Hebrews 6:1 Commentary and Bible Study

Chapter 6 is a chapter of digression, which picks up an exhortation from chapter 5 about professing believers who are as babes with the word, and have not advanced beyond the first steps of salvation. Among God’s people there are those who are not advancing, or who did advance but they do not advance anymore. A foundation has been laid in the life of everyone who comes to Jesus Christ and maturity is to be constantly sought after. The lesson is that we must advance, but really the chapter as a whole is about the perseverance of the saints.‘Let us go on unto perfection.’ That translates a Greek term which describes a fully grown state, maturity in other words, completeness of doctrine, but not perfection in the literal sense of the term. There are so many things to learn and to grasp. How can we otherwise be effectively sanctified and progressively improve and grow in grace? How can we understand the plans of God and the ultimate purposes of God unless we continue learning? Some people don't continue learning. They stay only with the very first steps. The words ‘let us go on’ could be expressed more strongly. Elsewhere in the New Testament this very terminology is translated in this kind of way: ‘let us press on’ – pressing on toward the mark. There's an urgency and an energy in the original. Not laying again the foundation, which is another way of expressing the ‘principles of the doctrine of Christ’. The first fundamental doctrine that is mentioned here is repentance from dead works. Some people apply this phrase to the Jewish people alone, and reduce the meaning to repentance from ceremonies, from the types and the shadows of the Old Testament in the rich ceremonial worship. ‘You thought you were gaining the favour of God, when they were only pointers to the work of Christ, and how he would secure your salvation, bear the punishment of your sin, and provide a perfect righteousness that could be imputed to you. Repent of that wrong view.’ Now, it is true that the Jews included in their repentance, a repenting for any thought they ever had that their worship saved them, that their compliance with the requirements of the ceremonial law was actually to their credit; they had to repent of that self-righteousness. So yes, Jews had to include repentance from the dead works of the Jewish ceremonies. (They are called dead, not in that they were useless – they spoke about salvation and about Christ – but dead in the sense that they could not themselves secure salvation. As soon as a Jewish person failed to see them as illustrations and trusted in them as meritorious, they became dead works.) But that is not the sole meaning of the phrase. Forget the Jewish ceremonies; Jews and Gentiles alike, all our works, everything we do is dead, unless we have Christ. Even the good things we do are dead without Christ, dead in the sense that they do not secure for us communion with God and eternal life. And then there are the things that are doubly dead, because they are sinful and offensive to God all our sin. So repentance from dead works, not surprisingly, is the first feature of salvation to be mentioned here. The Scripture is of central importance; it’s our foundation. ‘Faith towards God’. It is expressed in shorthand, but more particularly it is of course faith in Christ, faith in his atoning death for sinners, sincere belief that only what he has done can secure forgiveness for us.