And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
Tasted the good word of God - distinct from "tasted OF (genitive) the heavenly gift." We do not yet enjoy all the fullness of Christ, but only a taste OF "the heavenly gift;" but believers may taste the whole of God's "good word" (accusative) of promise already. The promise of Canaan to Israel typified "the good word" of God's promise of the heavenly rest, (Hebrews 4:1-16.) Therefore immediately follows "the powers of the world to come." As 'enlightening' and 'tasting of the heavenly gift,' Christ, the Bread of Life, answers to FAITH, so "made partakers of the Holy Spirit," to CHARITY, the first fruit of the Spirit; and "tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come," to HOPE. Thus the triad of privileges answers to the Trinity-Father, Son, and Spirit-in their respective works toward us. "The world to come" is the Christian dispensation, viewed in its future glories, though already begun in grace. It stands in contrast to the course of this world (Ephesians 2:2), which is disorganized, because God is not its spring of action and end. By faith Christians make the world to come a present reality. "The powers" of this new spiritual world, exhibited in outward miracles partly, and then, as now, especially consisting in the Spirit's inward influences, are the foretaste of the coming inheritance, and lead the believer to seek to live as the angels, to 'sit with Christ in heavenly places,' to set the affection on things above, and not on things on earth, and to look for Christ's coming. This "world to come" thus corresponds to "resurrection of the dead and ... eternal judgment" (Hebrews 6:2), the first Christian principles which the Hebrew believers had been taught by the Christian light thrown back on their Old Testament (note, Hebrews 6:1-2). "The world to come," which, as to its "powers," exists already in the redeemed, will pass into a fully realized, manifested fact at Christ's coming (Colossians 3:4).