-18) and they do so today (cf. 1 Timothy 4:1).

"The author repeatedly urges his readers to maintain their Christian profession and confidence (cf. Hebrews 3:6; Hebrews 3:12-15; Hebrews 6:11-12; Hebrews 10:23-25). The man who falls away is evidently the one who casts that confidence, and its attendant reward, aside (Hebrews 10:25)." [Note: Hodges, The Gospel . . ., pp. 70-71.]

To what is it impossible for an apostate to be renewed? The writer said it is repentance, not forgiveness or salvation. Immediately the question arises whether this explanation is realistic since some believers who have departed from the truth have repented and returned to the fold of the faithful. I believe the writer meant that in the case of apostates, the really hard cases who are persistently hostile to Christ, it is impossible to restore such people to repentance (cf. Hebrews 6:1; Hebrews 6:3; Hebrews 6:7-8). The word "apostate" refers to extreme cases of departure from the truth. We usually refer to less serious departure as backsliding. This inability to repent is the result of sin’s hardening effect about which the writer had sounded a warning earlier (Hebrews 3:13). It is also the result of divine judgment (cf. Pharaoh, Exodus 9:12; Exodus 10:20; Exodus 10:27; Exodus 11:10; Exodus 14:4; Exodus 14:8; Exodus 14:17).

Some people who, earlier in their lives have given evidence of being true Christians, later renounced their belief in Christianity, and even in the deity of Christ. Does this mean they were never saved in the first place? Possibly. But it may mean that they were believers and have been misled by false teaching. If such a person persists in his or her departure from the truth, this verse warns that he or she may not be able to return to the truth.

This writer also wrote about three other impossible things. It is impossible for God to lie (Hebrews 6:18), for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (Hebrews 10:4), and for someone to please God without faith (Hebrews 11:6).

"God has pledged Himself to pardon all who truly repent, but Scripture and experience alike suggest that it is possible for human beings to arrive at a state of heart and life where they can no longer repent." [Note: Bruce, p. 124.]

"That certain persons could not repent of their sins was, e.g., an idea admitted in rabbinic Judaism." [Note: Moffatt, p. 77.]

Even God cannot renew these apostates to repentance because He has chosen not to do so.

". . . the author does recognize the possibility that one may have regressed so far that it is impossible to again make progress toward maturity. He therefore states in Hebrews 6:4-6 that it may be impossible to renew certain believers so that they can progress toward maturity." [Note: Pentecost, pp. 105-6.]

Would it not glorify God more for apostates to repent? Evidently by making it impossible for them to repent God will bring greater glory to Himself than if they did repent. Consider the glory that came to God because the Pharaoh of the Exodus did not repent. One might ask the same question in regard to everyone being saved? Would it not glorify God more for everyone to be saved than for some to perish eternally?

God allows this hard condition because by repudiating Jesus Christ these apostates dishonor Him. The writer spoke of this dishonor as taking the side of Jesus’ enemies who crucified Him and publicly humiliated Him. The apostates in view crucify Him in the sense of passing judgment against Him again, by repudiating Him and His work, as those who literally crucified Jesus did. Evidently these "hard cases" are not those who turn away from just any aspect of God’s will but specifically the doctrine of Jesus Christ.

"The meaning of the vivid phrase ["they again crucify to themselves the Son of God"] is that they put Jesus out of their life, they break off all connexion [sic] with him; he is dead to them." [Note: Moffatt, p. 80.]

"Anyone who turned back from Christianity to Judaism would be identifying himself not only with Jewish unbelief, but with that malice which led to the crucifixion of Jesus." [Note: Guthrie, p. 144.]

". . . once Christ and his sacrifice have been rejected, there is nowhere else to turn. . . . The ’impossibility’ of a second repentance is thus not psychological or more generally related to the human condition; it is in the strict sense theological, related to God’s saving action in Christ." [Note: Ellingworth, p. 323.]

"Just as the Hebrew spies who returned from their expedition carrying visible tokens of the good land of Canaan nevertheless failed to enter the land because of their unbelief, so those who had come to know the blessings of the new covenant might nevertheless in a spiritual sense turn back in heart to Egypt and so forfeit the saints’ everlasting rest." [Note: Bruce, pp. 119-20. Cf. 3:7-11. See also Lang, pp. 98-107.]

Not only did the 10 spies fail to enter the Promised Land through unbelief, but so did the whole adult generation of Israelites who left Egypt with Moses (Numbers 14). It was impossible for them to repent in the sense that, even though they confessed their sin of unbelief (Numbers 14:40), God would not permit them to enter the land (Numbers 14:41-45). Two New Testament examples of these "hard cases" may be Hymenaeus and Alexander. Paul said he had turned them over to Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme because they had apostatized (1 Timothy 1:18-20).

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 6

THE NECESSITY OF PROGRESS ( Hebrews 6:1-3 )

6:1-3 So, then, let us leave elementary teaching about Christ behind us and let us be home onwards to full maturity; for we cannot go on laying the foundations all the time and teaching about repentance from dead works and giving information about washings, about the laying on of hands, about the resurrection from the dead and upon that sentence which lasts to all eternity. God willing, this very thing we will do.

The writer to the Hebrews was certain of the necessity of progress in the Christian life. No teacher would ever get anywhere if he had to lay the foundations all over again every time he began to teach. The writer to the Hebrews says that his people must be going on to what he calls teleiotes ( G5051) . The King James Version translates this word perfection. But teleios ( G5046) , the adjective, and its kindred words have a technical meaning. Pythagoras divided his students into hoi ( G3588) manthanontes ( G3129) , the learners, and hoi ( G3588) teleioi ( G5046) , the mature. Philo divided his students into three different classes--hoi ( G3588) archomenoi ( G756) , those just beginning, hoi prokoptontes ( G4298) , those making progress, and hoi ( G3588) teleiomenoi ( G5048) , those beginning to reach maturity. Teleiotes ( G5047) does not imply complete knowledge but a certain maturity in the Christian faith.

The writer to the Hebrews means two things by this maturity: (i) He means something to do with the mind He means that as a man gets older he should more and more have thought things out for himself. He should, for instance, be able to say better who he believes Jesus to be. He should have a deeper grasp, not only of the facts, but also of the significances of the Christian faith. (ii) He means something to do with life. As a man grows older there should be more and more of the reflection of Christ upon him. All the time he should be ridding himself of old faults and achieving new virtues. Daily a new serenity and a new nobility should be breaking upon life. As the nameless poet has it:

"Let me grow lovely, growing old;

The many fine things too,

Laces and Ivory and Gold and Silks,

Need not be new.

And there is healing in old trees,

Old streets and glamour old,

Why may not I, as well as these,

Grow lovely, growing old?"

There can be no standing still in the Christian life. It is told that on his pocket Bible Cromwell had a motto written in Latin--qui cessat esse melior cessat esse bonus--he who ceases to be better ceases to be good.

This passage enables us to see what the Early Church regarded as basic Christianity.

(i) There is repentance from dead works. The Christian life begins with repentance; and repentance (metanoia, G3341) is literally a change of mind. There is a new attitude to God, to men, to life, to self. It is a repentance from dead works. What does the writer to the Hebrews mean by this strange phrase? There are many things that he may mean, and each of them is relevant and suggestive. (a) Dead works may be deeds which bring death. They may be the immoral, selfish, godless, loveless, soiled actions which lead to death. (b) They may be defiling deeds. For a Jew to touch a dead body was the greatest defilement; to do so rendered him unclean and barred him from the worship of God until he was cleansed. Dead works may be those which defile a man and separate him from God. (c) They may be works which have no connection with character. For the Jew life was ritual; if he observed the proper ceremonies at the right time, he was a good man. But none of these things had any effect upon his character. It may be that the writer to the Hebrews means that the Christian has broken away from the meaningless rituals and conventions of life to give himself to the things which deepen his character and develop his soul.

(ii) There is faith which looks to God. The first essential in the Christian life is the godward look. The Christian determines his actions not by the verdict of men but by the verdict of God. He looks not to his own achievement for salvation but to the grace of God.

(iii) There is teaching about washings. This means that the Christian must realize what baptism really means. The first book of Christian instruction for those about to enter the Church and the first service order book is a little book called The Didache, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. It was written about the year A.D. 100 and lays down the regulations for Christian Baptism. Now at this time infant baptism had not yet emerged. Men were coming straight from heathendom and baptism was reception into the Church and confession of faith. The Didachi, begins with six short chapters on the Christian faith and the Christian life. It begins by telling the candidate for baptism what he ought to believe and how he ought to live. Then in the seventh chapter it goes on:

"Concerning Baptism, baptize in this way. When you have instructed the candidate in all these things, baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in running water. If you do not have running water, baptize in any other kind of water. If you cannot baptize in cold water, baptize in warm. If both of these are unobtainable, pour water three times upon the head of the candidate in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Before baptism, let him who is to baptize and him who is to be baptized fast, and let any others who can do so do the same. You must bid him who is to be baptized to fast for two or three days before the ceremony."

That is interesting. It shows that baptism in the early Church was, if possible, by total immersion. It shows that the person to be baptized was either immersed or affused with water three times, in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It shows that baptism was instructed baptism, for the account of the Christian faith and life is to be rehearsed before the sacrament of baptism is carried out. It shows that the candidate for baptism had to prepare not only his mind but also his spirit, for he had to fast beforehand. In the early days no one slipped into the Church without knowing what he was doing. So the writer to the Hebrews says: "At your baptism you were instructed in the basis of the Christian faith. There is no need to go back to that. You must erect a fuller faith on the basis you have already laid down."

(iv) There is the laying on of hands. In Jewish practice the laying on of hands had three significances. (a) It was the sign of the transference of guilt. The sacrificer laid his hands upon the head of the victim to symbolize the fact that he transferred his guilt to the animal being offered. (b) It was the sign of the transference of blessing. When a father blessed his son he laid his hands on the son's head as a token of that blessing. (c) It was the sign of setting apart to some special office. A man was ordained to office by the laying on of hands.

In the early Church it always accompanied baptism and was the way in which the Holy Spirit was conveyed to the person newly baptized ( Acts 8:17; Acts 19:6). This is not to be thought of in a material way. In those days the apostles were regarded with reverence because they had actually been the friends of Jesus on earth. It was a thrilling thing to be touched by a man who had actually touched the hand of Jesus. The effect of the laying on of hands depends not on the office of the man who lays on the hands but on his character and his nearness to Christ.

(v) There is the resurrection from the dead. Christianity from the beginning was a religion of immortality. It gave a man two worlds in which to live; it taught him that the best was yet to be and thereby made this world the training school for eternity.

(vi) There is the sentence which lasts to all eternity. Christianity was from the beginning a religion of judgment. No Christian was ever allowed to forget that in the end he must face God, and that what God thought of him was infinitely more important than what men thought of him.

CRUCIFYING CHRIST AGAIN ( Hebrews 6:4-8 )

6:4-8 For it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, those who tasted the free gift from heaven, those who were made sharers in the Holy Spirit, those who tasted the fair word of God and the powers of the age to come, and who then became apostates, for they are crucifying the Son of God again for themselves and are making a mocking show of him. For when the earth has drunk the rain that comes often times upon it and when it brings forth herbage useful to those who cultivate it, it receives a share of blessing from God; but if it produces thorns and thistles it is rejected and is in imminent danger of a curse, and its end is to be appointed for burning.

This is one of the most terrible passages in scripture. It begins with a kind of list of the privileges of the Christian life.

The Christian has been enlightened. This is a favourite New Testament idea. No doubt it goes back to the picture of Jesus as the Light of the World, the Light that enlightens every man who comes into the world ( John 1:9; John 9:5). As Bilney, the martyr said, "When I heard the words, 'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,' it was as if day suddenly broke in the midst of a dark night." The light of knowledge and joy and guidance breaks in upon a man with Christ. So entwined with this idea did Christianity become that enlightenment (photismos, G5462) became a synonym for baptism, and to be enlightened (photizesthai, G5461) became a synonym for to be baptized That is, in fact, the way many people have read this word here; and they have taken this passage to mean that there is no possibility of forgiveness for sins committed after baptism; and there have been times and places in the Church when baptism has been postponed to the moment of death in order to be safe. That idea we shall discuss later.

The Christian has tasted the free gift that comes from heaven. It is only in Christ that a man can be at peace with God. Forgiveness is not something he can ever win; it is a free gift. It is only when he comes to the Cross that his burden is rolled away. The Christian is a man who knows the immeasurable relief of experiencing the free gift of the forgiveness of God.

The Christian is a sharer in the Holy Spirit. He has in his life a new directive and a new power. He has discovered the presence of a power that can both tell him what to do and enable him to do it.

The Christian has tasted the fair word of God. That is another way of saying that he has discovered the truth. it is characteristic of men that instinctively they follow truth as blind men long for light; it is part of the penalty and the privilege of being a man that we can never rest content until we have learned the meaning of life. In God's word we find the truth and the meaning of life.

