This week, I have had the great privilege of editing a series of Bible studies on the book of Hebrews. On the way through, I was struck by a profound new thought—or, as one of my colleagues helpfully pointed out to me later in the day, actually I had just read the Bible more carefully! (Isn’t that where all the best thoughts come from?)
What was my startling, new discovery? For the first time, after having read Hebrews 6 nobody knows how many times in my life, I was struck by verse 3, a rather odd little verse. I realized that I have spent my entire Bible reading life skipping over verse 3. After all, it is short and fairly insignificant, and verses 4-6 are where the action is at. They certainly seem to contain all the juicy bits that are worth commenting on, right? I am not so convinced anymore. For those of you who haven’t read it lately, let me give you the text of Hebrew 6:1-6.
Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits. 4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.
This text has, of course, been the source of all sorts of debate, and probably not a few unfinished Bible studies. I am not naive enough to think that I will suddenly extinguish all discussion on the subject by this post, and there are most likely others out there who have already seen what I failed to see. However, let me share my new little insight.
As is usually the case, I have always read the passage with the great debate going on my head, and so I have focused my attention on answering the question in my head without looking at what the author is actually trying to say. The first thing to notice is that the crucial verses about tasting the heavenly gift (vv. 4-6) actually begin with the word ‘for’. They are the explanation of something that has come before. Now, the next question is “Which particular thing is being explained?” I have always read it as explaining why he is moving on from the elementary things to go on to maturity. But when you stop and think about it, that makes absolutely no sense. Why would you say, “Let’s move on from the basics to maturity because, once you have Christ and then let go of him, there is no way back”? (In fact, I have heard some people argue that if greater knowledge of Christ leads you to greater culpability, why not keep people in the dark? This is a somewhat unhelpful position, but at least it’s a logical one.) I don’t think that the ‘for’ at the beginning of verse 4 is qualifying verses 1-2 at all. What the writer is in fact qualifying is verse 3. Let me give you my little paraphrase, and then explain why I think that it’s significant:
Let us leave behind the Jewish stuff about the Messiah (repentance, faith, washings, resurrection, judgement), and move on to maturity. In fact, this is exactly what we will do if God permits. (Why wouldn’t he permit it?) Because it is impossible to bring someone back to repentance if they have truly grasped the new covenant truth about Jesus and gone back to Judaism, because their action has crucified Christ again and held him up to public ridicule.
The writer’s point is this: I am going to take you beyond the Old Testament Messiah that you seem so interested in. (The temptation for the Jewish Christians all through Hebrews is to go back to their Old Testament religion.) In fact, the writer has been doing this, and will continue to do this, by showing how Jesus is the fulfilment of all of the promises of God—the one true priest who offers the one true sacrifice for sin for all time. However, the writer is acutely aware that it might be impossible to take people to the new picture of the Messiah delivered in Jesus. Why is that? Well, it is because God might not permit it. Why wouldn’t God permit it? Because there is the terrible, but very real truth that you can’t toy with God. If the readers have already accepted the new covenant Messiah and are now going back to Judaism, they will reach a point of no return with God. As verses 7-8 go on to say, there is a point where the field has only born thorns and is fit for judgement.
What do we make of all of this? Firstly, I want to point out that I think that there is a genuine warning here: if you take the passage at face value, it says that it is possible to have understood the gospel and rejected in such a way that makes someone permanently culpable in the eyes of God. This is a terrible reality, but not a surprising one. (It seems to me that Jesus says something similar in the parable of the four soils: people may grasp the gospel for a time, and then slowly walk away.) Secondly, I want to say that the knowledge of whether someone is in this place is a knowledge that is left up to God. The writer of the Hebrews isn’t being asked to second-guess God’s decision. This is particularly interesting in light of Hebrews 6:9ff. Presumably the fact that they accepted the gospel with such zeal in the first place would be a reason to wonder seriously about whether their recent desire to return to Judaism was an example of apostasy. The writer of Hebrews, even though he is aware of their zeal and their more recent coldness, goes on to keep preaching the truth about Jesus.
