Recrucifying Christ

Rehashing Old Ground

I am aware of Pastors of churches, throughout the country that present their messages on Sunday morning without having spent any time in study or meditation on the topic for which they are speaking.

The idea is that they are trusting in the provision of the Holy Spirit to give them what to say each week, and that if they were to do sermon prep then they would be quashing the work of the Holy Spirit.

That may be the idea, but the reality is that those preaching that comes without preparation is usually pretty shallow preaching. Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly exceptions. There have been times when preachers have been moved by God to speak on something that is weighing on their hearts, something that they haven’t prepared for. Often those are some of the most impactful messages.

But, We can’t expect that week in and week out, that unprepared for messages are going to be anything other than…unprepared. I hope it is the exception and not the rule, but I know that I have preached some messages that just didn’t work, but you can at least be confident that I put a lot of time and effort into doing such a poor job!

Most of the time, when there is a lack of study and a lack of preparation for a message you end up with the same sorts of results: Messages about personal opinion and traditions, Messages about the Salvation, Messages about Ecclesiology (or church things), and Messages about eternity.

I would like you to keep the latter 3 things in mind as we read this mornings passage from Hebrews 6:1-8.

Hebrews 6:1–8 KJV 1900

1 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, 2 Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. 3 And this will we do, if God permit. 4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. 7 For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: 8 But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.

Our message this morning is the second in our series Milk Before Melchisedec and our message is entitled Recrucifying Christ

Let’s Pray

The Basics

In our passage we find six items that the writer of Hebrews references as basic. Foundation that he says doesn’t need to be laid again.

What are these basics? Repentance from Dead Works, Faith Towards God, Baptisms, Laying on of Hands, Resurrection of the Dead, and Eternal Judgment.

These are the basics I started the messages speaking of. The first two: Repentance and Faith are the subjects of Salvation. The next two: Baptisms and Laying on of Hands represents ecclesiology and the Resurrection and Eternal Judgment represent eternity.

Repentance and Faith

Repentance and Faith are not things that are exclusive to Christianity, it is something that the people of the time would have understood yet we struggle with today.

Repentance is from what in v1? Dead Works. Repentance is the rejection of a futile pattern of life. The phrase Dead Works νεκρός (nekros) ἔργον (ergon), ἔργον (ergon) really just means actions, the things that we do…but (nekros) ἔργον, dead, where we get the word necrotic implies complete uselessness.

When Ephesians 2:9 speaks of salvation we read that salvation is

Ephesians 2:9 KJV 1900

9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

It’s nothing that we can do, we can’t brag on our abilities to have somehow acquired salvation by our own doing. There is nothing we can brag about because it is nothing that we have done.

But turning away from works that are useless what does Hebrews go on to say? That we turn to faith towards God.

That is what salvation entails. It is turning away from the actions of our life that are ultimately futile and useless to us and turning towards God, relying on God not just for our provision in this world, but more importantly our eternal provision.

Baptisms and Laying on of Hands

The next two items aren’t so easily understood. We are baptist so we read this word baptisms and we draw an obvious conclusion. But, the word in the Greek is βαπτισμός (baptismos), translated here as baptisms is plural and whenever we find this word used in the plural it refers to ceremonial washings, not believers baptism.

Likewise, when it comes to this subject of Laying on of Hands, we typically would think of it as some conveyance of a blessing, or endowing with authority. From a 21st century church perspective this is pretty narrow in practice, limited mostly to ordinations and commissions of ministries.

Resurrection and Eternal Judgment

The last group of items. Resurrection and Eternal Judgment have no end to debate today, but was even more controversial in first century Judaism.

We find this controversy addressed in Mark 12:18 when the religious leaders of the time were trying to trap Jesus with a question about the resurrection

Mark 12:18 KJV 1900

18 Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying,

Then they tried to ask Jesus their gotcha question regarding the law, marriage and death. You can read the passage yourself later, but spoiler alert, Jesus soundly won that exchange.

That was one of the major disagreements that Jewish people bickered about. The resurrection of the dead and final judgment. The Sadducees believed that the present world was the only world and that the blessing of God was evident in how well-off you were. It was easy for them to hold that view as they happened to be well-off. The Pharisee’s on the other hand, and by extension regular people who weren’t as rich didn’t see things that way, they hoped for better things to come in the resurrection and they feared judgment.

Pet Doctrines

Lack of Clarity

I will admit that some of the items in this passage, even today, aren’t incredibly clear, there are disagreements from one biblical scholar to the next on what exactly is being referred to and what extent that this was an issue for the Hebrews. But the point remains. We can’t make our focus running in circles with the same pet doctrines and expect to make any forward progress.

