Hebrews 6-13

Hebrews 6

So, the whole message of this difficult passage is this: Christians can go backward in their spiritual lives and bring shame to Christ. While they are living in sin, they cannot be brought to repentance, and they are in danger of divine chastening. If they persist, their lives will bear no lasting fruit, and they will “suffer loss” at the judgment seat of Christ. And, lest we use “grace” as an excuse for sin, Heb. 10:30 reminds believers: “The Lord shall judge His people.”

Hebrews 7 (ESV)

Genesis 14 is when Abraham meets Melchizedek

17 After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King's Valley). 18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 19 And he blessed him and said,

“Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor[b] of heaven and earth; 20 and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”

And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. 21 And the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself.” 22 But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted my hand[c] to the Lord, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, 23 that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’

Psalms 110 refers to Melchizedek

The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”

2 The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! 3 Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power,[a] in holy garments;[b] from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours.[c] 4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

5 The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. 6 He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs[d] over the wide earth. 7 He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head.

Hebrews 8 (ESV)

Better covendent

Hebrews 9

Better sacrifice (explanation to cathlics 9:25-28 one sacrifice)

Shadow of heavenly things: the tabernacle was an example of God that points to Jesus.

Other comments on Hebrews 6

In an extremely solemn pronouncement, the author then set forth the tragic alternative to the progress he desired his readers to make. If they did not advance, they would retreat. Should anyone so retreat, his situation would be grim indeed. 6:4–6. This passage has been interpreted in four ways: (1) that the danger of a Christian losing his salvation is described, a view rejected because of biblical assurances that salvation is a work of God which cannot be reversed; (2) that the warning is against mere profession of faith short of salvation, or tasting but not really partaking of salvation (The New Scofield Reference Bible, p. 1315); (3) that hypothetically if a Christian could lose his salvation, there is no provision for repentance (The Ryrie Study Bible, p. 1736); (4) that a warning is given of the danger of a Christian moving from a position of true faith and life to the extent of becoming disqualified for further service (1 Cor. 9:27) and for inheriting millennial glory. The latter is the interpretation adopted here. The entirety of these verses constitutes a single sentence in Greek as well as in the English of the NIV. The central assertion is: It is impossible for those who have … to be brought back to repentance. Following the words “those who” is a description of the persons whom the writer affirmed cannot possibly be brought back to a state of repentance. The description he gave shows that he had Christians in mind. To begin with, he described them as individuals who have once been enlightened. This is a natural way to refer to the conversion experience (cf. 2 Cor. 4:3–6). The writer’s only other use of the verb “enlightened,” is Hebrews 10:32, where the reference to true Christian experience can hardly be doubted. In also calling them people who have tasted the heavenly gift, he again employed familiar concepts related to initial conversion (cf. John 4:10; Rom. 6:23; James 1:17–18). The effort to evade this conclusion by seeing in the word “tasted” something less than full participation fails—in view of the writer’s own use of this word (Heb. 2:9)—to describe Jesus’ experience of death. One might also compare 1 Peter 2:3, which quotes Psalm 34:8. The description is continued with the words who have shared in the Holy Spirit. The underlying Greek employs again the word metochoi, used in Hebrews 1:9 of the “companions” of the messianic King, and in 3:1, 14 of the Christian readers (and is also used in 12:8). The preceding expression evidently led the author to think about those who had received the gift of the Spirit as a result of their conversions. Finally, there are also those who have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the coming Age. Here the thought naturally applies to converts whose instruction in “the Word of God” had given them a genuine experience of its “goodness” and who likewise had known the reality of miracles. The word rendered “powers” (dynameis) in NIV is the usual one in the New Testament for “miracles” and is an apparent allusion back to the experience mentioned in 2:4. In every way the language fits true Christians with remarkable ease. The effort to see here mere professors of the faith as over against true converts is somewhat forced. There follows, however, the grim expression if they fall away. But the translation does not do full justice to the original language, where there is no hint of a conditional element. The Greek word parapesontas is in fact a part of the construction to which the preceding descriptive phrases belong. Thus a more accurate translation would be: “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted … who have shared … who have tasted … and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance.” Far from treating the question in any hypothetical way, the writer’s language