The Christian has tasted the powers of the world to come. Jew and Christian alike divided time into two ages. There was this present age (ho ( G3588) nun ( G3568) aion G165) , which was wholly bad; there was the age to come (ho ( G3588) mellon ( G3195) aion, G165) , which would be wholly good. Some day God would intervene; there would come the shattering destruction and the terrible judgment of the Day of the Lord and then this present age would end and the age to come would begin. But the Christian is a man who here and now is tasting the blessedness of the age which is God's. Even in time he has a foretaste of eternity.

"Heaven above is softer blue,

Earth around is sweeter green;

Something lives in every hue,

Christless eyes have never seen;

Birds with gladder songs o'erflow,

Flowers with deeper beauties shine,

Since I know, as now I know,

I am his, and he is mine."

So the writer to the Hebrews sets out the shining catalogue of Christian blessedness; and then at the end of it there comes like a sudden knell, who then became apostates.

What does he mean when he says that it is impossible that those who have become apostates can ever be renewed to repentance? Many thinkers have tried to find a way round this word impossible (adunaton, G102) . Esrasmus held that it was to be taken in the sense of difficult almost to the point of impossibility. Bengel held that what was impossible for man was possible for God, and that we must leave those who have fallen away to the mercy of God's singular love. But when we read this passage we must remember that--it was written in an age of persecution: and in any such age apostasy is the supreme sin. In any age of persecution a man can save his life by denying Christ; but every person who does so aims a body-blow at the Church, for it means that he has counted his life and comfort dearer to him than Jesus Christ.

This particular way of putting things has always emerged during and after persecutions. Two hundred years after this came the terrible persecution of the Emperor Diocletian. When peace came after the storm, the one test some wished to apply to every surviving member of the Church was: "Did you deny Christ and so save your life?" And if he had denied his Lord they would have shut the door on him once and for all. Kermit Eby tells of a French churchman who, when asked what he did during the French Revolution, whispered: "I survived."

This is the condemnation of the man who loved life more than he loved Christ. It was never meant to be erected into a doctrine that there is no forgiveness for post-baptismal sin. Who is any man to say that any other man is beyond the forgiveness of God? What it is meant to show is the terrible seriousness of choosing existence instead of loyalty to Christ.

The writer to the Hebrews goes on to say a tremendous thing. Those who fall away crucify Christ again. This is the point of the great Quo Vadis legend. It tells how in the Neronic persecution Peter was caught in Rome and his courage failed. Down the Appian Way he fled for his life. Suddenly there was a figure standing in his path. It was Jesus himself. "Domine," said Peter, "quo vadis? Lord, where are you going?" "I am going back to Rome to be crucified again, this time in your stead." And Peter, shamed into heroism, turned back to Rome and died a martyr's death.

Late in Roman history there was an Emperor who tried to put back the clock. Julian wished to destroy Christianity and bring back the old gods. His attempt ended in defeat. Ibsen makes him say: "Where is he now? Has he been at work elsewhere since that happened at Golgotha?... Where is he now? What if that, at Golgotha, near Jerusalem, was but a wayside matter, a thing done, as it were, in the passing? What if he goes on and on, suffers and dies and conquers again and again, from world to world?"

There is a certain truth there. At the back of the thought of the writer to the Hebrews there is a tremendous conception. He saw the Cross as an event which opened a window into the heart of God. He saw It as showing in a moment of time the suffering love which is for ever in that heart. The Cross said to men: "That is how I have always loved you and always will love you. This is what your sin does to me and always will do to me. This is the only way I can ever redeem you.

In God's heart there is always, so long as there is sin, this agony of suffering and redeeming love. Sin does not only break God's law; it breaks his heart. It is true that when we fall away, we crucify Christ again.

Further, the writer to the Hebrews says that when we fall away we make a mocking show of Christ. How is that? When we sin the world will say: "So that is all that Christianity is worth. So that is all this Christ can do. So that is all the Cross achieved." It is bad enough that when a Church member falls into sin he brings shame to himself and discredit on his Church; but what is worse is that he draws men's taunts and jeers on Christ.

We may note a final thing. It has been pointed out that in the letter to the Hebrews there are four impossible things. There is the impossibility of this passage. The other three are: (i) It is impossible for God to lie ( Hebrews 6:18). (ii) It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin ( Hebrews 10:4). (iii) Without faith it is impossible to please God ( Hebrews 11:6).

THE BRIGHTER SIDE ( Hebrews 6:9-12 )

6:9-12 Beloved, even if we do speak like this, we are persuaded of better things for you, yes, things that are bound up with salvation. For God is not unjust to forget your work and the love that you displayed in that you have been and still are active in the service of God's dedicated people. We hope with all our hearts that each one of you will display the same zeal to make your hope come true and that you will go on doing so until the end, so that you may not become lazily lethargic but may copy those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

One thing stands out here. This is the only passage in the whole letter where the writer addresses his people as beloved. It is precisely after the sternest passage of all that he uses the address of love. It is as if he said to them: "If I did not love you so much I would not speak with such severity." Chrysostom paraphrases the thought this way: "It is better that I should scare you with words than that you should sorrow in deeds." He speaks the truth but, however stern it may be, he speaks it in love.

Further, his very form of speaking shows how individual his love is. "We hope," he says, "that each one of you will display the zeal that will make your hope come true." He is not thinking of them as a crowd but as individual men and women. Dr. Paul Tournier in A Doctor's Casebook has a paragraph on what he calls the personalism of the Bible. "God says to Moses, 'I know you by name' ( Exodus 33:17). He says to Cyrus, 'It is I, the Lord, who call you by your name' ( Isaiah 45:3). One is struck, on reading the Bible, by the importance in it of personal names. Whole chapters are devoted to long genealogies. When I was young I used to think that they could well have been dropped from the Biblical Canon. But I have since realized that these series of proper names bear witness to the fact that, in the biblical perspective, man is neither a thing nor an abstraction, not a fraction of the mass, as the Marxists see him, but a person." When the writer to the Hebrews wrote with sternness he was not rebuking a Church; he was yearning over individual men and women, as God himself does.

There are two interesting things implicit in this passage.

(i) We learn that even if these people to whom he is writing have failed to grow up in Christian faith and knowledge and even if they have been falling away from their first enthusiasm, they have never given up their practical service to their fellow Christians. There is a great practical truth here. Sometimes in the Christian life we come to times which are arid; the Church services have nothing to say to us, the teaching that we do in Sunday school or the singing that we do in the choir or the service we give on a committee becomes a labour without joy. At such a time there are two alternatives. We can give up our worship and our service, but if we do, we are lost. Or we can go determinedly on with them, and the strange thing is that the light and the romance and the joy will in time come back again. In the and times, the best thing to do is to go on with the habits of the Christian life and of the Church. If we do, we can be sure that the sun will shine again.

(ii) He tells his people to be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherited the promise. What he is saying to them is: "You are not the first to launch out on the glories and the perils of the Christian faith. Others braved the dangers and endured the tribulations before you and won through." He is telling them to go on in the realization that others have gone through their struggle and won the victory. The Christian is not treading an untrodden pathway; he is treading where the saints have trod.

THE SURE HOPE ( Hebrews 6:13-20 )

6:13-20 When God made his promise to Abraham, since he was not able to swear by anyone greater, he swore by himself. "Certainly," he said, "I will bless you and I will multiply you." When Abraham had thus exercised patience he received the promise. Men swear by someone who is greater than themselves; and an oath serves for a guarantee beyond all possibility of contradiction. But on this occasion God, in his quite exceptional desire to make clear to the heirs of the promise the unalterable character of his intention, interposed with an oath, so that by two unalterable things, in which it is impossible that God should lie, we, who have fled to him for refuge, might be strongly encouraged to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us. This hope is to us like an anchor, safe and sure, and it enters with us into the inner court beyond the veil, where Jesus has already entered as a forerunner for us, when he became a High Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

God made more than one promise to Abraham. Genesis 12:7 tells us of the one made when he called him out of Ur and sent him into the unknown and to the promised land. Genesis 17:5-6 is the promise of many descendants who would be blessed in him. Genesis 18:18 is a repetition of that promise. But the promise which God swore with an oath to keep comes in Genesis 22:16-18. The real meaning of this first sentence is: "God made many a promise to Abraham, and in the end he actually made one which he confirmed with an oath." That promise was, as it were, doubly binding. It was God's word which in itself made it sure, but in addition it was confirmed by an oath. Now that promise was that all Abraham's descendants would be blessed; therefore it was to the Christian Church, for it was the true Israel and the true seed of Abraham. That blessing came true in Jesus Christ. Abraham certainly had to exercise patience before he received the promise. It was not till twenty-five years after he had left Ur that his son Isaac was born. He was old; Sarah was barren, the wandering was long; but Abraham never wavered from his hope and trust in the promise of God.

In the ancient world the anchor was the symbol of hope. Epictetus says: "A ship should never depend on one anchor or a life on one hope." Pythagoras said: "Wealth is a weak anchor; fame is still weaker. What then are the anchors which are strong? Wisdom, great-heartedness, courage--these are the anchors which no storm can shake." The writer to the Hebrews insists that the Christian possesses the greatest hope in the world.

That hope, he says, is one which enters into the inner court beyond the veil. In the Temple the most sacred of all places was the Holy of Holies. The veil was what covered it. Within the Holy of Holies there was held to abide the very presence of God. Into that place only one man in all the world could go, and he was the High Priest; and even he might enter that Holy Place on only one day of the year, the Day of Atonement.

Even then, it was laid down, he must not linger in it for it was a dangerous and a terrible thing to enter into the presence of the living God. What the writer to the Hebrews says is this: "Under the old Jewish religion no one might enter into the presence of God but the High Priest and he only on one day of the year; but now Jesus Christ has opened the way for every man at every time."

The writer to the Hebrews uses a most illuminating word about Jesus. He says that he entered the presence of God as our forerunner. The word is prodromos ( G4274) . It has three stages of meaning: (i) It means one who rushes on. (ii) It means a pioneer. (iii) It means a scout who goes ahead to see that it is safe for the body of the troops to follow. Jesus went into the presence of God to make it safe for all men to follow.

Let us put it very simply in another way. Before Jesus came, God was the distant stranger whom only a very few might approach and that at peril of their lives. But because of what Jesus was and did, God has become the friend of every man. Once men thought of him as barring the door; now they think of the door to his presence as thrown wide open to all.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

Hebrews 6:6

cf. Luke 8:13, [Warning to Jewish Christians who were returning, or on verge of returning, to Judaism.]

Fall away -- Note difference between "fall" and "fall away."

Renew -- "Renew" & "recrucify" is a play on words by the writer.

Renew -- The O.T. system of atonement which renewed them to repentance. It no only brought atonement after Christ’s death.

*seeing -- "since" or "while" See ASV footnote. See Expositor Greek New Testament, vol 4, p. 298.

cf. Hebrews 10:26

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

If they shall fall away,.... This is not supposed of true believers, as appears from Hebrews 6:9 nor is it to be supposed of them that they may fall totally and finally; they may indeed fall, not only into afflictions and temptations, but into sin; and from a lively and comfortable exercise of grace, and from a degree of steadfastness in the Gospel; but not irrecoverably: for they are held and secured by a threefold cord, which can never be broken; by God the Father, who has loved them with an everlasting love, has chosen them in Christ, secured them in the covenant of grace, keeps them by his power, has given them grace, and will give them glory; and by the Son, who has undertook for them, redeemed and purchased them, prays and makes preparations in heaven for them, they are built on him, united to him, and are his jewels, whom he will preserve; and by the Holy Ghost, whose grace is incorruptible, whose personal indwelling is for ever, who himself is the earnest and seal of the heavenly inheritance, and who having begun, will finish the good work of grace: but falling away, so as to perish, may be supposed, and is true of many professors of religion; who may fall from the profession of the Gospel they have made, and from the truth of it, and into an open denial of it; yea, into an hatred and persecution of what they once received the external knowledge of; and so shall fall short of heaven, and into condemnation: for,

to renew them again unto repentance, is a thing impossible: by "repentance" is meant, not baptism of repentance; nor admission to a solemn form of public repentance in the church; nor a legal repentance, but an evangelical one: and so to be "renewed" unto it is not to be baptized again, or to be restored anew to the church by repentance, and absolution; but must be understood either of renovation of the soul, in order to repentance; or of the reforming of the outward conversation, as an evidence of it; or of a renewing of the exercise of the grace of repentance and to be renewed "again" to repentance does not suppose that persons may have true repentance and lose it; for though truly penitent persons may lose the exercise of this grace for a time, yet the grace itself can never be lost: moreover, these apostates before described had only a show of repentance, a counterfeit one; such as Cain, Pharaoh, and Judas had; and consequently, the renewing of them again to repentance, is to that which they only seemed to have, and to make pretensions unto; now to renew them to a true repentance, which they once made a profession of, the apostle says is a thing "impossible": the meaning of which is not only that it is difficult; or that it is rare and unusual; or that it is unsuitable and improper; but it is absolutely impossible: it is impossible to these men to renew themselves to repentance; renovation is the work of the Holy Ghost, and not of man; and repentance is God's gift, and not in man's power; and it is impossible for ministers to renew them, to restore and bring them back, by true repentance; yea, it is impossible to God himself, not through any impotence in him, but from the nature of the sin these men are guilty of; for by the high, though outward attainments they arrive unto, according to the description of them, their sin is the sin against the Holy Ghost, for which no sacrifice can be offered up, and of which there is no remission, and so no repentance; for these two go together, and for which prayer is not to be made; see

