Clough Hebrews Lesson 32
Tasted the Heavenly Gift – 6:4
Tonight we continue our study of Hebrews 6:4; we’re in the middle of the warning passage and it is the passage which we analyzed last week and showed you the four views that have been put forth for Hebrews 6. One is the Arminian view; the other is the classical Calvinist view; another one is the hypothetical view and a fourth one is discipline upon believers. We eliminated the fourth view because all the other warning passages in this book have to do with salvation, not discipline, and when discipline is involved in this book it’s never the kind mentioned here, never the kind that a believer gets to a point where he can never recover because Hebrews 12 says explicitly that he can recover. Then we eliminated the hypothetical view because it takes the participle as a conditional participle and one participle in a list such as this one cannot be conditional and the others be non-conditional. So that left us with the Arminian view and the Calvinist view of this portion of Scripture. Then we had to come to a conclusion as to what to look for when we dealt with this passage of Scripture, as to how could we decide between the Arminian and the Calvinist position. And we said the way you decide the critical factor in the case is whether or not the descriptions of verses 4, 5 and 6 apply to only believers.
The key is this: Hebrews 6:4-6, do they or do they not apply to only believers…only believers. Now in order to vindicate the Arminian position each term in the list has to apply to a believer and only to a believer. The Arminian must show this if he is to sustain his interpretation. Last week we dealt with the first part of verse 4, “For it is impossible for those who were once and for all enlightened,” and then we skipped down to the main verb in verse 6, “to renew them again unto repentance” and we showed that this passage is teaching once whatever it is is lost it is always lost. And few Arminians, that I have met, have been willing to carry this passage through all the way to its logical conclusion. If it’s salvation that’s being lost here, then it’s salvation that is permanently lost and never to be recovered. And as I say, very few Arminians, that is people who believe you can lose your salvation, are willing to go quite that far.
So we have then several situations in Scripture where there is a once and for all departure. And I’m going to show this in two situations by way of review. We will see those cases that have to do with unbelievers and those cases which have to do with believers who are in trouble and you will see that when unbelievers are involved there is a crossover point which once crossed is irreversible. With believers that is not so.
Now let’s look at some passages; turn to 2 Chronicles
36:14, this is the passage that speaks of the nation
Matthew
What is the sin? The sin is described in the context and in
the context Jesus Christ has presented Himself.
Example: verse 41, “The men of
Now another passage, 2 Peter 2, same concept and the same theme. Learn to master the great themes of Scripture, it will help you in your difficult passages. When we have the entire framework series written it will be possible for you in a five year cycle to go through every book of Scripture with your family and every major doctrine with your family and every major apologetic area of controversy with your family in the period of five years; it’ll be on a five year cycle. And going through that five year cycle, when you finish you’ll have every basic doctrine, every book of Scripture read at least once and you’ll have all the basic apologetics that anyone will come up to you with.
[someone says something] In the context just before that verse the Pharisees have come to the point of attributing the miraculous vindicating signs of the Holy Spirit to Satan, and that’s the context. It’s all in context, Matthew 12 has to be read in the whole argument of Matthew. You know in an epistle when you study a verse we’re so conscious to put it back into the argument of the epistle. Don’t forget the Gospels are not history books, don’t read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as though you’re reading a history book. Those are also arguments: Matthew’s argument, Mark’s argument, Luke’s argument and John’s argument and they’re arguing a certain way. So when you hit a passage you’ve got to put it back inside the flow of, in this case, Matthew’s argument.
2 Peter 2:1, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you,” and the false prophets Peter is going to describe and the way he uses one of them, Baalim in verse 15, and these are unbelievers, who are under false prophets. “There were false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you who privately” and this is the way false prophets always work, they always are sneaky, they’re always calling somebody on the phone or getting them over to some little hand-holding meeting or something; they’ll never have the guts to come out and make a public declaration where somebody with some intelligence can challenge them to a public confrontation. Basically heretics are cowards. They’re afraid of a fight and so you will find them sneaking around. They are never people… heretics are never people who come out in the open, they’re always basically yellow-bellied people who can’t stand a confrontation. So you watch that, that is always a characteristic and you know why that’s a characteristic. That’s not just a side piece of observation, that’s a theological point because people whose consciences are violated very rarely have courage. See, because they’re afraid, deep in their souls they’re afraid of the judgment of God and so a person who’s constantly living against what his conscience tells him to be right, is in the depths of his soul a very scared individual. Now he may put on a pseudo image of courage but basically they’re not courageous people. And so this is why they skip around in their little private sessions.