sounds as if he knew of such cases. Naturally the words “fall away” cannot refer to the loss of eternal life which, as the Gospel of John makes perfectly clear, is the inalienable possession of those who trust Christ for it. But the writer evidently has in mind defection from the faith, that is, apostasy, withdrawal from their Christian profession (cf. Heb. 3:6, 14; 10:23–25, 35–39). The assertion that such a failure is not possible for a regenerate person is a theological proposition which is not supported by the New Testament. Paul knew the dangers of false doctrine to a Christian’s faith and spoke of a certain Hymenaeus and Philetus who said “that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some” (2 Tim. 2:17–18). The author of Hebrews was a solid realist who took assaults against the faith of his readers with great seriousness. And he warned that those who succumb, that is, “fall away,” after all of the great spiritual privileges they had experienced, could not be brought back to repentance. The reason is expressed in the words because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to public disgrace. The words “to their loss” might be better rendered “with respect to themselves.” Those who renounce their Christian faith are, with respect to their own conduct and attitude, taking a step that amounts to a fresh public rejection of Christ. When they first trusted Him, they thereby acknowledged that His crucifixion had been unjust and the result of man’s sinful rejection of the Savior. But by renouncing this opinion, they reaffirmed the view of Jesus’ enemies that He deserved to die on a cross. In this sense, “they [were] crucifying the Son of God all over again.” Since the original Crucifixion was especially the work of the Jewish nation, if the readers were Jews being lured back into some form of their ancestral religion, the writer’s words made a particular point. Their apostasy would be like stepping back over the line again and once more expressing solidarity with their compatriots who wanted Jesus put on the cross. That this was most serious was precisely the writer’s point. Such persons could not be won back to the state of repentance which marked their original conversion to Christianity. In affirming this, the author’s words suggested a deep hardening of their hearts against all efforts to win them back, not to Christian conversion, but to Christian commitment. 6:7–8. An illustration from nature now drives home the writer’s point. Whenever rain-soaked ground is properly productive, it receives the blessing of God. Here the writer compared the spiritual privileges he had just enumerated (vv. 4–5) to a heavenly rain descending on the life of a Christian. Their effect should be a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed—a reference perhaps to the way other Christians benefit from the lives of fruitful believers (cf. v. 10). Such productivity brings divine blessings on fruitful believers’ lives. But suppose the land that has received this “rain” is unproductive? Though the NIV introduces the word land for a second time in verse 8, the original text seems to relate the statement directly to the “land” mentioned in verse 7. A clearer rendering would be: “But when (or, if) it produces thorns and thistles.…” The point is that when a plot of ground that has been rained on is productive, God blesses it. But if it only produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless (adokimos, “disapproved”; cf. 1 Cor. 9:27) and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned. The metaphor recalls God’s original curse on the ground (Gen. 3:17–19) and suggests that an unproductive Christian life ultimately (“in the end”) falls under the severe condemnation of God and is subject to His blazing wrath and judgment (cf. Heb. 10:27). Naturally the reference to “burned” has caused many to think of hell, but there is nothing in the text to suggest this. God’s anger against His failing people in the Old Testament is often likened to the burning of fire (cf., e.g., Isa. 9:18–19; 10:17). Even this writer could say, with intense metaphorical effect, “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29). In fact, to think of hell here is to betray inattention to the imagery employed by the author. The burning of a field to destroy the rank growth it had produced was a practice known in ancient times. Its aim was not the destruction of the field itself (which, of course, the fire could not affect), but the destruction of the unwanted produce of the field. Thereafter the field might be serviceable for cultivation. By choosing this kind of metaphor, the author showed that he did not totally despair of those who took the backward step he was warning against. To be sure, at least prior to severe divine judgment, all efforts to recall such people to Christian faith are futile (6:4–6), but it cannot be said that the impossibility applies in an absolute sense to God Himself. What the author probably meant is that nothing can deter apostates from the fiery retribution toward which they are headed, but once their “land” has been burned it is another matter. Paul believed that those who “have shipwrecked their faith” could profit by the retributive experiences to which they were exposed as a result (1 Tim. 1:19–20). But of course the writer of Hebrews was reticent about the issue of subsequent restoration. That some might not respond to the chastisement was perhaps in mind, but he was mainly concerned about warning against the course of action which leads to such calamitous divine judgment. Nevertheless his deft choice of this agricultural image serves to disclose that the “burning” is both temporary and essentially hopeful.

Zane C. Hodges, “Hebrews,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 794–796.

