Clough Hebrews Lesson 34

Production – 6:4-8

[This message’s recording is poor, very difficult to hear so accuracy might be affected]

Turn to Hebrews 6:4 and we’ll try and summarize where we were with the partaking of the Holy Spirit. We’re working with the term, “were made partakers of the Holy Ghost” at the end of Hebrews 6:4. You’ll recall we had an extensive discussion last week, which is good, and as I said last week this is not a course in a university or something where we have to cover so much material so we’re going to proceed as fast as we wish but we basically are interested in clarifying what the text has to say and secondarily in covering a lot of material. This partaking of the Holy Ghost, and when we deal with this term keep in back of our minds by way of review what it is that we’re interested in. What is it? In ensuing discussions that we’ve had about Hebrews 6 what is the major consideration when, after we’ve handled carefully the background problems, the alternate interpretations, what does it really boil down to eventually? [someone answers] Okay, whether the term “partaking of the Holy Spirit” means that you have to be a believer, because if any one of these terms… if any one of these terms, not just one but if any one of these terms can only be used as a believer, then the Arminian interpretation is vindicated. But if, conversely, we can say that all five of these participles, all five, none of them, not one, requires a believer then the Calvinist interpretation is vindicated.

The reason why, incidentally, someone asked before, did disproving the Arminian interpretation prove the Calvinist one. Normally it wouldn’t but here it does, simply because these are mutually exclusive and the only possibility. So where you have a situation that’s either/or and you disprove one side of the either/or you’ve automatically proved the other side and eliminated… remember we started out with the possibilities, we eliminated two off the bat, that left two and thus when we disprove one of the remaining two we have, in effect, proved the remaining one. So this tense of “partaking of the Holy Spirit” is crucial.

But what have we found with the exception of the word “enlighten” so far; of “tasting of the heavenly gift and partakers of the Holy Spirit, what have we found about both those phrases, no the individual terms in the phrase but the whole block, the whole phrase. What have we called this. We’ve dealt with three terms now; the first one that doesn’t apply to, but two and three are called what? Anybody remember the technical word? Hapax legomenon. Just remember the word and snow your friends, what did you study last night; oh, we went over hapax legomenon. They’ll think it’s a disease. Hapax legomenon are phrases or terms which occur only once; only once and traditionally it’s in hapax are the most difficult of all Bible interpretations because you can’t get a handle on the thing. If they occurred more than once you could go to the other places where they occurred and find out what they meant. But if they’re only occurring once you’ve got a problem.

So again to review our methodology when you encounter a hapax legomenon you’re stuck unless you can do something about it and you just worm your way around the thing as some secondary methodology. And the secondary methodology that we’re adopting is to disassemble the phrase into its component parts, then study those parts of the phrase, then put the phrase back together again and see what we have. So we have taken that phrase, “partaking” that’s one part of the phrase and we’ve put off Holy Spirit. And when we look up the Holy Spirit we said that in this case whenever the Holy Spirit is used in Hebrews it means one of two things, it refers to His miraculous work, the signs such as in Hebrews 2:4, or it can refer to Old Testament Scriptures or the prophecies of Old Testament Scripture. So since the Holy Spirit, everywhere else where it occurs in this epistle is always associated either with miraculous signs that authenticate Scripture, or with Scripture itself then that slants our interpretation of the overall phase, “partaking of the Holy Spirit.” It must mean something to the effect that we partake of the canonical Scripture or we partake of the authentication of the canonical Scriptures. That must be something to do with this phrase, “partakers of the Holy Spirit,” if we are to allow our interpretation to be controlled by the other occurrences of Holy Spirit in this epistle. So utilizing how this author speaks of the Holy Spirit elsewhere we can at least narrow down the meaning to something to do with partaking of the canon or partaking of the authentication of the canon.

Now the word “partake” to clarify a point of logic, what we were doing last time, in Hebrews 3:14 we’re said to be “partakers of Christ…” “partakers of Christ if we endure.” This, by itself, proves half of what we want to prove. Now this is partakers, not of the Holy Spirit, but partakers of Christ; not of the Holy Spirit, of Christ! You see the word “partakers” used in a different kind of phrase. When it is used of partaking of Christ our point was last time, this refers to salvation and refers indeed to a believer; this doesn’t undercut or undermine our interpretation because the phrase isn’t the same, it’s not saying partaking of the Holy Spirit, it’s saying partaking of Christ. But it does indicate something of the verb to partake; in this case partaking of the nature of Christ means salvation. And the final of the partaking is “if we endure.” If one endures then we are a partaker. Now as someone pointed out, that logically isn’t complete. So we need Scriptures elsewhere to tighten up our equation.