This brings me to my third point: what does the writer do with his knowledge that it is possible to spurn the truth permanently and stand under the judgement of God? He presents the fullness of Jesus as God’s perfect gift to wash away sins and bring reconciliation, and he leaves the details up to God. If there are people who have genuinely grasped the gospel but have now rejected it, they will have to answer to God. But the preacher’s job is to go on preaching the truth about Jesus. I reckon that this truth is profoundly helpful pastorally for those with Christian friends who appear to be walking away: our job isn’t to second-guess God; it is to continue to preach the great truth about the ultimate King and priest prayerfully, and leave judgement up to God.
Hi Paul,
I’m mulling over your stimulating thoughts.
One question as I do: could you expand on the reasons for seeing verses 1 & 2 as setting out a specifically Jewish view of the Messiah? I can see instruction about baptisms and layings on of hands fitting into this framework, but am less convinced about repentance and faith towards God(especially the latter, given the emphasis that Hebrews places on the centrality of faith to the ongoing life of the Christian). My other problem with your reading of verses 1 & 2 is that the immediately preceding verses (5:11-14) seem to treat these basic teachings more positively than if a merely Jewish view point is in mind. ie the writer seems to believe there is a sense in which his readers need to hear these basic teachings again even if in reality they should have moved beyond them.
Yours in Christ,
Mark.
Dear Paul,
thank you for your insightful explanation of the warning of Hebrews 6. Here is the major impact Mark Driscoll had on me. I was astounded by Mark’s love for Jesus, his unashamed talk of Jesus and his strong belief in the power, humanity and deity of Jesus. Whether talking to Christians or non-Christians his basis of appeal was Jesus. It seems so basic doesn’t it? But what I was convicted of was this: ‘had I lost my passion for JESUS?’ I was passionate about seeing people become Christian, I was passionate about faithfully teaching the Bible to women. But I realised that unlike Mark Driscoll, I wasn’t amazed at Jesus’ miracles anymore. I wasn’t amazed at his power and his integrity – at what an amazing man he is. I think Jesus he had become a bit ho-hum for me. In fact, I’d dare to say, I was more dazzled by Mark Driscoll’s preaching and presence than I was by Jesus! (This is a reflection on me and not on Mark Driscoll – I in no way want to insinuate that he tried to draw attention to himself – I see him as a humble, godly servant of Jesus). So, I had to repent, get back to Jesus by reading the gospels and I have also been reading Mark Driscoll’s book “Vintage Jesus” which is proving very helpful.
I say all of this because I wonder whether we Christians face 2 dangers. One is, we are sad and distressed when people we know fall away from Jesus though they appeared to have grasped the gospel. But we fail to speak to them about Jesus because we have lost sight of how wonderful Jesus is. And secondly, are we in danger of falling away from Jesus, the man, the Messiah, because we’ve lost him as our focus? I haven’t stopped trusting in Jesus’ death and resurrection for my sin, but I think I had lost my passion for Jesus, the real man who is astounding. I am praying that as I re-read the gospels, God will continue to re-kindle my passion and love for Jesus the man God.
I know this is slightly left of field, but I wonder whether is springs from your insights into Hebrews 6 because it reminds us that as you say we need to “preach the great truth about the ultimate King and priest prayerfully” both to ourselves and to others and this message is about a real man.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the comments and questions. I rather rushed over the bit about the Jewish Messiah because I just ‘assumed’ that people would be happy with that bit (which actually rather arrogantly assumes that everyone in the world has had exactly the same thoughts as I have up until this point in time). I also rushed over it because that wasn’t the ‘new thing’ that ‘I’ was excited about. There’s two pretty big mistakes on my part. So thank you for patiently sifting the evidence and asking the questions.
I think that there are roughly 3 steps in my reasoning as to why I think that the “elementary doctrine of Christ” is Jewish teaching.
(1) It always troubled me that the writer would want to go on from the ‘basics’ about Jesus.
On the one hand, it seemed to reject one of the key teachings of the New Testament (Col 2:6-7 was one of the first memory verses I ever learnt – “So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him”). We don’t need to leave the basics about Jesus behind. We need to remember them day after day.
And on the other hand, it doesn’t make sense in the light of the rest of the book of Hebrews. It seems that the writer returns again and again to the fact that we have the one true message about Jesus and if you leave that behind, then expect a greater judgement than Israel at Sinai (e.g. Heb 2:1-4, 4:1-11).
This made me look again at what he is saying in vv1-2.
