TEXT [Commentary]

  B.   Jesus and the Priesthood of Melchizedek (5:11–7:28)

1.   Call to spiritual growth (5:11–6:12)

11 There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. 12 You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word.[*] You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. 13 For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. 14 Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.

CHAPTER 6

1 So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds[*] and placing our faith in God. 2 You don’t need further instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And so, God willing, we will move forward to further understanding.

4 For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened—those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come—6 and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame.

7 When the ground soaks up the falling rain and bears a good crop for the farmer, it has God’s blessing. 8 But if a field bears thorns and thistles, it is useless. The farmer will soon condemn that field and burn it.

9 Dear friends, even though we are talking this way, we really don’t believe it applies to you. We are confident that you are meant for better things, things that come with salvation. 10 For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers,[*] as you still do. 11 Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true. 12 Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent. Instead, you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God’s promises because of their faith and endurance.

NOTES

5:11 about this. That is, about the “perfecting” of Jesus and about his high priesthood, although the expression could also be translated “about him,” that is, the mysterious Melchizedek, about whom we will hear more later (ch 7).

5:12 the basic things about God’s word. Lit., “the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God.” “Elements” (cf. Gr. stoicheion [TG4747, ZG5122]) and “beginning” (archē [TG746, ZG794]) mutually reinforce each other, both referring to the “basics” or ABCs of any field of instruction. The “oracles of God” here are not the Jewish Scriptures as such (as in Rom 3:2) but the Scriptures as interpreted in light of the coming of Jesus Christ. Still, such terms as “God’s word” or “the oracles of God” imply that the Christian message is firmly rooted in Jewish Scripture and that God speaks through both.

5:13 For someone who lives on milk is still an infant. Paul made a similar point to the Corinthians: “I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready, for you are still controlled by your sinful nature” (1 Cor 3:2-3). Peter, by contrast, wanted his readers to continue to “crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of your salvation” (1 Pet 2:2).

6:1 the basic teachings about Christ. Lit., “the word of the beginning of the Christ.” This probably does not refer to the truth about Christ’s origins (as Goulder 2003:400) but rather to the Christian message “first announced by the Lord Jesus himself and then delivered to us by those who heard him speak” (2:3), and now taught to new converts.

Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Lit., “let us move on to perfection.” It could be a purely procedural comment: “Let’s move on to talk about perfection.” Or it could be a serious exhortation to the readers to move toward perfection or maturity in their own lives. The NLT represents a kind of middle way, accenting maturity of understanding both here and in v. 3 (“And so, God willing, we will move forward to further understanding”). This is a reasonable solution, supported by the preceding comment that “solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong” (5:14).

the fundamental importance. More specifically, “the foundation,” as of a building (see 3:6, “and we are God’s house”; also Paul in 1 Cor 3:10, “I have laid the foundation like an expert builder”).

evil deeds. Lit., “dead” deeds or works (cf. NLT mg; 9:14 mg). The emphasis is not so much on the evil of their previous life as on its “deadness” or futility, the consequence of its evil.

6:2 baptisms. This is not the technical term for “baptism” (baptisma [TG908, ZG967]), which occurs only in Christian sources (BDAG 165), but a more general term (baptismos [TG909, ZG968]) used for various kinds of washing, ceremonial and otherwise, including, but not limited to, Christian baptism (see 9:10; in Col 2:12 it refers to Christian baptism but in Mark 7:4 to the washing of dishes). Because the six items listed here (including “the laying on of hands”) have to do with conversion, baptism of some kind is likely in view. Possibly the author wanted a plural form so as to include both Christian baptism and Jewish proselyte baptism. The more common baptisma [TG908, ZG967] is never plural in the NT, for Paul’s insistence that there was only “one baptism” (Eph 4:5) seems to have been a commonplace among early Christians.

6:4 once enlightened. The reference here to conversion happening “once” or “once and for all” anticipates the author’s repeated insistence that Christ died just once (see 7:27; 9:12, 26-28; 10:10). “Enlightened” or “illumined” is the author’s preferred term for Christian conversion (as in 10:32 mg), probably embracing the six “basics” of 6:1-2, and more. The term suggests spiritual transformation, akin to what is called in other NT writings a “new birth” (see 1 Pet 1:3, 23; 2:2), perhaps enacted in Christian baptism (see Justin Martyr First Apology 61.12; Ante-Nicene Fathers 1.183, who referred to baptism as “illumination”).

