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Post by Admin on Aug 31, 2023 11:08:01 GMT -5
b. These Hebrews had regressed to the point that they needed to be instructed again in the elementary principles of Christian truth. It was both culpable and tragic that they’d reduced themselves to spiritual infants, but that didn’t have to be the last word. They could restore the dilapidated foundation of their understanding and faith, and they needed to do so for the sake of their perseverance and ultimate maturity in Christ. This meant moving beyond a rudimentary understanding and faith, summarized by the writer in terms of “repentance from dead works and faith toward God, of instruction about washings, and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment” (6:1-2).
This obviously isn’t an exhaustive list of basic Christian doctrines, but it provides some insight into the sorts of issues that were part of Christian instruction in the first century. The writer listed six distinct matters, which form three related pairs: 1) repentance and faith; 2) washings and laying on of hands; 3) resurrection and judgment. Importantly, scholars have noted that these are also Jewish doctrines, and a few of them are actually more integral to Judaism than Christianity.
That is especially the case with washings and laying on of hands. The plural form of the noun “washings” shows that the writer was referring to ceremonial cleansing, not Christian baptism. And, though the practice of laying on hands existed in the early Christian community (ref. Acts 8:14- 17, 9:1-17; 1 Timothy 4:14, 5:22; 2 Timothy 1:6), it was prescribed for Israel’s life under the Law of Moses, especially in relation to sacrificial rituals (Leviticus 1:1-5, 3:1-8, 4:1-7, 16:1-22, 24:10-16; Numbers 8:5-16 ).
The other four examples – repentance, faith toward God, resurrection, and final judgment – are clearly central to Christian doctrine and practice, but they were just as important in Israel’s covenant life and faithfulness. As
God’s election on behalf of the nations, Israel (the seed of Abraham) was to be a consecrated and faithful “son,” separated from “dead works” (i.e., human conduct that tends toward death; ref. Deuteronomy 30; cf. Joshua 23). So also resurrection and final judgment were central to the Jewish eschatological vision and hope during the second temple period.
The fact that these six matters were fundamental to Jewish doctrine and practice isn’t coincidental, but crucial to the writer’s point. For they, like everything in Judaism, had found their fulfillment in Jesus and were transformed in Him. So these Jewish readers had to come to grips with this transformation as a foundational part of their embrace of Jesus as Israel’s Messiah. (So Paul’s message to his Jewish brethren – Acts 13:14-41, 17:1-3, 10-11). Thus these matters were elemental (6:1) to Jewish converts in a way unknown to Gentiles: Gentiles had to renounce their natural and pagan notions when they embraced Jesus as Messiah, but Jews had to embrace Him as the fulfillment of all they were, knew and believed.
These Hebrew believers had gone through the process of rethinking their own Jewish identity, faith, practice and hope in the light of Jesus as Israel’s Messiah, and apparently this rethinking was the focal point of their crisis of faith. They’d spent far more years in Judaism than they had as disciples of Jesus, and it would have been relatively easy to slip back into old convictions and patterns of thinking, especially under the pressure of persecution and suffering. The writer was aware of this, and penned his letter to encourage them to hold fast to Jesus and press on toward maturity in Him, just as he required of himself (6:1). At the same time, he recognized the possibility of falling away, and the particular danger for Jews who’d come to faith in Jesus. In their case, they could fall away without realizing they’d done so. F. F. Bruce observes: “Hebrews [i.e., Jewish Christians] were exposed to a subtle danger which could not be experienced by converts from paganism. If a convert from paganism gave up Christianity and reverted to paganism, there was a clean break between the faith which he renounced and the paganism to which he returned. But it was possible for the recipients of this letter, yielding gradually to pressures from various quarters, to give up more and more those features of faith and practice which were distinctive of Christianity, and yet to feel that they had not abandoned the basic principles of repentance and faith, the realities denoted by religious ablutions and the laying on of hands, the expectation of resurrection and
the judgment of the age to come.”
For these reasons, these Hebrews needed to be especially vigilant and discerning. Already they’d suffered decline and compromised their progress in the faith;to continue down this path might find them forfeiting Christ altogether, even perhaps without realizing it. They needed to take serious stock of themselves and recommit to their Lord and their growth in Him, seeking and relying on God’s care and provision (6:3).
This is the framework for understanding verses 4-8, which Christians readily conscript into debates about “eternal security” and the question of losing one’s salvation. But as with any scriptural context, approaching this passage with a personal or doctrinal agenda will put the interpreter on the wrong footing and set him up to draw wrong conclusions from it; at the very least, conclusions that are peripheral to its point.