What we want aim for is to prove that partakers of Christ equals endurance, in other words, that those two are used synonymously in the New Testament, that salvation basically means an enduring [can’t understand word], not one that washes out. This does not mean, to head off at the pass anybody that’s unduly troubled, this does not mean, for those of you who do feel this way, that the New Testament requires perfection. Nowhere in the Bible is perfection required, we’re not talking about perfection. We’re talking about enduring faith; we’re talking simply about a basic enduring allegiance; you can cite examples of men such as Solomon, who phased out toward the end of their life but biblically they still endured in the sense that they were still children of God and since they were children of God they experienced discipline.

In Hebrews 12 the point will be made that a Christian will be one who, if he tries to raise hell, he can indeed try to do it and he can get away with it to some degree, but the mark of the Christian is that when he does try to disobey the Word of God, he will always get clobbered somewhere along the line. Whereas the unbeliever can try the very same thing in defiance against the Word of God and get completely away with it. So one of the signs of salvation is whether when you disobey the Word of God you can get completely away with it; if you can it would be a sign of, he will argue in chapter 12, that you were never saved in the first place. However, if when you do disobey the Word of God you always get disciplined by the Father then that is a sign of your sonship.

Well, to prove this equation both ways we have to use two verses. One verse, Hebrews 3:14 says if we endure that implies that we are a partaker of Christ. So that runs the equation one way but it doesn’t run it the other way as anyone who [can’t understand word] logic will know; it doesn’t run it backwards; you can’t draw that conclusion out of Hebrews 3:14. But it does at least run the inference one way; endurance does prove salvation, that much is very, very certain from Hebrews 3:14. We covered last time another verse from 1 John 2:19 and in this verse we have precisely the opposite side of the equation. If we are a partaker of Christ then we will endure. And with this verse we are in beautiful logical symmetry now with Hebrews 3:14, we can prove our equation that partaking in Christ means endurance. The unbeliever never endures, and the Christian will always endure. So we’ve shown both sides and run the thing both ways. So now we’re on safe ground Scripturally for making this distinction.

We come to the conclusion then that this term, “partaking of the Holy Spirit” or “Holy Ghost” as is in the King James in verse 4, refers to the Jewish partakers of the canon and the authentication of the canon. In other words, the Jews are the custodians of God’s Word. To see this elsewhere in the New Testament, turn to Romans, two places there; Romans 3:2 here where the particular nature of the Jew is pointed out. In Romans 3:2, “What advantage then has the Jew? And he’s saying here, thinking of even the unsaved Jew, so it’s not just talking about salvation. The advantage that the Jew has, whether he is saved or whether he isn’t, it’s there too, “chiefly because unto them were committed the oracles of God.” Now if the oracles of God are associated with the Holy Spirit in the epistle to Hebrews, then since they have had the oracles of God committed, translated from Paul’s vocabulary into the vocabulary of Hebrews, they have become partakers of the Holy Spirit. Partakers of the Holy Spirit because they partake of the oracles of God.

In Romans 9 Paul argues again the same way; what are the unique qualities of the Jew? Whether saved or unsaved these advantages accrue, always to the Jew. Obviously until he believes them they don’t do him any good, but nevertheless they are the Jew’s possession and no one else. In Romans 9:4, “Who are Israelites; to whom pertains the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law; and the service of God, and the promises.” And of course in verse 5, “Whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever.” You might notice a footnote, Romans 9:5 contains one of those rare possibilities of the deity of Christ for it is only a matter of mere punctuation that it would read: “As concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is God over all,” (comma) “blessed forever.” The mere change of one comma in verse 5 shows the deity of Christ and so it is a legitimate possibility that Romans 9:5 is a rare case where the deity of Jesus Christ is explicitly stated in the text, Christ as God over all.

So these two references in Romans are part of the Jewish elite heritage; he has the oracles of God, he has the covenants of God, and in the vocabulary of our author he is a partaker of the Holy Spirit. Again we draw two concentric circles, one inside the other. The inside circle are those who are saved, they have trusted in Jesus Christ as Savior, they are partakers not only of the Holy Spirit but of Christ. Those who are just Jews are partakers of the Holy Spirit in that they partake of the Holy Spirit’s work in giving them the canonical Scriptures. So it’s a possibility that the Jew may be just a partaker of the Holy Spirit or there’s a possibility that he will partake of the Holy Spirit and of the Holy Spirit’s object, the Holy Spirit’s revelation, Jesus Christ.

