Hebrews 6

We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised” (Heb. 6: niv).

This verse summarizes the main message of this difficult (and often misunderstood) section of the epistle. Israel wanted to go back to Egypt, and, as a result, a whole generation failed to inherit what God had promised. They were safely delivered out of Egypt, but they never enjoyed the promised rest in Canaan. We believers today can make the same mistake.

If you keep in mind that the emphasis in this section is on making spiritual progress, you will steer safely through misinterpretations that could create problems. In this section, the writer deals with three topics that relate to spiritual progress.

No one can escape coming into the world as a baby, because that is the only way to get here! But it is tragic when a baby fails to mature. No matter how much parents and grandparents love to hold and cuddle a baby, it is their great desire that the baby grow up and enjoy a full life as a mature adult. God has the same desire for His children. That is why He calls to us, “Go on to maturity” (Heb. 6: niv)!

It is a call to spiritual progress (vv. 1–3). If we are going to make progress, we have to leave the childhood things behind and go forward in spiritual growth. Hebrews 6: literally reads, “Therefore, having left [once and for all] the elementary lessons [the ABCs] of the teaching of Christ.” When I was in kindergarten, the teacher taught us our ABCs. (We didn’t have television to teach us in those days.) You learn your ABCs so that you might read words, sentences, books—in fact, anything in literature. But you do not keep learning the basics. You use the basics to go on to better things.

The phrase, “Let us go on,” should be translated, “Let us be carried forward.” It is God who enables us to progress as we yield to Him, receive His Word, and act on it. A baby does not “grow himself.” He grows as he eats, sleeps, exercises, and permits his body to function. Nature, as ordained by God, carries the baby along day after day, and gradually he matures into an adult. It is normal for Christians to grow; it is abnormal for them to have arrested growth.

The writer lists six foundational truths of the Christian life, all of which, by the way, are also foundational to the Jewish faith. After all, our Christian faith is based on the Jewish faith and is a fulfillment of it. “Salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). If the readers of this epistle went back to Judaism in order to escape persecution, they would only be abandoning the perfect for the imperfect, the mature for the immature.

The first two items (repentance and faith) are Godward and mark the initiation of the spiritual life. To repent means to change one’s mind. It is not simply a “bad feeling about sin,” because that could be regret or remorse. It is changing one’s mind about sin to the point of turning from it. Once a sinner has repented (and this itself is a gift from God, Acts 5:31; 11:18), then he is able to exercise faith in God. Repentance and faith go together (Acts 20:21).

The next two items (baptisms and laying on of hands) have to do with a person’s relationship to the local assembly of believers. In the New Testament, a person who repented and trusted Christ was baptized and became a part of a local church (Acts 2:41–47). The word baptisms in Hebrews 6: is plural and can be translated “washings” (Heb. 9:10). While water itself can never cleanse sin (1 Peter 3:21), baptism is a symbol of spiritual cleansing (“Get up, be baptized, and wash your sins away, calling on his name”—Acts 22: niv) as well as our identification with Christ in death, burial, and resurrection (Rom. 6:1–4). The “laying on of hands” (Heb. 6:2) symbolized the sharing of some blessing (Luke 24:50; Acts 19:6) or the setting apart of a person for ministry (1 Tim. 4:14).

The last two items, the resurrection of the dead (Acts 24:14–15) and the final judgment (Acts 17:30–31), have to do with the future. Both orthodox Jews and Christians believe in these doctrines. The Old Testament teaches a general resurrection, but does not make the doctrine clear. The New Testament teaches a resurrection of the saved and also a resurrection of the lost (John 5:24–29; Rev. 20:4–6, 12–15).

The lesson of the paragraph (Heb. 6:1–3) is clear: “You have laid the foundation. You know your ABCs. Now move forward! Let God carry you along to maturity!”

This progress does not affect salvation (vv. 4–6). These verses, along with the exhortation in Hebrews 10:26–39, have given people cause for worry and concern, mainly because these verses have been misunderstood and misapplied. I have received longdistance phone calls from upset people who have misread this passage and convinced themselves (or been convinced by Satan) that they were hopelessly lost and had committed some unpardonable sin. While I do not want to give a false assurance to any professed Christian who is not truly born again, neither do I want to cause some true believer to stumble and miss God’s best.

Bible students over the years have come up with several approaches to this serious passage. One view is that the writer is warning us against the sin of apostasy, willfully turning one’s back on Jesus Christ and returning to the old life. According to them, such a person would be lost forever. I have several problems with this interpretation. To begin with, the Greek word apostosia is not used in this passage. The verb for “fall away” (Heb. 6:6) is parapipto, which literally means “to fall alongside.” Second, we always interpret the obscure by the obvious. There are many verses in Scripture that assure the true believer that he can never be lost. In fact, one of the greatest arguments for security is the last section of this chapter (Heb. 6:13–20; see also John 5:24; 10:26–30; Rom. 8:28–39)!