“…who privately shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” Notice, by the way, unlimited atonement taught in verse 1, Jesus Christ has died even for those who reject Him. It goes on to describe these and as I said in verse 15 Baalim is pictured. That is the classic reference of a false teacher who is an unbeliever, through whom God can speak an inerrant Word. We’re going to come up on that in the morning series, it’s a very important point in the Old Testament. People today deny, they believe in inspiration but they deny inerrant inspiration. A man by the name of Dewey Beegle, a Southern Baptist, wrote a book several years back called The Inspiration of Scripture in which He said the Bible can be inspired and have historical errors in it. And so we used to have a slogan around seminary, Beegle believes in an inspired Bible, errors and all. But Beegle is the kind of individual who basically has a philosophical presupposition against God inerrantly speaking through man.
You’ve heard the line, it goes like this: the Bible is written by men, men are fallible, therefore the Bible is fallible. The challenge is the second line in that syllogism is wrong; men are not always fallible, I can name one at least. So the presupposition of that whole argument is that all men at all times must be fallible. Well, we just don’t share the second line of the syllogism so we can’t buy the conclusion. The Bible is written by men, yes, but all men are not fallible all the time. In face, Baalim is a beautiful example because he’s a false teacher and at one time he was infallible because he infallibly spoke the Word of God. In fact, his ass spoke the Word of God, so if you can have some dumb ass, and that’s the animal, speaking an inerrant Word of God then with all due apologies to Dewey Beegle, we can have an inerrant inspiration.
Now in 2 Peter 2:20 he describes the unbelieving asses, “If, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world,” now look how far…this is what’s shocking to us in the Wednesday night series, is how far it is possible to have genuine change in the life and not be regenerated. Now you just look at this verse, “If, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, through the” epignosis, or “the knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.” Now right there it surely looks like believers he’s talking, epignosis, full knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, yet immediately following he gives you two verses to show these are not believers. [21] For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. [22] But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb,” now remember who’s “them” in the context? “Them” are the false teachers of verse 1, and then the proverb in verse 22, “The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the pig that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”
And the point of both of those proverbs is that the dog has not changed its nature and pig has not changed its. There has been a superficial outward change but inwardly they are not. Did you ever see a dog lap up its own vomit, vomit out on the rug and then come along and eat it again. Well, that’s the picture of the ass who denies the Word of God. He hears the Word, he hears the fact that Christianity has a morality to it, and he likes certain things about the Bible and so he’s attracted to Christians. And he steals from the Christian system that which he likes. But finally he can’t live in line with that which he likes so like the dog licks up its vomit he goes back and screws around with his mess. So there you have the unbelievers, a dog is a picture of the Gentiles, so is the pig. They are both symbolic animals of unbelievers.
So all three of these passages, in Matthew, in Peter and in Chronicles you have this once for all, people have a chance, they have a chance, they have a chance, they have a chance and then finally God cuts it off. Now in all three of these cases are not involved, unbelievers are.
Now, let’s look at another set of passages, we’ll just go to the one we’ve gone over many times, 1 Corinthians 5:1 just so you see the difference in attitude. Here we have a definite believer, somebody who is genuinely justified, genuinely regenerated and look at the difference. “It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you,” etc. etc. etc. But then Paul in dealing with this gross immorality, verse 5 delivers him over to Satan but it isn’t the same kind of thing as happened in those three verses I showed you, those three passages because if it were he would have said something in verse 5 like this: deliver such an one unto Satan for the loss of his salvation. It doesn’t talk about loss of salvation, it doesn’t say that he’s never going to come back again, “To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved [in the day of the Lord Jesus].” Now don’t you see the difference. In one you have that’s all, but with the believers they go through the furnace of affliction, yes, but always to return. There’s not an abandoning of those who are genuinely regenerate.