So much for verse 4 unless there are questions. [someone asks question] Is not the presence of the Holy Spirit the sign of salvation? Not at all. The Holy Spirit was present in the temple and it was precisely this battle that Isaiah had to fight all the time because people had inferred that because the Holy Spirit is present in this temple, therefore the temple is eternally saved and we Jews, all we have to do is stay in Jerusalem. And Isaiah said wrong, Nebuchadnezzar will come into this city and he will flatten that temple, stone by stone, presence of God or not. [more said] Presence of God in the sealing ministry, the sealing ministry that is mentioned there is, but that is a particular thing that the Holy Spirit does in His presence. What we are theologically dealing with in all of this, in pneumatology, and if you’d like to check it out there’s a whole realm of theology called pneumatology, that means just doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and there are two areas of pneumatology, I’ll just give you the names so if you look them up you’ll know it’s talking about, we don’t use these too much but there they are: common grace and efficacious grace and these are used in pneumatology to refer to two kinds of presences of the Holy Spirit, an efficacious presence and a common presence.

Common presence of the Holy Spirit or common grace is the Holy Spirit’s presence such as in John 16, “He will convince the world of sin, righteousness and judgment,” “when the Holy Spirit is come,” that means the Holy Spirit has come into the world whereas before He was not present in the world and the common grace ministry of the Holy Spirit is in John 16 for gospel conviction; He is also, another reason for common grace or the presence of the Holy Spirit in the world is 2 Thessalonians 1 and 2, the restrainer, when the Holy Spirit is gone the restrainer is gone and 2 Thessalonians 2, then the man of sin will be revealed.

So the Holy Spirit’s presence in the world is a far larger significance than just salvation. He’s doing a lot more than just saving people, He’s convincing all men of the validity of the gospel so that at the end of the Church Age people who wind up in hell can never say I wind up in hell because of my sin, they will all have to say I wind up in hell because I have rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ. So here the Holy Spirit is working to restrain and constantly thwart Satan’s plans to form a world dictatorship, every time he tries it until the Holy Spirit’s presence is removed Satan gets out maneuvered, so this is the common, it’s called common grace or the common presence of the Holy Spirit because it’s common to all men in the world, common to both believer and unbeliever. So here’s where the presence of the Holy Spirit is common.

Now efficacious, that refers to the presence of the Holy Spirit only in connection with His work for the saved, and that’s His special ministry during this time of His presence in history. So one I might also ask too in this connection, how is the Holy Spirit present. He’s present in many, many different ways; chiefly He’s present because He indwells the Church; He’s also present in the Word that He’s enscripturated. The canon of Scripture is also the location for the Holy Spirit to speak. The book that you hold in your lap is the words of the Holy Spirit; He’s eighty or ninety thousand words there that he’s saying to you and they are all in the present tense because every part of the Word of God has something for you today and it’s not something just written for somebody 2,000 years ago. All right, so in your doctrinal framework these two areas, the efficacious work of the Holy Spirit and the common work of the Holy Spirit. Now what simply is said theologically is that Hebrews 6 is speaking of the common work of the Holy Spirit.

Okay let me go on to the other phrases here and maybe some of the questions will be handled and if not we’ll get them at another stopping place. The next phrase, “have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come.” All right, guess what, we’re faced with a hapax again; this is another hapax legomenon, so let’s count. In verse 4, the word “enlightened” there, that was okay, we could find that elsewhere. But “have tasted of the heavenly gift,” that was a hapax; “made partakers of the of the Holy Spirit,” that was a hapax; have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,” that’s a hapax. So out of four phrases we’re batting only one of four because three out of the four phrases are never used anywhere else in God’s word and for that matter never used anywhere else in extra Biblical literature that we know. So you see, only one out of the four phrases are ones that we can really control and say something concrete, we know what’s going on.

[someone says something about hapax] The whole thing, the word are elsewhere. Nowhere else, no matter how long you read your Bible you’re never going to find this phrase anywhere else in the Scripture. You can break the words down but that’s still not the same, we don’t have the tight control the way that we do if we can just pick the whole phrase and find a few here, here, and here, then it makes sliding real easy that way. There are very few hapaxes. This is what is very unusual about this passage of Scripture and why I’m spending so much time on it. You will never encounter, all the years you study God’s Word, I don’t care what passages you study you will never encounter a passage of Scripture or one verse that has as many hapaxes as this one; this is extremely rare in the canon of Scripture, extremely rare.

