VI.
(1) Therefore. — Since “for the time ye ought to be teachers,” but have so perilously sunk down into the lower state of Christian knowledge and experience.
The principles of the doctrine. — Rather, the doctrine of the first principles. The margin gives the literal meaning of the Greek, the word of the beginning. Comp. Hebrews 5:12, “the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God.”
Let us go on. — Better, let us press onwards unto perfection. There is an urgency in the words which is missed by the ordinary rendering. The word “perfection” (teleiotes) answers to that rendered “full grown” (teleios) in the preceding verse, and expresses maturity, fulness of growth. There the contrast is with “babes,” and the whole context relates to Christian instruction — the elementary and the complete. The closeness of the connection would seem to show that the same meaning must be intended here also: “Let us — I, as your teacher, leading you on with me — press on to maturity of Christian knowledge.” But if what precedes makes this reference clear, the following verses show not less clearly that teaching and learning are not alone in the writer’s thoughts. The relation between Hebrews 6:3-4 proves that, as is natural, he assumes a necessary union between learning and practice: indeed, the connection between immaturity of apprehension of Christian truth and the danger of apostasy is a thought present throughout the Epistle. Hence, though the direct meaning of “leaving the doctrine of the beginning” is ceasing to speak of elementary truths, there is included the further thought of passing away from that region of spiritual life to which those must belong who choose the “milk” of the Christian word as their sole sustenance.
Not laying again the foundation. — Better, a foundation. There can be no doubt that the particulars which follow are intended to illustrate the nature of the elementary teaching which will not be taken up in this Epistle. It will be observed (1) that there is no disparagement of these subjects of teaching. They belong to the foundation; but neither teachers nor learners must occupy themselves with laying a foundation again and again. (2) That the subjects here specified are not in themselves distinctively Christian. One and all they belonged to the ancient faith, though each one became more or less completely transformed when Jesus was received as the Messiah. Hence these were literally first principles to the Hebrew Christian, — amongst the truths first taught and most readily received. We have many indications, both within and without the pages of the New Testament, that the tendency of Jewish converts was to rest satisfied with this class of truths.
Repentance from dead works. — Of “dead works” we read again in Hebrews 9:14, “shall purge our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (see Note). The meaning cannot be “works that bring death,” as some have supposed; rather, works in which there is no principle of life, wrought by those who are “alienated from the life of God” (Ephesians 4:18), in whom there is not the spirit of “life in Christ Jesus.” The law, indeed, promised that the man who should do “its statutes and judgments” should find life in them (Leviticus 18:5, quoted in Galatians 3:12); but even these works are “dead,” for no man can show more than partial obedience, and the law exacts the whole. The first step toward Christianity involved the acknowledgment of this truth, and the separation by repentance from all “dead works.” On the importance assigned to repentance in the Jewish creed little need be said. The teaching of the prophets (Ezekiel 18, et al.) is faithfully reflected in the sayings preserved in the Talmud: “The perfection of wisdom is repentance;” “Repentance obtains a respite until the Day of Atonement completes the atonement;” “Without repentance the world could not stand.”
Faith toward God. — Rather, faith upon God. (Comp. Acts 16:31; Romans 4:5.) The Hebrew doctrine of faith connected itself closely with a cardinal passage of prophecy (Habakkuk 2:4), “the just shall live by his faith; and there is a Jewish saying that on this one precept rest “all the six hundred and thirteen commandments of the Law.” (See the Note on Hebrews 10:38, and the Excursus on Romans 1:17, Vol. II., p. 274.) This faith became new and living when the Jew believed in God through Jesus the Christ (John 14:1; 1 Peter 1:21). It is hardly necessary to say that it is of repentance and faith as a foundation, not as belonging to later Christian experience, that the writer speaks.