The first thing, then, to note about this passage is that it addresses the issue of a transient encounter with divine truth and power focused on the person and work of Jesus the Messiah. Specifically, the writer enumerated five
matters of encounter with God’s truth and power associated with His word and Spirit (vv. 4-5), but then insisted that turning away from those bestowals amounts to putting the Messiah, God’s Son, to open shame and effectively crucifying Him anew (v. 6).
In this way the writer implied what the New Testament scriptures everywhere openly declare. And that is that Jesus, the incarnate and exalted Son, is the full substance, truth and power of the living God, and that this truth and power are communicated to human beings by the Holy Spirit, who now, in the fullness of the times, has been “poured out” as the Spirit of the Messiah (cf. John 14:1-3, 16-26, 16:13-15; Acts 1:1-8, 16:6-7; Romans 8:9-10; Philippians 1:19-20; Colossians 1:25-27).
A second observation about this passage is that the five specifics in 6:4-5 closely correspond with the six elemental truths the writer enumerated in verses 1-2. For, repentance and faith concern one’s response to revealed
truth (Mark 1:14-15; Acts 2:22-41, 20:17-21), while washings (cleansing) and laying on of hands implicate the work of the Spirit (cf. Ezekiel 36:22-27 with Titus 3:5-6). So resurrection and final judgment pertain to the last
day and future consummation, and so correspond to the “powers of the age to come.” Another crucial point of correspondence is that the things listed in vv. 4-5 were also central to first-century Judaism, and thus were
transformed in Jesus to become foundational Christian truths.
Christians don’t tend to associate those things with Judaism and Israel under the Mosaic Covenant, but every Jew claimed all of them as part of his life and faithfulness toward God. God had enlightened His covenant people by election and revelation, giving them His word (Torah) and putting His Spirit in their midst to lead and instruct them by His works of power. And because He chose them on behalf of the world to be His instruments of reconciliation and renewal, Israel’s faith and practice were firmly grounded in the hope of resurrection and final judgment, which
eschatological realities they “tasted” in advance as Yahweh’s Spirit continued to lead them and work among them unto that goal (cf. Exodus 20:1-24:4; Isaiah 32-35, 63:7-16; Ezekiel 37; Daniel 12:1-3).
Recognizing the five matters of 6:4-5 as Israelite phenomena (and not uniquely Christian) is crucially important, for this provides the proper context for interpreting them individually and collectively. And when this approach is followed, it removes the problem of the writer apparently indicating that Christians can lose their salvation. His language points in the same direction and reinforces this contextual understanding.
First, enlightenment (6:4a) doesn’t connote regeneration or coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus, but to the circumstance of being illumined – in context, being subjected to the influence of God’s illumining light. Again,
every Jew viewed himself in this way. Residing in the illumination of Yahweh’s light is what it meant to be His covenant people (cf. Exodus 10:21-23, 13:21-22 with Psalm 4:1-8, 18:28, 27:1, 36:1-9, 44:1-8), which truth was poignantly captured in the blessing Yahweh commanded Aaron and his sons to pronounce on Israel (Numbers 6:22-27).
So Israel had “tasted of the heavenly gift (God’s calling, faithfulness and provision) and partaken in the Holy Spirit” (6:4b). The latter has proven especially troublesome, since Christians instinctively associate it with the
new birth. That is, one “partakes” in the Spirit when he is regenerated and indwelt by the Spirit, indicating that the writer was referring to “saved” persons. And where this is assumed, the writer’s insistence that such ones
can fall away without remedy (v. 6) necessarily implies that there are circumstances in which Christians can lose their salvation.
- But interpreting this statement in terms of Israel’s relationship with God’s Spirit removes the question of “eternal security.” The matter at hand as it pertains to Israel isn’t whether a saved Jew could lose his salvation, but the nation’s history of resisting the Spirit’s leading, power and provision (cf. Isaiah 63:7-10 with Acts 7:51).
- At the same time, the writer issued his warning to Jewish Christians, so that his claims about apostasy must pertain to followers of Jesus, and not just to Old Covenant Israel. The writer’s language is the key: The noun rendered “partaker” signifies sharing or companionship, with the context determining the nature and extent of this relationship (ref. 1:9, 3:1, 14, 12:8; cf. also Luke 5:7). Here partaking is juxtaposed with tasting, which
signifies a sampling experience. The indication, then, is that the writer was referring to a close experience of the Spirit’s presence and power, but one that amounts to a “tasting” (cf. Acts 8:14-19).
This sort of “partaking” characterized Israel’s historical relationship with Yahweh’s Spirit, and the writer was warning his Jewish readers about following in their fathers’ footsteps. They, too, could find themselves falling away from the Living God – now fully revealed in Jesus the Messiah – even after experiencing the Spirit’s illumination and power.