6:6 and who then turn away from God. The words “from God” are supplied by the NLT. The translation rightly brings out that the participle for “turn away” (parapesontas [TG3895, ZG4178]) is grammatically the same as the four participles preceding it (“those who were once enlightened . . . who have experienced . . . and shared . . . who have tasted,” 6:4-5). It is not conditional (“if they turn away”) in a sense in which the other four are not. All five are governed by the same definite article, and all five are, implicitly at least, conditional in nature. The author is sketching a case history (whether actual or hypothetical) and making the judgment that in such a case starting over is “impossible.”

once again. These words are not in the original Greek text. Strictly speaking, the participle means to nail “up” (ana [TG303, ZG324]), not to nail or crucify “again” (lit., “nailing up for themselves”). “Again” is implied, however, because Jesus had obviously been crucified “once,” and so to crucify him in one’s own mind or experience would necessarily be to crucify him “again.” Also, to bring “back” to repentance (anakainizō [TG340, ZG362]; 6:6) implies repenting “again.”

6:8 The farmer will soon condemn that field and burn it. Lit., “it is near to a curse; its end (telos [TG5056, ZG5465]) is for burning.”

6:10 other believers. Lit., “the saints,” or “the holy ones” (see note on 3:1). Here, as in Paul’s letters (for example, Rom 1:7; 15:25-26; 1 Cor 1:2; 2 Cor 1:1; Eph 1:1; Phil 1:1; Col 1:2; 2 Thess 1:10; Phlm 1:5), the term refers to Christian believers generally (see 13:24, “all the believers there”).

as you still do. The NLT nicely captures the tenses of two Greek participles for “ministering” or “caring for” other believers, both from the verb diakoneō [TG1247, ZG1354]. The first is aorist, indicating that they ministered faithfully to others in the past; the second is present, indicating that they continue to do so.

6:11 as long as life lasts. Or, “to the end” (achri telous [TG891/5056, ZG948/5465]), as in 3:14 (mechri telous [TG3360/5056, ZG3588/5465]). This positive “end” stands in marked contrast to the disastrous “end” (telos) of the useless farmer’s field (see note on 6:8).

6:12 going to inherit. More precisely, they “are inheriting” the promises. The inheriting of the promises of God is neither an accomplished fact in the past nor something reserved for the future but a process encompassing past, present, and future. God planned that his people in the past would not reach “perfection” without those in the present (see 11:40).

COMMENTARY [Text]

Behind the translation, “There is much more we would like to say” (5:11), lies an explicit reference to “the word” (ho logos [TG3056, ZG3364]), recalling the author’s significant reflections on “the word” a chapter earlier (4:12-13). “The word” here refers most immediately to the author’s discourse (what “we would like to say”), but beyond that to “the word of God,” on which the whole discourse is based. The same “word” that cuts us open like a sword and “exposes our innermost thoughts and desires” (4:12) here exposes the readers of Hebrews as “spiritually dull” and unwilling to listen. The expression “spiritually dull” (nōthros [TG3576, ZG3821]) frames the entire section: The author starts out on the pessimistic note that it is what they are (5:11) yet concludes with the hope that they will not be spiritually dull (6:12) but will instead follow in the footsteps of Abraham and those like him (6:13-20).

How does the author get from here to there? He looks at two alternatives. First, because they were so immature, he considers starting over again with them as if they were new converts (5:12-14). Obviously they are not new converts. They have been believers long enough by now to be teaching new converts. But instead of being teachers, they “need someone to teach [them] again the basic things about God’s word” (5:12). Like babies, they don’t know “how to do what is right” (5:13). Solid food is for the mature, “who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong” (5:14).