With that in mind let’s come back to where we were in Hebrews 6:4. We said there were five aorist participles here; we dealt with one last time, “once and for all enlightened.” Not once enlightened but “once and for all enlightened,” and again you recall the issue. The issue is, can this verb, which is photizo in the Greek, can that verb never be used for an unbeliever? Or, conversely, is every occurrence of photizo in the New Testament referring to believers only. If we could find one case where photizo is not used of believers, where it, in fact, is used of unbelievers, then we have prevented the Arminian from drawing his conclusion. To draw his conclusion the Arminian has to show every one of these terms can only refer to believers. And we found passages like John 1, Jesus Christ had photizo-ed all men that cometh into the world, so therefore there’s at least one verse where photizo is not used of believers; therefore the Arminian conclusion is illegitimate.
Now we come to the second participle and we’ll finish these two participles in verse 4 tonight and we’ll follow the same procedure. Again, what is the issue? We are trying to see whether or not these participles can only refer to believers. Said another way, we are looking for passages where these words, with no strain, are used of unbelievers for if they are, then unbelievers can obviously be intended in this passage of Scripture.
The next phrase, they “have tasted of the heavenly gift,” and then the third one, they have “become partakers of the Holy Spirit.” Now these are the clauses that people say surely can only refer to believers. What is our basic tool of research when you find a situation like this? Concordance, that’s your basic reference tool; every Christian home ought to have a good concordance. Remember when you buy a concordance buy it to fit your text; if you hold the RSV in your hand and buy a Strong concordance for the King James version, it won’t work. You’ve got to buy a concordance to fit whatever version of the Bible you’re using. If you can’t find a concordance for that you’d better get another version of the Bible around to do with the concordance, but Strong’s or Young’s would be two good tools to have, either one.
We’re looking at “they have tasted,” first, let’s see what we can do with that verb, “they have tasted,” geuomai, it is middle voice and it is an aorist participle, “they have tasted.” Those of you with a Greek text will notice how the first two participles, remember now we’ve got two, we’ve got one, photizo and now we’ve got geuomai, how are these two participles, these are the roots for the participles, how are they connected. Is it by a kai? What’s the connective here? te, the first one is kai, this is the common connective used in most Greek sentences. But te tends to be used when you want to link two members very closely together in a list. So you’ll have this kind of a structure, you’ll have something here, a te, something else, and then a kai, and then a kai, and these two things then are united closer than the things that are united with a kai. Now that doesn’t always hold but generally speaking it’s a pretty helpful rule. So when you see this te, that’s going to clue you on how to interpret this next section. However we conclude we have got to somehow make it parallel to the photizo passage, that is, they were once and for all enlightened, and we said all that means is the same way we mean illuminated. They’ve learned parts of the Word of God.
By the way, what parts of the Word have they been taught, these people who have been illuminated and understand to be the truth. In the immediate context it tells you six doctrines; Hebrews 6:1-2, that’s what they were illuminated to. It was possible for these people once for all illuminated to those six things, what are those six things? In verse 1, repentance and faith, that refers to the means of transition from the old age, remember repentance from dead works, we defined what that was, this is the transition, the act of the transition, and then in verse 2 the doctrine of baptisms and laying on of hands were ceremonies and the doctrine of those ceremonies was the typology of those ceremonies so that second two dealt with Old Testament typology. Then the last two, resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment, this has to do with the finality of the Messiah, Jesus; He is making His final claim, there is no further court of appeal, so therefore there’s nothing that separates you from eternity now that you’ve been exposed to the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ. Once you have been exposed to Christ it changes your status spiritually so that one who has heard the gospel, one who has turned away is condemned because he has heard and has understood the issue and rejected it. So exposure to Jesus Christ leaves you without any court of appeal. So those are the six basic areas, three pairs of truths. That formed the content of the illumination that were once and for all illuminated.