An Argument (6:4–8) Note from the beginning that the issue here is repentance, not salvation: “For it is impossible … to renew them unto repentance” (vv. 4, 6). If this passage is talking about salvation, then it is teaching that a believer who “loses salvation” cannot regain it. This means that salvation depends partly on our own works and, once we lose salvation, we can never get it back again. But the subject of the chapter is repentance—the believer’s attitude toward the Word of God. Verses 4–5 describe real Christians (see 10:32 as well as 2:9, 14), and v. 9 indicates that the writer believed they were truly saved. We do not have “almost saved” people here, but real believers. The two key words in v. 6 are “fall away” and “crucify.” “Fall away” is not the Gk. word apostasia, from which we get the English word “apostasy.” It is parapipto, which means “to fall beside, to turn aside, to wander.” It is similar to the word for “trespass,” as found in Gal. 6:1 (“if a man be overtaken in a fault [trespass]”). So, v. 6 describes believers who have experienced the spiritual blessings of God but who fall by the side or trespass because of unbelief. Having done this, they are in danger of divine chastening (see Heb. 12:5–13) and of becoming castaways (1 Cor. 9:24–27), which results in loss of reward and divine disapproval, but not loss of salvation. The phrase “seeing they crucify” (v. 6) should be translated “while they are crucifying.” In other words, Heb. 6:4–6 does not teach that sinning saints cannot be brought to repentance, but that they cannot be brought to repentance while they continue to sin and put Christ to shame. Believers who continue in sin prove that they have not repented; Samson and Saul are cases in point. Hebrews 12:14–17 cites the case of Esau as well. The illustration of the field in vv. 7–8 relates this truth to the image of the testing fires of God, a truth given in 1 Cor. 3:10–15 as well as Heb. 12:28–29. God saved us to bear fruit; our lives will one day be tested; what we do that is not approved will be burned. Note that the field is not burned, but rather the fruit. The believer is saved “yet so as by fire” (1 Cor. 3:15). So, the whole message of this difficult passage is this: Christians can go backward in their spiritual lives and bring shame to Christ. While they are living in sin, they cannot be brought to repentance, and they are in danger of divine chastening. If they persist, their lives will bear no lasting fruit, and they will “suffer loss” at the judgment seat of Christ. And, lest we use “grace” as an excuse for sin, Heb. 10:30 reminds believers: “The Lord shall judge His people.”

Warren W. Wiersbe, Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the New Testament (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1992), 692–693.

