> ‎Chapter 7‎ > ‎Chapter 8‎ > ‎Chapter 9‎ > ‎Chapter 10‎ > ‎Chapter 11‎ > ‎Chapter 12‎ > ‎Chapter 13‎ >  

 

 

 

Chapter 6:Summary

But let us leave behind the beginnings of the message of Jesus and
go on to speak of perfection. For we do not want to lay a
foundation all over again-- which would include repentance from
dead works, faith in God, the teaching about ritual ablutions and
laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

So, if God is willing, we will do this ( give the explanations for
which they are not yet mature enough).

For it is not possible for one to come back to this repentance who
has once been enlightened in baptism, and has tasted the heavenly
gift, and partaken of gift of the Holy Spirit, and has experienced
the goodness of the word of God and the mighty works of the age to
come- if it impossible for such, if they have fallen into apostasy,
to ever come back again, needing to have Christ die all over again
to restore them. This is like the case of the ground: Ground that
drinks up the rain can produce good crops, but ground that brings
forth thorns and thistles is worth nothing, is on the point of
being cursed. There may be an allusion here to Genesis 3. 17-19
which speaks of the land being cursed because of Adam's sin, so
that it brings forth thorns and thistles.

But even in saying this, we are sure that you are not in that
condition, for you show the signs that go along with salvation. God
is not unrighteous; He will not forget your work and your love for
His name, your service to the holy People of

God. You have done these things and continue to do them. So we
desire that you should show the same eagerness as before, to
fulfill the hope right up to the end. Instead of getting sluggish
up should imitate those who by persevering faith received what was
promised.

Abraham was a man of this sort. God gave him a promise. In doing
so, God swore by Himself - for He had no one greater to swear by.
God said; I will surely bless you and multiply you greatly. So
Abraham in showing steadfastness received that which was promised.

Human beings, to show how firm is their word, take an oath by
something greater than themselves. This settles things. Similarly
God used an oath to show the absolute firmness of His purpose. We
have twofold encouragement: God has promised, and God cannot lie,
and so we are certain that we can depend on Him to whom we have
fled for refuge. This hope is the anchor of our soul, secure,
dependable, which will lead us even beyond the curtain of the
sanctuary, where Jesus, our forerunner has already entered, Jesus,
our high priest forever in the line of Melchizedek.

Chapter 6:comments

Our author says: Now it is time to leave behind the rudiments and
go on to the perfection of the divine message. We should not go
back to laying again the foundation all over. He mentions six pairs
of rudiments, which he calls stoicheia, the same word St. Paul uses
in Galatians 4. 3 & 9 (where the word is likely to mean early and
insufficient religion): repentance from dead works by faith in God;
instruction about ablutions and laying on of hands for acceptance
into the Christian community; resurrection and eternal judgment.

What are the "dead works"? They mean all that cannot bring to the
rest that is eternal life, or can even prevent it, i.e., the works
of the old covenant which could not bring eternal salvation (cf. 9.
14) and even personal sin. The second part of this pair helps to
clarify, since it speaks of faith. But faith (as we have seen in
comments on chapter 3) includes belief in God's word, confidence in
His promises, and especially obedience to His commands (cf. Rom 1.
5). It is this faith that causes one to enter into His rest.

Next there is mention of ablutions, baptismoi. Some have thought it
refers to Christian Baptism. But the word

baptismoi is used instead of baptisma. The latter is the normal
word in the NT for Baptism, but baptismoi occurs only twice in the
NT: in Hebrews 9. 10, which surely refers to Jewish purifications,
and in Mark 7. 4. which speaks of purifications of cups, pots etc.

As to the imposition of hands, the OT used such an imposition to
commission someone for public office (Num 27. 18 & 23 and Dt 34.
9), or as part of sacrificial ritual (Lev. 1. 4; 3. 2; 4. 4; 8.
14). In late Judaism it was a regular rite for the ordination of
Rabbis: cf. Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4. 4. In the NT it is found in Acts
6. 6 (ordination of deacons); 8. 17 (giving the Holy Spirit to
Samaritan converts); 9. 12, 17 (Ananias to Paul); 19. 6 (Paul
giving the Holy Spirit to converts at Ephesus).

What is the sense in mind here? Probably a preliminary ritual
before baptism, and so it would be part of the rudiments, beyond
which they should have passed, cf. Apostolic Tradition of St.
Hippolytus.

The resurrection of the dead and judgment were already known in the
OT period: cf. Isaiah 26. 19; Daniel 12. 2. The OT also spoke of
God as the judge of all the earth: Genesis 18. 25; Isaiah 33. 22.

But all these were but preliminaries though which the ones Hebrews
addresses had already passed. They should not need to go back to
the rudiments again.

But more seriously: if they now fall away, after having been
enlightened (Baptism was often spoken of as receiving light) there
is no way they can be converted again. The mention of crucifying
Jesus ("again") may mean that He would need to die all over to
bring them back, when His already accomplished death has not
succeeded).

