Hebrews

Moving Toward Maturity

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels, and Sermons

Lesson: 11-33

Genre: Lecture

Track: 11

Dictation Name: RR198F11

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. Our Help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good, blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father, we come again into Thy presence, mindful of the greatness of our need, the greatness of Thy gifts unto us. And of the certainty of Thy Government. Give us grace therefore day by day, to praise and thank Thee as we ought. Give us faith to cast all our burdens upon Thee, to rejoice that it is Thy shoulders and not ours that bear the burden of this world. Make us faithful in Thy service and in Thy praise. In Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture is Hebrews 6:1-6, our subject, Moving Towards Maturity. Moving Towards Maturity, Hebrews 6:1-8.

“1Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,

 2Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.

 3And this will we do, if God permit.

 4For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,

 5And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,

 6If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

 7For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God:

 8But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.”

The understanding of these verses depends in part on Matthew 13:1-9, where our Lord speaks of the word as seed cast upon the ground. Seed sown upon the wayside is quickly eaten by birds. Seed cast upon stony ground without much earth springs up while the ground is wet, and then is killed when sunshine and hot weather arrive. The seed sown among thorns is soon choked out. Only seed thrown upon good ground bears fruit. And Hebrews 6:7-8 the reference to our Lords parable is very clear, and in verses 1-6 it is plainly in the background. That is why anyone who does not first of all consider what is taught us in Matthew 13:1-9 will miss the point of this passage.

The citation of our Lords parable is very important. For those Hebrews in the church who were thinking of a return to the synagogue, their decision was to be they felt an intellectual and religious evaluation of the issues. But the apostolic fellowship here makes very clear that their thinking may be evidence of moral failure in the making. They are not the judges, God is, and they are very close to a severe judgement.

Weskit, titled these 8 verses in his commentary and I quote: “The duty of Christian progress, the perils of relapse.” And that is exactly so. Hebrews warns the church against seeing salvation as a stagnant fact. It is not a deposit we receive which is then our permanent possession, inalienable and inseparable from us. There is a semblance of truth to such a view. But it is a distortion and a lie. Salvation is rather victory over sin and death, a new life, a life to be lived in and for Christ.

Life means growth, not stagnation.

As a result in verses 1 and 2 we are urged to move ahead to perfection, or more literally, maturity. In the last two centuries as I pointed out in other contexts, the word perfection has changed its meaning. It once meant maturity, and that was its use in the preamble to the Constitution: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union.” Well, in our sense of that word, nothing can be more perfect than perfect, but if it means as it then meant and does in the Bible, ‘More Mature’, then it becomes understandable.

Now, just as a blind man is worthless as a soldier, so too are church peoples who need to be taught endlessly the doctrine of Christ, of repentance from dead works, and a faith toward God, of Baptisms, about the laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgement.

Hebrews tells us, there are things you need to know and understand very early, and then go on to more mature understandings of the whole word of God. But all of this describes much of the thinking and preaching of many churches.

And many more go no further than John 3:16. They thereby turn great matters into baby food. The requirement of seeking first Gods kingdom and His righteousness or justice is bypassed. The gospel is reduced to man’s salvation rather than Gods kingdom, and the church is turned into a, well, a baby day care center. But the apostolic fellowship insists in verse 1,”Let us go on unto perfection, maturity.” Or as Vincent gave it: Let us be born onto completeness.”

Where most are concerned, if they are not adults, if they are not mature, it is willful and evil on their part. All they want from the church is a ticket to heaven. “Don’t make me learn anything more. Don’t insist on growth. I want to stay a babe in Christ, a happy idiot.” It is sad and sickening that many churchmen, who are apart outstanding men in their vocations, whether they be business men or teachers, or whatever. Delight in being childish in their faith.

The foundational aspect of Christianity which is cited in verse 1 and 2, these aspects do not exhaust what must be known. The stress is here that much, much more is required of us. There is no virtue in remaining a babe in Christ, only a sad idiocy. I know over the years how often it has been that I have been told by someone when I have spoken somewhere, that, well, they have been unhappy about what they preached and said that I should preach to “Babes in Christ like themselves.” In other words, keep it baby simple.

In verses 4-6 the people are warned that there is no second chance for them if they reject this very real Jesus. High Priest, Messiah, King and Prophet. It is not for them to judge Him, for He shall judge and is judging them. They may see themselves as believers in Jesus, but they become part of the crucifying mob if they will not have him on His terms.

In the apostolic constitutions, a document of the early church, such people are called heretics, and are denounced because they are falsifying the word of God. They who are in the church have been first enlightened. They are ones to whom the truth was proclaimed. Second, they also have tasted of the heavenly gift’ the gift of new life in Christ who came from heaven. Third they have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost, because they have been in the church where the Spirit works. Fourth, they have tasted the good word of God, so that the truth has been made known unto them, and fifth they have tasted the powers of the world to come, that is the world of men under new orders, which is to enter with the fullness of Christ’s work.

For men to depart from Christ after all this is to manifest their reprobate character. They have put Christ to open shame, in effect they have re-crucified him, and they are too hardened even to be renewed by repentance. Now at this point, many people raise the question, doesn’t this verse, verse 6, negate the doctrine of eternal security? Well, eternal security is not even in mind here. And if they began with Matthew 13:1-9, they would see that. The purpose of the text is to tell readers and hearers how to identify the reprobate. Are they themselves reprobate? We are to question ourselves if we are straying, not the text.