The same tasting experience applied to their interaction with “the good word of God” and “the powers of the age to come” (6:5). Their Israelite forefathers had “tasted” Yahweh’s word through His covenant (Torah) and the ministration of His priests and prophets. And the nation’s experience of numerous deliverances, which underscored Israel’s identity as a people called out of death into life, directed their minds toward the day of ultimate deliverance and renewal and bolstered their confidence that their God who had promised would indeed prove faithful. That day had now come, and these Hebrews stood in its light. God’s word of promise was now the word of fulfillment in the incarnate Word, and through His person and work the powers of the coming age (the Olam Ha Ba for which Israel
waited) were manifest in the present through the comprehensive judgment accomplished at Calvary and the resurrection that ensued. These Hebrews saw realized what their forefathers saw only at a distance (11:32-40).
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Post by Admin on Aug 31, 2023 11:09:21 GMT -5
The implication, then, couldn’t be lost on these Hebrew readers: If their Israelite ancestors who lived during the time of promise were culpable for their unbelief and unfaithfulness, how much more their descendents who
had the privilege of seeing the promises fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah (cf. Luke 19:28-44; John 15:22-24)? The Jewish recipients of this letter were among those children, but as those who’d not only witnessed Yahweh’s work of fulfillment, but acknowledged and embraced it by embracing Jesus as Israel’s long-awaited Messiah, thereby affirming to all men that God is indeed faithful and true and has kept His word. But having done so, what would be the outcome and their recompense if they now denied their own affirmation by shrinking back and falling away? This is the perspective from which the writer penned his warning, and it shows why he insisted that, for such ones, “it is impossible to renew them again to repentance” (6:6).Having once “tasted” the word of truth – the truth that is fully embodied and disclosed in Jesus the Messiah and illumined by His Spirit, and then turning from it, there remains no other truth to be sought or embraced. If a person languishing in a vast and waterless desert tastes life-sustaining water and then pushes it away to seek something else to slake his thirst, he will surely perish. So it is here:
It’s not that God is incapable or unwilling to restore the one who turns away from Jesus; it’s simply that no other resource exists. If the One who is life is rejected, there is no life to be had. The point of limitation, then,
isn’t divine capability or desire, but the nature of the need and the constraint it imposes. Life can only be obtained from life (John 6:48-58).
The writer elaborated on this impossibility by explaining that those who fall away after experiencing the truth and power associated with the Messiah and the renewal He’s inaugurated are effectively subjecting Him to another crucifixion and open shame. Two things about this statement are especially important to note:
- First, the writer’s grammar associates the impossibility of repentance with this act of crucifying and shaming. Specifically, those who fall away from the Messiah (in the manner he’s discussing here) cannot be restored to Him because they are crucifying Him to themselves and openly ridiculing Him. And they do so, not as a one-time action, but a persistent disposition of mind and heart. By turning away from Jesus (overtly or otherwise) after
once embracing Him, such ones testify that they regard Him as an imposter to be rejected and denounced.
- Secondly, the writer’s warning has universal application, but he chose his language with his original Hebrew readers in mind. The epistle suggests that they were being persecuted by their Jewish countrymen as apostates who were following after a false messiah.
They were being pressured to renounce the impostor and return to Yahweh, their people, and their ancestral faith. So the writer wanted them to realize that forsaking Jesus would indeed reunite them with their Jewish brethren, but in a way they likely hadn’t considered: They wouldn’t be rejoining Yahweh’s covenant people, but the unbelieving nation of Israel that had indicted and scorned Jesus and orchestrated His crucifixion (Matthew 27:1-44).
Returning to their previous convictions and way of life under Judaism (v. 1) wouldn’t deliver them from apostasy, but render them apostates, since Jesus is Yahweh’s Messiah, sent by Him to fulfill all His good word to Israel (ref. Acts 2-3, 5:12-39, 6:1-7:53, 13:14-41, 24:1-16). Turning away from Jesus would reunite these Hebrew readers with their Jewish brethren, but in solidarity with their unbelief and condemnation, as those who continue to crucify
the Messiah to themselves and subject Him to open shame.
Death is the fate of all who don’t find life in Jesus the Messiah, and this is true regardless of the circumstance surrounding one’s alienation from Him. Yet there is greater guilt, and so greater condemnation, for those who depart from Him after embracing Him; it’s better never to have known Him than to know Him and forsake Him (cf. 10:26-31, 12:25; also Luke 12:47-48; 2 Peter 2:20-22). So the writer concluded his warning with an illustration underscoring this truth – an illustration that his readers would have instantly connected with Israel’s own experience with God. It parallels many scriptural depictions of Israel’s relationship with Yahweh, perhaps most notably Isaiah’s parable of the vineyard (5:1-7).
