Hebrews 6:9-20

6:9 But we stand persuaded about you, beloved ones, of better things—things having to do with salvation, even if we are talking this way.
While the possibilities the author has been discussing are real possibilities, he does not think that they will apply to the audience in the end. He has been threatening them with the potential consequences of the trajectory with which they are dabbling. But he believes they will make the right decision, even if this statement is meant to motivate them as well as inform them of his opinion.

The statement, "we have been persuaded," uses the Greek perfect tense, which here gives the sense of a conviction that the author (and perhaps others he represents like Timothy) has held for some time. He became convinced at some point in the past that the audience would endure to the future day of salvation, and he has remained convinced up until the present. Salvation in Hebrews, as in Paul and 1 Peter, generally has the sense of escape from God's coming wrath and judgment. It is thus refers most literally to a future event.

6:10 For God is not unjust to forget your work and the love you showed toward His name as you ministered to the saints and are ministering.
We can be thankful that the author at least gives us some small hints about the audience, hints that he will fill out even more in 10:32-34. During an earlier time of persecution, they ministered to the "saints" who were the direct object of that time. And while their faith may be wavering now somewhat, they apparently have not stopped their ministry to other saints in need--perhaps even to individuals like the author of Hebrews.

If we are right about the setting of Hebrews, the audience had earlier ministered to the saints during Nero's persecution of Christians in the aftermath of the fire of Rome in AD64. The current ministering might thus include their regard for those who might have come to Rome in the aftermath of Jerusalem's destruction. Others might see the expulsion of Christian Jews from Rome under Claudius in AD49 as the earlier time, with the lead up to Nero's persecution as the time of the audience.

6:11-12 And we desire for each of you to show the same diligence in confidence about hope to the end, so that you might not be sluggish, but imitators of those who, through faith and endurance, inherit the promises.
The author's conclusion is no surprise, as it is the same message he has given to the audience repeatedly--don't give up your faith in the truth of the Christian message. Don't stop hoping for Christ to return and for God to judge the world. Remain true to the end.

The word "sluggish" here is the same word the author use in 5:11 that we translated as "hard" in the phrase "hard of hearing." This is the literary technique of inclusio, where an author begins and ends a section with the same word or idea. It is a hint that the heart of the digression that the author began in 5:11 ends here in 6:12.

The mention of imitating those who by faith inherit the promises is a foreshadowing of the "faith chapter" in Hebrews 11. The promises that the audience has believed up to this point remain as God's promises. And just as other Christians have continued to believe even during hard times, even when they died before seeing such promises materialize, the author exhorts the audience to do the same (cf. especially 11:13).

6:13-15 For when God was making a promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater by which to swear, “He swore by Himself,” saying, “Surely, blessing, I will bless you and, multiplying, I will multiply” you. And so, after he endured, he obtained the promise.
As some scholars have pointed out, the last part of Hebrews 6 "cools down" from the pointed admonition the author has just made in 5:11-6:12. In that very direct critique, he has called them "dull" or "sluggish" and has shamed them by calling them babes. He has suggested that they need to go back to kindergarten, if God will even allow them, for they are in danger of falling away beyond repair. 6:13-20 thus buffer the author's direct admonition from his return to the argument proper in chapter 7.

Abraham provides for the author a counter example to the wilderness generation. They did not believe God's promise and fell in the desert. Abraham believed God's promise--even though as Hebrews 11 will tell us, he died without seeing it come to pass.

Yet it did come to pass. God promised Abraham that He would greatly multiply him--the sense of the Semitic idiom, "multiplying, I will multiply you." And we know from the later biblical story that his descendants did multiply vastly.

The author's sense of Abraham receiving the promise is interesting, given that Abraham himself--the historical Abraham--did not obtain the promise. As we will see in the case of Melchizedek, the author can move imperceptibly from discussing the characters of the Bible as literal figures from the past to discussing them as characters in the text of Scripture as one continuous narrative. Thus Abel's blood continues to speak in Scripture even though the historical Abel is long dead.

6:16-17 For humans swear by the greater and the oath is for them the end of every argument in confirmation. Even more so, when God was wanting to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeability of His will, He intervened with an oath…
Unlike Matthew and James, Hebrews seems to have no issue with oathtaking, at least not as concerns God. Oaths were of course very serious in the ancient world, because the ancients really believed in their gods. And their gods were not the loving beings that Christians by and large picture when they think of God as their Father. Indeed, ancient Jews and Christians had far more "fear" of God than most do today.

To invoke the name of a deity in an oath was thus to risk the wrath of that God if you failed to keep the oath. This is background to the commandment, "Do not take the name of the LORD in vain." The seriousness of such an oath is seen when Jephthah sacrifices his daughter to the LORD in Judges 11:39. When you swear by God, you have made the stakes of lying as high as they can go.

But God has no one greater by which to swear. So He swears by Himself. What the author wishes to get across to the audience is how serious God's promise is. This is not an issue on which He can change His mind, for He has bound Himself by an oath.

6:18-19 … so that by two unchangeable things, among which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled so that we can hold on to the hope lying ahead might have strong encouragement,
The two unchangeable things are 1) the fact that God has sworn by Himself and 2) the fact that it is impossible for God to lie. We should remember that the idea that God's will is immutable is a later Christian idea--and one that is more particular to Calvinism than broader Christianity. The issue of orthodoxy is whether God knows what He is going to will rather than whether, from where we stand on the ground, God's will appears to change in response to the world.

When 6:17 vouches for the unchangeability of God's will, it does so in relation to God's will on this matter. It does not mean to say that God never seems to change His will. The Old Testament provides many examples where God appears to change His will. God appears to change His mind about making humanity in Genesis 6:6. God changes his mind about destroying Ninevah after they repent because of Jonah's message. Jonah is not surprised for he knew God was a God who changed His mind about doing evil (Jonah 4:2).

What God will not change His mind on is the "hope lying ahead," the promise of salvation in the middle of the judgment of the world. The author perhaps alludes to those who fled to cities of refuge in Numbers, a particularly appropriate allusion if in fact Jerusalem had recently been destroyed. Believers, now clearly more aliens and strangers on the earth than ever before, have fled to the hope that was coming. And God's oath, along with His absolute truthfulness, provide an incredibly strong encouragement to those whose faith might be wavering.

6:19-20 … which we have as an anchor of the soul, both solid and secure and entering inside the veil, where the forerunner for us, Jesus, has entered, as he has become a high priest after the order of Melchizedek forever.
Now the author mixes a nautical image with the city of refuge allusion he has just made and the high priestly metaphor that is to come. This combination of images bombard the audience with images of confidence.

As the author ends the section from 5:11-6:20, he returns to the theme of Christ's Melchizedekian high priesthood. It was mention of this aspect of Christ's identity in 5:10 that sparked the central exhortation of this sermon. Now as the author prepares to continue with that theme, he finds his way back to it again.

The shaming aspect of Hebrews' central exhortation is clear from the fact that the author now returns to the subject that he has suggested they may not be grown up enough to digest. He does not really think they are as far gone as his rhetoric might lead one to think.

Back in 4:14, the author mentioned that Christ had "passed through the skies." He now makes the metaphor of the heavenly sanctuary even more explicit. Christ has gone "through the veil" into the heavenly Most Holy Place. We believe that the author is taking Christ's passage into the highest heaven somewhat metaphorically as his entrance into a heavenly sanctuary and a heavenly Holy of Holies.

A clue to that metaphor is the fact that Christ is our forerunner in this passage. When he leads "many sons to glory," the rest of the perfected will also pass through the skies into that throne room.