Just a few decades after Jesus left his disciples to carry on the work of their apostleship, many problems arose. One of those problems is that Christians who had a Jewish background did not grow as zealous as Christians who had a pagan background. Jewish Christians became sluggish and were in danger of losing their faith in Christ because persecution was fast approaching. Hebrews 6:1-8 is a warning. The author is trying to show them that although they are grieving the Holy Spirit of Christ, it is in His nature to patiently encourage them, so that they do not continue to be sluggish and lose their faith completely, Hebrew 6:10-12.
Grieving the Holy Spirit of Christ is very dangerous, Ephesians 4:30. A lifestyle of apathetic self-satisfaction can breed hate, when persecution arises. Blaspheming the Holy Spirit can get you condemned, Mark 3:28-20 & James 2:7. The Jewish Christians were not interested in being mature, they were satisfied with what they knew about Jesus and were bored with the doctrine of Christ, Hebrews 4:11-12. This attitude is an ongoing lifestyle, and if we continue living it, it is impossible to turn around from it while feeding spiritual laziness, Heb. 6:4. The term “crucifying once again” is present tense. If we stop that lifestyle, then we are no longer blaspheming His Spirit, and THEN we can turn around. Christ’s Spirit takes on this abuse and still pleads for us to STOP, even while we are refusing to grow. Faithful Christians should pray for sluggish Christians losing interest in Christ, so that God may give them an opportunity to repent, see 2nd Timothy 2:25. What can motivate them to stop being lazy?
Perhaps we need to remember the picture of burning crop fields? If you water a seeded field, but actually end up producing more thorns & weeds than actual harvest of the crop you wanted, what happens? You burn it, and start again. Hebrew 6:7-8. If these Christians won’t grow, then God will find Christians that WILL GROW the fruit of His Spirit. Meanwhile, this chapter is a reminder that Christ is patient and does not want to break a bruised reed, or extinguish smoking flax, Matthew 12:20.
The basics of our faith refresh us and are good, but we can not live exclusively on just the basics. The subjects of repentance, faith, baptism, laying on of hands, the resurrection and the judgment, are all fundamentals of the faith. For some of us, they are complicated subjects but to Jewish Christians they were basic and simple. This teaches us to be understanding of a person’s religious background, what is simple to one person, may be very complicated to another person. So no matter where we are in our spiritual growth, we should always be willing to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ, 2nd Peter 3:18.
God made a promise to Abraham and He kept it, even though Abraham was a sinner. What was that promise? That he would bless his descendant and multiply him innumerably, Gen.15:3-7. This came true in Jesus, and these Jewish Christians were proof. The “two immutable things” are firstly His promise made to Abraham, in which He did not lie, and also secondly the fulfillment of His promise being His Word in Jesus proving a multiplicity of growth in them and the Gentiles, in this God could not lie. Jesus does not change, or grow fickle like them, He motivates, Hebrews 13:8,
2nd Corinthians 1:20 & Jude 1:25. He is our hope 1st Timothy 1:1, and allows us to enter into the place behind the curtain, Colossians 1:27, the Holy of Holies in the new Jerusalem. We have every spiritual blessing in Christ, seated with him in the heavenly places, Ephesians 1:1-6. What a wonderful place to be as a Christian! Don’t drift away, Galatians 5:4-5.
Epaggelia 