(2) I noticed two things about v1. The first is that I had always read it as “the elementary doctrine of Jesus” but that is not what it actually says. It says “the elementary doctrine of Christ”. In the context of speaking to a Jewish audience who is in danger of returning to Judaism, to speak about “the Christ” is not to speak about the same thing as “Jesus” (even though the two are so tightly fused in my Christian head).
The second thing I noticed was that there are things in the list that specifically aren’t Christian (e.g. “instruction about washings”). It seemed strange to me that the list would contain a mixture of Christian and Jewish stuff, so that lead me to ask if the list of things in vv1-2 could be Jewish rather than Christian.
For me, “instruction about washings” (note the plural) and “the laying of hands” were clearly Jewish. And I also didn’t have a problem with “the resurrection and eternal judgement” being clearly Jewish ideas (e.g. Dan 12 or the conversations that Jesus has with Mary and Martha at Lazarus’ tomb. The Jews clearly expect a resurrection). So the only problem ones were “repentance” and “faith”. However, again for me, I can see how they could easily be Jewish. Repentance is clearly an Old Testament concept (e.g. 1Kings 8:47-48, Ps 7:12, Is 1:27, Jer 5:3, Ezek 14:6). And I think that faith is as well (e.g. Ps 50:5, 78:37, 106:24, Is 26:2, Hab 2:4).
This all made me think about the phrase in v1 “the elementary doctrine of Christ”. (I am sorry for those reading for whom this may get technical). The word for “elementary” is actually αρχης. A word which could mean elementary or beginning or origin. Thus the phrase becomes literally, “the word of the (beginnings or origin) of the Christ.”
It all sounds to me like he is saying, let’s leave behind the Old Testament foundations of teaching about a potential Messiah and look at what God has done in the one true Messiah.
This then makes sense of the rest of my post about why God might not permit it. The reason God won’t permit his moving on is because some might already have understood and rejected. What might have they have understood? I take it, the gospel about Jesus’ sacrifice and priesthood that has been preached all the way through Hebrews.
(3) And this leads me to the third point. Then you need to go back and examine 5:11-14. I think that there are a number of hints in these verses themselves that being on milk is not a good thing. The writer says that it is because they are still on milk that he can’t explain Jesus eternal priesthood (v11). Also in v. 13, those who live on milk are unskilled in the word of righteousness. When you put these points together with the previous 2, then there is enough to persuade me that he wants to move them from their Old Testament religion to knowing the fulfillment in Christ. This in fact is what the writer has been doing and will continue to do in the book of Hebrews.
Anyway, that is more than a long answer isn’t it? i hope that it clarifies my position somewhat. I look forward to hearing your future reflections.
Your take on verse 3 is interesting, but I must disagree with all the specifics. In particular, I believe you are reading modern theology into the text.
First, I agree with the earlier poster that it’s dubious to suggest that the writer is referring to Jewish traditions. The plural form of “baptisms” or “washings” is just an odd word, and no-one really knows what’s intended. (This is the only place in the New Testament where the word exists.) It’s odd to assume the author refers to “laying of hands” as a Judaic action given its prevalence in the NT (including baptism by the Holy Spirit, so this may well be linked to the “baptisms” discussed above). Acts 8:17-19, Acts 9:12, Acts 9:17, Acts 19:6, Acts 6:6, Acts 13:3, 1 Timothy 4:14, 1 Timothy 5:22, 2 Timothy 1:6 all show examples of the laying of hands being used to impart the Holy Spirit to believers or as part of strengthening/ordination of office.
It is further optimistic to suggest that Jews expected a resurrection, Daniel 12;2 notwithstanding. The Sadducees certainly didn’t believe in any kind of resurrection (and they were definitely Jewish). This was a hot button topic for Jews at the time. This is the very topic that gets Paul in such hot water in Acts! This is shown throughout the book!
Note the wording of Acts 4:2: the point is not simply that Jesus was resurrected, but that people could be resurrected at all. Acts 23:8 and Acts 24:15 and Acts 24:21 are more of the same. Far from being “old hat”, the resurrection (in particular in the flesh and of both righteous and wicked was one of the key teachings of early Christianity.
Eternal judgement is another very Christian, not Judaic, viewpoint. The Jews did not have any well-defined sense of the afterlife through most of their tradition. Jesus speaks of Gehenna, but the idea of hell was relatively new (on the grand scheme of things), and does not show in the Old Testament (Sheol is not a place of torment; it more a place of semi-existence). This gets back to the idea that a dual resurrection was something new.