Now since the verb photizo or illuminate is connected by the Greek te, to the next verb, which is “taste,” if we are correct in our interpretation it is going to have to be, whatever the tasting is, it is going to have to be parallel to the illuminating thing. Now let’s look at the verb to taste. By the way, the full expression, “taste the gift,” literally it says “taste of the gift of the heavenlies,” you’ll notice the article repeated, genitive, taste of it, “taste of the gift, that is of the heavenly gift.” That expression is what we call a hapax legomenon. Hapax is just once for all; legomenon, something said. It is something said only once. In the corpus, then, of our literature, here’s our problem in interpreting. We’ve come across a phrase that occurs only once. Now if a phrase in the corpus of literature occurs only once why is that bad news if you’re trying to interpret it. Can someone explain why a hapax legomenon is the hardest thing to work with when you’re interpreting a passage of Scripture. Why is that? It only occurs once in all your data. [someone answers] All right, you can’t go to other contexts to infer the meaning of the expression. Therefore, how do you suppose you solve it? Anyone guess? You come to a hapax legomenon, or hapax it’s called for short, you come to a hapax in the text, you can’t go any place else because it doesn’t occur any place else so what do you have to do now? What do we do? [someone answers] can’t, hapax means it’s not used anywhere else, can’t go to non-Biblical material because it doesn’t occur there either. [someone else] All right, you’ve got to go to the only thing you’ve got, the source of it and start taking it apart.
Now I warn you about this because we are on less sure ground when we’re working with a hapax. From this point forward we are working with deductions based on lexicography and our conclusions, unless they plug in and can be theologically checked by other means are going to b of less certainty than before. Why is it important for you to know, even though you don’t know how to solve the problem, why is it important for you to know that this expression is a hapax. What practical benefit? [someone answers] Exactly, when an Arminian comes up to you and says see, “taste of the heavenly gift” why that’s got to be a believer, he is on just as uncertain ground as you are because it’s a hapax, he can’t prove that; he can just say to him it looks that way. But when we’re working with a hapax, the next thing back, we lose our chief tool. Our chief tool is context, other usages.
So we’ve lost that, we’ve lost our number one tool so we have to down to second grade materials, first grade being the high grade and then we have to go to the next lowest grade of data or tools to work with the problem. So now we’re going to have to take it apart; we’re going to have to take it apart three ways. We’re going to study the verb “taste,” we’re going to study how the word “gift” is used and we’re going to study how the word “heavenly” is used when it’s coupled with gift. So we’ve got to dissemble it into its parts, because these parts are not hapax, see the point. The word, for example, if you have an automobile that may be custom made for you, you may have standard Firestone tires, you may have a Ford V-8 engine, you may have some other thing, some other component in it. The thing together is a hapax, never made a car like this before, probably after you get through with it nobody will ever make one like it again. So you’ve got an absolutely unique car. All right, but if you start disassembling that car the parts to the car are not unique.
So that’s what we’re going to work here, we’re going to start taking it apart three ways and we’re going to look at each one of these parts. The first part we come to is the verb to “taste.” Now let’s see what “taste” means. First let’s turn in the immediate context to Hebrews 2:9, here’s where it’s used. Remember when you look up a word you always go where first? To the immediate context of that author. Let’s do a little drill here. Suppose we have a word and you’re checking it out on your Bible study, suppose you come to the word godliness, and you see it used in Paul’s writings and particularly you’re studying Titus. Where, if you want to find out what that word really means, if you want to pin it down, you go to your concordance, where do you look first? Your first ring of investigation will be where? Titus. Your second ring of investigation will be where? Paul’s epistles. Then after you get through that the third area will be the New Testament and so on. You start in the immediate context and work out. As you work out remember you’re getting on more and more uncertain territory.
Let me summarize for you the word “taste,” it’ll take a long time to do this so I’m just going to summarize it. The word “taste,” as many of these words, has a little meaning, it is used for vinegar in Matthew 27:34; it is used for wine in John 2:9 as illustrations of its literal use. It is used metaphorically for death in Hebrews 2:9; Matthew 16:28; Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27; John 8:52. All those places it occurs metaphorically to death, taste death, taste death, taste death, no man shall do this unless he tastes death, tastes death, all right, that’s the metaphorical usage of the word. So it’s used metaphorically in the passage we’re talking about, “taste the heavenly gift,” right, that’s metaphorical, not literal. But the problem is nowhere else is it ever used of tasting the heavenly gift. Every other place it’s used metaphorically it means to taste death, except in one spot, and there’s one other passage, 1 Peter 2;3 which is a quote from Psalm 34:8 and there it means “taste and see that the Lord is good.”