- This parable uses the familiar imagery of a vine and vineyard to depict God’s covenant household (Psalm 80:1-16; Isaiah 3:13-15; cf. also John 15:1-6), and it presents a picture of a choice vine lovingly planted in fertile and well-prepared soil, and then carefully nurtured and protected. Because of the vine’s choiceness, and the provision and care given to it, the owner had every reason to expect it to bear produce good fruit, but instead it produced only worthless fruit (5:1-2). As a result, he determined to withdraw his care and protection and let the vineyard be overrun and trampled underfoot, thereby condemning it and laying it to waste (5:5-6).
- The parable identifies the house of Israel as the vineyard, Judah (the remnant of David’s kingdom) as the “delightful planting,” and Yahweh of Hosts as the vineyard’s owner/keeper (5:7; cf. 3:14).
- Thus the scenario described in the parable signified Yahweh’s absolute faithfulness toward His covenant people, His rightful expectation of them, their intractable rebellion, and the destruction they would soon incur at the hands of Assyria and Babylon.
- And, with an eye to their objection to this terrible fate (cf. Ezekiel 18:1-20; 33:10-21), the parable has Yahweh challenging Jerusalem and Judah to judge where the fault lay; faced with the truth, they couldn’t fault their God, because He’d done everything possible to secure their fruitfulness; their calamity was entirely their own doing (5:3-4; cf. Jeremiah 2:1-37; Ezekiel 24:15-23; Hosea 11:1ff).
The Hebrew readers understood this imagery and were well familiar with the woeful historical circumstance the parable depicted. Their forefathers had squandered their covenant election, unique privilege, and Yahweh’s
unfailing lovingkindness (Romans 9:1-5), until there was no recourse except for cities to be devastated, houses abandoned, and the sanctuary land made utterly desolate (Isaiah 6:1-12). Now the writer was confronting them with another parable that concerned them and the peril they faced:
- They were like carefully tended, well-watered ground from which a good and beneficial yield is rightly expected. If they brought forth such a rich harvest, they would receive God’s blessing (6:7).
- But if their yield ended up being only thorns and thistles, they would receive the recompense appropriate to that produce (6:8). This imagery drew the readers’ minds back to Israel’s tragic history with God, but it also reminded them of the outcome of that history in which God fulfilled His faithfulness to His covenant people and all that He’d
promised concerning them. This reminder is evident from the writer’s reference to thorns and thistles. For these are scriptural symbols for the cursed, desolate creation under God’s judgment (ref. Genesis 3:17-19; Isaiah 55:1-13; cf. also Isaiah 34:1-13; Hosea 10:7-8), a fact known to both the writer and his audience. Thus this choice of imagery wasn’t arbitrary, but intentional. It served to remind the readers of the core reality of the messianic work: Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and enthronement was precisely Israel’s God fulfilling His ancient, unwavering oath to
liberate the creation from its curse and renew all things through the seed promised to Eve, Abraham and David – the seed who was the foundation and goal of Israel’s election, covenant life and history.
The “good news” held out to Israel and the nations is that Yahweh, in His Messiah, has conquered the curse and delivered the world from its forced labor of producing thorns and thistles. And though the non-human creation longs for the day when it will enjoy its share in that liberation and renewal (Romans 8:18-22), many humans – including those pressuring these Hebrews to return to the former order – are content with the old creation and its cursed fruit. But all who are part of it will be consumed with it in the day when all things are renewed. That fate awaited the readers (v. 8), should they fall away from the Lord of new creation.
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Post by Admin on Aug 31, 2023 11:11:23 GMT -5
c. The writer wanted his readers to understand the critical importance of continuing with Jesus the Messiah according to the truth of the gospel as they had received it and begun their walk in Him (cf. Colossians 2:6-3:4).
Whatever the forces pressing them to alter their convictions and faith in Jesus as Messiah, they must not yield to them, for the result would not be movement toward truth, but away from it. Jesus is Yahweh’s “yes and amen” to all of His word and promises; embracing Jesus in truth is embracing Yahweh and His truth (cf. John 1:1-18, 5:36-38, 8:12-19, 10:22-38, 14:1-11). Retreating from Jesus, then, is retreat into falsehood.
But for these Hebrew believers, retreating back to their former convictions and practice involved the falsehood of seeking to return to that which no longer existed – that which had passed away because it had fulfilled its
role in God’s purposes (Galatians 3). They may have been told that they could return to Yahweh by forsaking Jesus, but that would actually find them condemning Him as a liar. They would be denying His faithfulness
in fulfilling all He’d promised; all that Israel had hoped in and longed for.