Matthew 12:32 and chiefly because to renew such persons to repentance, is repugnant to the determined will of God, who cannot go against his own purposes and resolutions; and so the Jews l speak of repentance being withheld by God from Pharaoh, and, from the people of Israel; of which they understand Exodus 9:16 and say, that when the holy blessed God withholds repentance from a sinner, אינו יכול לשוב, "he cannot repent"; but must die in his wickedness which he first committed of his own will; and they further observe m, that he that profanes the name of God has it not in his power to depend on repentance, nor can his iniquity be expiated on the day of atonement, or be removed by chastisement:

seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh; who is truly and properly God, begotten of the Father, and of the same nature with him, in whom he greatly delights; this is Christ's highest name and title; and it was for asserting himself to be the Son of God that he was crucified; and his being so puts an infinite virtue in his sufferings and death; and it heightens the sin of the Jews, and of these apostates, in crucifying him. He was once crucified, and it is both impossible and unnecessary that he should be, properly speaking, "crucified afresh", or "again"; it is impossible, because he is risen from the dead, and will never die more; it is unnecessary, because he has finished and completed what he suffered the death of the cross for; but men may be said to crucify him again, when, by denying him to be the Son of God, they justify the crucifixion of him on that account; and when they lessen and vilify the virtue of his blood and sacrifice; and when both by errors and immoralities they cause him to be blasphemed, and evil spoken of; and when they persecute him in his members: and this may be said to be done "to themselves afresh"; not that Christ was crucified for them before, but that they now crucify him again, as much as in them lies; or "with themselves", in their own breasts and minds, and to their own destruction. Now this being the case, it makes their renewal to repentance impossible; because, as before observed, the sin they commit is unpardonable; it is a denial of Christ, who gives repentance; and such who sin it must arrive to such hardness of heart as to admit of no repentance; and it is just with God to give up such to a final impenitence, as those, who knowingly and out of malice and envy crucified Christ, had neither pardon nor repentance; and besides, this sin of denying Christ to be the Son of God, and Saviour of men, after so much light and knowledge, precludes the way of salvation, unless Christ was to be crucified again, which is impossible; for so the Syriac version connects this clause with the word "impossible", as well as a foregoing one, rendering it, "it is impossible to crucify the Son of God again, and to put him to shame"; and so the Arabic version. Christ was put to open shame at the time of his apprehension, prosecution, and crucifixion; and so he is by such apostates, who, was he on earth, would treat him in the same manner the Jews did; and who do traduce him as an impostor and a deceiver, and give the lie to his doctrines, and expose him by their lives, and persecute him in his saints.

l Maimon. Hilchot. Teshuba, c. 6. sect. 3. m Vid. R. David Kimchi in Isa. xxii. 14.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,   2 Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.   3 And this will we do, if God permit.   4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,   5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,   6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.   7 For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God:   8 But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.

      We have here the apostle's advice to the Hebrews--that they would grow up from a state of childhood to the fullness of the stature of the new man in Christ. He declares his readiness to assist them all he could in their spiritual progress; and, for their greater encouragement, he puts himself with them: Let us go on. Here observe, In order to their growth, Christians must leave the principles of the doctrine of Christ. How must they leave them? They must not lose them, they must not despise them, they must not forget them. They must lay them up in their hearts, and lay them as the foundation of all their profession and expectation; but they must not rest and stay in them, they must not be always laying the foundation, they must go on, and build upon it. There must be a superstructure; for the foundation is laid on purpose to support the building. Here it may be enquired, Why did the apostle resolve to set strong meat before the Hebrews, when he knew they were but babes? Answer. 1. Though some of them were but weak, yet others of them had gained more strength; and they must be provided for suitably. And, as those who are grown Christians must be willing to hear the plainest truths preached for the sake of the weak, so the weak must be willing to hear the more difficult and mysterious truths preached for the sake of those who are strong. 2. He hoped they would be growing in their spiritual strength and stature, and so be able to digest stronger meat.

      I. The apostle mentions several foundation-principles, which must be well laid at first, and then built upon; neither his time nor theirs must be spent in laying these foundations over and over again. These foundations are six:--

      1. Repentance from dead works, that is, conversion and regeneration, repentance from a spiritually dead state and course; as if he had said, "Beware of destroying the life of grace in your souls; your minds were changed by conversion, and so were your lives. Take care that you return not to sin again, for then you must have the foundation to lay again; there must be a second conversion a repenting not only of, but from, dead works." Observe here, (1.) The sins of persons unconverted are dead works; they proceed from persons spiritually dead, and they tend to death eternal. (2.) Repentance for dead works, if it be right, is repentance from dead works, a universal change of heart and life. (3.) Repentance for and from dead works is a foundation-principle, which must not be laid again, though we must renew our repentance daily.

      2. Faith towards God, a firm belief of the existence of God, of his nature, attributes, and perfections, the trinity of persons in the unity of essence, the whole mind and will of God as revealed in his word, particularly what relates to the Lord Jesus Christ. We must by faith acquaint ourselves with these things; we must assent to them, we must approve of them, and apply all to ourselves with suitable affections and actions. Observe, (1.) Repentance from dead works, and faith towards God, are connected, and always go together; they are inseparable twins, the one cannot live without the other. (2.) Both of these are foundation-principles, which should be once well laid, but never pulled up, so as to need to be laid over again; we must not relapse into infidelity.

      3. The doctrine of baptisms, that is, of being baptized by a minister of Christ with water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, as the initiating sign or seal of the covenant of grace, strongly engaging the person so baptized to get acquainted with the new covenant, to adhere to it, and prepare to renew it at the table of the Lord and sincerely to regulate himself according to it, relying upon the truth and faithfulness of God for the blessings contained in it. And the doctrine of an inward baptism, that of the Spirit sprinkling the blood of Christ upon the soul, for justification, and the graces of the Spirit for sanctification. This ordinance of baptism is a foundation to be rightly laid, and daily remembered, but not repeated.

      4. Laying on of hands, on persons passing solemnly from their initiated state by baptism to the confirmed state, by returning the answer of a good conscience towards God, and sitting down at the Lord's table. This passing from incomplete to complete church membership was performed by laying on of hands, which was extraordinary conveyance of the gift of the Holy Ghost continued. This, once done, all are obliged to abide by, and not to need another solemn admission, as at first, but to go on, and grow up, in Christ. Or by this may be meant ordination of persons to the ministerial office, who are duly qualified for it and inclined to it; and this by fasting and prayer, with laying on of the hands of the presbytery: and this is to be done but once.

      5. The resurrection of the dead, that is, of dead bodies; and their re-union with their souls, to be eternal companions together in weal or woe, according as their state was towards God when they died, and the course of life they led in this world.

      6. Eternal judgment, determining the soul of every one, when it leaves the body at death, and both soul and body at the last day, to their eternal state, every one to his proper society and employment to which they were entitled and fitted here on earth; the wicked to everlasting punishment, the righteous to life eternal.

      These are the great foundation-principles which ministers should clearly and convincingly unfold, and closely apply. In these the people should be well instructed and established, and from these they must never depart; without these, the other parts of religion have no foundation to support them.

      II. The apostle declares his readiness and resolution to assist the Hebrews in building themselves up on these foundations till they arrive at perfection: And this we will do, if God permit,Hebrews 6:3; Hebrews 6:3. And thereby he teaches them, 1. That right resolution is very necessary in order to progress and proficiency in religion. 2. That that resolution is right which is not only made in the sincerity of our hearts, but in a humble dependence upon God for strength, for assistance and righteousness, for acceptance, and for time and opportunity. 3. That ministers should not only teach people what to do, but go before them, and along with them, in the way of duty.

      III. He shows that this spiritual growth is the surest way to prevent that dreadful sin of apostasy from the faith. And here,

      1. He shows how far persons may go in religion, and, after all, fall away, and perish for ever, Hebrews 6:4; Hebrews 6:5. (1.) They may be enlightened. Some of the ancients understand this of their being baptized; but it is rather to be understood of notional knowledge and common illumination, of which persons may have a great deal, and yet come short of heaven. Balaam was the man whose eyes were opened (Numbers 24:3), and yet with his eyes opened he went down to utter darkness. (2.) They may taste of the heavenly gift, feel something of the efficacy of the Holy Spirit in his operations upon their souls, causing them to taste something of religion, and yet be like persons in the market, who taste of what they will not come up to the price of, and so but take a taste, and leave it. Persons may taste religion, and seem to like it, if they could have it upon easier terms than denying themselves, and taking up their cross, and following Christ. (3.) They may be made partakers of the Holy Ghost, that is, of his extraordinary and miraculous gifts; they may have cast out devils in the name of Christ, and done many other mighty works. Such gifts in the apostolic age were sometimes bestowed upon those who had no true saving grace. (4.) They may taste of the good word of God; they may have some relish of gospel doctrines, may hear the word with pleasure, may remember much of it, and talk well of it, and yet never be cast into the form and mould of it, nor have it dwelling richly in them. (5.) They may have tasted of the powers of the world to come; they may have been under strong impressions concerning heaven, and dread of going to hell. These lengths hypocrites may go, and, after all, turn apostates. Now hence observe, [1.] These great things are spoken here of those who may fall away; yet it is not here said of them that they were truly converted, or that they were justified; there is more in true saving grace than in all that is here said of apostates. [2.] This therefore is no proof of the final apostasy of true saints. These indeed may fall frequently and foully, but yet they will not totally nor finally from God; the purpose and the power of God, the purchase and the prayer of Christ, the promise of the gospel, the everlasting covenant that God has made with them, ordered in all things and sure, the indwelling of the Spirit, and the immortal seed of the word, these are their security. But the tree that has not these roots will not stand.

      2. The apostle describes the dreadful case of such as fall away after having gone so far in the profession of the religion. (1.) The greatness of the sin of apostasy. It is crucifying the Son of God afresh, and putting him to open shame. They declare that they approve of what the Jews did in crucifying Christ, and that they would be glad to do the same thing again if it were in their power. They pour the greatest contempt upon the Son of God, and therefore upon God himself, who expects all should reverence his Son, and honour him as they honour the Father. They do what in them lies to represent Christ and Christianity as a shameful thing, and would have him to be a public shame and reproach. This is the nature of apostasy. (2.) The great misery of apostates. [1.] It is impossible to renew them again unto repentance. It is extremely hazardous. Very few instances can be given of those who have gone so far and fallen away, and yet ever have been brought to true repentance, such a repentance as is indeed a renovation of the soul. Some have thought this is the sin against the Holy Ghost, but without ground. The sin here mentioned is plainly apostasy both from the truth and the ways of Christ. God can renew them to repentance, but he seldom does it; and with men themselves it is impossible. [2.] Their misery is exemplified by a proper similitude, taken from the ground that after much cultivation brings forth nothing but briers and thorns; and therefore is nigh unto cursing, and its end is to be burned,Hebrews 6:8; Hebrews 6:8. To give this the greater force here is observed the difference that there is between the good ground and the bad, that these contraries, being set one over against the other, illustrate each other. First Here is a description of the good ground: It drinketh in the rain that cometh often upon it. Believers do not only taste of the word of God, but they drink it in; and this good ground bringeth forth fruit answerable to the cost laid out, for the honour of Christ and the comfort of his faithful ministers, who are, under Christ, dressers of the ground. And this fruit-field or garden receives the blessing. God declares fruitful Christians blessed, and all wise and good men account them blessed: they are blessed with increase of grace, and with further establishment and glory at last. Secondly, Here is the different case of the bad ground: It bears briers and thorns; it is not only barren of good fruit, but fruitful in that which is bad, briers and thorns, fruitful in sin and wickedness, which are troublesome and hurtful to all about them, and will be most so to sinners themselves at last; and then such ground is rejected. God will concern himself no more about such wicked apostates; he will let them alone, and cast them out of his care; he will command the clouds that they rain no more upon them. Divine influences shall be restrained; and that is not all, but such ground is nigh unto cursing; so far is it from receiving the blessing, that a dreadful curse hangs over it, though as yet, through the patience of God, the curse is not fully executed. Lastly, Its end is to be burned. Apostasy will be punished with everlasting burnings, the fire that shall never be quenched. This is the sad end to which apostasy leads, and therefore Christians should go on and grow in grace, lest, if they do not go forward, they should go backward, till they bring matters to this woeful extremity of sin and misery.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

Final Perseverance

A Sermon

(No. 75)

Delivered on Sabbath Morning, March 23, 1856, by the

REV. C. H. Spurgeon

At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." Hebrews 6:4-6 .

