Hebrews 5:11-6:8--Explanatory Notes

5:11 Concerning which there is much to say to you and hard to explain, since you have become hard of hearing.
It is the mention of Christ as a priest after the order of Melchizedek that sets the author off on the central and focal exhortation of the sermon. This point of diversion is not simply an attempt to hold the audience's attention, although it does perform this purpose. It is reasonable for us to conclude that the "priesthood" of Christ and what it signifies for the author stands at the heart of the reason for this sermon.

Presumably, the audience's wavering commitment has something to do with a failure to appreciate fully the atoning significance of Christ. The author will go on to unfold this significance in chapter 7. For the moment, he will lay out the high stakes of "falling away" in the most direct language of the sermon. His urging to continue in chapters 3-4, which was somewhat indirect and by analogy, he will now make directly.

To be sure, the author is trying to shame the audience into continuing faithfulness. As he will say in 6:9, he is convinced they will continue in faith. But it makes little sense to make the statements he is about to make if he is not talking about real possibilities. The recurring and emphatic nature of his admonitions to continue points to a real concern on his part and a perceived problem on their part.

5:12 For although you ought even to be teachers because of the time, you are in need for someone to begin teaching you again the elementary principles [one learns when] beginning to learn the oracles of God. You have come to need milk and not strong meat.
This verse confirms our earlier suspicions that the audience has believed that Jesus is the Messiah for some time. We will hear of earlier persecution later in this section, a struggle in which they conducted themselves in an exemplary fashion. It would seem that something different is happening this time around.

The mention of "elementary principles" and "beginning of the oracles of God" will be significant when we get to 6:1-2, where the author will tell us what some of these are. There he will call these things "the word of the beginning of the Christ." It thus makes sense to think of these things as things the audience first learned when they believed on Jesus as Messiah.

Since Jews would have grown up believing most of these things, the implication is that the audience is likely Gentile, non-Jews, as perhaps the majority of the churches at Rome were. When they believed on Jesus as the Christ, they learned the elementary principles of the oracles of God and Scripture. They should now be teachers of such things, according to the author's understanding. But they lack certain fundamental understandings concerning the significance of Christ's atonement, the author claims.

5:13-14 For everyone who partakes of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for [this person] is a baby. But strong meat is a matter of the mature, of those who, because of practice, have disciplined their senses to be able to discern between good and evil.
These are common images used by philosophers of the day to talk about moving toward true understanding. The idea of training one's senses, for example, has clear philosophical overtones. But the author's point is likely that the audience is troubled about things that should not trouble them. They should be able to tell the difference between what is actually a challenge to their faith and what is not.

The ability to see that Christ's death has accomplished final atonement is probably a key "good" the author thinks the audience should be able to discern. Similarly, if we are right about the setting of Hebrews, the author wishes the audience were able to discern that the destruction of the temple is not an "evil."

The "word of righteousness," perhaps the matter of righteousness, presumably relates directly to being able to discern the difference between good and evil. The person who is skilled in the matter of righteousness is able to discern the good. The unskilled person is not able to tell the difference between the two.

6:1 Therefore, leaving the word of the beginning of the Christ, let us bring on maturity and not lay again the foundation...
The word for "mature" in the previous verse and "maturity" here are words sometimes translated "perfect" or "perfection." Nevertheless, to translate the words that way is to mislead, given the way we tend to think of perfection today. When the author tells the audience to move on to maturity, he is telling them to move on the strong meat that is the point of his sermon, the final atonement provided through Christ.

The material that follows will tell us some of the "elementary principles" of the "word of the beginning of the Christ." The items the author is about to mention are foundation, the elementary principles of the beginning of the oracles of God. They are things that, presumably, the audience first learned when they believed on Jesus as the Christ.

6:1b-2 [the foundation] of repentance from dead works and faith on God, [the foundation] of the teaching of baptisms and laying on hands and of the resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment.
In this verse is the strongest evidence that the audience is Gentile, non-Jew. With the possible exception of baptism and laying on hands, none of these items are specifically Christian. The vast majority of Jews would not learn of such things when they began to believe on Jesus as Christ.

Repentance from dead works is likely repentance for sins, acts that lead to death. We should not infer some faith versus works here, as if the audience is repenting of trying to earn its salvation. This approach to Paul is already somewhat skewed, and it is totally foreign to Hebrews. It would be similarly wrong to see such works as participation in the Levitical sacrificial system. The author sees that system as ineffective, but not as a sin for which one should repent.

The mention of dead works in the context of a previously pagan audience immediately evokes images of idolatry. As some scholars have pointed out, Jews thought of such idols as "dead idols."

Faith in God is of course a basic Jewish concept. It would not be an "elementary principle" a Jew would learn when coming to Christ. Certainly belief in Jesus as Messiah gives a clear content to that faith, but Gentile converts to Christianity would definitely need to learn faith in God as a beginning, foundation principle.

The mention of baptisms, plural, is intriguing. Certainly Jews of Palestine participated in regular washings of purification. Perhaps a Gentile convert to Judaism would learn of these, although this thought in relation to Christian foundation is curious. Certainly we can assume that baptism in water in the name of Jesus as the Christ was part of that to which the author refers (cf. Heb. 10:22). But what other baptism or baptisms might the author have in mind?

