Bible Commentaries
Hebrews 6

Verses 1-20

VI 1-8 Forward! and beware of falling backward into Apostasy— This section forms a unity which produces a powerful impression. It is like a general saying to his troops ’Forward! . . . but there must be no cowards’. It says in effect: ’Let us go on, if God permits . . . but one can do nothing with renegades’.

1-2. Note the usual enallage of exhortation: ’Let us’ (since progress is a duty) ’go on to perfection’ (in the exposition of higher doctrine, as the context shows). ’Leaving the rudiments’ means leaving the simple basic truths of the catechetic outlines. Six catechetic articles forming closely connected pairs are mentioned: (1) ’Repentance from dead works’: twice in this epistle (cf. 9:14) the expression ’dead works’ is used for the state of sin which, being spiritual death, can only produce dead deeds, deprived of divine life. ’Do penance’ is the first word of an apostle, cf.Matthew 1:15; Acts 2:38; Acts 3:19; Acts 3:17; Acts 3:30; Acts 20:21; Acts 26:20; (2) ’faith towards God’, the positive side of the movement of conversion; the doctrine of baptisms’ include the necessary distinction of Christian baptism from the baptism of John and Jewish ritual washings; (4) ’imposition of hands’ is closely connected with the foregoing and primarily to be understood of confirmation, cf.Acts 19:6; (5) ’resurrection of the dead’, as we know from St Paul, 1 Cor 15, was included together with the resurrection of Christ in the oral catechesis of all the Apostles; (6) ’eternal judgement’ is the general judgement after the resurrection of the body, which fixes the destiny of each one for ever and is therefore called ’eternal’.

3. To the little phrase ’if God permit’ is attached the tremendous warning against apostasy which is the chief passage amongst a half-dozen marking Heb as a severe epistle.

4. The Apostle virtually says: We can go on to higher teaching, but it would be wasted on apostates (or apostatizers), for it is impossible to convert ’an apostate. The adjective ’impossible’ is made as emphatic as it can be, standing like a fearful red-letter sign at the head of the sentence, but we must note that the impossibility is placed not in God who can work any miracle of grace, but primarily in the apostolic minister of reconciliation who has no fulcrum for the work of renewing a renegade. The latter in fact has incapacitated himself for the reception of ministrations by the paralysing ingratitude of his rejection of Christian riches and by his complete break away from all contact with the source of salvation.

4-5. Let us first see what apostates have deliberately thrown away: They were once brought from darkness to light through the illumination of faith and of baptism, and ’they fell away’—they also tasted the heavenly gift by intimate participation in the distributions made by the Holy Spirit (ordinarily after imposition of hands; cf. Acts 8:17; Acts 19:6), an experience which is described by St Paul as ’ being given to drink’, 1 Corinthians 12:13, of the waters of life (cf.Isaiah 12:3; Jeremiah 2:13; John 4:14; John 7:37), ’and they fell away’—they also became partakers of the charismata by which the presence of the Holy Ghost was palpably felt in the community, ’and they fell away’ —moreover, they recognized by taste or delightlul experience how good the word of God is and the manifestation of God’s power in the miracles of the Messianic era, ’and they fell away’—these four or five: the light of truth, the joy of grace (including perhaps the Holy Eucharist?), the charismata of the Holy Spirit, the experience of God’s sweet word and of his miraculous evidences they rejected. More precise identification than this we cannot attempt. The illumination seems to include the sacrament of baptism which in later times came to be called phôtismos;the heavenly gift seems to have been tasted in confirmation and in the liturgical assemblies where the Eucharist was celebrated; the participation of the Holy Spirit may refer more particularly to the varieties of gratiae gratis datae; the participle ?e?saµ????? construed with the accusative in the fourth member would seem to indicate recognition of God’s work as good and of his miracles as being the signs of the final age. From all these things ’they fell away’, a thought expressed in the text by the single aorist participle pa?aµ?????, but repeated four times in the above explanation to bring out its impressive power. It is impossible’ to renew’ (??a?a??í?e??) —inaccurately rendered ’renovari’, i.e. ’to be renewed’—such as these to penance for they are’ recrucifying by their own personal doing (lit. for themselves) the Son of God and holding him up to mockery. These are fearful words. Every apostate stages in his own life a deliberate repetition of the apostasy and deicide committed by the Jews on Good Friday. While !they act thus, wilfully rejecting the only Saviour, it is impossible to renew them to penance and conversion.