That there is a definite connection between the statement just made and the following discussion about apostasy is clear from the conjunction For (gar). There is at least a theoretical possibility that spiritual maturity may prove to be unattainable. It is important for a true understanding of this difficult verse to recognize this context. It is equally important to note that the statement depends on the fulfilment of a condition as the if clause in verse 6 shows. The various ways in which this writer uses the word impossible (adynaton) are instructive. Here he uses it of the impossibility of repentance in certain circumstances; in 6:18 of the impossibility for God to prove false; in 10:4 of the inability of the blood of animals to remove sin; and in 11:6 of the impossibility of pleasing God without faith. In each case there is no provision for compromise. The statements are all absolutes. The present one, however, causes most difficulty and can be correctly understood only when all the facets of the case are thoroughly examined. There are four verbs used to describe the subjects of the impossibility: (i) enlightened (phōtisthentas), (ii) tasted (geusamenous), (iii) become partakers (metochous genēthentas), (iv) tasted the goodness (kalon geusamenous). The last three are apparently intended to make clear the sense in which the first is used. The idea of enlightenment is characteristic of the New Testament in relation to God’s message to man (cf. also 10:32 in the other apostasy passage). Especially is this true of John’s Gospel in which Jesus claims to be the light of the world (8:12; cf. 1:9). Another parallel is 2 Corinthians 4:4, where the world is said to be blinded by the god of this world so as not to see ‘the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ’. Wherever the light has shone in individual minds there has come some understanding of the glory of Christ. Bruce finds the view tempting that the enlightening may refer to baptism and the tasting to the eucharist, but he admits especially in the latter case a wider reference also. Hughes cites examples of patristic writers who adopted this kind of interpretation. But he himself prefers a metaphorical sense, i.e. the sense of experiencing the blessing. Those spoken of here, therefore, must have some initial revelation of Jesus Christ. This is strengthened by the other three statements made. The idea of tasting the heavenly gift implies more than just knowledge of the truth. It implies experience of it. This is an Old Testament usage (cf. Ps. 34:8). In the New Testament 1 Peter 2:3 contains the same idea. There is a development between knowing about food, even liking the look of it, and actually tasting it. No-one can merely pretend to do the latter. Of course, not all tasting is pleasurable, and in the hypothetical case which the writer is supposing, it clearly was not so. The heavenly gift was not appreciated. But what is meant by this expression? Nowhere else in the New Testament is the ‘heavenly gift’ (tēs dōreas tēs epouraniou) mentioned, although the idea of a gift from God occurs several times, mainly in relation to the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 10:45; 11:17). In other cases it is linked with God’s grace (Rom. 5:15; Eph. 3:7; 4:7), where it embraces the whole gift of salvation. In the present statement the content of the gift is undefined, but its origin is left in no doubt. Although it has been maintained that ‘heavenly’ describes, not the origin, but the sphere in which the gift is exercised, it would still show that the gift is not one of human making. It should be noted that the word used here for ‘gift’ (dōrea) is exclusively used of spiritual gifts in the New Testament. The third statement is closely linked to the last, for the sort of persons whom the writer imagines are those who have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, which ties up with the gift of the Spirit. Nevertheless, it is probable that this is seen as a distinctive feature in their experience. We have already met the word for partakers (metochoi) in 1:9; 3:1, 14 and we shall meet it again in 12:8. The only other occurrence of the word in the New Testament is in Luke 5:7 where it means ‘comrades’. Since in 3:1 the writer is addressing those who share in a heavenly call, the same sense must be intended here. The idea of sharing the Holy Spirit is remarkable. This at once distinguishes the person from one who has no more than a nodding acquaintance with Christianity. 5. The fourth statement, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God, introduces yet another aspect of Christian experience. The repetition of the ‘tasting’ metaphor shows the importance which the writer attached to it. But this time it is a matter of tasting the goodness (kalon), a word which incorporates in it some notion of beauty. It includes outward attractiveness as well as moral goodness. It is contrasted with evil in 5:14. It describes a clear conscience in 13:18. It is something to be highly desired. This fits in well with the metaphor. It is appetising to the taste. It is also not accidental that what is tasted is not the word of God itself, but its goodness. The distinction is not unimportant in the context. It is possible to approach the word of God sincerely but without relish. In the present case those who could taste the goodness were well immersed in Christian experience. The descriptive phrase ‘word of God’ (theou rhēma) occurs again in 11:3 and in a few other places in the New Testament, but is not as frequent as the more general but parallel expression (logos tou theou) which occurs in this epistle in 4:12 and 13:7. The present phrase draws more pointed attention to a specific communication from God rather than to the general message of God. Indeed it may most probably refer to the experience of God which a person knows at conversion, when the amazing condescension of God towards sinners dawns on the soul in all its resplendent beauty. But the tasting also reaches to the goodness of the powers of the age to come, which seems a strange idea. If the age to come is still future, as the words (mellontos aiōnos) suggest, it cannot be that the writer means to refer to a remote hope. Since he uses ‘these last days’ (1:1) to denote the days of the inauguration of the Messiah, he may well be thinking here of the present foretasting of an experience which will not reach its climax until the second coming. In any case, he is concerned most with the powers of the coming age, which suggests the operation of the same powerful influences as will have full sway in that future age. 6. At last the conditional part of the sentence is reached: if they then commit apostasy (in the Greek the conditional is expressed as a participle, parapesontas). The statement which follows applies only when the experience of enlightenment and sharing is linked with a complete falling away (as indicated by the aorist tense). The idea of apostasy is expressed by a verb which occurs here only in the New Testament. Its root meaning is falling aside, i.e. a falling away from an accepted standard or path. The subsequent statement in this case makes clear the irretrievable nature of the apostasy. It is said that they crucify the Son of God, and the compound verb used (anastaurountas) shows that the writer is thinking of a repetition of the crucifixion. He could not have expressed the seriousness of the apostasy in stronger or more tragic terms. As he thinks of what the enemies of Jesus Christ did to him, he actually sees those who turn away from him as equally responsible. He may be thinking that such apostates would be more culpable than those who originally cried out ‘crucify him’, who had never known anything of the wonder of God’s grace through Christ. Anyone who turned back from Christianity to Judaism would be identifying himself not only with Jewish unbelief, but with that malice which led to the crucifixion of Jesus. The words on their own account make clear that they must take full responsibility for the crucifying. Moreover, the writer explains that the effect of this action is to hold him [Christ] up to contempt (paradeigmatizontas, another word found only here in the New Testament). In no more vivid way could the position of the apostatizers be identified with those whose hatred of Christ led them to exhibit him as an object of contempt on a hated Roman gibbet. The condemnation of these people is so strong that nothing but the gravest action on their part could account for it. It implies an attitude of unremitting hostility. This passage has led to extensive debate and has resulted in much misunderstanding. The major problem is whether the writer is implying that a Christian may fall so far from grace as to be guilty of the worse possible offence against the Son of God. If the answer is yes, how do we account for those other passages in the New Testament which suggest the eternal security of believers? The following considerations may help us in seeking to understand the writer’s mind at this point:

Donald Guthrie, Hebrews: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 15, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1983), 144–147.