THERE are some spots in Europe which have been the scenes of frequent warfare, as for instance, the kingdom of Belgium, which might be called the battle field of Europe. War has raged over the whole of Europe, but in some unhappy spots, battle after battle has been fought. So there is scarce a passage of Scripture which has not been disputed between the enemies of truth and the upholders of it; but this passage, with one or two others, has been the special subject of attack. This is one of the texts which have been trodden under the feet of controversy; and there are opinions upon it as adverse as the poles, some asserting that it means one thing, and some declaring that it means another. We think that some of them approach somewhat near the truth; but others of them desperately err from the mind of the Spirit. We come to this passage ourselves with the intention to read it with the simplicity of a child, and whatever we find therein to state it; and if it may not seem to agree with something we have hitherto held, we are prepared to cast away every doctrine of our own, rather than one passage of Scripture. We shall, this morning, answer one or two questions. The first question will be, Who are the people here spoken? Are they true Christians or not? Secondly, What is meant by falling away? And thirdly, What is intended, when it is asserted, that it is impossible to renew them to repentance? First, they are spoken of as having been once enlightened . This refers to the enlightening influence of God's Spirit, poured into the soul at the time of conviction, when man is enlightened with regard to his spiritual state, shown how evil and bitter a thing it is to sin against God, made to feel how utterly powerless he is to rise from the grave of his corruption, and is further enlightened to see, that "by the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified," and to behold Christ on the cross, as the sinner's only hope. The first work of grace is to enlighten the soul. By nature we are entirely dark; the Spirit, like a lamp, sheds light into the dark heart, revealing its corruption, displaying its sad state of destitution, and, in due time, revealing also Jesus Christ, so that in his light we may see light. I cannot consider a man truly enlightened unless he is a child of God. Does not the term indicate a person taught of God? It is not the whole of Christian experience; but is it not a part? Then the Apostle gives a further description, a higher state of grace: sanctification by participation of the Holy Ghost . It is a peculiar privilege to believers, after their first tasting of the heavenly gift, to be made partakers of the Holy Ghost. He is an indwelling Spirit; he dwells in the hearts, and souls, and minds of men; he makes this mortal flesh his home; he makes our soul his palace, and there he rests; and we do assert (and we think, on the authority of Scripture), that no man can be a partaker of the Holy Ghost, and yet be unregenerate. Where the Holy Ghost dwells there must be life; and if I have participation with the Holy Ghost, and fellowship with him, then I may rest assured that my salvation has been purchased by the blood of the Saviour. Thou need'st not fear, beloved; if thou has the Holy Ghost, thou hast that which ensures thy salvation; if thou, by an inward communion, canst participate in his Spirit, and if by a perpetual indwelling the Holy Ghost rests in thee, thou art not only a Christian, but thou hast arrived at some maturity in and by grace. Thou hast gone beyond mere enlightenment: thou hast passed from the bare taste thou hast attained to a positive feast, and a partaking of the Holy Ghost. And they had gone further still. They had attained the summit of piety. They had received " the powers of the world to come ." Not miraculous gifts, which are denied us in these days, but all those powers with which the Holy Ghost endows a Christian. And what are they? Why, there is the power of faith, which commands even the heavens themselves to rain, and they rain, or stops the bottles of heaven, that they rain not. There is the power of prayer, which puts a ladder between earth and heaven, and bids angels walk up and down, to convey our wants to God, and bring down blessings from above. There is the power with which God girds his servant when he speaks by inspiration, which enables him to instruct others, and lead them to Jesus; and whatever other power there may be the power of holding communion with God, or the power of patient waiting for the Son of Man they were possessed by these individuals. They were not simply children, but they were men; they were not merely alive, but they were endued with power; they were men, whose muscles were firmly set, whose bones were strong; they had become giants in grace, and had received not only the light, but the power also of the world to come. These, we say, whatever may be the meaning of the text, must have been, beyond a doubt, none other than true and real Christians. We must remind our friends, that there is a vast distinction between falling away and falling . It is nowhere said in Scripture, that if a man fall he cannot be renewed; on the contrary, "the righteous falleth seven times, but he riseth up again;" and however many times the child of God doth fall, the Lord still holdeth the righteous; yea, when our bones are broken, he bindeth up our bones again, and setteth us once more upon a rock. He saith, "Return, ye backsliding children of men; for I am married unto you;" and if the Christian do backslide ever so far, still Almighty mercy cries, "Return, return, return, and seek an injured Father's heart." He still calls his children back again. Falling is not falling away. Let me explain the difference; for a man who falls may behave just like a man who falls away; and yet there is a great distinction between the two. I can use no better illustration than the distinction between fainting and dying. There lies a young creature; she can scarcely breathe; she cannot herself, lift up her hand, and if lifted up by any one else, it falls. She is cold and stiff; she is faint, but not dead. There is another one, just as cold and stiff as she is, but there is this difference she is dead. The Christian may faint, and may fall down in a faint too, and some may pick him up, and say he is dead; but he is not. If he fall, God will lift him up again; but if he fall away, God himself cannot save him. For it is impossible, if the righteous fall away , "to renew them again unto repentance." Nor can a man who commits a sin, which is not exactly a surprise , be said to fall away. I believe that some Christian men (God forbid that we should say much of it! let us cover the nakedness of our brother with a cloak.) but I do believe that there are some Christians who, for a period of time, have wandered into sin, and yet have not positively fallen away. There is that black case of David a case which has puzzled thousands. Certainly for some months, David lived without making a public confession of his sin, but, doubtless, he had achings of heart, for grace had not ceased its work: there was a spark among the ashes that Nathan stirred up, which showed that David was not dead, or else the match which the prophet applied would not have caught light so readily. And so, beloved, you may have wandered into sin for a time, and gone far from God; and yet you are not the character here described, concerning whom it is said, that it is impossible you should be saved; but, wanderer though you be, you are your father's son still, and mercy cries, "Repent, repent; return unto your first husband, for then it was better with you than it is now. Return, O wanderer, return." But some one says, "What is falling away?" Well, there never has been a case of it yet, and therefore I cannot describe it from observation; but I will tell you what I suppose it is. To fall away, would be for the Holy Spirit entirely to go out of a man for his grace entirely to cease; not to lie dormant, but to cease to be for God, who has begun a good work, to leave off doing it entirely to take his hand completely and entirely away, and say, "There, man! I have half saved thee; now I will damn thee." That is what falling away is. It is not to sin temporarily. A child may sin against his father, and still be alive; but falling away is like cutting the child's head off clean. Not falling merely, for then our Father could pick us up, but being dashed down a precipice, where we are lost for ever. Falling away would involved God's grace changing its living nature. God's immutability becoming variable, God's faithfulness becoming changeable, and God, himself being undeified; for all these things falling away would necessitate. We come now to do two things: first, to prove the doctrine , that if a Christian fall away, he cannot be saved; and, secondly, to improve the doctrine , or to show its use, These persons, too, have been partakers of the Holy Ghost; if that fail, what more can we give them? If, my hearer, the Holy Ghost dwells in your soul, and that Holy Ghost does not sanctify you and keep you to the end, what else can be tried? Ask the blasphemer whether he knows a being, or dares to suppose a being superior to the Holy Spirit! Is there a being greater than Omnipotence? Is there a might greater than that which dwells in the believer's new-born heart? And if already the Holy Spirit hath failed, O, heavens! tell us where we can fight aught that can excel his might? If that be ineffectual, what next is to be essayed? These people, too, had "tasted the good Word of Life;" they had loved the doctrines of grace; those doctrines had entered into their souls, and they had fed upon them. What new doctrines shall be preached to them? Prophet of ages! where whilt thou find another system of divinity? Who shall we have? Shall we raise up Moses from the tomb? shall we fetch up all the ancient seers, and bid them prophecy? If, then, there is only one doctrine that is true, and if these people have fallen away after receiving that, how can they be saved? And then the apostle says, that the greatness of their sin which they would incur , if they did fall away, would put them beyond the bounds of mercy. Christ died, and by his death he made an atonement for his own murderers; he made an atonement for those sins which crucified him once; but do we read that Christ will ever die for those who crucify him twice? But the Apostle tells us that if believers do fall away, they will "crucify the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." Where, then, would be an atonement for that? He has died for me; What! though the sins of all the world were on my shoulders, still they only crucified him once, and that one crucifixion has taken all those sins away; but if I crucified him again, where would I find pardon? Could heavens, could earth, could Christ himself, with bowels full of love, point me to another Christ, show to me a second Calvary, give me a second Gethsemane? Ah! no! the very guilt itself would put us beyond the pale of hope, if we were to fall away? If you read the 7th verse, you will see that the Apostle calls nature in to his assistance . He says, "The earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: But that which beareth thorns and briars is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned." Look! there is a field; the rain comes on it, and it brings forth good fruit. Well, then, there is God's blessing on it. But there is according to your supposition, another field, on which the same rain descends, which the same dew moistens; it has been ploughed and harrowed, as well as the other, and the husbandman has exercised all his craft upon it, and yet it is not fertile. Well, if the rain of heaven did not fertilize it, what next? Already all the arts of agriculture have been tried, every implement has been worn out on its surface, and yet it has been of no avail. What next? There remains nothing but that it shall be burnt and cursed given up like the desert of Sahara, and resigned to destruction. So, my hearer, could it be possible that grace could work in thee, and then not affect thy salvation that the influence of Divine grace could come down, like rain from heaven, and yet return unto God void, there could not be any hope for thee, for thou wouldst be "nigh unto cursing," and thine end would be "to be burned." And one thought more. There is nothing in Scripture which teaches us that there is any salvation, save the one salvation of Jesus Christ nothing that tells us of any other power, super-excellent and surpassing the power of the Holy Spirit. These things have already been tried on the man, and yet, according to the supposition, they have failed, for he has fallen away. Now, God has never revealed a supplementary salvation for men on whom one salvation has had no effect; and until we are pointed to one scripture which declares this, we will still maintain that the doctrine of the text is this: that if grace be ineffectual, if grace does not keep a man, then there is nothing left but that he must be damned. And what is that but to say, only going a little round about, that grace will do it? So that these words, instead of miltating against the Calvinistic doctrine of final perseverance, form one of the finest proofs of it that could be afforded. 2. It is to excite our gratitude. Suppose you say to your little boy, "Don't you know Tommy, if I were not to give you your dinner and your supper you would die? There is nobody else to give Tommy dinner and supper." What then? The child does not think that you are not going to give him his dinner and supper; he knows you will, and he is grateful to you for them. The chemist tells us, that if there were no oxygen mixed with the air, animals would die. Do you suppose that there will be no oxygen, and therefore we shall die? No, he only teaches you the great wisdom of God, in having mixed the gases in their proper proportions. Says one of the old astronomers, "There is great wisdom in God, that he has put the sun exactly at a right distance not so far away that we should be frozen to death, and not so near that we should be scorched." He says, "If the sun were a million miles nearer to us we should be scorched to death." Does the man suppose that the sun will be a million miles nearer, and, therefore, we shall be scorched to death? He says, "If the sun were a million miles farther off we should be frozen to death." Does he mean that the sun will be a million miles farther off, and therefore we shall be frozen to death? Not at all. Yet it is quite a rational way of speaking, to show us how grateful we should be to God. So says the Apostle. Christian! if thou shouldst fall away, thou couldst never be renewed unto repentance. Thank thy Lord, then, that he keeps thee.

"See a stone that hangs in air; see a spark in ocean live; Kept alive with death so near; I to God the glory give."

There is a cup of sin which would damn thy soul, O Christian. Oh! what grace is that which holds thy arm, and will not let thee drink it? There thou art, at this hour, like the bird-catcher of St. Kilda, thou art being drawn to heaven by a single rope; if that hand which holds thee let thee go, if that rope which grasps thee do but break, thou art dashed on the rocks of damnation. Lift up thine heart to God, then, and bless him that his arm is not wearied, and is never shortened that it cannot save. Lord Kenmure, when he was dying, said to Rutherford. "Man! my name is written on Christ's hand, and I see it! that is bold talk, man, but I see it!" Then, if that be the case, his hand must be severed from his body before my name can be taken from him; and if it be engraven on his heart, his heart must be rent out before they can rend my name out. "Hold on, then, and trust believer! thou hast "an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, which entereth within the veil." The winds are bellowing, the tempests howling; should the cable slip, or thine anchor break, thou art lost. See those rocks, on which myriads are driving, and thou art wrecked there if grace leave thee; see those depths, in which the skeletons of sailors sleep, and thou art there, if that anchor fail thee. It would be impossible to moor thee again, if once that anchor broke; for other anchor there is none, other salvation there can be none, and if that one fail thee, it is impossible that thou ever shouldst be saved. Therefore thank God that thou hast an anchor that cannot fail, and then loudly sing

"How can I sink with such a prop, As my eternal God, Who bears the earth's huge pillars up? And spreads the heavens abroad?"

How can I die, when Jesus lives, Who rose and left the dead? Pardon and grace my soul receives, From my exalted head."

