THE sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews is a very severe portion of the Word to such as are not fully established in Christ. When we see a believer wrung almost to despair over this chapter, we are well aware that the fullness of the grace of God is not yet his possession.
The first point to be considered is, Who are addressed?
This, the 12th verse of the fifth, and the 9th of the sixth chapters, answers. Unestablished souls, “babes,” are addressed, persons who had need of milk, not of strong meat. Believers characterized as not of full age, not perfect. But whether of full age, or a babe, the believer has everlasting life; established or not in what Christ has done, he has life in Christ; and the things comprised in the first verses of the chapter are not those which characterized the babes addressed, for the apostle was persuaded “better things” of them, “and things which accompanied salvation.” (v. 9).
The second point is, Who are described?
Not babes, certainly not those of “full age,” but professors of the Christian faith, who were not possessors of life in Christ, and who finally apostatized from Him.
The solemn description was urgent in the days when it was written, none the less is it needed in our own times. There is a similarity between our times and the day of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Then, the true were living amongst the false; the possessors of Christ amongst the professors of Christianity. Then a gorgeous ritual, and a noble temple service—though of a decaying Jewish system—were in force; and priests, and sacrifices, and the religion of sense were present. In the very midst of these things was the handful of Christians, whose place of worship was in heaven (8:1, 2; 10:19, 20), whose priest was in heaven (4:14), whose accepted sacrifice was in heaven (9:11, 12), and these Christians had the reality— the reality of worship, of priesthood, of sacrifice; and they had the Holy Ghost, instead of sensuous religion.
Now, in our own times, a gorgeous ritual has overwhelmed the simplicity of Christianity, and the greater part of professing Christians are committed to it; now there are so-called priests, bloodless sacrifices, and a religion of sense on every hand. In the midst of these things are the real and true believers in Christ Who is in heaven, and sorely distressed are many of their souls, because they realize not that where He is is the true tabernacle, that He is their priest, and God’s priest, and that His blood has once and forever perfected God’s people.
Leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, says the apostle, let us go on unto perfection, that is, let us go on to the full growth—not the babe—teaching. Let us leave the milk, and partake of the strong meat; let us go on to Christianity. And having thus spoken, he says, there are six things which he will not touch upon. These six things are as follows:—
1—The foundation of repentance from dead works.
2—Faith toward God.
3—The doctrine of baptisms (not baptism).
4—Laying on of hands.
5—The resurrection of the dead.
6—Eternal judgment.
We have bracketed them two and two, because the six are in three couplets. The whole of the six are foundation things, old and well known, and as it were, the common property of saints from the days of Abel downwards. Num. 3 and 4 may be more especially Jewish, but 1, 2, 5 and 6 are as old as the very first knowledge possessed by man of Divine things. No Christian believer should therefore find it necessary to be told, that in his particular case, it is essential to lay again in his soul the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God. The very first things the believer learned from God were these two. If a man be on the ground of his own works, he cannot be accepted as a believer at all. The history of Abel teaches him that a man, who would be accepted of God, needs to shun himself and to betake himself to the sacrificial blood. Let the sacred book be opened at Genesis, and read onwards till the death of the Son of God is related, and its gospel will be heard sounding down century after century, “repentance from dead works and faith towards God.”
Again, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment, are no new truths; on the contrary they, too, are as old as the knowledge by man of Divine things. This knowledge God communicated to man. Job says that though his body should die, “yet in my flesh I shall see God” —he looked on to the resurrection of his body—and saints of old who knew God, knew well that the judgment of God is like Himself eternal. The resurrection of the body, and the fact of judgment being eternal, were, we repeat, principles, the knowledge of which was possessed by God’s people from the first. That such elementary truths are in our day argued against, questioned, or disbelieved, only proves how terribly the vaunted wisdom of this day is leading to ignorance of the very principles of God’s revelation to man, and causing the mind to wander afar from the beginning of the doctrine of Christ, of which the words addressed to the enemy in the Garden of Eden were the introduction.
The doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, while no doubt to some extent patriarchal, are more distinctly Jewish. The doctrines of washings, or baptisms, are unfolded in the ceremonial law. Such examples as in Lev. 15:5, or in Num. 19:20, “bathe himself in water,” amongst others will serve to point out what the washings were. So, too, the offerer laying his hand upon the offering, as shown in Lev. 4:24, etc., may suffice to indicate what is meant by the laying on of hands.
Surely it can hardly be necessary to prove that Christian baptism is not intended. Baptism, and baptisms, are widely different. Also, that the laying on of hands is not that of which we read in the New Testament in such passages as Acts 8:18, 19; or 13:3.
Purification from defilement and identification with the victim, are, speaking broadly, the two leading thoughts taught by the doctrine of these things, both being ancient and well-known truths.
Now these six, the apostle would leave, and would go on specially to those things which are distinctively Christian—in other words to perfection. The “a b c” known by all God’s people from the first was to be left: the higher lessons of the Christian faith were to occupy the mind.
(We must refer our reader to our next number for the remainder of this paper).
H. F. W.