In fact, what you have in these first verses are not bastions of Judaism but the essential teachings of Evangelists in Acts.
Secondly, you are interpreting “falling away” as “going back to Judaic beliefs”. But that is not at all what the author of Hebrews is concerned about. Throughout the first five chapters, the recurring theme is not one of a change in beliefs, but in ungodly actions:
* Hebrews 2:3 contrasts the Mosaic Law with the New Testament Law of the Spirit, suggesting that if Israelites who were disobedient were punished so severely, how much more should those of the higher law be concerned. (This is a topic he revisits in Hebrews 10:26).
* In Hebrews 3:12 he brings up the topic of “falling away” explicitly, but in the context of disobedience, setting up a grand allegory of the New Covenant and the Old Covenant, discussing how a whole generation in the OT died without making it into the promised land because they were disobedient.(Hebrews 3:18 and once again in Hebrews 4:6 and again, in Hebrews 4:11)
The author is concerned that the people will fall away due to unrepentant sin, not because of a reversion to Judaism.
Note the language later in chapter 6 as well: Hebrews 6:7-9 bears a striking resemblance to John 15:1-5. In both cases, you have the focus on a lack of bearing fruit, not on a mental change of allegiance.
Hi David,
Thanks for your comments. I guess I have a couple of observations and points to make in response.
Firstly, I would like to know what you mean by “reading modern theology into the text”? Every point that I make in post is about my questions about the text and quotes from other parts of the scripture, so it seems a little unfair to be accused of reading modern theology in.
Secondly, I am not sure that the previous poster suggested that my reading was “dubious”. What he did do was ask for more information to make a decision about my reading. Just a slightly different take I think.
But, let me get to the substance of your response. It seems to me that you are suggesting that the six points of vv1-2 must be Christian and not Jewish. I am not convinced about the ‘un-Jewishness’ of them (to coin a new word).
Paul does indeed get into all sorts of hot water over the resurrection in Acts. But the question is why? He has trouble amongst the Athenian philosophers in Acts 17 because they don’t understand it at all (and we wouldn’t expect them to). But when he is amongst the Jews, he appeals specifically to the resurrection because so many agree. In particular in (Acts 23:6-10) when Paul mentions the resurrection, all the Pharisees agree with him. Furthermore, as I pointed out in the original post, when Jesus speaks to Mary and Martha on arriving at Lazarus’ tomb, both of them are expecting Lazarus to be raised, just not right now! Finally on this point, the apostles keep preaching the resurrection as the fulfilment of Jewish scripture (e.g. Acts 2, 13) so, while I have no problem that the resurrection is a profoundly Christian doctrine, I don’t quite see how it is “optimistic to suggest that Jews expected a resurrection”.
Which brings me to the issue of eternal judgement. What the Jews expected throughout most of their tradition is rather irrelevant it seems to me. The question is about what the Jews at the time of Jesus and beyond thought.
When Jesus speaks against the Jewish nation and their leaders in the gospels, the concept of a day of judgement is assumed as common ground (e.g. Matt 11:20-24, 12:36, 12:41-42). Furthermore, this day of judgement has more than one Old Testament witness as to its longevity (the previously maligned Daniel 12:2 and Isaiah 66 to name a couple of passages). Again, my issue is not that eternal judgement isn’t a Christian doctrine, I am just not sure that you have proved to me that it isn’t Jewish.
Therefore, the ignored problem about baptisms (or washings) is more significant than you might think. It seems to me that baptisms and the laying on of hands are exactly what happens in Leviticus 17 on the day of atonement. And what’s more, the sacrificial system is actually what the author of Hebrews is trying to expound at this point. My question is how “instructions about washings” formed part of the basic apostolic teaching about Jesus?
The problem for the Hebrews, as it is expressed in chapters 2-4, is continually about the danger of giving up their “confidence in Christ” (3:14). The author’s concern is that the Hebrews will let go of Jesus. Why? I think (in light of chapter 11-12 in particular) that their problem is that they are no longer willing to suffer persecution to hold on to Jesus (10:32-38). Their struggle is to endure in faith in Jesus until the end.
Now again, I would have no problem saying that sinful actions result from a sinful rejection of Jesus. But God’s judgement will fall on them if they give up their confidence in Christ.