Falling away from Jesus, God’s Son and Messiah, is analogous to receiving the life-giving rain from heaven and bearing useless produce from it – produce consistent with the creation’s fruit-bearing under the curse of death (vv. 7-8). Such “fruit” isn’t bad in the sense that it’s unpalatable or overtly rotten; indeed, it may be entirely appealing and appear wholesome and nourishing. But it is useless because it cannot support or nourish life; it is the fruit that death yields. So it was for these Hebrews and all who bear the “fruit” of natural human existence under the curse; whatever their knowledge, piety, discipline, and success, theirworks are the works of death (Proverbs 4:12; cf. Luke 5:29-39; Romans 7:4-6). Life inheres in the Living God, and it entered the cursed creation in Jesus, the bread of life, flowing from Him to the creation through living union with Him (John 1:1-14, 6:22-33, 48-58; cf. Ephesians 1:9-10).
Thus the produce appropriate to the life-giving rain is living fruit – fruit associated with the renewed creation liberated from the curse of death.
This is the fruit of new creation, which has its substance in the resurrected Messiah, the first-fruits from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:20-23; Colossians 1:15-20). It is the fruit that Paul insisted consists in “faith working through love” (cf. Galatians 5:6 with 6:14-16). This, then, is the framework for interpreting the writer’s affirmation in 6:9-10, and why the things he mentioned about his readers convinced him that they were indeed sharers
in the resurrected and enthroned Messiah and the new creation in Him.
The pressures they faced moved the author to warn these brethren about the peril of falling away, but he did so believing that they would continue to stand firm in their faith and faithfulness. He wanted them to know that,
and so reassured them that, despite his warning, he was “persuaded of better things concerning them; things consistent with salvation” (v. 9).
The phrase, “better things,” refers to what is objectively and intrinsically superior, not what is judged to be better based on personal perspective and preference. Such “things” are better because of what they are in
themselves – because they conform to and manifest the truth. Here, these are things that provide objective, truthful witness to a saving union with Christ Jesus. Interestingly, what had convinced the writer wasn’t his readers’embrace of Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, but the way their faith in Him had been manifesting itself. It was their work and its openly evident motivation that persuaded him, not their understanding and profession of faith (6:10). And the writer wasn’t alone in this persuasion, but shared it with others who’d also observed this community of Jewish
Christians (“we are persuaded…”). Even more importantly, the author was convinced that God Himself shared his assessment: The things that had persuaded him and others of these Hebrews’ sincere faith were things that
God – the God of Israel – had taken note of and would not forget.
Indeed, the writer’s statement seems to suggest that his sense that God was pleased with their labors actually reinforced his own confidence in them:
“We are persuaded of better things concerning you… for God is not unjust to overlook your works and the love you have shown toward His name...” This conjunction can convey various meanings, but here it seems to carry an explanatory sense that highlights two related ideas:
1) First, the writer wanted his readers to know that he wasn’t alone in what he saw in them; God saw the same fruit, and shared the same assessment of it. As much as another Christian’s approval can strengthen one’s confidence and resolve, it is nothing compared with God’s. And God issues His approval where there is conformity with the truth. Thus God’s approbation gave credence to what the writer and his associates perceived and concluded.
2) Secondly, God’s approbation (here implied in His justness to not forget) is the greatest evidence of one’s salvation, for He approves of those who embrace His purpose for human beings.
The author’s (and his associates’) persuasion came, not from the readers’ faith in Jesus, but their faithfulness, here described as the manifestation of their faith in attesting works and acts of love. It was what they did that
persuaded him concerning their salvation, not what they said or claimed to believe. So the writer’s statement is liable to different nuances of meaning, depending on how the conjunction “and” is understood:
1) The most common rendering in English versions treats the conjunction as a simple copulative joining together the two ideas: “your work and the love you have shown…’
2) But a slightly different sense results from treating the conjunction as an ascensive, so that the second phrase acts to clarify and focus the first: “your work, even the love you have shown…”
With the first reading, the writer first mentioned his readers’ Christian labors in non-specific terms, and then took special note of their ministry to the saints (cf. 10:32-34). With the second one, the “work” the writer had in
mind was specifically their loving ministry to their fellow Christians. (The KJV and NKJV have the phrase, “labor of love,” based on the Textus Receptus, but this reading has little manuscript support and is generally regarded as an addition to the original text.)