From what I’ve said can you summarize what the word taste means when it’s used metaphorically? What is a synonym in our English every day language; make sure we understand, how would you substitute words now; how would you express the fact “taste death.” [someone answers] sample? I don’t think you’d say Jesus Christ sampled death. And it’s used elsewhere for no man shall do this until he tastes death, it’s talking about dying, no option. [someone else] Experience? Okay, the synonym for it is simply experience, that’s what the word “taste” means when it is used metaphorically, and we’re sound so far. You can check this out, a concordance, it takes you time. But you don’t do it by contemplating your navel in a closet and going through some hyper spiritual hocus pocus which is just an excuse for lazy people who can’t pick up a concordance. So we have the verb “taste” meaning to experience.
Now, the next part of our hapax is the word “gift,” dorea, feminine, don’t confuse it with its accusative. When this
thing occurs, dorion, it’s used as an
adverb. The word “gift” has three uses
in the New Testament. It’s earliest use
is of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts; Acts
Now let’s take this word “heavenly” and work with it a little bit, epouranos, it is used such as in John 3:12 when Jesus says, “I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? How is the word used there? It is used there for a sphere. What would be a synonym in good old American English for this word? I have told you earthly things and you don’t believe, how are you going to believe if I tell you heavenly things? How would we rephrase that in our every day language. [someone answers] Abstract? No, I don’t’ think so because remember abstract thought is a Greek product, Jesus wasn’t talking about abstracts. We would call it the spiritual, the immaterial, spiritual would be better because technically the spiritual is not immaterial, that which is the opposite of what’s close and observed. Think of how Paul says in Ephesians 1 He has blessed us “in the heavenlies.”
So, this adds a tremendous dimension to our hapax now; this plugs in a whole wad of new data that we can use now to define what this hapax is talking about. What it’s saying is they have tasted or are experiencing the dorea in the sphere of the heavenlies, so it is a heavenly dorea, or the class of the gift; this marks it off, by the way, it’s not the Holy Spirit because heavenly can be used both for evil and for good. For example, in Ephesians 6 our warfare is against the principalities and the powers of the heavenly places.
And there’s one key reference in Hebrews
9:23; the author of Hebrews is using this word very frequently and he has one
very clear usage of it here in his epistle, and this one obviously shows you
that it does not always refer to that which is pure, it does not always refer,
therefore, to that which is in the will of God.
The sphere of the heavenly does not mean the sphere of God’s direct
will. Hebrews 9:23, “It was, therefore,
necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with
these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than
these.” Now obviously verse 23, without
getting into the problems of interpreting it, the least you can draw out of
verse 23 just reading it once is that whatever it is that’s heavenly it’s
dirty. All right, it’s got to be
cleansed. So Hebrews
All right let’s put together some things here. “Taste of the heavenly gift,” and we’ve found out that the word “taste” can be experience, the gift is very ambiguous but whatever it is it’s in the sphere or what we’ll call the spiritual. So coming back to Hebrews 6, “those who have tasted of the heavenly gift are those who have experienced something in the realm of the heavenlies.”
Now, I am going to suggest what it is and then I am going to vindicate my suggestion; remember it can only be a suggestion because we’re dealing with a hapax. So I’m going to suggest what this hapax is and then I’m going to back it up with parallel references in the New Testament. Here’s how I arrive at my suggestion:
One, using the text and knowing that this must parallel photizo in some way, and using a reference from the apocrypha which I’ll give you in a moment as usage, I deduce that this means just as another synonym for instruction, particularly in the truths that are new to the Messianic era; that those who have tasted, those who have experienced that which is heavenly, they have experienced that which is the fulfillment of the old because the author of Hebrews constantly, if you will check this out, uses “heavenly,” the patterns of the heavenly, as the archetype of that which is earthly, the old covenant and the new covenant, this kind of concept. So using that as a hint we would infer, then, that those who have tasted the heavenly gift are those who have experienced the new dispensation, or the truths of the new dispensation; they have been eliminated to the fact, one, Jesus Christ fulfills the ceremonies of the Old Testament. Remember what I said, verse 2, the doctrine of baptisms, plural, that is typology. These people have had typology taught to them. They have therefore come to see in their experience that the Old Testament with all the little earthly details, all the material things of the Old Testament, culminates in the person of Jesus Christ. They have actually perceived that; that has been taught to them by the Holy Spirit.