Which brings me to my final question. On your reading, you still need to explain what is actually being meant in vv1-2. Are you saying that there is a fundamental knowledge of Jesus that you have to go beyond in order to come to maturity in Christ? And if there is, how is it different to the fundamental knowledge that the apostles preached that they kept asking people to cling to (a la Col 2:6-7)?
Hi Paul,
I appreciate your response to my comment, which undoubtedly came across as hyper-critical. My remarks referring to reading in modern theology refer to the tendency by Christians to deprecate the importance of both repentance/obedience and Judaism.
My response takes up more than the allowed 5,000 characters, so I have broken it up.
I do believe I can show the soundness of my criticism as summarized by the following points:
1. The epistle of Hebrews is concerned with people “falling away,” but not necessarily by returning to Judaism.
2. Not a single one of the items described represents a Jewish understanding of the Messiah, much less do they all represent a collection that is more Jewish than Christian with regard to Christ.
3. The author explicitly gives his reason for moving on from elementary teachings to greater ones at the end of Chapter 5, and his reason diverges from the one you give.
1. The epistle of Hebrews is concerned with people “falling away,” but not necessarily by returning to Judaism.
Contrary to the title, which was likely added later, the epistle we call Hebrews was most likely written to a mixed group of Christians, some Jewish, some Gentile in background.
In addition to a decided omission of any OT text discussing Jewish/Gentile relations [which might have fueled or sparked hostilities between the ethnicities within the church], we also find things like “fall away from the living God” as a fear [which would make no sense for a Jew going back to Judaism, as they would retain their belief in the Living God] and “faith in God” as an elementary teaching of Christianity (which, once again, would make no sense to a fully Jewish audience, who already certainly believed in God.)
Instead, the author’s concern is apostasy in general and impenitent sinning as a harbinger to that. In addition to the internal evidence I cited in my last comment and more which I will comment on later, The New International Greek Testament Commentary on Hebrews agrees with this analysis saying the terms “Fall away from God” likely refer to idea of “hardening of the heart.”
2. Not a single one of the items described represents a Jewish understanding of the Messiah, much less do they all represent a collection that is more Jewish than Christian with regard to Christ.
Here the point is that it is not enough to refer to something as “Jewish” but rather we must think about those items that were both Jewish and referred to Jewish understandings of the Messiah [rather than Gentile understandings.] In addition to your own points on this, the simple reason for this is that if a topic is only Jewish and has nothing to do with the Messiah, then why on earth would it have been part of the “fundamental teachings” described here??
Looking at each one of them, it is hard to find any that refer to a Jewish understanding of Messiah, much less one that is more in line with that than a Christian one.
The first: “repentance from dead works.” There is definitely an idea throughout the prophets that the Jews must repent before deliverance would come, but that was on a national scale, not an individual one. Here we are talking about individual repentance, which is rather alien from those Judaic prophecies that are not referring to the remnant that would return to Jerusalem. Furthermore the verbiage “… from dead works” is much more a Christian phraseology than a Jewish one.
“Faith in God” is hardly a teaching that would have been an elementary teaching for Jews who were converting to Judaism.
The term you insist is “washings” might have some levitical/cultic aspect to it, but it’s hard to see how that has anything to do about Jewish views on Messiah … nor would those have been elementary teachings of Jews coming into Christianity. Once again, baptism as an elementary teaching makes far more sense. There are several theories that would reconcile the odd plural [one baptism of water, the other of fire, perhaps triple immersion in the name of the tri-une God just to name two.]
“Laying on of hands” has no Messianic aspect to it that I know of, and whatever links it has to the sacrificial system of the Jewish Law could hardly be considered elementary teachings of the Christian faith. Once again, this looks far more like the ordination of priests or transmittance of the Holy Spirit [which was common among the earliest experiences of new Christians in Acts.]
While the Pharisees “hoped” of the resurrection of the dead, it simply cannot be claimed as a significant component of their Messiah theology. Indeed, Daniel 12:2 is “the only undisputed reference to a literal resurrection found in the Hebrew Bible.” [New English Translation commentary.]