The overall form of the statement better supports the first option, but either way, the essential point is the same: God took approving note of their works on behalf of His children, but as they were works expressing their love for Him. Notably, the writer spoke of love toward God’s name,rather than toward God Himself. The two ideas are substantially the same since God’s name signifies His person, but referring to His name adds an important emphasis to the statement. For, in the case of God, His name underscores the truth of who He is (cf. Exodus 3:13-14, 20:7; Psalm 8:1, 9:10, 20:1-9, 33:21; Isaiah 51:9-15, 56:1-6; also Isaiah 9:1-6).
The “works,” then, that persuaded the writer of his readers’ salvation were their tangible expressions of love for God’s saints – His holy ones who bear His name as children sharing in His life. For this reason, these works
were expressions of love for God’s name, which is to say, love for God according to the truth of who He is and what He has done. And because this truth is manifest in the Messiah and messianic work, love for God’s name implies a true and living knowledge of His Son. Demonstrated love for God’s saints, then, demonstrates love for God Himself, which love presupposes and reflects a true knowledge of Him. But because God is known in His Son, and fallen man has no such knowledge of Him, those who do possess it – and demonstrate it by their love for His saints – demonstrate the reality of their salvation (1 John 4:7-21). And this is the reason God takes approving note of such “works”: They affirm and testify to the truth and glory of His purpose and accomplishment in His Son.
In summary, these works were both attesting and commending because they were the fruit of renewal (new creation) in the resurrected Messiah; they were works that showed these Hebrews to be progeny of the Last Adam, the One who Himself is the first-fruit of God’s new creation. Thus they testified to the reality of a new human creature and new kind of human existence, one that is antithetical to the alienation, self-centricity, and self-enslavement that drive Adam’s children. No longer defined by the “procedure of the king,” they have become, in the true Image-Son, kingsand priests to God in the way He purposed from the beginning
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Post by Admin on Aug 31, 2023 11:12:32 GMT -5
d. In the face of numerous struggles and forces arrayed against their faith, these Hebrews had shown themselves to be true sharers in their Messiah.
The writer knew that to be true, as did others who had observed their labor and service of love. Most importantly, God was witness to their faithfulness to His Son in ministering to His beloved saints, and they should rest assured that He’d taken note of it and would keep it in remembrance against a future day of completion and glory.
That day would arrive at the appointed time, but precisely for that reason, and in sure hope of it, these Jewish disciples needed to press on in their faithfulness. They mustn’t rest in the writer’s commendation, or allow themselves to grow weary or sluggish in running their race. And for those who were trying to coerce them back to their ancestral faith, they had a compelling answer: They had every intention of standing with their Jewish
forefathers, but in truth. They embraced their fathers’ patient, persevering hope in Israel’s Messiah, but as that hope had come to rest in Jesus. In this way, they, too, would endure as seeing Him who is unseen, firm in their
conviction that they would receive all that God had promised (6:11-12).
The writer was concerned that his readers view their circumstances and faith from this vantage point. And armed with this understanding, they could press on with all confidence toward the inheritance that was theirs in the Messiah. What God had promised to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3), and continued to uphold in His dealings with Abraham’s covenant descendents (cf. Genesis 15 with Exodus 3:1-10; Psalm 105:1-7; Isaiah 41:1-20; 51:1-5; Micah 7; etc.), He’d now fulfilled in the singular Seed of Abraham – the Israelite to whom the promises pertained and in whom they obtained their true and full realization (Galatians 3).
- Faithful Israelites in every generation had clung to this promise, believing God for it and recognizing their own place in the long and difficult process that would eventually culminate with Messiah’s coming, the completion of the messianic work, and the inauguration and fruitfulness of Yahweh’s everlasting kingdom.
- If these Hebrews were to be true children of their faithful fathers, they needed imitate their persevering faith and hope. But whereas the fathers, beginning with Abraham, had hoped in the messianic “day” (John 8:56; ref. also 2 Samuel 7; Luke 10:21-24; 1 Peter 1:10-12), their believing descendents saw that day in retrospect.
Their hope wasn’t directed toward Messiah’s coming and the inauguration of His kingdom (with all that entails), but Messiah’s Parousia and the consummation of the kingdom in the renewal of all things (ref. 10:35-37; cf. Acts 1:1-11; Romans 8:18-21; 1 Corinthians 15; Philippians 3:17-21; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10).
This promise – which was the foundation of Israel’s covenant life and history, and gave meaning and purpose to it – is what the writer had in mind here. He wasn’t exhorting his readers to imitate their forefathers’ faith and hope in a generic or abstract way (“your fathers trusted God, and you need to trust Him”), but to carry on their fathers’ faith and hope by setting theirs on the same promise – the promise God gave to Abraham (6:13-14). In that way, these Hebrews would show themselves to be Abraham’s children indeed: children, not by descent, but by shared faith
and faithfulness focused on Yahweh’s Messiah (cf. Isaiah 49:1-13 with 51:1-5; also Romans 2:28-29; Galatians 3:26-29; 1 Peter 2:4-10).