Final Perseverance

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

The epistle to the Hebrews differs in some important respects from all those which have been before us; so much so that many have questioned whether it be the writing of the apostle Paul, of Apollos, of Barnabas, etc. Of this my mind has no doubt. I believe that Paul, and no other, was the author, and that it bears the strongest intrinsic traits of his doctrine. The style is different, and so is the manner of handling the truth; but the line of truth, though it be affected by the object that he had in view, is that which savours of Paul beyond all: not of Peter, or John, or James, or Jude, but of Paul alone.

One good and plain reason which has graven a difference of character on the epistle is the fact, that it goes outside his allotted province. Paul was the apostle of the uncircumcision. If writing for the instruction of Jews, as here he clearly was, to believers or Christians that had once been of that nation, he was evidently outside the ordinary function of his apostolic work.

There is another reason also why the epistle to the Hebrews diverges very sensibly and materially from the rest of the writings of St. Paul, that it is not, strictly speaking, an exercise of apostleship at all, but of the writer (apostle though he were) as a teacher, and here a teacher clearly not of Gentiles, as he says elsewhere, but of Jews. Now it is plain, if he that was an apostle and preacher and teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth was led by the Holy Spirit to address the saints that were of the old Jewish fold, there must have been a marked departure from his usual methods in the manner of using and presenting the truth of God to these. But we have this blessed result of his acting outside his own ordinary sphere, that it is the finest and indeed the only specimen of teaching properly so called in the New Testament. It is not a revelation given by prophetic or apostolic authority; and for this reason, I presume, he does not introduce himself at all. It is always a failure when the teacher as such is prominent. The point for such an one is, that the reaching (not himself) should arrest and instruct. But in revealing truth the person whom God employs in that work is naturally brought before those addressed; and hence the apostle took particular care, even if he did not write an epistle, to put his name to it, introducing himself at the beginning through the amanuensis that he employed, and with scrupulous care adding his own name at the end of each epistle.

In writing to the Hebrew believers it is not so. Here the apostle is what indeed he was. Besides being apostle of the uncircumcision, he was a teacher; and God took care that, although expressly said to be a teacher of Gentiles, his should be the word to teach the Christian Jews too; and, in fact, we may be assured that he taught them as they never were taught before. He opened the scriptures as none but Paul could, according to the gospel of the glory of Christ. He taught them the value of the living oracles that God had given them; for this is the beautiful characteristic here. Indeed the epistle to the Hebrews stands unique. By it the believing Jew was led into a divine application of that which was in the Old Testament that which they had habitually read in the law, Psalms, and prophets, from their cradle we may say, but which they had never seen in such a light before. That mighty, logical, penetrating, richly-stored mind! that heart with such affections large and deep, as scarce ever were concentred in another bosom! that soul of experience wonderfully varied and profound! he was the one whom God was now leading in a somewhat unwonted path, no doubt, but in a path which, when once taken, at once approves itself by divine wisdom to every heart purified by faith.

For if Peter, as is known, were the apostle of the circumcision pre-eminently, it was through him that God first of all opened the door of the kingdom of heaven to the Gentiles; and if the apostle Paul, with the concurrence of the heads of the work among the circumcision, had gone to the Gentiles, none the less did the Spirit of God (it may be without asking those who seemed to be somewhat at Jerusalem) employ Paul to write to the believers of the circumcision the most consummate treatise on the bearing of Christ and Christianity upon the law and the prophets, and as practically dealing with their wants, dangers, and blessing. Thus did God most carefully guard in every form from the technical drawing of lines of rigid demarcation to which even Christians are so prone, the love of settling things in precise routine, the desire that each should have his own place, not only as the proper sphere of his work, but to the exclusion of every other. With admirable wisdom indeed the Lord directs the work and the workmen, but never exclusively; and the apostle Paul is here, as just shown, the proof of it on one side as Peter is on the other.

What is the consequence under the blessed guidance of the Spirit? As the great teacher of the believers from among the Jews, we have, after all, not Paul, but through him God Himself left to address His own, in the words, facts, ceremonies, offices, persons so long familiar to the chosen people. Paul does not appear. This could hardly have been by any other arrangement, at any rate not so naturally. "God," says he, "having in many measures and in many manners spoken in time past to the fathers in the prophets, at the last of these days spoke to us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds." Paul, would show them thus the infinite dignity of the Messiah whom they had received. Never would Paul weaken the personal rights or the official place of the Anointed of Jehovah. Contrariwise, he would lead them on to find what they had never yet seen in their Messiah, and, wonderful to say, he founds his proofs, not on new revelations, but on those very words of God which they had read so superficially, the depths of which they had never approached, nor had they so much as suspected. The facts of Christianity they knew; the linking of all scripture with Christ's person, and work, and glory they had yet to discover.

But mark the manner of the writer. He is careful to establish the thread of connection with God's word and ways of old; and yet there is not a single epistle which more elaborately throughout its entire course sets the believer in present relationship to Christ in heaven; I think one might be bold to say, none so much. From the very starting-point we see Christ, not merely dead and risen, but glorified in heaven. There is no doubt that the writer meant his readers to hold fast, that He who suffered all things on earth is the same Jesus who is now at the right hand of God; but the first place in which we hear of Him is as Son of God on high according toHebrews 1:1-14; Hebrews 1:1-14, and there it is we see Him as Son of man according toHebrews 2:1-18; Hebrews 2:1-18. It was there, in fact, that Paul had himself first seen the Lord. Who then was so suitable to introduce Jesus, the rejected Messiah, at the right hand of God, as Saul of Tarsus? On the way to Damascus that staunchest of Jews had his eyes first opened blinded naturally, but enabled by grace so much the more to see by the power of the Holy Spirit the glorified Christ,

It is to Christ in heaven, then, that Paul, writing to the Christian Jews, first directs their attention. But he does it in a manner which shows the singularly delicate tact given him. True affection is prudent for its object when peril is nigh, and delights to help effectively, instead of being indifferent whether the way of it wounds those whose good is sought. In no way are the former messages of God forgotten in the days of their fathers. Nor would one gather from this epistle that its writer laboured among the Gentiles, nor even that there was a calling of Gentile believers in the Lord Jesus. The epistle to the Hebrews never speaks of either. We can understand, therefore, how active-minded men, who occupied themselves with the surface the method, the style, the unusual absence of the writer's name, and other peculiarities in the phenomena of this epistle, too readily hesitated to attribute it to Paul. They might not attach much moment to the general tradition which ascribed it to him. But they ought to have looked more steadily into its depths, and the motives for obvious points of difference, even were it written by Paul.

Granted that there is a striking absence of allusion to the one body here. But there was one nearer and dearer to Paul than even the church. There was one truth that Paul laboured yet more to hold up than that one body, wherein is neither Jew nor Greek the glory of Him who is the head of it. Christ Himself was what made the assembly of God precious to him. Christ Himself was infinitely more precious than even the church which He had loved so well, and for which He gave Himself. Of Christ, then, he would deliver his last message to his brethren after the flesh as well as Spirit; and as he began preaching in the synagogues that He is the Son of God, (Acts 9:1-43) so here he begins his epistle to the Hebrews. He would lead them on, and this with gentle but firm and witting hand. He would deepen their knowledge lovingly and wisely. He would not share their unbelief, their love of ease, their value for outward show, their dread of suffering; but he would reserve each folly for the most fitting moment. He would lay a vigorous hand on that which threatened their departure from the faith, but he would smooth lightly lesser difficulties out of their way. But when he gained their ear, and they were enabled to see the bright lights and perfections of the great High Priest, there is no warning more energetic than this epistle affords against the imminent and remediless danger of those who abandon Christ, whether for religious form, or to indulge in sin. All is carried on in the full power of the Spirit of God, but with the nicest consideration of Jewish prejudices, and the most scrupulous care to bring every warrant for his doctrine from their own ancient yet little understood testimonies.

It is evident, however, even from the opening of the epistle, that though he does not slight but uphold the Old Testament scriptures, yet he will not let the Jews pervert them to dishonour the Lord Jesus. How had God spoken to the fathers? In many measures and in many manners. So had He spoken in the prophets. It was fragmentary and various, not a full and final manifestation of Himself. Mark the skill! He thereby cuts off, by the unquestionable facts of the Old Testament, that overweening self-complacency of the Jew, which would set Moses and Elias against hearing the Son of God. Had God spoken to the fathers, in the prophets? Unquestionably. Paul, who loved Israel and estimated their privileges more highly than themselves, (Romans 9:1-33) was the last man to deny or enfeeble it. But how had God spoken then? Had He formerly brought out the fulness of His mind? Not so. The early communications were but refracted rays, not the light unbroken and complete. Who could deny that such was the character of all the Old Testament? Yet so cautiously does he insinuate the obviously and necessarily practical character of that which was revealed of old, that at a first reading, nay, however often read perfunctorily, they might have no more perceived it than, I suppose, most of us must confess as to ourselves. But there it is; and when we begin to prove the divine certainty of every word, we weigh and weigh again its value.

As then it is pointed out that there were formerly many portions, so also were there many modes in the prophetic communications of God. This was, beyond doubt, the way in which His revelations had been gradually vouchsafed to His people. But for this very reason, it was not complete. God was giving piecemeal His various words, "here a little, and there a little." Such was the character of His ways with Israel. They could not man could not hear more till redemption was accomplished, after the Son of God Himself was come, and His glory fully revealed. Now when promises were given to the fathers, they did not go beyond the earthly glory of Christ; but known to Him were all things from the beginning, yet He did not outrun the course of His dealings with His people. But as they manifested themselves in relation to Himself, and alas! their own weakness and ruin, higher glories began to dawn, and were needful as a support to the people. Hence, invariably, you will find these two things correlative. Reduce the glory of Christ, and you equally lower your judgment of the state of man. See the total absolute ruin of the creature; and none but the Son in all His glory is felt to be a sufficient Saviour for such.

The apostle was now being led by the Holy Ghost to wean these believers from their poor, meagre, earthly thoughts of Christ from that so common tendency to take the least portion of the blessing, contenting ourselves with that which we think we need, and which we feel to be desirable for us, and there sitting down. God, on the contrary, while He does adapt Himself to the earliest wants of souls, and the feeblest answer to Christ by the Spirit of God working within us, nevertheless has in His heart for us what suits His own glory, and this He will accomplish; for faithful is He who hath promised, and He will do it. He means to have all that love the Saviour like Him; and all that He purposes to do for the Saviour's honour, He has perfectly unfolded to us. No doubt, this supposes the resurrection state, and it never can be till then; but He graciously works now, that we may learn by degrees that only such a Saviour and Lord the effulgence of His glory, and full expression of His substance, the Son of God Himself could suit either God or us.

Accordingly, while he intimates thus that all was but partial, being piecemeal and multiform, in the revelations from God to the fathers, he lets them know, in the next verse, that the same God had, in the last of these days, "spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds." If such and so great were His glory, what must not be the word of such a Son? What the fulness of the truth that God was now making known to His people by Him? Was this to slight the glory of the Messiah? Let them rather take heed that there be no oversight of Him on their part; none could justly put it to the account of God. For who was He, this Messiah, that they would fain occupy themselves with as a king, and would have confirmed, had it 'been possible, to aggrandize themselves the ancient people of God? The brightness of God's glory, the express image of His substance; the upholder, not of Israel or their land only, but of all things "by the word of his power." But hearken "when he had by himself purged our sins," was not the whole Jewish system blotted out by such a truth? "when he had by himself purged our sins." It is to the exclusion of every other instrument. Help there was not; means there could not be. He Himself undertook and achieved the task alone; and, when He had thus done it, "sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high; being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they."

This furnishes the first part of the doctrine on which the apostle insists. If any beings had special account or stood highly exalted in a Jew's eye, the holy angels were they; and no wonder. It was in this form that Jehovah ordinarily appeared, whenever He visited the fathers or the sons of Israel. There were exceptions; but, as a rule, He who made known the will and manifested the power of Jehovah in these early days to the fathers is spoken of habitually as the angel of Jehovah. It is thus He was represented. He had not yet taken manhood, or made it part of His person. I do not deny that there was sometimes the appearance of man. An angel might appear in whatever guise it pleased God; but, appear as He might, He was the representative of Jehovah. Accordingly, the Jews always associated angels with the highest idea of beings, next to Jehovah Himself, the chosen messengers of the divine will for any passing vision among men. But now appeared One who completely surpassed the angels. Who was He? The Son of God. It ought to have filled them with joy.

We may easily understand that every soul truly born of God would and must break forth into thanksgiving to hear of a deeper glory than he had first perceived in Christ, We must not look on the Lord according to our experience, if there has been simplicity in the way God has brought us to the perception of His glory; we must endeavour to put ourselves back, and consider the prejudices and difficulties of the Jew. They had their own peculiar hindrances; and one of their greatest was the idea of a divine person becoming a man; for a man, to a Jew, was far below an angel. Are there not many now, even professing Christians (to their shame be it spoken) who think somewhat similarly? Not every Christian knows that a mere angel, as such, is but a servant; not every Christian understands that man was made to rule. No doubt he is a servant, but not merely one so accomplishing orders, but having a given sphere, in which he was to rule as the image and glory of God: a thing never true of an angel never was, and never can be. The Jews had not entered into this; no man ever did receive such a thought. The great mass of Christians now are totally ignorant of it. The time, the manner, and the only way in which such a truth could be known, was in the person of Christ; for He became not an angel but a man.