Even when Isaiah talks about a “new heaven and a new earth” it does not refer to the eternal life idea of the NT. Note Isaiah 65:20. There is nearly as much verbiage in the Later Prophets of the OT as there is in the entire NT, and for all the discussion of the coming kingdom, you find almost nothing on a resurrection. In fact, you find many verses describing the Kingdom to come that would not allow for the resurrection, so tying it in as part of the Jewish understanding of Messiah when it is so conspicuously absent is rather a leap.
Even the resurrection in Daniel is, strangely, not tied to the Messiah. The vision in chapter 12 mentions Michael, not Christ, while in the visions that do refer to Christ [chapter 7 and chapter 9] no resurrection is apparent.
There is plenty of description of “judgement” in the prophecies, but precious little having anything to do with eternal judgement. This makes sense given the scantiness of reference to resurrection. Isaiah 66, like much of Isaiah, refers to God’s judgement upon the world and Israel’s enemies. The description in 66:24, which I assume you were keying on, is a picture (using normal Jewish hyperbole, of a massive, maggot-ridden burial site made from the slain of all Israel’s enemies [except those who are serving them, which is the Isaiahic view of the coming Kingdom.]
The Jews had no developed understanding of the afterlife, and they never developed a theology of eternal torment, so this can hardly be considered an aspect of Jewish anything.
3. The author explicitly gives his reason for moving on from elementary teachings to greater ones at the end of Chapter 5, and his reason diverges from the one you give.
The reason the author feels compelled to move on to higher preaching is not out of some view that doings so will stop them from falling into Judaism. Rather, he believes it will make it easier for them to live righteously.
Compare Hebrews 5:13 to Hebrews 5:14. the problem is not that they might stop believing in Christ and thereafter fall into sin. The problem is that they might fall into sin which could lead them eventually to have hardened hearts to the point of apostasy.
And I must bring up again Hebrews 6:8, which mirrors John 15:6, where one is removed because of impenitent sin, not as a precursor to it. Indeed, much of the author’s whole point in Jesus being a priest is to call the readers to approach Him in supplication for forgiveness so that the sins they have done might not become a spiritual abscess. [Hebrews 4:15-16]
Note that 6:6 says “renew them to repentance” not “renew them to faith.”
It is this sinning that the author is concerned about over and over again. That is why he references Israel’s disobedience throughout the first several chapters. Note as well Hebrews 10:26-31.
It is true that the author is very concerned, as well, with the audience losing “Faith in Christ,” but not in the way that we normally conceive of it. For us, “Faith in Christ” can refer to all manner of things, but the author of Hebrews is particularly concerned that they will lose confidence in the Second Coming. This is the “confidence” described in Hebrews 3:14, Hebrews 6:18, and the exhortations found in 10:32-39.
This mimics the confidence the Israelites lacked when they disobeyed God in the wilderness, being concerned by the report given in Numbers 14.
Hi David,
Sorry I have taken a couple of days to reply; I have had other things that needed doing. But here I am again. Thanks for the detail and content of your posts.
There are lots of things that I would like to say and comment on, but I don’t want this to get too long. So let me respond in a couple of ways.
While I agree with you that the Old Testament Jews didn’t have a developed theology of resurrection, I cited the passages I did because I think that it is there in the later prophets (even though it’s there as a germ of an idea, rather than a fully-fledged one).
However, my point was that those germs had created something larger by the time of the New Testament. That was the point that I was trying to make about Mary and Martha talking to Jesus at Lazarus’ tomb. When Jesus tells Martha, “Your brother will rise again”, her response is, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day”. Resurrection is clearly a part of her thought world, and she is definitely Jewish. Likewise, the argument between the Pharisees and Sadducees clearly says that resurrection is part of some of the Jewish world view at the time of the New Testament.
In fact, chapter 4 of NT Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God explains that there were a plethora of views in first-century Judaism. He makes clear it is absolutely certain that the ideas of resurrection, judgement and eternal life were all part of the mix. And he cites Jewish literature from the second century BC through to the second century AD.
So you simply cannot say that the things in Hebrews 6:1-2 could not have been part of Jewish theology.
Which brings me to my bigger point which I raised in my last post. Why on your reading, if the author’s desire is to encourage godliness of life, does he want to move on from the fundamental ‘Christian’ ideas about the Christ of the resurrection and eternal judgement—two ideas which lie behind many of the New Testament exhortations to godliness?