Abraham believed God and held fast to His promise, and his faith and hope characterized his true children down through the ages, right up to the coming of the Promised One. But because that faith and hope were directed toward the Messiah and God’s work through Him, all of thefaithful who lived prior to Jesus’ coming died without receiving what was promised (11:39). That being the case, it would seem that the writer was directing his readers to imitate the faith and patience of fellow Christians, for they were the ones who were inheriting the promises (6:12). But both the immediate and wider contexts suggest something more.
- Again, the promises the writer had in mind were those God gave to Abraham (vv. 12-15), not a “promise” of personal salvation leading to the “inheritance” of eternal life in heaven. The issue of personal salvation is an implication of the writer’s argument, but it was not his specific concern in this context.
- Secondly, it was certainly true that the readers’ Christian brothers and sisters (both Jew and Gentile) had inherited the Abrahamic promises as sharers in the Messiah (again, Galatians 3:26-29), but so had all of the faithful who preceded them. For, though such ones had died in faith, without obtaining what they hoped for, their faith had now become sight. The One for whom Israel’s faithful had longed had come at last, and now they were “made perfect” in Him, the resurrected Messiah. But not alone, but together with their brethren who lived in the “fullness of the times” (ref. 11:40).
- The writer’s reference to Abraham also supports this perspective: “having patiently waited, he obtained the promise.” But the promise pertained to abundant offspring – “I will surely multiply you” (ref. Genesis 22:17), which wasn’t a promise Abraham saw fulfilled. Isaac and Jacob were the beginning of it, but Abraham didn’t live to see further covenant offspring (Genesis 17:15-21, 25:1-6). He didn’t receive in his lifetime what God promised, nor
even later in the nation descended from him. The fulfillment awaited his singular Seed and the multitude who share in Him.
In context, then, the writer was exhorting his readers to persevere in patient hope of obtaining what God had promised to Abraham. This implicates the totality of the Abrahamic Covenant, but the specific concern was hope directed toward the promise of blessing in connection with countless covenant children (ref. Genesis 12:2, 15:1-5).
- There was a certain aspect of fulfillment in the nation of Israel descended from Abraham’s twelve great-grandsons. Yahweh did indeed bless Abraham in this way, making him a great nation, but the promise of a multitude of offspring looked beyond the one nation to a covenant family composed of many nations; Abram(“father of a people”) would realize his blessedness as Abraham – “father of many peoples” (Genesis 17:1-7). Thus God would fulfill
His purpose and pledge to bless all of the earth’s families in him.
- The covenant house of Israel reflected and reinforced God’s promise to multiply Abraham, but it didn’t fulfill it. That wouldn’t happen until Abraham’s name was fulfilled and he became the father of a vast family drawn from every nation, tribe, tongue and people. Abraham himself likely wondered how this was going to come about, but, over time, God revealed that a particular descendent would be the connection between the patriarch and this enormous family. This truth underlies Paul’s insistence that the promise to Abraham and his “seed” was ultimately the promise of
a singular seed – an “only-begotten” son (monogenes). Isaac, the progenitor of the Israelite covenant family, prefigured this individual (ref. Genesis 17:15-19, 22:1-2), but Abraham’s obtainment of a global family awaited another monogenes. In that Seed, Abraham would see his faith vindicated, as God gave him offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky (Genesis 15:1-6).
Abraham closed his eyes in death, fully aware that he hadn’t received what God had pledged to him (John 8:56). But he died in faith, fully assured that he would one day obtain the blessing of innumerable offspring. Abraham had no doubt that his God would prove faithful, but he could never have imagined the long and painful history and profound
events that would see his name fulfilled and his global family realized.
Abraham’s life of unwavering trust established the pattern that marked all of his faithful descendents throughout the succeeding generations; each one lived and died in faith, believing that their God would not forget or set
aside His covenant and its promises. That hope was held unrequited fortwo thousand years, but the day of fulfillment arrived at last and the promise began bearing its fruit. God was now raising up children for Abraham – children from all peoples, but united in sharing their father’s faith and hope (cf. John 8:31-40; Romans 4:1-24; Galatians 3:1-9).
In the Messiah, God was multiplying Abraham’s children, and the writer’s exhortation called for these Hebrews to own their place in Abraham’s true family and stand firm in it. They were to manifest the same faith and hope that had marked their covenant father and all of his faithful children – both those who saw the Seed from a distance, and those who know Him as Messiah Jesus, resurrected and enthroned at the right hand of power.