At this point the reader expects something like, “So let us go back and start over.” But that is not what the author says. All that he has said favors starting over, but it is all rhetorical. Ready or not, the only thing to do is to move on. And it is not “in spite of what I have just said, let us stop going over the basic teachings,” but “because of what I have just said, let us stop going over the basic teachings.” To this author, as we will learn, it is a matter of principle that there can be no starting over, no turning back.

Starting over would have required close attention to six things: “repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God . . . baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment” (6:1-2). These six “basic teachings” are clues to what the rest of Hebrews would have looked like if the author had treated his readers as new converts. The first two, “repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God” (6:1), represent the essentials of conversion from Greco-Roman paganism to Judaism or Christianity. They echo the terminology of Paul, both in his letters and his speeches in the book of Acts, in speaking of the conversion of Gentiles from idolatry to the Christian faith (see 1 Thess 1:9; Acts 14:15; 17:30). They are not particularly applicable to Jews who became Christians by acknowledging Jesus as their Messiah. Such “converts” (if that term can even be used) would not have thought of themselves as “repenting from evil deeds” as if they had been idolaters or as “placing their faith in God” as if they had not known God before. As Jews, they might have undergone “baptisms” (see note on 6:2) and “the laying on of hands” in affiliating with the Christian movement, but most Jews would not need Christian missionaries to tell them of “the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.” These are things Paul had to explain to the Greeks in Athens (see Acts 17:31-32) but not to his fellow Jews (see Acts 23:6; 24:14-15; 26:7-8).

None of the six items are specifically Christian (as distinct from Jewish) teachings or practices. Aside from the mention of “Christ” (6:1), they have nothing much to do with Jesus Christ in particular, either his life, his death, the coming of the Spirit, or his priesthood. “Resurrection of the dead” is not the resurrection of Jesus but the general resurrection expected by Jew and Christian alike. All six are things Judaism and Christianity had in common, not things dividing Jew from Christian. Taken together, they suggest that at least some of the original readers of Hebrews were converts, whether directly from Greco-Roman paganism to Christianity, or first as proselytes to Judaism and then to a new kind of Judaism more receptive to such converts—the movement centered on Jesus as Messiah and Son of God. In short, some of the “Hebrews” addressed here could have been “Hebrews” by choice and initiation yet Gentiles by birth (see “Audience” in the Introduction). They were converts but not new converts, and there was no turning back to the moment of their conversion. Despite their immaturity, there was nothing to do but “move forward to further understanding” (6:3). As Jesus put it in a very different context, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).

At the same time, it must be added that the author does not leave these six “basics” behind altogether. “Faith in God” will obviously play a major role in his argument (see 11:6, and ch 11 generally). “Baptisms” will be mentioned again, whether explicitly, as something inadequate (“in effect only until a better system could be established”; 9:10), or implicitly, as part of Christian experience (“and our bodies have been washed with pure water”; 10:22). “Resurrection of the dead” is as important as ever (see 11:19, 35), and the theme of eternal judgment conspicuously dominates the warnings that will follow (for example, see 9:27; 10:27). In fact, the author immediately goes on to speak of it (6:4-8).

The absurd notion that the readers of Hebrews could go back and reenact their conversion brings to the author’s mind a far more terrible scenario, which he allows himself to explore even though he claims it had little to do with them (6:9-12). But what of those who really do need to be converted all over again because they have rejected the faith they once professed? What of those who have “drifted away” from the truth (2:1), or “hardened their hearts” like Israel in the desert, “turning away from the living God” (see 3:8, 12)? Can they go back and start over? The author’s resounding no has echoed throughout time. He calls it “impossible” (adunatos [TG102, ZG105]; 6:4). Not impossible like a rich man entering the Kingdom of God, of which Jesus once said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God” (Mark 10:27). Not impossible “unless” something happens to make it possible, as is often the case in the Gospel of John (for example, John 3:3, 5; 6:44, 53, 65). This is something impossible for anyone under any circumstances. Just as it is “impossible for God to lie” (6:18) or for “the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (10:4) or “to please God without faith” (11:6), so it is impossible—even for God—to “bring back to repentance” those who “turn away” from him (6:6).

