Heb 6:1-3 Press on to Maturity

Hebrews 6:1–3 ESV

1 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.

When you have young kids, Christmas for dads is spent mostly assembling the kids' new toys. It was no different this year for me, after all the excitement of our kids opening their new toys, there is the dreaded task of assembling. Like most dads, you look at all the parts and what it should look like and start putting them together, most of the time you will only look at the manual or the instructions if you can’t first put it together without the manual. However, this year when I opened the box and saw the number of small pieces and what it should look like, I realized that there was no way I could put it together without the instructions. After two hours of trying to follow the basic instructions, there were two things I learned. First, some of the parts had the incorrect identifiable sticker on them. Second, the basic instructions were not as clear as I first thought. If I had spent time studying the instructions the assembly might have been easier. Sometimes the basic instructions are not as easy to follow as we might first think when we consider them. So, it is with the text we are studying today, at first, it seems a simple list of basic tenets of the Christian faith, but when we study it, we will see it is a little more complicated than what it first appears to be. Previously, the author of Hebrews gave us a strong warning calling us to grow up, that we all need to grow in our knowledge and obedience to God’s word. The audience of the letter was compared to children who had to relearn the ABCs, they were infants and needed milk instead of solid food. Now in chapter 6, the author continues the rebuke saying: “1Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity,” If you remember the previous verses, you might be a little confused. In v12 the author was telling his audience the following: “12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God” now in v1 the author is saying let us leave the elementary doctrines and go on to maturity. At first, look what the author is saying seems contradictory, however, as we look into these verses, we can see that it is not. In v 12 the author is saying that the audience needed to be taught again the basic principles, not because they lack knowledge, but because they lack obedience in applying God’s Word to their lives so that they would be able to distinguish good from evil, their moral and spiritual muscles needed to be flex and exercised. The ability to distinguish good from evil can only increase by the constant practice of obedience, not by growing in head knowledge only. Now the author is saying that we need to move on from the basics, and not solely stay on the elementary principles of the oracles of God. Here the author of Hebrews is not saying let us abandon the basics, he is saying let’s move on and grow up into maturity. The foundation in Christ will never change, if we leave our foundation, we will lose everything. We are to build our house on the rock, if the foundations of a house are destroyed what will happen to the house? Allen a commentator states the following: “The meaning here is not that of abandoning the basic teachings of Christianity, but rather the necessity of recognizing the foundational character of these teachings and thus the impropriety of going over the same ground. The readers are exhorted to move on to another level, a level commensurate with those who are mature, a level of “fuller appreciation and application of that teaching.” The clause “not laying again the foundation” is the negative expression of the positive concepts “leaving” and “pressing on.” The goal is “maturity” and pressing on is the means by which the goal is reached. Christians are dependent upon God and his grace to enable them to press forward to maturity.” Let me repeat this last phrase. “Christians are dependent upon God and his grace to enable them to press forward to maturity” Therefore we cannot abandon the basics; we will always be dependent on God’s grace, and the author of Hebrews will talk about this later in v3, but now let’s continue in v1 -2. “1Therefore 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.”