Remember, the New Testament was written in the language of the street; it was not good classical Greek, it is Koine or common Greek. And many of these expressions occur time and time and time again in extra-Biblical literature. Milton and Milligan is the volume where you can, if you go into the Greek a little bit, Milton and Milligan will be the place where you go, it’s kind of like a lexicon, you look the words up in Milton and Milligan and their book will give you all the places where this occurs in the papyri at the time the New Testament was written. It lists business documents like she was pointing out, this sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit, that’s a common commercial phrased, used many, many times in the papyri, when you take a shipment and move it from one place to the next you put a seal on it; so the seal wasn’t broken until the shipment actually arrived, and it was quite clear from how the word seal is used in the commercial papyri of the day what it means in Ephesians 1. It’s simply stating eternity security; whatever has the seal must reach its destination unscathed.

So that’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about these hapax and when we come here we’re faced with another one, [5] “Have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come.” We have to break it up, the word “taste” we’ve already defined from that second one, remember in verse 4, “have tasted the heavenly gift,” what did we say taste meant? Experience. So at least we can fix that one a little bit, so they have “experienced the good word of God,” and “experienced the powers of the world to come.” Now “the good word of God,” those of you who have your Greek text, there are two words in Greek used for word, one logos, the other rama, which one is used here? rama; okay, rama is used; now when we’ve got to interpret the thing we’ve got to be careful on interpreting it; why is rama used and not logos. Well, we’ve got to ask the question, what’s the difference what’s the difference between these two Greek words. What’s the emphasis, both have [can’t understand word/s] but when logos is used the thought is emphasized, in other words, when the author uses “the Word of God,” such as “Jesus is the Word of God,” he used the logos, there the content is emphasized or the thought. But when rama is used it’s the act of speaking, it’s more the act rather than the content. So the fact that rama is being used here tells us that it’s not so much to understand it but that it was spoken to them. They have experienced the speaking of God. Now surely both believer and unbeliever were at Mount Sinai, surely believer and unbeliever were present many times when the Word of God came to the prophets. And so we have them speaking, experiencing the speaking of God; the emphasis then is on the speaking, not on the content so much, they “have experienced the good speaking of God.” This would be revelation, i.e., they had been recipients of divine revelation.

Now if this doesn’t strike a bell, if you turn back to Hebrews 1:1, in chapters 1 and 2 is the emphasis on the act of speaking or the content? The act of speaking, wasn’t it. Remember he’s telling how God spoke; nowhere in Hebrews 1:1-2 was the content of what was spoken the real center of attention. In chapter 1:1-2 it’s the act of God speaking that would vary from time to time from age to age. So again, and notice “unto us and unto the fathers,” and that’s not just the saved fathers, the unsaved fathers also were the recipients of God speaking because simply they were in the elect nation.

Okay, so “have experienced the good speaking of God, and the powers of the world to come.” Now on the “powers of the world to come,” we again have to break it down, “powers” and “world to come.” The word “powers” is a common term and it just simply means the spiritual powers, it can refer to angels or it can be referring to miracles or miraculous signs; it can be angels or miracles. Now what about the phrase, “the world to come.” Now the Jews at the time of Jesus Christ had three dispensations that they spoke of with three different labels. They didn’t have Scofield’s notes so all they had was three dispensations and these three dispensations, always occur with generally the same vocabulary wherever you read about them in the New Testament. Do any of you know these? Obviously the last one is the age or world to come. Does anyone know the other words that are used; if you look in 1:1-2 on of them is right there. [someone answers] The latter days, and the former days. Or sometimes the former times.

Now those are technical expressions and when you do your Bible reading and you see those phrases, don’t just read over them thinking that you’re just look at adverbs. When you see those phrases in your Bible reading, those signal something to you; they are meant to be technical terms. Translated into our system of dispensations “former days” refers to everything before the Messiah, all the dispensations before the Messiah called former days. The “latter days” or the “last days” include the time of the Messiah and the tribulation and the Church Age. All those are kind of lumped together in the latter days. That’s why so often you read in the New Testament, in these latter days, and scholars have sometimes thought from that that the apostles were thinking that Christ’s going to come tomorrow in the sense had to come tomorrow. That’s not true, it’s just that they were using the expression, we’re in the latter days. And Christians who use this don’t mean the same thing; they think the latter days of the Church Age. But the term “latter days” includes the Church Age, the tribulation, the whole thing, the days of the Messiah. It includes the time of Christ, the Messiah, the Church Age and the tribulation.

