Sermon Tone Analysis

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.”

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?