Hebrews 6:1 ESV

1 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,

After the author told the readers of their need to move on from the basics, he gives the list of six elementary doctrines of Christ. Repentance from dead works; Faith toward God; Instruction about washings; Laying on of hands; Resurrection of the dead; and Eternal judgment. Before we study this list, it is important to say that the author was telling his audience to not stay on these basic principles, but rather to move beyond to maturity. These six tenets of the faith were likely very familiar topics for the readers, but it is not for us, so we might benefit from taking the time today to study them. From this list, I’m guessing that you are familiar with four of the six mentioned. You know well the concepts related to repentance and faith, resurrection, and eternal judgment. For the other two, instructions about washings and laying on of hands, you might be scratching your head a little bit. Does this mean you need to relearn the basics? because you are not sure what these two mean, or maybe you have an idea what they are referring to, but you are not sure how these two are so elementary for our Christian faith. If you are feeling down, please don’t. When I first read these verses, I wasn’t sure about these two either, I had some idea of what they might mean, but I wasn’t sure how the laying on of hands and washings would be basics for the Christian faith. This list is not as easy as it might sound, like some manuals. Each commentator has a different way of categorizing these six concepts, I can assure you there are more than ten ways to categorize them. However, the common ground for every scholar is that these six are listed in three pairs; (repentance and faith; washings and laying on of hands; and Resurrection and eternal judgment) This list gives us an insight into the life of the early followers of Christ, a church that had a strong Jewish background. Even though not every scholar agrees, these six principles are also basic first-century Jewish principles. Bruce a commentator says “When we consider the “rudiments” one by one, it is remarkable how little in the list is distinctive of Christianity, for practically every item could have its place in a fairly orthodox Jewish community. Each of them, indeed, acquires a new significance in a Christian context; but the impression we get is that existing Jewish beliefs and practices were used as a foundation on which to build Christian truth. “It is significant,” wrote Alexander Nairne, “that the points taken as representing the foundation of penitence and faith are all consistent with Judaism. ‘Doctrines of washings’—how unnatural are the attempts to explain this plural as referring to Christian Baptism; ‘imposition of hands, the resurrection of the dead, eternal judgment’—all this belonged to the creed of a Pharisaic Jew who accepted the whole of the Old Testament.” It is not certain, but it seems to me that it is very likely that these six doctrines were also Jewish doctrines. If that is the case, then why is the author of Hebrews citing these doctrines instead of other distinctive Christian doctrines? There are two possibilities. One possibility is that the hearers of this letter were attempting to remain Jews, instead of being distinct followers of Christ. Guthrie, a commentator says: “The six “foundational” tenets listed in 6:1b–2 all find parallels within Judaism and its basic practices of religion. As proposed by Hagner, “this may suggest that the readers were attempting somehow to remain within Judaism by emphasizing items held in common between Judaism and Christianity. They may have been trying to survive with a minimal Christianity in order to avoid alienating their Jewish friends or relatives.” The other possibility, which I think is more likely, is that evangelists in the first century used these six doctrines that had a common ground with Jews to share the gospel and the hope of Christ. Evangelists might have based the foundation of the Christian faith upon the already-established teachings of the Old Testament. Thus, these six doctrines besides being well known to Jewish Christians were elementary doctrines that every believer in that context would consider the most basic of the Christian faith. Before we go further, we should examine these six elementary doctrines. The first one mentioned is repentance from dead works. At first, we might consider these to be the works of the law that are dead because of two passages that might come to our minds. Rom 3:20 “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” Gal 2:16 “yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” However, the passage we are studying today in Hebrews doesn’t say works of the law, but it says dead works. Dead works and works of the law are not the same. It doesn’t mean that by works one is saved, by works of the law no one will be justified. Then if the works mentioned in Heb 6 are not the works of the law, what are these dead works then? Notice that the verse says repentance from dead works. This indicates that these are not only dead but evil and belong to the way of death, not the way of life. These evil ways is what all of Scripture, Old and New Testament, calls for repentance. Bruce a commentator said: “Repentance from such things was insisted upon in the Old Testament, and in all the strains of Jewish thought and life which were derived from the Old Testament. The sectaries of Qumran, for example, described themselves as “the repentant of Israel”; and they were by no means the only Jews to think and speak in such terms. The keynote of John the Baptist’s preaching was a call to repentance (cf. Mark 1:4; Matt. 3:2, 8 par. Luke 3:8); and when Jesus began to proclaim the kingdom of God in Galilee, he called upon his hearers to “repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). So too Paul could remind the elders of the Ephesian church how he had spent over two years in their city “testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance to God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). Therefore, repentance from dead works is the common ground for everyone to turn away from sins and repent from such ways. Often in Scripture when we see the commandment to repent is coupled with a belief in God. In Acts 2 Peter at Pentecost was preaching saying “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins (Acts 2:38) We also see throughout the gospel Jesus calling people to repent and believe. Furthermore, this is present in the Old Testament, Gen 15:6 “And he (Abraham) believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” Then this passage that Paul knew well from Habakkuk 2:4 “the righteous shall live by his faith.” “The readers of this epistle had already been reminded that it was unbelief that kept the generation of the Exodus from entering the promised land, and they were urged to apply this lesson to their own situation. Faith in God must include faith in his messengers, and in the gospel faith in God included faith in Christ.” (Bruce, F. F. The Epistle to the Hebrews) What about you, have you repented from dead works? Repentance is “turning away from sin, hating it, and resolving by God’s strength to forsake it” Greg Gilbert gives us a good insight into repentance: “Many Christians struggle hard with this idea of repentance because they somehow expect that if they genuinely repent, sin will go away and temptation will stop. When that doesn't happen, they fall into despair, questioning whether their faith in Jesus is real. It's true that when God regenerates us, he gives us power to fight against and overcome sin (1 Cor. 10:13). But because we will continue to struggle with sin until we are glorified, we have to remember that genuine repentance is more fundamentally a matter of the heart's attitude toward sin than it is a mere change of behavior. Do we hate sin and war against it, or do we cherish it and defend it?” Are you continuing to repent? Do you love sin, or do you hate it? I have seen too many that called themselves Christians, but they hate having their sin exposed, instead of hating sin. You cannot love God and love the world at the same time! “No one can serve two masters: Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” To whom are you devoted? Do you love God? Then repent from your sins and put your faith, your trust, and your love in Jesus, the One who can only fulfill our hearts. Now that we have studied and applied v1 we can move to v2 which contains the part that we are probably less familiar with, it says in v 2.