Going back to 5:11-14, then, we see that the author’s main problem is in fact that (v. 11) he wants to explain more deeply the priesthood of Jesus (compare the introduction of Melchizedek in 5:1-10 with the return to the topic from chapter 7 onwards), but he can’t do this because they have become dull of hearing. They need to move on from “the word of the origin of the Christ” to bigger things but they can’t because they are stuck somewhere they shouldn’t be. Again, I ask how it is that understanding the resurrection and eternal judgement in a Christian sense could be thought of as being stuck?
Finally, then, I want to present some more evidence for the idea that it is falling away from Jesus that is the problem. Chapters 10-12 are all about persevering in the face of suffering. Their danger is that they will spurn the Son of God (10:29). How will they do that? Well, the author reminds them that when they first became Christians, they were prepared to to be persecuted for following Jesus (10:32ff), but he is worried that they will now shrink back (10:37-39). I do not doubt that ungodliness is a part of all of this (12:12-17), but the greater problem is letting go of Jesus. That is the heart of what he fears.
I hope that I have made some sense. I will await your reply.
Hi Paul,
No worries about the wait, and I appreciate your willingness to engage here.
Also (as you will find if you make it to the end of this long post), I want to thank you because I think I have figured out what is really going on here (Maybe you’ll agree with me.)
I’ll accept your point regarding the resurrection, but I maintain that the Jews did not have in general a theory of eternal punishment. In fact, they didn’t have really a notion of “eternal” anything; their language lacked that concept (as many older languages did … and some still do.) For the Jew, “eternal” didn’t mean what we think of as eternal, but rather “beyond where I can see” (it is derived from the word for “hidden,” and came to simply refer to “the next age”).
However, the above is more of an interesting nitpick.
I do think my points regarding baptisms/washings, laying of hands, etc. are still valid ways of saying that the author is not separating Jewish teachings about the Messiah, but perhaps you had a response to that which you didn’t go into for space purposes.
I think the writer gives his own reason for why moving forward helps someone do God’s will, suggesting those who are mature are better able to discern God’s will.
Given that the point of Christ’s priesthood is that our souls have been washed to receive the Holy Spirit which empowers us to do God’s will through Christ in us, there appears to me to be a natural tie.
Before answering your question (which I neglected to earlier), I would ask two of you: what does learning about Christ’s priesthood got to do with stopping someone from falling into unbelief? And while eternal judgment/resurrection might have been aspect of the Christ known to the Jews, certainly the teaching described would have been the Christian version, so how does “moving on” past serve to stop someone from falling away? (FWIW, the answer I give below to your question could just as easily be given to this one.)
Now, to answer the question I failed to answer in my earlier screed.
“Why on your reading, if the author’s desire is to encourage godliness of life, does he want to move on from the fundamental ‘Christian’ ideas about the Christ of the resurrection and eternal judgement—two ideas which lie behind many of the New Testament exhortations to godliness?”
I read the author’s intent differently here. I don’t think the audience is “stuck” (indeed, Hebrews 6:9 suggests the Speaker does think the audience is ready to “move on”), but rather the author has a new way of exhorting the audience to godliness, and he cannot get there by dwelling on what they already know.
I suggest that the author’s over-arching idea here is that of “neglecting salvation.” (Hebrews 2:3) (Keep in mind that in the theology of Hebrews, at least, salvation is seen as the “cleansing of the conscience” to empower us to do God’s will … which only Christ could do)
The concern here, then, is that after the audience has been given freedom to serve God (analogous to the Jews being freed from Pharaoh to serve God), they would “fall into a pattern of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:11).
I believe if you read through Hebrews with an eye toward this idea of “Look what you have, and how terrible it would be if you did not make the most of it,” you’ll start to find a surprising number of examples. Some of these are in terms of warnings (If God punished the Jews, how much more must we be careful because we have been given something greater) Hebrews 10:28-29 .
Other times it is pointing out the dangers of sin (note that the author warns of having an unbelieving heart … but then exhorts people not to have their heart hardened by sin’s deception. Hebrews 3:13). In other places, he points out that Jesus is the source of eternal salvation for “all who obey him” (Hebrews 5:9) (which ties the importance of His priesthood back to avoiding sin as well.)
He also discusses how, since Christ was meant to put away sin, there is no longer a sacrifice for those who intentionally sin after receiving light (Hebrews 10:26).
And this takes me to those chapters you pointed to.