But the very thing that to us is so simple, when we have laid hold of the astonishing place of man in the person of Christ this was to them the difficulty. His being a man, they imagined, must lower Him necessarily below an angel. The apostle, therefore, has to prove that which to us is an evident matter of truth of revelation from God without argument at all. And this he proves from their own scriptures. "For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee?" Now it is true that angels are sometimes called "sons of God," but God never singles out one and says, "Thou art my Son." In a vague general way, He speaks of all men as being His sons. He speaks of the angels in a similar way, as being His sons. Adam was a son of God apart, I mean, from the grace of God as a mere creature of God into whose nostrils He breathed the breath of life. Adam was a son of God, angels were sons of God; but to which of the angels did God ever speak in such language as this? No, it was to a man; for He was thus speaking of the Lord as Messiah here below; and this is what gives the emphasis of the passage. It is not predicated of the Son as eternally such; there would be no wonder in this. None could be surprised, assuredly, that the Son of God, viewed in His own eternal being, should be greater than an angel. But that He, an infant on earth, looked at as the son of the Virgin, that He should be above all the angels in heaven this was a wonder to the Jewish mind; and yet what had in their scriptures a plainer proof? It was not to an angel in heaven, but to the Babe at Bethlehem, that God had said, "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee;" and, again, "I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son" words said historically of David's son; but, as usual, looking onward to a greater than David, or his wise son, who immediately succeeded him. Christ is the true and continual object of the inspiring Spirit.

But next follows a still more powerful proof of His glory: "And again, when he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him." So far from any angel approaching the glory of the Lord Jesus, it is God Himself who commands that all the angels shall worship Him. "And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire." They are but servants, whatever their might, function, or sphere. They may have a singular place as servants, and a spiritual nature accomplishing the pleasure of the Lord; but they are only servants. They never rule. "But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." Not a word is said about His fellows until God Himself addresses Him as God. The angels worshipped Him: God now salutes Him as God; for such He was, counting it no robbery to be on equality with God, one with the Father.

But this is far from all. The chain of scriptural testimony is carried out and confirmed with another and even more wondrous citation. "God" may be used in a subordinate sense. Elohim has His representatives, who are, therefore, called gods. Magistrates and kings are so named in scripture. So are they styled, as the Lord told the Jews. The word of God came and commissioned them to govern in earthly things; for it might be no more than in judicial matters. Still, there they were, in their own sphere, representing God's authority, and are called gods, though clearly with a very subordinate force. But there is another name which never is employed in any sense save that which is supreme. The dread and incommunicable name is "Jehovah." Is, then, the Messiah ever called Jehovah? Certainly He is. And under what circumstances? In His deepest shame. I do not speak now of God's forsaking Christ as the point of view in which He is looked at, though at the same general time.

We that believe can all understand that solemn judgment of our sins on the part of God, when Jesus was accomplishing atonement on the cross. But there was more in the cross than this, which is not the subject of Psalms 102:1-28, but rather the Messiah utterly put to shame by man and the people; nevertheless taking it all for this was His perfection in it from the hand of Jehovah. It is under such circumstances He pours out His plaint. Jehovah raised Him up, and Jehovah cast Him down. Had atonement, as such, been in view here as in Psalms 22:1-31, would it not be put as casting Him down, and then raising Him up? This is the way in which we Christians naturally think of Christ in that which is nearest to the sinner's need and God's answer of grace. But here Jehovah raised Him up, and Jehovah cast Him down, which evidently refers to His Messianic place, not to His position as the suffering and afterwards glorified Christ, the Head of the church. He was raised up as the true Messiah by Jehovah on earth, and He was cast down by Jehovah on earth. No doubt man was the instrument of it. The world which He had made did not know Him; His own people received Him not, neither would have Him. Jewish unbelief hated Him: the more they knew Him, the less could they endure Him. The goodness, the love, the glory of His person only drew out the deadly enmity of man, and specially of Israel; for they were worse than the Romans: and all this He, in the perfectness of His dependence, takes from Jehovah. For Himself, He came to suffer and die by wicked hands, but it was in the accomplishment of the will and purpose of God His Father. He knew full well that all the power of man or Satan would not have availed one instant before Jehovah permitted it. Hence all is taken meekly, but with none the less agony, from Jehovah's hand; and less or other than this had not been perfection. In the midst of Messiah's profound sense and expression of His humiliation to the lowest point thus accepted from Jehovah, He contrasts His own estate, wasted, prostrate, and coining to nothing. He contrasts it with two things. First, the certainty of every promise being accomplished for Israel and Zion He unhesitatingly anticipates; whilst He, the Messiah, submits to be given up to every possible abasement. He then contrasts Himself with the great commanding truth of Jehovah's own permanence. And what is the answer from on high to the holy sufferer? Jehovah from above answers Jehovah below; He owns that the smitten Messiah is Jehovah of stability and unchangeableness equal with His own.

What need of further proof after this? Nothing could be asked or conceived more conclusive, as far as concerned His divine glory. And all that the apostle thinks it necessary to cite after this is the connecting link of His present place on the throne of Jehovah in heaven with all these ascending evidences of His divine glory, beginning with His being Son as begotten in time and in the world; then His emphatic relationship to God as of the lineage of David not Solomon, save typically, but the Christ really and ultimately; then worshipped by the angels of God; next, owned by God as God, and, finally, as Jehovah by Jehovah. All is closed by the citation of Psalms 110:1, which declares that God bids Him sit as man at His right hand on high till the hour of judgment on His foes. It is one of the most interesting psalms in the whole collection, and of the deepest possible moment as preparatory both to what is now brought in for the Christian (which, however, is hidden here) and to what it declares shall be by-and-by for Israel. Thus it is a sort of bridge between old and new, as it is more frequently quoted in the New Testament than any other Old Testament scripture. "Therefore" (as should be the conclusion, though commencing the next chapter) "we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels" clearly he is still summing up the matter "was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward: how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard?" It is striking to see how the apostle takes the place of such as simply had the message, like other Jews, from those who personally heard Him: so completely was he writing, not as the apostle of the Gentiles magnifying his office, but as one of Israel, who were addressed by those who companied with Messiah on earth. It was confirmed "unto us," says he, putting himself along with his nation, instead of conveying his heavenly revelations as one taken out from the people, and the Gentiles, to which last he was sent. He looks at what was their proper testimony, not at that to which he had been separated extraordinarily. He is dealing with them as much as possible on their own ground, though, of course, without compromise of his own. He does not overlook the testimony to the Jews as such: "God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and distributions of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will."

Now he enters on another and very distinct portion of the glory of Christ. He is not only the Son of God, but Son of man; and they are both, I will not say equally necessary, but, without doubt, both absolutely necessary, whether for God's glory or for His salvation to whomsoever it may be applied. Touch Christ on either side, and all is gone. Touch Him on the human side, it is hardly less fatal than on the divine. I admit that His divine glory has a place which humanity could not possess; but His human perfection is no less necessary to found the blessing for us on redemption, glorifying God in His righteousness and. love. This accordingly the apostle now traces. Jesus was God as truly as man, and in both above the angels. His superiority as Son of God had been proved in the most masterly manner from their own scriptures in the first chapter. He had drawn his conclusions, urging the all-importance of giving heed, and the danger of letting slip such a testimony. The law, as he had said elsewhere, was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. He had just said, if it was firm, and every transgression and disobedience received just recompence of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? Outward infraction and inner rebellion met their retribution. The sanction of the gospel would be commensurate with its grace, and God would avenge the slightings of a testimony begun by the Lord, farther carried on and confirmed by the Holy Spirit with signs, wonders, powers, and distributions according to His will.

Now he takes the other side, saying, "Unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come." Whatever may have been God's employment of angels about the law, the world to come was never destined to be subjected to them. It is the good pleasure of God to use an angel where it is a question of providence, or law, or. power; but where it comes to be the manifestation of His glory in Christ, He must have other instruments more suitable for His nature, and according to His affections. "For one has somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands." Thus we see the first question raised is one as to the littleness of man in comparison with that which God has made; but the question is no sooner raised than answered, and this by one who looks at the Second Man and not at the first. Behold then man in Christ, and then talk, if you can, about His littleness. Behold man in Christ, and then be amazed at the wonders of the heavens. Let creation be as great as it may be, He that made all things is above them. The Son of man has a glory that completely eclipses the brightness of the highest objects. But also He shows that the humiliation of the Saviour, in which He was made a little lower than the angels, was for an end that led up to this heavenly glory. Grant that He was made a little lower, than the angels, what was it for? "We see not yet all things put under him. But we behold Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; so that by the grace of God he should taste death for everything." Nor was this the only object; He was "crowned with glory and honour" as fruit of His sufferings unto death; but it had a gracious object as well as a glorious end; "so that by the grace of God he should taste death for everything;" for thus was the only door of deliverance for what was ruined by the fall, and this because it was the only means of morally vindicating God, who yearned in love over every work of His hands. There can be otherwise no efficacious because no righteous deliverance. It may be infinitely more, but righteous footing it must have; and this the death of Christ has given. Flowing from God's grace, Christ's death is the ground of reconciliation for the universe. It has also made it a part of His righteousness to bring man thus out of that ruin, misery, and subjection to death in which he lay. It has put into the hands of God that infinite fund of blessing in which He now loves to admit us reconciled to Himself.

The apostle does not yet draw all the consequences; but he lays down in these two chapters the twofold glory of Christ Son of God, Son of man; and following up the latter, he approaches that which fitted Him, on the score of sympathy, for the priesthood. I do not mean that Jesus could have been High Priest according to God because He was man. Not His manhood but His Godhead is the ground of His glory; nevertheless, if He had not been man as well as Son of God, He could not have been priest. As for atonement so for priesthood, that ground was essential. But it was for man, and therefore He too must be man. So it is here shown that it "became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one." Remark, it is not "all one." We never reach that height in the epistle to the Hebrews; never have we the body here, any more than unity. For the body we must search into some other epistles of Paul, though unity we may see in another shape in John. But the epistle to the Hebrews never goes so far as either. It does what was even more important for those whom it concerned, and, I add, what is of the deepest possible moment for us. For those who think that they can live according to God on the truth of either Ephesians or of the epistles of St. John, without the doctrine of the epistle to the Hebrews, have made a miserable mistake.

Say what men will, we have our wants, as traversing this wilderness; and although we might like to soar, it cannot long, if at all, prosper. We have, therefore, the adaptation of Christ as priest to the infirmities that we feel, and so much the more because of an exercised conscience towards God, and a realizing of the desert sin has made this defiled scene of our actual pilgrimage.

Accordingly, in the latter part of the chapter, the apostle begins to introduce the great truths which form so large a part of the epistle to the Hebrews. He speaks of Christ, the Sanctifier: "He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one." He means one and the same condition, without entering into particulars. "For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren." There is a common relationship which the Sanctifier and the sanctified possess. It might be supposed, because He is the Sanctifier and they are the sanctified, that there could be no such communion. But there is: "for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren." He never called them so, till He became a man; nor did He so fully then, till He was man risen from the dead. The apostle here most fittingly introduces Psalms 22:1-31, etc.: "Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. And again, I will put my trust in him." He is proving the reality of this common relationship of the Sanctifier and the sanctified. He, like themselves, can say, and He alone could say as they never did, "I will put my trust in him." Indeed Psalms 16:1-11 was the expression of all His course as man trust in life, trust in death, trust in resurrection. As in everything else, so in this, He has the pre-eminence; but it is a pre-eminence founded on a common ground. It could not have been true of Him, had He not been a man; had He been simply God, to talk of trusting in God would have been altogether unnatural impossible. As for Him then, though the Sanctifier, He and they were all of one. And so further: "Behold! and the children which God hath given me." Here is again a different but equally good proof of mutual relationship.

"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels." This last should be, that He does not take up angels; He does not help them. They are not the objects of His concern in the work here described; "but he takes up the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest" here you have the object of all the proof of His being man "in things pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people." I use the word "atonement, or expiation, as being decidedly preferable to reconciliation." You cannot talk of reconciling sins. It is not a question of making sins right. They are atoned for; people are reconciled. Those who have been sinners are reconciled to God; but as to sins they do not admit of being reconciled at all (which is a mistake). There is need of a propitiation, or expiation, for the sins of His people. "For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted." Temptation to Him was nothing but suffering: He suffered, being tempted, because there was that intrinsic holiness which repelled, but, at the same time, most acutely felt the temptation.

Thus the apostle enters on the vast field that will come before us a little while longer tonight. He has laid the basis for the high-priesthood of Christ. He could not have been such a High Priest, had He not been both divine and human; and he has proved both, in the fullest manner, from their own scriptures.