What is the nature of the impossibility? The Novatian heretics and the Montanist Tertullian (citing these words, under the name of Barnabas) used the text to prove that some sins are irremissible and that the Church has no power to absolve from them. But the text regards not pardon but repentance.

Briefly, some have taken it to mean simply that there can be no second baptism, no second baptismal concrucifixion with the Saviour (’re-crucifying’ and ’holding up to mockery’ being taken in a good sense). True as this is in itself, it is clearly not the meaning of the text. Others insist most emphatically on the active infinitive ’to renew’ and take the words to mean that it is impossible for men, but it always remains possible for God. However, the severity of the passage makes this distinction more than unlikely. The text as expounded above shows that the impossibility is connected with the moral dispositions of persons who have committed such a hardening sin and who are continuing their break-away from the Saviour. The subjoined parable, 7, 8, ending in plain allegory, 8b, shows this. 7-8. They are not the ground that drinks the rain with any thirst for justice, so as to be productive and give evidence of God’s blessing. They are like the ground cursed in Genesis 3:17, for they only produce thorns and thistles; they are under reprobation, near to the final curse; their end is for burning, cf.Luke 8:4-8.

9-12 Encouragement— The tone changes; the Christian ministry is not a ministry of discouragement but of encouragement. Note the tender title: ’Dearly beloved’.

9. The Apostle has better hopes for the Hebrews; he has confidence of things more favourable to their salvation. 10. Past services done in the name of God, past and present ministrations of charity to fellow-Christians are things of which the justice of God will take account. It is the Catholic doctrine of the meritoriousness of good works done in the state of grace. They deserve a continuance of God’s favour.

11. The Apostle’s ardent desire is that there should be no relaxation, but zeal for the full realization of hope to the very end.

12. Thus they shall escape that dull sluggish. ness and imitate those who through faith and patience inherit (present participle) the promise. Note the mention of all three theological virtues and the special mention of patience, which is the moral strength of hope.

13-26 Confidence In the Certitude of Hope— Mention of the inheritors of the promise brings up the example of Abraham, cf.Romans 4:13-21.

13. The promise of Messianic blessing which God made to Abraham is of capital importance, as St Paul shows so fully in Rom and Gal, and as the Church proclaims so beautifully when she speaks of the lux sancta quam olim Abrahae promisisti et semini eius. It was a sworn promise and thus rested on two sovereign guarantees, the unbreakable word of God and his inviolable oath. Thus did he assure us of the immutability of his promise.

13-15. To Abraham God swore by himself, for he had no one greater to swear by, and Abraham who received the promise of blessing and posterity attained the promise by patience.

16. The oath was a guarantee suited to human habits, for a sworn declaration or promise is commonly regarded as incontrovertible, because of the sanctity of a higher guarantor.

17-18. In those circumstances or on this account God gave us the double security of his word and his oath, in order that we who took refuge in God from the perils of salvation (not to be construed with) may have a strong exhortation to hold on to the hope set before us. 19. That hope is like an anchor for the soul, reliable and strong enough to keep us safely moored in the severest storms. Recall the anchor as a symbol of hope in the paintings of the Roman catacombs. It would seem that it is hope itself and not the metaphorical anchor that is regarded as going behind the veil. This extension of the metaphor seems too extraordinary. It would be like an anchor biting the shore and mooring the ship to it rather than biting the bottom of the sea and immobilizing the vessel. Immovable constancy is given by hope, and hope has its object behind the veil of the antiypcal sanctuary, which is heaven itself, symbolized by the sacred cube of the Holy of Holies.

20. Thither, as a precursor, Jesus has entered on our behalf, that is not for himself only but also for us, and always in the quality of what he has become namely, a "high priest fore ever according to the order of Melchisadech".