It is ironic that ever since the 16th century, at least to my knowledge, the meaning of this verse has been known. And yet, you have Armenian preachers talking about it as though it somehow disproves eternal security. That’s an impossible interpretation.

Verses 7 and 8 echo the parable of the sower and the seed also. In fact, these verses go further. What they imply is that they may not be good seed in bad ground, but the thorns and briars which are wrongly in the sowers field. That’s quite an implication. What Hebrews is telling the believers so-called who read this: “Are you good seed, or are you rather thorns or briars? You are not even the reprobate in whom, because it is stony ground, the seed at least falls. Is heard, though it takes no root. You are thorns and briars.” That’s a hard judgement.

And the apostolic company says; “Therein is to be burned.” Those who sit in judgement over Jesus shall be judged.

Yet sadly these verses were much later used by Tertullian and others to deny reentrance into the church to Christians who in fear turned from the faith and a sentence of death during the Roman persecutions, and later repented. This was not valid an interpretation of course. Fear was responsible for such apostasies.

Hebrews speaks rather of a self conscious and unforced decision to depart from Christ. With such the governing factor is not weakness, but a deliberate rejection of Christ’s total claim on all their being. The apostolic company headed by Paul did not try to coach anyone back into the church, but to warn one and all of their danger.

The word baptisms is in the plural in verse 2. It refers not only to what we call baptism, but all forms of ritual purification. Holiness before God requires as a routine matter, our physical and spiritual purity. Moving towards maturity, growing up, is a religious necessity. And what Hebrews is saying to the Hebrew believers is: “Grow up. You feel you are way ahead of the Gentile believers, and in some sense you are. But in an understanding of Christ and the meaning of His priesthood, you are way behind the Gentiles. Grow up.”

In the 20th century we see a general satisfaction with the most childish kind of Christian commitment. As a result we have seen the faith recede and its power diminish, an array of blind men will most easily damage itself. And we are turning the church nowadays into an army of blind men.

This is why, where the fullness of the faith is not taught, so many people become easily basket cases. Given the fact that man is full of troubles; “Man is born into trouble as the sparks fly upward.” Scripture tells us. How terrible it is, that people can go to church and get sweet nothings, and fail to be prepared thereby for the continual problems and tribulations of every day life. Let us pray.

Our Father, we give thanks unto Thee for this Thy word. We thank Thee that Thou hast summoned us to grow up, to be mature men and women in Christ. To know that, we do have a High Priest who is ever ready to help us. Teach us to pray. Teach us to rely upon Thy word, so that by Thy spirit we may be strengthened for all the evil times that are so prevalent in this our world. In Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions about our lesson?

As I think you are beginning to see, the epistle to the Hebrews is one long summons to grow up. To recognize that this world is not a picket round it’s a battle field. It’s a battlefield because sin and death are at work in the world, destroying everything they can. Yes?

[Audience Member] Umm, I’m equating sanctification with growing up, and you are saying that the believer can slow down the process, of sanctification and growing up. Now just how much control does the individual have, if God determines that you are going to grow up, and be a mature Christian?

[Rushdoony] Yes, it is a mystery. God both absolutely determines, and yet we are a secondary cause. We will never understand that mystery this side of heaven, if we understand it there. But, the reality is that we are responsible while God determines everything. We have to accept that. Sanctification is growth. But as we saw last week there are many churches that have made no growth a premise of the Christian life. Explicitly in some cases, implicitly in others. They thereby make their people hothouse plants, unable to take the heat of the world, unable to take the troubles that come. And this is a very, very tragic fact.

Moreover we are an unusual generation, not only because it is humanistic, we’ve had equally humanistic era’s in the past. The enlightenment era for example, and the romantic movement and its era. However, in those era’s men were still ready to admit there was a lot of evil in the world, and life was full of problems. Now, that is an unacceptable opinion. There are no problems that can’t be solved if you go to a psychotherapist or if you take some kind of tranquilizer. That’s the attitude today.

Well what happens when in the church an effort is made to have people grow up? To recognize that the Christian life is not settled on the day of saying yes to Jesus, and you simply mark time, waiting for heaven, that there is a lot of growing, and working and fighting to do.

Well, that has created altogether the wrong mentality, and it’s a very popular mentality, all you have to do is to turn on religious radio and television, and in most instances that is what you get. So you can see why the church is losing its ability to fight, and why for example militant hymns like Onward Christian Soldiers, once one of the most popular, are now not very popular. You want to have the happy, happy thing, or choruses that tell you how much God has done for you, not what you are to do for the Lord now. So, we have a church that really would be better off dead, it would do less damage if it were dead in many instances.

People are unwilling to grow up, and it’s very sad and distressing when I very often get phone calls from all over the country, people who ask a very simple question that anyone with a very elementary knowledge of well, let’s say the 10 commandments, could answer, but which too many churches have no leadership to answer those questions.

I was told years ago, and it was published at the time, of a very popular evangelist who is still known, who had a magazine writer sit beside him on a flight, and the magazine writer had a problem, and insisted on asking the man. He said: “I am not a Christian, but could you answer my problem, I haven’t been able to get any help on it.” And this evangelist said: “If you come to my next revival service and come forward, then the Spirit will give you the answer.” He couldn’t answer it! But somehow there was to be a mystical answer.

Well, are there any other questions? If not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, Thy word is truth, and Thy word tells us that we need to grow and to keep on growing. Give us grace to grow, and to keep on growing, that we may serve and praise Thee, and be victors in our battles. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.