INTRODUCTION
WHEN WAS THIS EPISTLE WRITTEN?
This Epistle was evidently written as the ancient Hebrew economy was passing away in the growing glory of the Christian Church. Perhaps Jerusalem had already fallen under the arms of Titus.
TO WHOM WAS IT ADDRESSED?
It was addressed to Hebrew Christians, who were settled in a definite locality. See Heb_13:23. The writer is not certainly known. Luther thought that it was written by Apollos, and this view has had several learned advocates. But many ascribe it to the Apostle Paul, which was the opinion of the early Fathers.
WHAT WAS THE WRITER’S PURPOSE?
The object of this noble treatise is to counsel those to whom it was addressed to bear their persecutions with equanimity, and to forego, with contentment, the external attractions of the Temple service, because of the transcendent glories of Christianity surpassing those of the Mosaic ritual. The penalties of apostasy would therefore be the more terrible as the claims of Christianity were the more compelling.
OUTLINE OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
THE NEW AND BETTER COVENANT
CHRIST THE SURETY OF THE NEW COVENANT
He Is Greater than Moses
He Is a Great High Priest
9. What are the stages of growth in Christian discipleship? What is the penalty of falling away?
Hebrews 5:11-14 and Hebrews 6:1-8
WARNING AGAINST APOSTASY
Concerning this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull and sluggish in [your spiritual] hearing and disinclined to listen.
For though by this time you ought to be teachers [because of the time you have had to learn these truths], you actually need someone to teach you again the elementary principles of God’s word [from the beginning], and you have come to be continually in need of milk, not solid food.
For everyone who lives on milk is [doctrinally inexperienced and] unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a spiritual infant.
But solid food is for the [spiritually] mature, whose senses are trained by practice to distinguish between what is morally good and what is evil.
Therefore let us get past the elementary stage in the teachings about the Christ, advancing on to maturity and perfection and spiritual completeness, [doing this] without laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,
of teaching about washings (ritual purifications), the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. [These are all important matters in which you should have been proficient long ago.]
And we will do this [that is, proceed to maturity], if God permits.
For [it is impossible to restore to repentance] those who have once been enlightened [spiritually] and who have tasted and consciously experienced the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit,
and have tasted and consciously experienced the good word of God and the powers of the age (world) to come,
and then have fallen away–it is impossible to bring them back again to repentance, since they again nail the Son of God on the cross [for as far as they are concerned, they are treating the death of Christ as if they were not saved by it], and are holding Him up again to public disgrace.
For soil that drinks the rain which often falls on it and produces crops useful to those for whose benefit it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God;
but if it persistently produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned. [Gen_3:17-18]
Comments by
F.B.Meyer
on
Hebrews 5:11-14 and Hebrews 6:1-8
“PRESS ON UNTO FULL GROWTH”
The teacher has to suit his pace to his scholars. How much we miss because we are such inapt pupils! Milk is food which has passed through another’s digestion. Many cannot get their spiritual nutrition direct from God’s Word, but have to live on what others have obtained and have passed on in speech or book. Seek a first-hand acquaintance with the things of God. We grow by feeding and exercise.
We must leave the first principles, as a builder leaves the foundation; he is never so much on it as when farthest above it. The third and fourth principles, Heb_5:2, are the Jewish equivalents of the first and second, Heb_5:1. Notice the R.V. marginal reading for seeing in Heb_5:6 -“the while.” So long as men continue to tread the love of God under foot, they cannot repent and be restored. The failure, as with unproductive soil, is not on account of a failure of heaven, but because the soil is hard and obdurate. If we are unproductive, it is due to our own hard-heartedness.
Choose a Sermon on
Hebrews
by
Pastor Jeff Arthur.
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