My claim in vindicating this is… well, it parallels photizo, taste. The usage, the second reason fro promoting this interpretation is that the usage parallels a usage found in The Wisdom of Solomon, an apocryphal book, not Scripture, but written close to this time to get usage, which goes like this and I will read the quotation, The Wisdom of Solomon, 7:14; it is talking about wisdom and it says: “For it is an unfailing treasure for men; those who get it,” wisdom that is, “obtain friendship with God commended for the dorea that comes from instruction.” Repeat: “For it is an unfailing treasure for men; those who get it obtain friendship with God, commended for the dorea,” it’s plural but it’s the same noun, “the dorea that comes from instruction.” Now that’s what we’re looking for, something parallel to photizo and here we’ve got at least one way that is used in the nearby historical corpus of literature, that dorea is used for that which results from instruction. And that would perfectly fit with photizo.
So that’s a second reason; remember the reasons for this: one, te, parallel photizo. Two, the usage in The Wisdom of Solomon, chapter 7 verse 14. Third reason for this interpretation is that it fits Hebrews 6:1-2. What is it that is true of these believers but their exposure to basic New Testament doctrine. Remember I said verse 3 was the key, and gar in verse 4, “For,” so that everything we’re doing in verse 4, 5 and 6, don’t lose the forest for the trees, we’re going to be in the trees and we’re going to be hopping from tree to tree for months in these verses but I want to take you, since you’re the Wednesday night people, you’re basically the people that are more mature in the Word of God, and you should be able to take it and if you can’t try it anyway, build up some spiritual muscle; exposure to basic New Testament doctrine, it fits.
The fourth reason, what was on this author’s mind in the last warning passage. Do you remember? In the last warning passage what was he constantly thinking about that he kept dredging up? There was an incident back in the Old Testament or an era; what was the era that was on his mind, just broadly speaking. It’s the exile, when? Exodus and in particular after the Exodus what? [someone answers] Kadesh-Barnea and even after Kadesh-Barnea, the rejection at Kadesh-Barnea and the wilderness wanderings, right. That was on his mind. What was on his mind in the first warning passage, back in Hebrews 2:1-4. Remember all these warning passages have to be solved in parallel. What was on his mind back then? What was he speaking of? [someone answers] All right, there’s a parallel in their rejection of the Old Testament Law which was given at Sinai, Exodus. Do you notice something? What has been true of those first two warning passages? The Exodus/Sinai/Kadesh-Barnea complex of history.
Now I’m going to take you to two passage in Scripture that are going to speak of that same era in the terms of tasting a heavenly gift and this should tie it together. Turn to Nehemiah 9:19; it makes sense that when he came to his third warning, since he’d done it already two times in his address, that he’d revert back to that same period of history to illustrate Bible doctrine. So in Nehemiah 9:19, I heard groans when it was announced that we would only cover one of these participles a night, now do you see why, we can barely cover one a night if we’re going to do a good job.
Nehemiah 9:19, Nehemiah is recounting, or Ezra, one of the two, I forget the context, is recounting the history of the Exodus/Sinai/Kadesh-Barnea era. And when he does so in verse 19 it says, “Yet thou in thy manifold mercies,” talking to God, “forsookest them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night to show them light, and the way in which they should go. [20] Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them, and witheldest not Thy manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst. [21] Yea, forty years Thou didst sustain them in the wilderness,” now look at verse 19 of Nehemiah, what natural physical picture comes into play with the fire at night? Light. What was our first verb back in Hebrews 6? photizo, to illuminate, to give light. It’s talking back there about a physical, He illuminated the way through the Sinai desert for His people. He gave them illumination. Furthermore in verse 20 and very important because of something else coming up in Hebrews 6 it talks about He gave them manna or something to eat and taste, did He not; something physical. But don’t be thrown because it’s so concrete and physical. Remember that’s typology, you go from the concrete physical to the spiritual. So physically they were enlightened in the Sinai desert. Physically they tasted of that which was given.