Pet Doctrines

Often these things that we The Christian Post list 7 reasons some people push pet doctrines:

They lack spiritual power in the soul: If we are driven by a love of God and a love of people, our focus tends to be in worship and caring for others. When we are become motivated by our love of people, it doesn’t make secondary issues unimportant but we become less consumed by secondary issues.

A lack of spiritual discernment: Discernment isn’t always about identifying what areas that people are wrong about. Sometimes discernment is making a decision about what hills are worth dying on.

There is an old joke that goes like this:

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"

He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What denomination?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"

He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"

Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.

Spiritual Pride: Pride is the flesh telling us that we are better than everyone else. As Christians we know that pride is a sin, but in order to keep feeding the sin of pride some decide to just shift it to the spiritual. They get all of the self gratification of being prideful but can hide behind the subterfuge of spirituality. If you can look down our nose at everyone that has even the slightest doctrinal difference then you have accomplished something. Not anything good, but something none-the-less.

Blind Spots: Sometimes we hold to pet doctrines because we aren’t well versed in the whole of scripture and we don’t have the context to put our understanding in it’s proper place.

A Lack of Interaction with other believers: When we are isolated with people that think exactly like we do and have exactly the same understanding that we do, it is easy for us to make straw-man arguments of people with differing views, or worse we can begin to see other christians as something other than our brothers and sisters in Christ using our pet doctrines to make the division.

A Lack of Insight into Church History: If we look through church history we can find people who have done great things for God and will find that often they don’t hold to the same doctrines that we do.

Self-Interest: What is very often the case is that pet doctrines can be tools to keep people inside of our camp. After all, if you do somewhere else they might hold a doctrine differently. And, if we can inflate the importance of that doctrine then it can be a tool to keep people within the camp. We would be better off using love for our church family and the faithful preaching of the word as our retention plan.

Wasted Effort

The Author of Hebrews says something here in our passage that is hard to read. Look with me again at Hebrews 6:4-6

Hebrews 6:4–6 KJV 1900

4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

The sad reality is that we don’t need to cover the basics over and over, the basics of salvation and judgment and the need for church — because — If there are those in the assembly who have recieved the goodness of God but have made a conscience decision to reject God are irredeemable.

These aren’t people who were mistaken, thinking that they were saved but weren’t. That had in v4 tasted the heavenly gift. and that they were partakers of the Holy Ghost. You don’t taste of Gods goodness and you aren’t a partaker of the Holy Ghost without salvation.

No, the reality is as stark as the words on the page. There is no new repentance for those who are saved but then make a conscience decision to reject Christ. There are passages throughout scripture that speak of our eternal security. God isn’t fickle and we can’t sin our way out of salvation. But the bible is also filled with verses warning against apostasy. 2 Timothy 2:12 says

2 Timothy 2:12 (KJV 1900)

12 If we suffer (endure), we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:

Moving On

Believe it or not, the subject of repentance and faith and baptisms and laying on of hands and the resurrection and judgment, aren’t the point of this passage. We could camp out on those issues but how ironic would that be. To be doing exactly what the writer of Hebrews is trying to avoid.

The point isn’t about the grim reality of apostasy either. — It’s about moving on.

The basics

There is no doubt that the basics of our faith need to be addressed from time to time, and we will address them.

Repentance and Faith

It’s the most basic thing about our faith. Our hope as a church is always that you will hear the truths contained in scripture and that you will be convinced. That you will repent of dead works, turning away from the life you were living that had no power to save you and put your faith in God, that through the work of Christ on the cross you can made right with God and that you will be spared the consequence of sin, the hell that has been earned by all of those who have sinned, who have rebelled against God’s holy standard.

I hope that you have been thinking and meditating on God and that you today would make a decision to reject the old way of doing things and give your life to Christ. If you make a decision or want to make a decision to follow Christ I would love to talk to you after the message to discuss it further.

Washings

We don’t have all of the traditions of the first century church but we do have baptism. You might not realize it but we have a tub behind the curtain here because baptisms are important to us. It is an opportunity for the new believer to confirm their new identity of Christ by a picture of His death burial and resurrection and to make a public statement that you are have been cleaned from grime of the worlds sinful system and have been made clean in the newness of Christ.

Baptism is the first step in obedience to God and it is the first step in church membership for those who haven’t been previously baptised. Being a member of a church really just boils down to making a commitment to spending time with in fellowship with other believers in the local church and to allow ourselves to be accountable to one another to live faithfully.

Closing

Whether you need to make a decisions to surrender your life to Christ, to follow in obedience with baptism or to make a commitment to church membership, today would be a good day to do that. We are going to close in prayer in just a few moments after if you would like to discuss these things further.

But church, we are going to move forward past the basics. I am confident and encouraged that if we stay the course, You will see God more clearly and that will grow you faith deeper and deeper, securing you from falling away from the faith.

Let’s Pray