One possibility some have suggested is the "baptism of the Holy Spirit," a possibility that perhaps becomes slightly more likely given the follow up mention of laying on hands. The gospels do record a tradition that associates receiving the Holy Spirit with a baptism that Jesus would make. The book of Acts regularly associates this baptism of the Holy Spirit with water baptism as twin events relating to becoming a part of the Jesus movement. Acts further associates laying hands on others with the impartation of the Spirit.

Perhaps this is our best guess at that to which the author might refer with his mention of baptism and laying on hands. The main objection is the fact that the author does not use this imagery elsewhere in the sermon. 10:22 speaks of consciences being "sprinkled," which does not likely refer to the mode of baptism. It is an allusion to the sprinkling of blood in the Old Testament.

Resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment are again not specifically Christian concepts but common Jewish belief (although to be sure there was more variety in Jewish afterlife belief than is sometimes recognized). These would thus not be Christian foundation or elementary principles for a Jewish audience. All these items would, however, be foundation for a Gentile audience that came to believe on Jesus as Messiah.

6:3-5 And this we will do, if indeed God allows, for it is impossible for those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have become partakers of Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the coming age...
The author is now setting up one of the most notorious passages in the New Testament, the starkest warning passage to believers in Scripture. The author wishes to take the audience to a deeper understanding of the significance of Christ's atonement. He wishes them to move on to maturity.

But he expresses some hesitation about going on. Likely this hesitation is part of his shaming of the audience rather than a real fear on his part. But he makes his warning clear. It is possible to reach a point, like the wilderness generation, where God has made up His mind to condemn. After a certain point, God swore that the wilderness generation would not enter into His rest.

The author does not likely think that the audience has truly reached such a point of disbelief. But he makes the situation very clear. He wants to take them to the next level--but they have put themselves in a precarious position where it is possible that God might not allow them to go any further. There is a point after which further advancement becomes impossible.

There can be no doubt but that the author considers the audience to be "in" the people of God. They have left Egypt. To partake of Holy Spirit is to be a "Christian." It is not merely to dabble in Christianity, as some suggest, for Christ "partook" of flesh and blood (2:14) and tasted death (9). Any suggestion, therefore, that the audience has not truly converted is wishful thinking.

The mention of enlightenment could of course refer to Jewish believers, but would be especially appropriate for Gentile believers. Nevertheless, the author consistently uses imagery of ignorance for those who have not yet believed on Christ in a general sense.

The heavenly gift is apparently the Holy Spirit, which the New Testament consistently treats as the threshhold of entrance into Christian faith. Hebrews in particular seems to link the Holy Spirit with entrance into the new covenant, with God writing His laws on His people's hearts (e.g., 10:16). Spirit is the stuff of heaven, as opposed to flesh and blood, the stuff of earth. It is thus part and parcel of the powers of the coming age.

The "good word of God" uses the word hrema that is used in 11:3. There we hear that the worlds were framed by the word of God. This word is also something that we experience as believers.

... [it is impossible] if they fall away to be renewing themselves to repentance, since they crucify to themselves the Son of God all over again and expose him to public disgrace.
Like the wilderness generation that reached a point where God swore they would never enter His rest, the audience could reach a point where "no sacrifice for sin remains" (10:26). To fall away in this context does not refer in this case to habitual sinning in general (although perhaps the author would apply the concept to it as well). The specific reference is to an audience that disbelieves God's promise and turns back on faith, that "apostacizes" from the confession of Jesus as the Son of God, as the Messianic king.

Such individuals cannot "find a place of repentance," as the author says of Esau in 12:17. Esau sold his birthright as firstborn son for food. Then later, even though he sought a place of repentance with tears, he could not find one. So the author warns, if the audience falls away from their sonship like Esau, like the wilderness generation disbelieved God's promise, they to will find themselves unable to repent again.

Such actions disgrace God's patronage through Jesus Christ. They haul Christ up on the cross again and expose him to public disgrace... again. This imagery would be particularly appropriate if the audience potentially faces civil authorities. The Roman historian Tacitus tells us that such things happened during the persecution under Nero. Some Christians at that time disgraced Christ publically by renouncing him. Certainly if Hebrews was written later at the time of Vespasian, Titus, or Domitian, the audience might anticipate the same course of events again.

6:7-8 For earth that drinks rain coming on it often and that yields a crop pleasing to those for whom it is farmed receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is unworthy and is near a curse, whose end is in burning.
The import of this illustration is clear. The audience is like a field that has received the frequent blessing of rain. They have been believers for some time. They have heard much from faithful leaders of the past (13:7). The author of Hebrews himself is trying to give them strong meat.

The question is whether they will yield a pleasing crop or not. Esau did not inherit the blessing after he sold his birthright (12:17). So the audience, if it turns out to bear thorns and thistles after God has graciously given them so much, will be deemed unworthy of the promise.

The author wishes to show them what dangerous ground it is to waver in faith. It is to be near the point of cursing. The end is in the destroying fire of God, who is a "consuming fire" (12:29). Hebrews is not clear about whether this is a never ending fire, although the author has just mentioned "eternal judgment" (6:2). Hebrews may simply refer to destruction by fire and removal along with the creation (12:27).