While it is easy to see the “Honor roll of Faith” as an exhortation to maintain the faith, even in adversity, I’d point out that in the vast majority of those cases people were not persecuted by their faith, but rather called to do something—called to obey God’s command.
But that isn’t really the important thing about these verses.
The important thing is to note why the writer is talking about all these people. The point the author is making is that these people, even with their faith, did not get what you have (the Holy Spirit). See Hebrews 11:13 and (more conclusively) Hebrews 11:39-40.
And then note the next transition “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, we must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1)
I agree the author is concerned both about perseverance and about sin in general, but given the number of times the author explicitly refers to the dangers of sin itself, it seems more reasonable to say the author is concerned with sin as a gateway to apostasy rather than apostasy as a gateway to sin.
There’s no reason the author cannot be concerned about both, but I do think there are just far too many verses referring to the danger of individual sins (in particular Hebrews 10:26-29) to not consider that the key (or at least a key) concern, and I don’t think the concern is that the audience will slip back into Judaism because they have only been taught the items in 6:1-2 …
IN FACT: New idea
The author really isn’t moving “away” from those “elementary teachings”; he just said that he must “progress past” them. He also says that they need them again. It would be silly to jump forward to the more advanced stuff after just admitting your audience needed elementary things again.
If you look at the rest of the letter, doesn’t the author discuss each of those items:
Faith in God: no brainer
Repentance from dead works: Hebrews 9:14
Washings: Hebrews 9:10, Hebrews 9:13-14, Hebrews 9:19-23, most importantly Hebrews 10:23
Judgement: Hebrews 9:27, Hebrews 10:26-29
Resurrection: Hebrews 9:28
So, it isn’t an issue of “moving past” but rather an issue of retelling them the important things in the context of the Priesthood.
Hi David,
Thanks for taking the time to think through this stuff, it has been very stimulating. I still think that parts at least of the Jewish world had developed concepts of eternity by 1st century AD (or so says NT Wright and he does cite quite a bit of documentary evidence – although all in Greek rather than Hebrew). But I agree, it’s not particularly significant.
On reading your last post I have seen a number of helpful things (and am still thinking through your thoughts about the relationship between the high priestly idea and things like resurrection and judgement). The main thing though is that I don’t think that I am saying what you think I am saying.
I don’t think that vv1-2 are about a Christian version of the Jewish teachings. I think that he’s actually saying – you guys should be understanding Jesus but you are playing around with Judaism. I think that what he’s saying (from 5:11 onwards) can be paraphrased something like this…
“I want to talk to you about the eternal high priestly work of Jesus but I can’t because you have become hard of hearing. You have regressed to childhood, you are going back to the Jewish roots of Christianity and not understanding the significance of the fulfilment of the Old Testament types found in Jesus. I am going to push on an tell you about what you need to know, but gee I hope you aren’t in the position of having understood it and rejecting it, because then what I am saying won’t help.” (It’s a very loose paraphrase).
On my understanding, he still wants to call the Jewish symbols and teaching milk because it has some value (so, for example, in Heb 8:5, we learn that the tabernacle was picture of eternal reality – the only problem was that it was a picture and not the reality). But he is also desperate for them to understand the fulness of Christ so they don’t give up on him and resort to Judaism.
In part, this reading has come out of my reading of the whole letter. In particular the relentless desire to show that the Old Testament symbols of priesthood, sacrifice, temple, covenant and even revelation (1:1-4 cf 1:5-2:4) have been fulfilled and surpassed and are now to be put away.
And so I think that the “deliberate sin” that he speaks of in (v26) is the “spurning of the Song of God” and the “profaning of the blood of the covenant” and the “outraging of the Spirit of Grace” (v29). Their big danger is rejecting Jesus. Which it seems to me they will do by shrinking back in the face of suffering. (10:32-39).
I guess that I am saying that I think that part of their shrinking back involves some sort of acceptance of or return to Judaism (even if it is the return to Judaism of some a mixture of God-fearing Gentiles as well as Jews). I think that 13:9 is another of the places that gives some weight to this idea.
However, our discussion has challenged me to think again about the mixture of moral commandments given in chapter 13 in particular. It seems that in the face of suffering there are many ways of giving up on Jesus. Both being caught by false teaching and giving in to immorality and greed.
The warnings continue to be apposite in the 21st century, do they not?!