From Abraham on, the faithful in Israel were defined by steadfastness in clinging to God’s promises, which remained unfulfilled in their own lifetimes. And they did so, not in settled ease, but through all sorts of trials
and suffering (11:8-40). They believed God, and so patiently embraced their adversity and struggles as they beheld the promises from afar. And they believed God, looking beyond their circumstances and experiences, because they trusted His faithfulness. They trusted that the God who had promised would indeed keep His word, and their confidence was bolstered by the fact that He’d reinforced His promise with His oath. The writer explained that He did this, not to bolster His own credibility, but as an act of condescending mercy to strengthen the courage and resolve of the heirs of His promise (6:16-18).
Here, God’s oath reinforced His promise, and so pertained to the same issue, namely blessing connected with abundant offspring. The writer didn’t elaborate, but it seems he was referring to the oath God swore to Abraham after he offered Isaac (Genesis 22:1-18). Although the Scripture associates God’s oath with the entirety of His covenant with Abraham (Genesis 24:7, 26:1-5; cf. Exodus 13:5-12), the focus here is on the promise of offspring, and this was the concern in God’s oath at Moriah.
Assuming the writer had this event in mind, it illumines how he was treating the relationship between the promise and the oath. It shows that God didn’t intend His oath to motivate Abraham’s faith in His promise of offspring; rather, He swore it because Abraham had demonstrated his faith by offering Isaac (Genesis 22:15-17). God’s oath acknowledged and affirmed Abraham’s unyielding faith in His promise, demonstrated by his continuing to believe God for it, even while following His command to nullify it by killing Isaac (Hebrews 11:17-19). God’s oath was His
gracious reward to Abraham, by which He reassured him that, whatever may come – even things that seem to overthrow His promise, Abraham would assuredly become the father of a vast, worldwide covenant family.
Yahweh’s promise and oath – “two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for Him to lie” – had commanded and strengthened Abraham’s faith and hope, and so it was for all of Israel’s faithful. Now, they called for the same response from these first-century Hebrews. They, too, were to abide in faith and faithfulness, drawing strong encouragement from God’s promise and oath, and taking refuge in the hope they held out.
But, again, there was an important difference. Their forefathers had hoped in the day of the Messiah and His triumph and kingdom (the “age to come” – Olam Ha Ba), whereas these Hebrews (and all who claim faith in Jesus’ name) were to set their hope on the fruit and final goal of Messiah’s triumph: the kingdom’s sure progress and its climax at the end of the age in Jesus’ appearing, the renewal of all things, and their “summing up” in Him (Romans 8:18-21; 1 Corinthians 15:20-28; Ephesians 1:9-10).
Abraham and the Israelite faithful lived with their hope tethered to the God who’d promised and sworn, and who continually showed Himself faithful toward what He’d pledged. These Hebrews, on the other hand, had their hope tethered to the One who Himself embodies God’s faithfulness. God had sworn by Himself (6:13), thereby assuming full responsibility for what He’d pledged. If His promise were to fail or fall short, the failure would be His own and fall entirely on His shoulders. Abraham understood that God was staking His promises on His own person and integrity, but the way in which this was to play out, no human being could ever have
imagined. God swore by Himself, not just because there was nothing greater to bind His oath to, but to underscore that He intended, in and by Himself, to accomplish what He promised. More than simply hazarding His own integrity, He was hazarding Himself.
God made it clear to Abraham that He fully owned His promises, but He revealed to later generations that He was going to fulfill them by a mighty intervention and conquest. Yet no one had any idea that Yahweh’s triumphal return to Zion would involve incarnation. He wouldn’t simply see to the promises’ fulfillment; He was going to fulfill them in Himself in Jesus, the incarnate Messiah. This truth was hidden from past generations, but these Hebrews understood it, if indeed their faith in Jesus was genuine.
But more than that, they understood, as a matter of historical circumstance, the profound and mysterious way all of this fulfillment came about. Through the Christ event and their faith in Him, they had come to understand that all that God is, all that He purposed and prepared for, and all that He has done and will do has its verity (its “yes and amen”) in His triumphant, messianic Son. God had indeed hazarded Himself when He swore to Abraham, but in the sense that He intended, two millennia later, to embody Himself in the promised Seed.
That One had entered the world as Abraham’s offspring (Matthew 1:1), but as True Man – divine Image-Son, with a view toward God’s promise of a global family of true children. This was Jesus’ goal in “entering within the veil” as regal High Priest; He did so, not just as a mediator, but a forerunner, leading the way for the other image-children tethered to Him as sharers in Him. Thus their hope, like Abraham’s, is steadfast and sure.
But unlike his, theirs is grounded in the full intimacy of image-children and divine father; theirs enters within the veil (10:19-23, 12:18-24).
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