“Turn away” is literally “fall away” (parapesontas [TG3895, ZG4178]; 6:6). To fall away is dreadful, especially since the author describes in most eloquent terms the mountaintop of Christian experience from which someone could fall. In contrast to his pale enumeration of the six rites of passage into the Christian life (6:1-2), he sets forth the glorious features of that life in its fullness. The metaphor of food predominates. Christian believers, including the audience of Hebrews, have “experienced” (lit., “tasted”) the “good things of heaven.” Like guests at a banquet they have become “sharers,” or “partakers,” of the Holy Spirit and have “tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come” (6:4-5). “Taste” does not mean merely to try or sample here any more than in the expression “Jesus tasted death for everyone” (2:9). It means to experience to the full, in this instance, to receive gladly and without reservation the great salvation now given in Jesus Christ (see 2:3). It means enjoying the good things of heaven while living below on earth, having the power of the age to come already in the here and now. So grandiose is the language that readers may wonder for a moment if perhaps the author was mocking them by quoting their own extravagant claims of assured salvation (see 1 Cor 4:8). It is hard to be certain. What is clear in any case is that they are characterized at some length as genuine, thoroughly convinced believers in Christ.

Much of later Christian theology would regard the word “impossible” here as misplaced. To some, what is “impossible” is that anyone enjoying such bountiful fruits of salvation could ever “turn away” or “fall away” under any circumstances. “Eternal security,” or more glibly, “once saved, always saved,” has become a watchword for certain branches of Christianity. Others are quite willing to admit that individuals can and do “fall from grace” but are also convinced that when they do, the door is always open for them to return. Neither side’s optimism finds much support in Hebrews. If someone’s “enlightenment” is “once and for all” (hapax [TG530, ZG562]; 6:4), it is “impossible” to go back and experience it again because that would be like asking Jesus to be crucified again, “nailing [the Son of God] to the cross” a second time and “holding him up to public shame” (6:6). Conversion, like death—Jesus’ death or anyone else’s—is by definition “once” (see 9:27). There is no second chance. It is all the more vital, then, to heed the psalmist’s repeated warning: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled” (see 3:7-8, 15; 4:7).

Some interpreters have tried to mitigate the warning by understanding the phrases “nailing [the Son of God] to the cross” and “holding him up to public shame” conditionally rather than causally. That is, it is “impossible to bring back those who were once enlightened” as long as they keep doing those two things (both are expressed by present participles, implying a continual attitude and action). If and when they stop doing so, they can be brought back. But this view is unlikely, for two reasons. First, it leaves undefined what “nailing [the Son of God] to the cross” and “holding him up to public shame” actually entail. According to the more common causal understanding, their meaning is clear because they describe what it means to “turn away.” Second, even if the view is correct, it still does not solve the problem because it fails to account for the equally grim and serious warnings of 10:26-31 and 12:15-17 (see Koester 2001:315; Attridge 1989:172).

The author concludes the warning by shifting to the time-honored metaphor of a farmer and his crops. John the Baptist had said, “Even now the ax of God’s judgment is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire” (Matt 3:10; cf. Luke 3:9). Jesus added, “So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire” (Matt 7:19), and “Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. . . . Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned” (John 15:5-6). Sometimes the hearer is compared to a tree, sometimes to branches. In Hebrews 6, the center of attention is “the ground” or “a field” (gē [TG1093, ZG1178], “earth”) that soaks up rain and either “bears a good crop” or not. A good crop brings “blessing” to the field (6:7). “Thorns and thistles” signal a curse, for “the farmer will soon condemn that field and burn it” (6:8). Yes, the farmer does start over in a sense, but only in the wake of total destruction of the burned-out field. Similarly the “end” (telos [TG5056, ZG5465]; see note on 6:8) of those, whether in Hebrews or the Gospels, whose conversion “produces no fruit” (in the sense of any permanent change in their lives) is destruction by fire (see 10:27; 12:29).