Those who teach that we can lose our salvation also teach that such a person can be restored. But this passage (Heb. 6:4–6) teaches just the opposite! If you omit the intervening clauses, the statement reads: “For it is impossible … to renew them again to repentance.” In other words, if this refers to apostasy, once a saved person turns his back on Christ, he cannot be restored to salvation. He is lost forever.

Others claim that the people addressed were not true believers. They had cooperated with the Holy Spirit up to a point, but were not actually born again. Well, let’s examine the description of these people and see if they possessed true salvation.

They were “enlightened” (Heb. 6:4). The “once” means “enlightened once and for all.” The way this same verb is used in Hebrews 10: indicates an experience of true salvation (see 2 Cor. 4:4–6).

They “tasted of the heavenly gift” (Heb. 6:4b), and “tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world [age] to come” (Heb. 6:5). To claim that these people “tasted but did not eat” is to base interpretation on one meaning of an English word. God permitted His Son to “taste death for every man” (Heb. 2:9). Surely Jesus Christ did not simply sample death on the cross! “Taste” carries the idea of “experience.” These Hebrew believers had experienced the gift of salvation, the Word of God, and the power of God. Doesn’t this describe authentic salvation?

They “were made partakers of the Holy Spirit” (Heb. 6:4c). To suggest that they only went along with the Holy Spirit to a certain extent is to ignore the simple meaning of the verb. It means “to become sharers.” These same people were not only “sharers of the Holy Spirit,” but also “sharers of the heavenly calling” (Heb. 3:1) and “sharers of Christ” (Heb. 3:14).

In view of these facts, I have concluded that the people addressed were true believers, not mere professors. Furthermore, how could unsaved people ever disgrace Jesus Christ and put Him to open shame?

A third view is that this sin (whatever it is) could be committed only by Hebrew Christians in the first century, while the temple services were still going on. If so, then why did the writer connect this exhortation with the heavenly priesthood of our Lord and the importance of spiritual maturity? If what he wrote about cannot happen today, what is the motivation behind the exhortation? It all seems futile to me if we limit these verses to first-century Jewish believers.

Then what is the writer trying to say to us? It is probable that he was describing a hypothetical case to prove his point that a true believer cannot lose his salvation. His statement in Hebrews 6: seems to support this interpretation: “Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case” (niv). His argument runs like this: “Let’s suppose that you do not go on to maturity. Does this mean that you will go back to condemnation, that you will lose your salvation? Impossible! If you could lose your salvation, it would be impossible to get it back again, and this would disgrace Jesus Christ. He would have to be crucified again for you, and this could never happen.”

In Hebrews 6:4, the writer changed the pronouns from “we” and “us” to “those.” This change also suggests that he had a hypothetical case in mind.

However, there is another possible interpretation that does not require a hypothetical case. You should note that the words crucify and put in Hebrews 6: are, in the Greek, present participles: “while they are crucifying … and while they are putting him to an open shame.” The writer did not say that these people could never be brought to repentance. He said that they could not be brought to repentance while they were treating Jesus Christ in such a shameful way. Once they stop disgracing Jesus Christ in this way, they can be brought to repentance and renew their fellowship with God.

Whatever approach you take, please keep in mind that the writer’s purpose was not to frighten the readers but to assure them. If he had wanted to frighten them, he would have named whatever sin (or sins) would have caused them to disgrace Jesus Christ; but he did not do so. In fact, he avoided the word apostasy and used instead “to fall by the wayside” (see Gal. 6: for a similar word).

Christians can “sin unto death” (1 Cor. 11:30–32; 1 John 5:16–17). This is God’s chastening, a theme the writer of Hebrews will take up in Hebrews 12.

This progress results in fruitfulness (vv. 7–10). This illustration of a field reminds us of our Lord’s parable of the sower (Matt. 13:1–9, 18–23), as well as Paul’s teaching about the fire testing our works (1 Cor. 3:6–23). A field proves its worth by bearing fruit, and a true believer, as he makes spiritual progress, bears fruit for God’s glory. Note that the “thorns and briars” are burned, not the field. God never curses His own!

The crop of God’s blessing pictured in Hebrews 6: is called “things that accompany salvation” in Hebrews 6:9. Not every believer bears the same amount of fruit (“some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty,” Matt. 13:23); but every believer bears the same kind of fruit as proof that he is a child of God (Matt. 7:15–20). This is the fruit of Christian character and conduct (Gal. 5:22–26) produced by the Spirit as we mature in Christ.

The writer listed some of the fruit that he knew had been produced in their lives (Heb. 6:10): because of their love, they had worked and labored for the Lord; they had ministered to other saints; and they were still ministering (see 1 Thess. 1:3–10; Rev. 2:2). These are some of the “things that accompany salvation.”

But he was concerned lest they rest on their achievements and not press on to full maturity and the enjoyment of God’s rich inheritance.