2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

Hebrews 6:2 ESV

2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

The instruction about washings could be also translated as teachings about baptisms. At first, it seems that this is a reference to Christian baptism, which in Greek is baptisma. Yet it is significant that the author doesn’t use the word, baptisma here instead he uses baptismoi. While this may seem like a minor difference, in the New Testament every occurrence of the word baptismoi, like in this verse, is a reference to Jewish ceremonial washings. On the other hand, every time the word baptisma occurs in the New Testament is a reference to Christian or John’s baptism. This is the reason why this phrase is often translated as washings because it is likely a reference to Jewish ceremonial washings. If that is the case, then why does the author make this a point of elementary doctrine? To be honest, there is not a consensus between all the scholars on this point. Of all the different opinions, here is the one that seems more reasonable to me. For the Christian community in the first century that had a strong Jewish background, the practices of ceremonial washings were more common than we might think. Bruce said that “If this epistle was sent to a group of believing Jews in Rome, the reference to “instructions about washings” may have had a more direct significance than meets the eye of the twentieth-century reader.” There is some historical evidence that points to some Jewish and early Christian communities practicing a pre-baptismal bath, which were called ceremonial washings. These washings were different from baptism, because it was practiced a week before baptism, to remove impurity and an act of submission to the commandments of God. This was practiced even though there is no warrant in the New Testament for such practices. Thus, instructions about washings might have been a common doctrine that believers with a Jewish background might have practiced before their baptism. Either way prebaptism and/or Christian baptism were common basic doctrines for the first hearers of this letter. The next tenet is the laying on of hands. This was a common practice in the New Testament to impart the Holy Spirit and in the ordination of leaders. In the Old Testament, this is probably a reference to the sacrifices as the priest would lay his hand on the animal symbolizing the transfer of guilt from the people to the atoning sacrifice. Now hold on with me, we have two more doctrines that are mentioned and a short verse to study today. Next, the verse mentions the resurrection of the dead. The resurrection of Jesus is crucial and fundamental for Christian doctrine. Furthermore, it is also found in the OT. It is mentioned in Isa 26:19 and Dan 12:2, and we see in the New Testament that the Pharisees believed in the resurrection. Jesus also explained that Ex 3:6 implies the resurrection because God, who is the God of the living, not of the dead, proclaimed himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Mark 12:26). Without holding to the belief of resurrection one could not be a Christian. The last tenet in v2 is eternal judgment. For the Jews, this was associated with the judgment to come, that the God of Israel was going to come and judge all the earth and his people. For Christians, eternal judgment is associated with Jesus, who is coming to bring God’s eternal judgment. However, what is the importance of the author mentioning these six tenets of the faith to the first readers? Bruce gives a good insight, he says: “If a convert from paganism gave up Christianity and reverted to paganism, there was a clean break between the faith which he renounced and the paganism to which he returned. But it was possible for the recipients of this letter, yielding gradually to pressures from various quarters, to give up more and more those features of faith and practice which were distinctive of Christianity, and yet to feel that they had not abandoned the basic principles of repentance and faith, the realities denoted by religious washings and the laying on of hands, the expectation of resurrection and the judgment of the age to come. For the writer to go on insisting on these things, therefore, would not really help them; it would be better to press on to those teachings which belonged to spiritual maturity, in the hope that the maturity would come with the teachings.” There is an application here for us that is crying out with a loud voice. We are not in danger of falling back to Judaism, because not many of us have this background. However, we are in danger of becoming more like the world while claiming to follow Christ. The devil is working hard so that we will compromise our faith just a little bit, then a little more tomorrow, and before we know it we are so far that we are in a place where the words of Jesus apply to us: (Matt 7:21-23)“21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Paul D Tripp in his master ability to dive into our hearts says: “Are you growing in your faith? Do you care if you're not? Have you become satisfied? Fed with a little bit of Bible knowledge and a little bit of doctrinal understanding? Have you stopped feeding on the spiritual food of God's grace even though that grace has not yet come anywhere near to finishing its work in you? Do you hunger for the grace you've been given to continue to do its transforming work in the places where there's evidence that there's more work to be done? Are you satisfied with being a little more religious or a little more spiritual? Could it be that you claim to be a believer, but are satisfied to have parts of your life shaped by other values? Does your relationship with God really shape the way you think about and act in your marriage, in your friendships, in your parenting, in your job, in your finances, as a citizen or neighbor, in your private pursuits, or in your secret thoughts and desires?” While today our list of basic tenants of the faith might look different, the message here is that we must hold on to these while pursuing maturity.

3 And this we will do if God permits

Hebrews 6:3 ESV

3 And this we will do if God permits.

“this” refers back to verse one “let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity”. The verse then would read “And we will go on to maturity if God permits” We will grow in maturity if God permits, that is we depend on God’s grace through and through. There is no such thing as absolute independence, if God doesn’t will we don’t take another breath. “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13-15) “Christians are dependent upon God and his grace to enable them to press forward to maturity” Furthermore, considering the context of the passage the author had made a reference to the wilderness generation in Heb 3 and 4, they were not permitted to enter the promised land because of their repeated disobedience and disbelief in God. Therefore, if you hear His voice today, do not act in disobedience, but willingly submit to Him and press on to maturity toiling and struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within us to become more and more like Him, while drawing others to also long for this transformation.