But before he enters upon the unfolding of His high-priesthood, there is a digression (the two chapters that follow, I apprehend, linking themselves with the two we have considered). Thus, "Christ as Son over his own house" answers pretty much to the first chapter, as the rest of God by-and-by answers to the second chapter; for I hope to prove it is to be in the scene of future glory. In writings so profound as the apostle's, one generally hails the least help towards appreciating the structure of an epistle: let the reader consider it.

Hebrews 3:1-19. We need not dwell long on these intervening chapters. It is evident that he opens with our Lord as "apostle and high-priest of our confession," in contrast with the apostle and high priest of the Jews. Moses was the revealer of the mind of God of old, as Aaron had the title and privilege of access then into the sanctuary of God for the people. Jesus unites both in His own person. He came from God, and went to God. The holy brethren, then, partakers of a heavenly calling (not earthly like Israel's), are told to consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus, who is faithful to Him that appointed Him, as also Moses in all his house. Moses, "as a servant," he takes care particularly to say, in everything shows the superiority of the Messiah. "For he was counted worthy of greater glory than Moses, by how much he that built it hath more honour than the house." He becomes bold now. He can venture, after having brought out such glory to Christ, to use plainness of speech; and they could hear it, if they believed their own scriptures. If they honoured the man who was God's servant in founding and directing the tabernacle (or house of God in its rudimentary state), how much more did the ancient oracles call attention to a greater than Moses to Jehovah Messiah, even Jesus. How plainly this chapter pre-supposes the proofs of the divine glory of Christ! We shall see also His Sonship presently. "And Moses was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of the things to be spoken after; but Christ, as Son over his house, whose house are we." Christ, being divine, built the house; Christ built all things. Moses ministered as servant, and was faithful in God's house; Christ as Son is over the house; "whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end."

There were great difficulties, circumstances calculated especially to affect the Jew, who, after receiving the truth with joy, might be exposed to great trial, and so in danger of giving up his hope. It was, besides, particularly hard for a Jew at first to put these two facts together: a Messiah come, and entered into glory; and the people who belonged to the Messiah left in sorrow, and shame, and suffering here below. In fact, no person from the Old Testament could, at first sight at least, have combined these two elements. We can understand it now in Christianity. It is partly, indeed, to the shame of Gentiles, that they do not even see the difficulty for a Jew. It shows how naturally, so to speak, they have forgotten the Jew as having a special place in the word and purposes of God. They consequently cannot enter into the feelings of the Jew; and by such the authority and use of this epistle was grievously slighted. It is the self-conceit of the Gentile, (Romans 11:1-36) not their faith, that makes the Jewish difficulty to be so little felt. Faith enables us to look at all difficulties, on the one hand measuring them, on the other raising us above them. This is not at all the case with ordinary Gentile thought. Unbelief, indifferent and unfeeling, does not even see, still less appreciate, the trials of the weak.

The apostle here enters into everything of value for the way. Although it is perfectly true that the Son is in this place of universal glory, and in relation to us, Son over His house (God's house having an all-comprehending sense and a narrower one), he explains how it is that His people are in actual weakness, trial, exposure, danger and sorrow here below. The people are still travelling through the wilderness, not yet in the land. He immediately appeals to the voice of the Spirit in the Psalms: "Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in heart; and they have not known my ways. So I swear in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.) take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; while it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses."

What is pressed here is this: that the people of God are still in the path of faith, just like their fathers of old before they crossed the Jordan; that now there is that which puts our patience to the proof; that the grand thing for such is to hold fast the beginning of the assurance firm unto the end. They were tempted to stumble at the truth of Christ, because of the bitter experiences of the way through which they were going onward. To turn back is but the evil heart of unbelief; to abandon Jesus is to turn away from the living God. To be fellows or companions of the Messiah (Psalms 45:1-17) depends on holding fast the beginning of the assurance to the end; for, remember, we are in the wilderness. Following Christ, as of old Moses, we are not arrived at the rest of God. "But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief."

This leads us to the very important, but often misunderstood, Hebrews 4:1-16. What is the meaning of the "rest of God"? Not rest of soul, nor rest of conscience, any more than of heart. It is none of these things, but simply what the apostle says, God's rest. His rest is not merely your rest. It is not our faith seizing the rest that Christ gives to him that trusts Himself, as when He says, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He did not say, "I will give you God's rest." It was not the time, nor is it of that nature. God's rest is the rest of His own satisfaction. His rest is a change of all, the present scene of trial and toil, the consequences of sin. Of course the people of God must be formed for the scene, as well as it for them. They are incomparably more to God than that which they are going to fill. But the scene has its importance too. It would not suit God, if it would suit us, to be ever so blessed in such a world as this. He means to have a rest as worthy of Himself as the righteousness we are made in Christ is worthy of Himself now. As it is His righteousness, so will it be His rest. Therefore it is not merely, as Gentiles are apt to suppose, the bringing of comfort into the heart, and the spirit filled with the consciousness of blessings from God and of His grace to us. The Jew, too, had, in another direction, a miserably inadequate conception of it; for it was earthly, if not sensual. Still, what a Jewish believer often staggered at, what he felt to be a serious riddle for his mind, was the contrast between the circumstances through which he was passing, and the Christ of which the prophets had spoken to him. Now the apostle does not in any way make light of the grief by the way, nor forget that the pilgrimage in the desert is the type of our earthly circumstances. He takes the scriptures that speak of Israel journeying toward, but not yet in, the pleasant land, applying them to the present facts, and at the same time he sets before them in hope the rest of God.

Hebrews 4:1-16. "Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us were glad tidings preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we who have believed do enter into rest." That is, we are on the road. He does not say that we have entered, nor does he mean anything of the sort, which is clean contrary to the argument and aim. It is altogether a mistake, therefore, so to interpret the passage. The very reverse is meant, namely, that we have not entered into the rest, but, as the hymn says, we are on our way, I will not say to God, but assuredly to His rest. We are entering into the rest, having got it before us, and on to that rest we move; but we are not yet there. "We which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest." It is quite true that it is the Holy Ghost's object to bring the rest close to us, so as to make us always conscious of the little interval that separates us from the rest of God; but still, let the interval be ever so short, we are not there yet, we are only going towards it. For the present, our place, beyond controversy, is viewed as in fact in the wilderness. According to the doctrine of this epistle (as of the Romans, the Corinthians, and the Philippians) to present us as in heavenly places would be altogether out of place and season. To the Ephesians he does develop our blessing as in and with Christ in the heavenlies. There it was exactly consonant to the character of the truth; for it is truth, and of the highest order. But as far as the Epistle to the Hebrews goes, we should never have learnt this side of the truth of God, or its appropriation to us; for we are only regarded in our actual place, that is, marching through the desert.

Here objections, which might be founded on the scriptures of the Old Testament, are met. There were two, and only two, occasions of old whence it might be argued that there had been an entrance into God's rest.

The first was when God made the creation; but was there any entering of man into that rest? God, doubtless, rested from His works; but even God is never said then to have rested in His works. Was there anything that satisfied God or blessed man permanently? All was good, yea, very good; but could God rest in His love? Surely not, till all could be founded on the basis of redemption. Before all worlds God meant to have this. Nothing but redemption could bring into His own rest. Consequently, a rest capable of being spoilt, and all requiring to be begun over again in a new and more blessed way, never could meet the heart or mind of God. This, accordingly, is not His rest; it served as a sign and witness of it, but nothing more.

Then we come down lower to the second instance of deep and special interest to Israel. When Joshua brought the people triumphantly into the possession of Canaan, was this the rest of God? Not so. How is it disproved? By the self-same Psalm "If they shall enter into my rest," written afterwards. So wrote David, "Today, after so long a time." Not only after the creation, but after Joshua had planted the people in the land, a certain day is determined in the future. For if Jesus [i.e., Joshua] had brought them into rest, he would not have spoken afterwards about another day. They had not entered into it yet.

The "rest" was still beyond. Is it not future still? What has there been to bring people into the rest of God since then? What is there to be compared with creation, or with His people settled in Canaan by the destruction of their foes? That which Gentile theology has brought into the matter, namely, the work of the Lord on the cross, or the application of it to meet the needs of the soul precious as it was to the apostle, as it must be to faith has no place whatever in the apostle's argument. If so, where does he bring it into the context? The idea that this is the point debated is so perfectly foreign and futile, that to my mind it demonstrates exceeding prepossession, if not looseness, of mind, as well as a lack of subjection to scripture, in those who allow their theories to override the plain word of God, which is here conspicuous for the absence of that infinite truth.

The apostle, therefore, at once draws the conclusion, that neither at creation, nor in Canaan, was the rest of God really come. The latter part of the Old Testament shows us how Israel got unsettled, and finally driven from their land; though it also predicts their future ingathering. The New Testament shows us the rejection of the Messiah, the ruin of Israel, the salvation of believers, the church formed of such in one body, (whether Jews or Gentiles,) but in the stronger contrast with the rest of God. Consequently, the rest is but coming, not come; it is future. This is the application: "There remaineth therefore a rest" (or sabbatism) "to the people of God. For he that hath entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his works, as God did from his own." I must ask you thus to alter the passage, the authorised version giving it wrongly. The emphasis is taken out of one place, and put into another, without the slightest reason.

What he deduces is, "Let us use diligence therefore to enter into that rest." The meaning is, you cannot be labouring and resting in the same sense and time, All must confess that when you rest, you cease from labour. His statement is that now is the time not for rest, but for diligence; and the moral reason why we labour is, that love whether looked at in God Himself, in His Son, or in His children love never can rest, where there is either sin or wretchedness. In the world there is both. No doubt for the believer, his sins are blotted out and forgiven, and hope anticipates with joy the final deliverance of the Lord. But as to the course of this age and all things here below, it is impossible to think or speak of rest as these are, not even for our bodies, as part of the fallen creation. There ought not to be rest, therefore, beyond what we have by faith in our souls. It would be mere sentimentalising; it is not the truth of God. I ought to feel the misery and the estrangement of the earth from God; I ought to go however joyful in the Lord with a heart sad, and knowing how to weep, in a world where there is so much sin, and suffering, and sorrow. But the time is coming when God will wipe away tears from all eyes, yea, every tear; and this will be the rest of God. To this rest we are journeying, but we are only journeying. At the same time we should labour: love cannot but toil in such a world as this. If there be the spirit that feels the pressure of sin, there is the love that rises up in the power of God's grace, bringing in that which lifts out of sin. and delivers from it. So he says, "Let us be diligent therefore to enter into that rest."

Allow me to say a word to any person here who may be a little confused by old thoughts on this subject. Look again a little more exactly into the two chief calls of the chapter (verses 1 and 11), and let me ask you if it be safe and sound to apply them to rest for the conscience now? Are souls who have never yet tasted that the Lord is gracious to be summoned to fear? And how does the call to labour or diligence square with the apostle's word in Romans 4:4-5, where justification by faith, apart from works, is beyond cavil the point of teaching? What can be the effect of such prejudices of interpretation (no matter who may have endorsed them) but to muddle the gospel of God's grace? Thus it seems to me clearly and certainly such a notion is proved to be false. The test of a wrong notion is that it always dislocates the truth of God; often, indeed, like this, running counter to the plainest and most elementary forms of the gospel itself. Thus, take the text already referred to "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly" the popular misinterpretation sets people working to enter into rest for their conscience. But the doctrine is as false as the written word is true; and the meaning of that which is before us is, not rest now for the soul by faith, but the rest of God, when He has made a scene in the day of glory as worthy of Himself as it will be suited for those whom He loves.

Accordingly, we are next shown the provision of grace, not for the rest of glory, but for those who are only journeying on towards it here below. And what is that provision? The word of God, which comes and searches, tries and deals with us, judging the thoughts and intents of the heart; and the priesthood of Christ, which converts and strengthens, and applies all that is needed here the grace and mercy of our God. "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."

And now (Hebrews 5:1-14) we enter upon the priesthood; for it is a priest that we want who stand already accepted by sacrifice. Not a priest, but a sacrifice, is the foundation of all relationship with God; but we need ,along the way a living person, who can deal both with God for us and for God with us. Such a great High Priest who passed through the heavens, yet able to sympathize with our infirmities, we have in Jesus the Son of God. How little these Jews, even when saints, knew the treasure of grace that God had given in Him whom the nation abhorred! As previously, the apostle takes the proofs from their own oracles. It is not a question of revealing, but of rightly applying, by the Holy Ghost, the word they had in their hand.

"For every high priest taken from among men is established for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins." It might seem scarcely credible that these words could be applied to Christ But there is nothing too bad for the heart of man; and these are mistakes of the heart. They do not arise from intellectual feebleness. It would be folly so to judge of Grotius, for instance. They spring from unbelief. Call it ignorance of Christ and of the scriptures, if you will, but it is not found only with the ignorant, as men would speak. I am sure we ought to have great compassion for the honest ignorance of simple-minded men. But, as in other sad cases, the error is often combined with ample learning of the schools, though with lamentable lack of divine teaching even in foundation truth. I do not deny that God may deign to use anything in His service; but these men confide in their learning and their powers generally, instead of becoming fools that they may become wise, which is the truest learning according to God, if one may speak of "learning" in respect of that wisdom which comes down from the Father of lights.