Much has been written of the uniqueness of this and similar passages in Hebrews (for example, 10:26-31), but there is little here that goes beyond what we find in Matthew, Luke, or John. Conversion or repentance that does not “produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matt 3:8; Luke 3:8, NIV) is not a rebirth but an aborted birth. So the author of Hebrews is unable to say, “Go back and try it over. Maybe you’ll get it right the next time.” There is no next time. The aborted birth, or apostasy, makes any real birth or transformation “impossible.” The question of whether the person in question was ever really “saved” or “converted” is moot, for salvation depends on the “end” (telos [TG5056, ZG5465]), on how it all turns out, not on how it began. Despite its rhetorical intensity, the warning given here merely spells out in more graphic detail the briefer warnings given earlier (2:3; 3:12). As such, it has a positive side, and its positive side bears repeating: “For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ” (3:14).

Salvation in Hebrews is a not a state of being, as in so much of contemporary Christianity, but a one-way journey or pilgrimage, what John Bunyan called a “progress” (see Introduction). There is no stopping or turning back. Yogi Berra’s famous words, “It ain’t over till it’s over,” are appropriate here, and with a dual application: Just as there is salvation in Christ and yet no one who is “saved” can ever claim absolute certainty about the “end” of the whole process, so also there is such a thing as apostasy and yet no one can ever say with certainty in any given case that a particular individual is irretrievably “lost.” Some may “fall away,” and bodies may fall in the desert (3:17), but only the “end” will reveal who does or does not belong to “the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven” (12:23). The author’s words are a warning to everyone, not a yardstick for measuring whatever worst-case scenario may seem to present itself.

Finally, the author follows up on his promise to “move forward to further understanding” (6:3). Having thoroughly frightened his audience with a glimpse of what could happen to them (6:4-8), he abruptly changes his tone: “Dear friends, even though we are talking this way, we really don’t believe it applies to you” (6:9). Why then the grim interruption? If the warning about “falling away” did not apply to his readers, why did he bother? Clearly, it is there for a reason. Four chapters later he will say it again in words even more terrible and threatening (10:26-31). Here he would like to move on, but the cautionary story of Israel in the desert, her hardness of heart, and her failure to enter into God’s rest (3:7–4:11) is still on his mind. The warning and the reassurance strike just the right rhetorical balance. The author says, “We really don’t believe it applies to you,” and between the lines whispers, “Make sure it doesn’t.” Then, “We are confident that you are meant for better things, things that come with salvation” (6:9). Salvation is a given (5:9), yet it must never be ignored or neglected (see 2:3). A note of urgency persists in the expressed desire that they “not become spiritually dull” (6:12; cf. 5:11) and that they follow the example not of those who fell in the desert but of “those who are going to inherit God’s promises.” The author was confident but not complacent; he wanted the same qualities from them.

The grounds for confidence lie in their past. But it is hard to tell whether the author is familiar with their past by personal experience or by hearsay, or whether he is simply using conventional words of commendation. Paul praised the Thessalonians for their “work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess 1:3, NRSV), and the author of Hebrews speaks in much the same way. “God is not unjust,” he reminded them, and “will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers, as you still do” (6:10). He wants this to continue so that “what you hope for will come true” (6:11) and so that they will imitate the “faith and endurance” of those who have gone before (6:12). Paul’s triad of faith, love, and hope is clearly visible. Nothing in the author’s language here requires a close acquaintance with his audience’s history, yet he did know that they had been Christians for quite some time (see 5:12), and in a later setting he will speak more explicitly of persecutions they have faced (see 10:32-34). Probably he is relying on both recollection and reports, just as Paul was in writing to Thessalonica (see 1 Thess 1:7-8).

What is it that they hoped for (6:11) that the author wants to come true? It can only be “God’s promises” (6:12), and of these he will soon speak. He holds before his audience “those who are going to inherit God’s promises,” urging that they “follow the example” of such people. Anyone going through Hebrews for the second time will think of either the heroes and heroines of faith in chapter 11 or of the founders of their own community—“your leaders who taught you the word of God,” of whom the author will say, “follow the example of their faith” (13:7). There is no need to set these alternatives sharply against each other. Probably “all of the above” are in mind. The people of God are even now inheriting the promises (see note on 6:12), yet the accent is on time past, and when we think of beginnings and of the promises, we think of Abraham (see Rom 4:13-25). It is to Abraham, therefore, that the author now turns (6:13-20), and Abraham will lead us straight to Melchizedek, still waiting in the wings (ch 7).