Now furthermore, sandwiched in between, we’ve looked at the last part of verse 19, the last part of verse 20, what’s sandwiched between the last of 20 and the last of 19? The Holy Spirit instructing them. Do you see the theme? And how is the Holy Spirit instructing them? How were the people instructed, basically during that era of history. True, through the Levites but here what’s he talking about? Weren’t they being taught the hard way by experience; wasn’t every night they’d go to bed and they’d see this fiery thing here, showing light for miles and miles across the desert floor. And then every morning they’d wake up and there’d be this manna and they’d have to go out and eat it and so on. Wasn’t that teaching by experience? They were illuminated and they tasted.
Now a passage in the New Testament, speaking of the same era, with the same imagery. 1 Corinthians 10:1, “Moreover, brethren, I would not that you be ignorant, that all our fathers were passed under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. [2] And were all baptized unto Moses,” the dry baptism please notice, which proves that the word baptizo means primarily to identify, “they were all identified unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; [3] All did eat” what? “the same spiritual food. [4] And all did drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.” Now look what you’ve got here; the same period of Old Testament history has been on this author’s mind for the previous two warning passages. He’s bringing up this business of eating. Now we know what they physically ate; they ate the manna physically. But Paul’s talking about no, they’re eating more than that, they were eating that which was physical but that which was supplied by whom? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the angel of the Lord that went ahead of the camp. It was Jesus Christ that dropped the manna down on the camp during the night; so they were eating what Christ had given them. And the Spirit was teaching them. Then he is using the same analogy, in both these passages, were these people all those who believed and entered into the land? No, so hadn’t they been illuminated out in the desert at night? And hadn’t they eaten in the desert in the morning? That which had been supplied to them? Of course and did that make them believe so they could obtain victory in entering the land? No.
So let’s turn back in conclusion to Hebrews 6 for our second participle, “those who have tasted of the heavenly gift.” We propose that it means illumination just as the first one, once and for all enlightened, the difference in nuance, tasted the heavenly gift is simply borrowing out of the Old Testament imagery of the Exodus generation, who experienced all these things. What in this generation did they experience? Hebrews 2:4 tells you, the apostolic sign gifts. These people to whom this epistle was written had experienced sign gifts, Hebrews 2:4, gifts were finished by the time the epistle was written and they phased out, but they had earlier experienced all these apostolic sign gifts.
So to sum up the first two aorist participle connected by te means illumination, the first one, photizo, and this is emphasis on the enlightenment; in other words, this is what it does for you, this is emphasis using the eyes; te illumination again except this is using the mouth, tasting. Both are idiomatic, both are referring to the same thing, both are connected with te, both refer to something that happened in the Exodus generation, something that happened in the previous two warning passages.
So in this kind of interpretation, by the way, this is the hardest kind of interpretation that you’ve seen tonight, I hope you’ve noticed that when we interpret a passage we like to get a number of fixes on that passage. Now in summary let’s just go back over some over some of these fixes to fix the interpretation. One fix is the theological fix of the warning passages; you interpret this warning passage in line with the other warning passages. This gives you some control over what you’re doing; you don’t charge in there and make up all sorts of interpretations.
The second thing is that we’re dealing with the Exodus generation as kind of a background theme in this whole epistle, so we want to keep going back to the Exodus and Sinai for our typology.
The third thing that we’ve used tonight is the te, or the principle of syntax. Syntax controls our interpretation, we can’t interpret the New Testament outside of the rules of Greek syntax. This is history over here, this is theology over here and I guess you could say we come up with lexicography or the word studies over here. Then the context, contextual logic, that is the logic of the argument, we’ve used that one. Whatever we interpret has got to fit with the point he’s trying to prove. We’re going to see a beautiful illustration of that later on when we get down to verse 6.
So there’s at least five checks we use to control our interpretation. So next time some idiot comes up to you well, anybody can interpret the Bible any way they want to, just rattle off a few of these things, shut ‘em up. Well, how are you going to… are you talking about historically, lexicography, theologically or typological, what area of interpretation are you talking about? And they’ll be so confused after you ask them that that they’re usually, if they’re serious they’ll stop being funny and start having something serious in the conversation or they’ll just do an about face and walk off, which is the best thing that could happen.
So look at how these interpretations are
controlled, you in the Wednesday night class are going to be exposed to this as
we go through Hebrews. We wouldn’t try
this in the
Father, we thank You…..