This progress demands diligent effort (vv. 11–12). While it is true that it is God who “carries us along” to maturity (Heb. 6:1, 3), it is also true that the believer must do his part. We must not be lazy (“slothful,” the same word as “dull” in Heb. 5:11) but apply ourselves to the spiritual resources God has given us. We have the promises from God. We should exercise faith and patience and claim these promises for ourselves! Like Caleb and Joshua, we must believe God’s promise and want to go in and claim the land! The illustration of the farm (Heb. 6:7–8) and the admonition to be diligent always remind me of Solomon’s warning (Prov. 24:30–34). Read it—and heed it!

Lest anyone should misinterpret his exhortation to spiritual maturity, the writer ended this section with a tremendous argument for the assurance of salvation. All of us Christians are not making the spiritual progress we should, but we need never fear that God will condemn us. The writer gave three arguments for the certain salvation of true believers.

God’s promise (vv. 13–15). God’s main promise to Abraham is recorded in Genesis 22:16–17. In spite of Abraham’s failures and sins, God kept His promise and Isaac was born. Many of God’s promises do not depend on our character but on His faithfulness. The phrase “patiently endured” (Heb. 6:15) is the exact opposite of “slothful” (Heb. 6:12). The readers of this letter were about to give up; their endurance was running out (see Heb. 12:1–2). “You will obtain and enjoy what God has promised if you diligently apply yourself to the development of your spiritual life,” is what the writer stated.

We Christians today have more of God’s promises than did Abraham! What is keeping us from making spiritual progress? We do not apply ourselves by faith. To return to the illustration of the farm, the farmer does not reap a harvest by sitting on the porch looking at the seed. He must get busy and plow, plant, weed, cultivate, and perhaps water the soil. The believer who neglects church fellowship, ignores his Bible, and forgets to pray is not going to reap much of a harvest.

God’s oath (vv. 16–18). God not only gave Abraham a promise, but He also confirmed that promise with an oath. When a witness takes an oath in court, he is confronted with the words “so help me God.” We call on the greater to witness for the lesser. None is greater than God, so He swore by Himself!

But God did not do this only for Abraham. He has also given His promise and oath to “the heirs of promise” (Heb. 6:17). Abraham and his descendants are the first of these heirs (see Heb. 11:9), but all believers are included as “Abraham’s [spiritual] seed” (Gal. 3:29). So our assurance of salvation is guaranteed by God’s promise and God’s oath, “two immutable [unchangeable] things” (Heb. 6:18). We have “strong consolation” (or “great encouragement”) concerning the hope set before us! Hebrews is a book of encouragement, not discouragement!

The phrase “fled for refuge” (Heb. 6:18) suggests the Old Testament “cities of refuge” described in Numbers 35:9ff. and Joshua 20. God appointed six cities, three on each side of the Jordan, into which a man could flee if he had accidentally killed someone. The elders of the city would investigate the case. If they determined that it was indeed manslaughter and not murder, they would permit the man to live in the city until the death of the high priest. Then he could return to his home. The members of the slain man’s family could not avenge themselves so long as the man remained in the city.

We have fled to Jesus Christ, and He is our eternal refuge. As our High Priest, He will never die (Heb. 7:23–25), and we have eternal salvation. No avenger can touch us, because He has already died and arisen from the dead.

God’s Son (vv. 19–20). Our hope in Christ is like an anchor for the soul. The anchor was a popular symbol in the early church. At least sixty-six pictures of anchors have been found in the catacombs. The Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote, “One must not tie a ship to a single anchor, nor life to a single hope.” Christians have but one anchor—Jesus Christ our hope (Col. 1:5, 1 Tim. 1:1).

However, this spiritual anchor is different from material anchors on ships. For one thing, we are anchored upward—to heaven—not downward. We are anchored, not to stand still, but to move ahead! Our anchor is “sure”—it cannot break—and “steadfast”—it cannot slip. No earthly anchor can give that kind of security!

The writer then clinched the argument: this Savior is our “forerunner” who has gone ahead to heaven so that we may one day follow (Heb. 6:20)! The Old Testament high priest was not a “forerunner” because nobody could follow him into the Holy of Holies. But Jesus Christ has gone to heaven so that one day we may follow.

Dr. H. A. Ironside has suggested that the two phrases “within the veil” (Heb. 6:19) and “without the camp” (Heb. 13:13) summarize the epistle to the Hebrews. Jesus Christ is “within the veil” as our High Priest. We can therefore come boldly to His throne and receive all the help that we need. But we must not be “secret saints.” We must be willing to identify with Christ in His rejection and go “without the camp, bearing his reproach” (Heb. 13:13). The Hebrew believers who received this letter were tempted to compromise to avoid that reproach. However, if we live “within the veil,” we shall have no trouble going “without the camp.”

Regardless of what approach you take to the exhortation in this section, be sure to lay hold of the main lesson: believers must go on to maturity, and God has made it possible for us to do so. If we start to drift from the Word (Heb. 2:1–4), then we will also start to doubt the Word (Heb. 3:7—4:13). Before long, we will get dull toward the Word (Heb. 5:11—6:20) and become lazy believers. The best way to keep from drifting is— to lay hold of the anchor!

Anchored heavenward! How much more secure can you be?