Thus men, confident in their own resources, have dared to apply this description of priesthood to Christ. They have failed to see that it is a distinct contrast with Christ, and not at all a picture of His priesthood. It is evidently general, and sets before us a human priest, not Jesus God's High Priest. If there be analogy, there is certainly the strongest contrast here. An ordinary priest is able to exercise forbearance toward the ignorant and erring, since he himself also is compassed with infirmity. "And by reason hereof he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins." Did Christ need to offer for Himself, yea, for sins? This blasphemy would follow, if the foregoing words applied to Christ. "And no one taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, even as Aaron. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest." Now he teaches a point of contact, as the other was of contrast. All you can procure from among men is one that can feel, as being a man, for men after a human sort. Such is not the priest that God has given us, but one who, though man, feels for us after a divine sort. And so, we are told, that Christ, while He was and is this glorious person in His nature and right, nevertheless as man did not glorify Himself to be made an high priest; "but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, today have I begotten thee; as he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec."

The same God who owned Him as His Son, born of the Virgin, owned Him also as Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. And in this order too: first, Son (on earth);* next, the true Melchisedec (in heaven, as we shall find). Albeit true God and Son of God, in everything He displays perfect lowliness among men, and absolute dependence on God: such also was His moral fitness for each office and function which God gave Him to discharge. Mark, again, the skill with which all is gradually approached how the inspired writer saps and mines their exorbitant (yet after all only earthly) pretensions, founded on the Aaronic priesthood. Such was the great boast of the Jews. And here we learn out of their own scriptures another order of priesthood reserved for the Messiah, which he knew right well could not but put the Aaronic priesthood completely in the shade. "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec."

*I see no ground whatever for applying the citation fromPsalms 2:1-12; Psalms 2:1-12 to the resurrection of Christ. Acts 13:1-52, which is usually quoted to prove it, really distinguishes the raising up of Jesus as Messiah, the Son of God here below, from His resurrection which is made to rest on Isaiah 55:1-13 and Psalms 16:1-11. Neither doesPsalms 2:1-12; Psalms 2:1-12 set forth His eternal Sonship, all-important a truth as it is, and clearly taught by John above all.

At the same time, it is plain that there is no forgetfulness of the suffering obedience of Christ's place here below; but He is presented in this glory before we are given to hear of the path of shame which ushered it in. "Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him, called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec The apostle had much to say, but hard to be interpreted, because they were become dull of hearing. It is not that the word of God in itself is obscure, but that men bring in their difficulties. Nor does His word., as is often thought, want light to be thrown on it; rather is it light itself. By the Spirit's power it dispels the darkness of nature. Many obstacles there are to the entrance of light through the word, but there is none more decided than the force of religious prejudice; and this would naturally operate most among the Hebrew saints. They clung too much to old things; they could not take in the new. We may see a similar hindrance every day. What Paul had to say of the Melchisedec priesthood was hard to explain to them, not because the things were in themselves unintelligible, but they were dull in hearing. "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye again have need that one teach you the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God."

There is nothing, I repeat, which tends to make dulness in spiritual things so much as religious tradition. The next to it in dead weight, and in other respects more daringly dangerous, will be found to be philosophy. At any rate, it is remarkable that these are the two occasions of this reproach from the apostle. So he wrote to the Corinthians, who generally admired rhetoric, and had no small confidence, like other Greeks, in their own wisdom. They did not consider Paul, either in style or topics, at all up to the requirements of the age at least in their midst. How cutting to hear themselves counted babes, and incapable of meat for grown men, so that, being carnal, they must have milk administered to them! The apostle had to put them down, and tell them, with all their high-flown wisdom, they were such that he could not discourse to them about the deep things of God. This, no doubt, was a painful surprise for them. So here the same apostle writing to the Hebrew believers treats them as babes, though from a different source. Thus we see two errors totally opposed in appearance, but leading to the same conclusion. Both unfit the soul for going on with God; and the reason why they so hinder is because they are precisely the things in which man lives. Whether it be the mind of man or his natural religiousness, either idolizes its own object; and consequently blindness ensues to the glory of Christ.

Hence the apostle could not but feel himself arrested by their state. He shows also that this very state was not merely one of weakness, but exposed them to the greatest danger; and this is pursued not on the philosophical side so much as on that of religions forms. We have already seen both at work in Colosse, as I have just pointed out the snare that the wisdom of the world was to the Corinthians. But on the Hebrews he presses their excessive danger of abandoning Christ for religious traditions. First of all these hinder progress; finally they draw the soul aside from grace and truth; and if the mighty power of God does not interfere, they ruin. This had been the course of some: they had better be watchful that it be not their own case. He begins gently with their state of infantine feebleness; and then in the beginning of the following chapter he sets before them the awful picture of apostasy. "For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."

"Therefore," (adds he, inHebrews 6:1-20; Hebrews 6:1-20) "leaving the word of the beginning of Christ, let us go on to perfection." He proves that we cannot safely linger among the Jewish elements when we have heard and received Christian truth; that not merely blessing, not simply power and enjoyment, but the only place even of safety is in going on to this full growth. To stop short for them was to go back. Let those that had heard of Christ return to the forms of Judaism, and what would become of them?

Then he speaks of the various constituents that make up the word of the beginning of Christ ( i.e., Christ known short of death, resurrection, and ascension). He would have them advance, "not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and faith in God, of a teaching of washings and imposition of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment." Not that these were not true and important in their place: no one disputed them; but they were in no way the power, nor even characteristic, of Christianity. They go in pairs; and a mere Jew would hardly object; but what is all this for the Christian? Why live on such points? "And this" ( i.e. going on to full growth) "will we do if God permit. For it is impossible [as to] those once enlightened, and that tasted the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and that tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and fell away, to renew [them] again to repentance, seeing they crucify for themselves and expose the Son of God."

It is a question of persons drawn into apostasy after having enjoyed every privilege and power of the gospel, short of a new nature and that indwelling of the Spirit which seals renewed souls till the day of redemption. For them rejecting the Messiah on earth under Judaism God gave repentance and remission of sins; but if they gave up the risen and glorified Christ, there was no provision of grace, no third estate of Christ to meet the case. It is not the case of a person surprised into sin; nay, not even the very awful case of one who may go on in sin, sorrowful to think that it may be so with one of whom we had hoped better things. But here there is another evil altogether. They were those who might be ever so correct, moral, religious, but who, having confessed Jesus as the Christ after the outpouring of the Spirit, had lapsed back into Jewish elements, counting it perhaps a wise and wholesome cheek on a too rapid advance, instead of seeing that in principle it was an abandonment of Christ altogether. The full case here supposed is a thorough renunciation of Christian truth.

The apostle describes a confessor with all the crowning evidences of the gospel, but not a converted man, Not a word implies this either here or in 2 Peter. Short of this he uses uncommonly strong expressions, and purposely so: he sets forth the possession of the highest possible external privileges, and this in that abundant form and measure which God gave on the ascension of the Lord. He says it all, no doubt, about the baptized; but there is nothing about baptism as the ancients would have it, any more than, with some moderns, the progressive steps of the spiritual life. There is knowledge, joy, privilege, and power, but no spiritual life. Enlightenment is in no sense the new birth, nor does baptism in scripture ever mean illumination. It is the effect of the gospel on the dark soul the shining on the mind of Him who is the only true light. But light is not life; and life is not predicated here.

Further, they had "tasted of the heavenly gift." It is not the Messiah as He was preached when the disciples went about here below, but Christ after He went on high; not Christ after the flesh, but Christ risen and glorified above.

But, again, they were "made partakers of the Holy Ghost." Of Him every one became a partaker, who confessed the Lord and entered into the house of God. There the Holy Ghost dwelt; and all who were there became partakers after an outward sort (not κοινωνοὶ , but μέτοχοι ) of Him who constituted the assembly of God's habitation and temple. He pervaded, as it were, the whole atmosphere of the house of God. It is not in the least a question of a person individually born of God, and so sealed by the Holy Spirit. There is not an allusion to either in this case, but to their taking a share in this immense privilege, the word not being that which speaks of a joint known portion, but only of getting a share.

Moreover, they "tasted the good word of God." Even an unconverted man might feel strong emotions, and enjoy to a certain extent, more particularly those that had lain in Judaism, that dreary valley of dry bones. What fare was the gospel of grace! Certainly nothing could be more miserable than the scraps which the scribes and Pharisees put before the sheep of the house of Israel. There is nothing to forbid the natural mind from being attracted by the delightful sweetness of the glad-tidings which Christianity proclaims.

Lastly, we hear of "the powers of the age to come." This seems more than a general share in the presence of the Holy Ghost, who inhabited the house of God. They were positively endued with miraculous energies samples of that which will characterize the reign of the Messiah. Thus we may fairly give the fullest force to every one of these expressions. Yet write them out ever so largely, they fall short both of the new birth and of sealing with the Holy Ghost. There is everything one may say, save inward spiritual life in Christ, or the indwelling seal of it. That is to say, one may have the very highest endowments and privileges, in the way both of meeting the mind, and also of exterior power; and yet all may be given up, and the man become so much the keener enemy of Christ. Indeed such is the natural result. It had been the mournful fact as to some. They had fallen away. Hence renewal to repentance is an impossibility, seeing they crucify for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame.

Why impossible? The case supposed is of persons, after the richest proof and privilege, turning aside apostates from Christ, in order to take up Judaism once more. As long as that course is pursued, repentance there cannot be. Supposing a man had been the adversary of Messiah here below, there was still the opening for him of grace from on high. It was possible that the very man that had slighted Christ here below might have his eyes opened to see and receive Christ above; but, this abandoned, there is no fresh condition in which He can be presented to men. Those who rejected Christ in all the fulness of His grace, and in the height of glory in which God had set Him as man before them, those that rejected Him not merely on earth, but in heaven, what was there to fall back on? what possible means to bring them to a repentance after that? There is none. What is there but Christ coming in judgment? Now apostasy, sooner or later, must fall under that judgment. Such is the force of the comparison. "For land which hath drunk in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is for burning."

"But we are persuaded better things of you, beloved." There might seem too much ground for fear, but of the two ends he was persuaded respecting them the better things, and akin to salvation, if even he thus spoke; for God was not unrighteous, and the apostle too remembered traits of love and devotedness which gave him this confidence about them. But, says he, "We earnestly desire that each of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end that ye be not slothful, but followers of those who through faith and long-suffering inherit the promises." Here is given a remarkable instance of the true character of the epistle; namely, the combination of two features peculiar to the Hebrews. On the one hand are the promises, the oath of God, taking up His ways with Abraham; and, on the other hand, the hope set before us, that enters into what is within the veil. We may account for the former, because the writer was not confining himself to that which fell within the proper sphere of his apostleship. But, again, had he been writing according to his ordinary place, nothing was more strictly his line of testimony than to have dwelt on our hope that enters within the veil. The peculiarity of the epistle to the Hebrews lies in combining the promises with Christ's heavenly glory. None but Paul, I believe, would have been suited to bring in the heavenly portion. At the same time, only in writing to the Hebrews could Paul have brought in the Old Testament hopes as he has done.

Another point of interest which may be remarked here is the intimation at the end compared with the beginning of the chapter. We have seen the highest external privileges not only the mind of man, as far as it could, enjoying the truth, but the power of the Holy Ghost making the man, at any rate, an instrument of power, even though it be to his own shame and deeper condemnation afterwards. In short, man may have the utmost conceivable advantage, and the greatest external power even of the Spirit of God Himself; and yet all comes to nothing. But the very same chapter, which affirms and warns of the possible failure of every advantage, shows us the weakest faith that the whole New Testament describes coming into the secure possession of the best blessings of grace. Who but God could have dictated that this same chapter (Hebrews 6:1-20) should depict the weakest faith that the New Testament ever acknowledges? What can look feebler, what more desperately pressed, than a man fleeing for refuge? It is not a soul as coming to Jesus; it is not as one whom the Lord meets and blesses on the spot; but here is a man hard pushed, fleeing for very life (evidently a figure drawn from the blood-stained fleeing from the avenger of blood), yet eternally saved and blessed according to the acceptance of Christ on high.

There was no reality found to be in those so highly favoured of the early verses; and therefore it was (as there was no conscience before God, no sense of sin, no cleaving to Christ) that everything came to nought; but here, there is the fruit of faith, feeble indeed and sorely tried, but in the light that appreciates the judgment of God against sin. Hence, although it be only fleeing in an agony of soul to refuge, what is it that God gives to one in such a state? Strong consolation, and that which enters within the veil. Impossible that the Son should be shaken from His place on the throne of God: so is it that the least believer should come to any hurt whatever. The weakest of saints more than conqueror is; and therefore the apostle, having brought us to this glorious point of conclusion, as well as shown us the awful danger of men giving up such a Christ as that which we have presented to us in this epistle, now finds himself free to unfold the character of His priesthood, as well as the resulting position of the Christian. But on these I hope to enter, if the Lord will, on another occasion.