There is a similar statement in The Shepherd by Hermas in
Similitude 9. 26. 6: "It is impossible for him who now denies His
Lord to be saved." Many think Hermas is using a psychological ploy
to deter people from sinning after receiving the seal, Baptism.
Pardon was given in the first centuries even to apostates, but only
after years of long and difficult penance - in the thought that
something so drastic was needed to really cause them to see the
truth, especially if a Christian when called before the Roman judge
thought to himself: "I will deny now, and then get pardon later".
His repentance shortly after that would almost certainly not be
real, not sincere. It would be preplanned, and so not involved a
real change of heart. (More on this later in comments on 10. 36).

But what is the reason now why those who fall back into Judaism or
paganism cannot be restored? Surely God Himself would not be
unwilling to grant pardon even for such sins. For the death of
Jesus infinitely earned forgiveness for every sin.

The answer is that such people had made themselves incapable of
taking in what God would gladly offer. It is helpful to start with
Matthew 6. 21: "Where your treasure is, there is your heart also."
One can put his treasure in a hoard of money, or in eating, or in
sex, or in travel, or in study, even studying Scripture. But all
these things are lower than God Himself.

Further, some allow themselves to be pulled more than others by
these outside attractions - even to habitual mortal sin. In such a
case two factors work together: what they seek is much lower than
God, and they have surrendered to the pull of creatures with
abandon.

A modern comparison will help to supplement this thought. We think
of a galvanometer, a compass needle on its pivot, with a coil of
wire around, it through which we pass a current. The needle should
swing the right direction and the right amount. But if there are
powerful outside pulls, e.g., 33000 volt power lines or a mass of
magnetic steel - then these outside forces may be so strong as to
overwhelm the effect of the current in the coil. We are thinking of
our mind as a sort of meter, which should register the movement of
grace, that is, the current in its coil. But grace is gentle, in
that is respects our freedom; outside pulls if one surrenders to
them with abandon can take away freedom: then the needle, does not
register the effect of grace which tries to put into a man's mind
what God is trying to tell him to do.

Then if grace cannot do the first thing, it will not do the further
things. So the man is left without grace, is blind or hardened.
Then even though God gives grace, the man is incapable of taking it
in. Then his conversion, is, humanly speaking, impossible.

We said "humanly speaking" because there is always the possibility
of a grace comparable to a miracle that can cut through or
forestall such resistance, and so cause the man to follow the
movement of grace. But this is not given ordinarily - for then the
extraordinary would become ordinary. It is given only when some
other person by heroic prayer and penance, puts, as it were, an
extraordinary weight into the one pan of the scales of the
objective moral order: it can call for, and obtain, an
extraordinary grace.

The case is similar with the classic unforgivable sin, of which Our
Lord Himself spoke when the scribes attributed the work of the Holy
Spirit to the devil. The Father and He would gladly grant pardon -
but the hardness was so immense that they could not even perceive
the first movement of grace.

This problem happens especially with those who have already had
great light from grace -- if they become habituated to special
favor, and even then reject, they make themselves hardened - they
are harder to convert than a beginner who never felt the effects of
grace.

These hard souls had already been enlightened in

Baptism, had tasted the heavenly gift - probably the Holy
Eucharist, had received the Holy Spirit, and seen even the mighty
works of the age-to-come, i.e., the miracles which at first were
used to ground and spread the Church. If after all that they still
fell away - what was there left to awaken them anew from their
self-inflicted torpor?

So they are like land which has become hard and dry: the rains may
come, but all in vain.

Cardinal Manning, in his great work, The Eternal Priesthood. wrote
in his concluding chapter, on the death of a sinful priest: "Next
to the immutable malice of Satan is the hardness of an impenitent
priest... . They have been so long familiar with all the eternal
truths": that the end of such a man is like that of one for whom
medical science can do no more: He must die. Manning quotes St.
Bonaventure (Pharetra 1. 22): "Laymen who sin can be easily
restored; but clerics if they once go bad become incurable." We
comment: satan could not repent because his clear intellect (not
being hindered by junction with a material brain) saw everything at
once with the maximum possible clarity. So there was no room for
him later to go back on it, see it differently, and so repent. The
more one grows in knowledge, the more he approaches that condition
- though of course, still having a material brain, he does not
reach it.

Then the author turns to a more cheerful note: God will not forget
the good you have done. We hope you may imitate those who have
persevered in faith, such as Abraham. St. Paul in proposing Abraham
as a model of faith usually thought of Genesis 15. 6, where Abraham
believed God, and his faith was the means of his justification. But
here - in view of the comments in Hebrews 11. 19 -- he is more
likely to have in mind Abraham's faith in being willing to
sacrifice his son Isaac, even though he had to believe that he
would be the father of a great nation by the same Isaac. We do not
know how old Isaac was at this point. Some rabbis thought he was
old enough to already have children. We do not know, and the
example of faith is more powerful if we suppose he was still too
young to start a line of descendants. In 11. 19 the author of
Hebrews reduces greatly that demand of faith by supposing Abraham
expected God would raise Isaac again from the dead. That could be
true - but since the genre of Hebrews is homiletic, and since the
idea of resurrection seems not to have been known among the Jews at
so early a point, it is more likely that Abraham did not think of
that possibility, even though of course it was true that God could
raise Isaac from the dead.

St. Paul speaks of us as children of Abraham (Galatians 3. 29 and
Romans chapter 4) not by carnal descent, but by imitating the faith
of Abraham. So by imitating his faith we become heirs of the
promise given to Abraham ( 6. 17).