[someone asks a question] do a concordance study of these terms you’ll see that that’s the way they [can’t understand word/s]. The Old Testament prophets, when they talk about the latter days, they’ll give a whole bunch of prophecies and they’re talking about the tribulation. Also another way that can… there’s a technical problem in the Old Testament too, something called “day of the Lord” comes in here and you’ve got to be careful because that sometimes can be this, it sometimes can be this, or it can be a particular judgment that’s close to them in time, so I didn’t put that in there, just these things.

Now, when he is talking here, he has “experience the powers of the world to come,” the world to come would be the millennial kingdom plus the eternal state. So when it says that these people have experienced the “powers of the world to come” it simply means that the miracles that were given in Jesus’ ministry were miracles testifying to what? Jesus didn’t just go around healing people just for the sake of putting the doctors out of business. Jesus did not heal many people in fact but when He did heal or when He did do these signs, what were the signs of, what were they for? [someone answers]

Okay, remember the doctrine of kenosis that we went through here, what was the doctrine of kenosis? [someone answers] Christ voluntarily… all right, the best way of phrasing it is Jesus Christ gave up the voluntary use of His attributes, so He could not exercise any of His divine attributes without permission of the Father and He voluntarily did so. That’s His kenosis, but the kenosis stopped when He rose from the dead and from that point forward Jesus Christ is no longer kenotic and thus the people who have experienced the resurrected Christ and the testimony to Him and the miracles that are attributed to Him sitting at the Father’s right hand, [can’t understand words] apostles in those early years after Pentecost, they have experienced the powers to come because they have experienced the reign of the Messiah who will come to earth and reign publicly during the Messianic kingdom or the millennial kingdom and the eternal state.

So again what you read in verse 5 does not imply, necessarily, that these people have to be believers; all it implies is that they had been face to face with revelation. Now let’s see if we can summarize these participles that we’ve studied, classify them to get out of the truths and back into the forest so we can see the overall picture.

Let’s divide them up this way; we have now studied five descriptive participles; the first two emphasize learning, enlightenment, remember we said the enlightenment, that was the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit, we said they have tasted of the heavenly gift, that was the wisdom, the content of [can’t understand word] both those two participles emphasize learning. Learning what? Verses 1 and 2. What was listed in verses 1 and 2? Learning 6:1-2. The third participle which we have studied, “partakers of the Holy Spirit” emphasized the cause of learning, that is, the Holy Spirit. It’s talking about the same thing but from different points of view. And then the last two, events referring to the canon and the miraculous form. So our interpretation then of Hebrews 6:4-5 is that this is a display of common grace in the era after Pentecost to the Jews.

Now we have one more participle and that one is in Hebrews 6:6, if you have King James it’s translated “if they fall away.” It should not be “if,” because “if” you recall is a conditional participle and if you’re going to have a whole list of participles and we’ve got five of them so far, actually we’ve got four of them because this last one was two-fold off of the word “taste,” when you come to the next participle in this major list and all of a sudden you say hey, whoops, that one is conditional. Well wait a minute, “enlightened” wasn’t condition, “if they were enlightened,” he didn’t say “if they have tasted,” he didn’t say “if they were made partakers,” so why should we get “if they fall.” So you remember when we first started into the passage we eliminated the condition, “if” and we simply said that this has to be handled like all the other participles, namely, “they have” past tense, “fallen away,” they have fallen away, they’ve already done it by the time this man is looking at the situation. They have already done this falling away.

Now we’ve got another problem because unfortunately this one doesn’t occur very often either in the New Testament, so we have to look and see if we can find out what falling away is. The only real test case we’ve got for falling away, it occurs one other time in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Turn to Ezekiel 22:4, it does occur over here but it really doesn’t send you too far and it’s not translated falling away, you’d never guess it if you didn’t know the way the Greeks handled it. It says, talking to Israel, “You are become guilty in thy blood that you have shed, and you have defiled thyself in” or “with your idols,” the word “defile” is you have fallen away, “you have fallen away with your idols which you have made; and you have caused your days to draw near, and therefore I have made thee a reproach unto the heathen, and a mocking to all countries.” This is national, not individual. So it really doesn’t help us that much, all it does is… the idea it conveys is an idea of a prophecy.

There’s one other extra Biblical reference in The Wisdom of Solomon, 6:9 that goes like this: the wisdom of Solomon is an apocryphal book, if you have a Catholic friend they have the apocrypha in their Bible, you can buy the apocrypha and if you’re interested some time go ahead and buy it, it won’t hurt you as long as you realize it’s not Scripture. It’s most interesting reading, it’s obviously not inerrant, because you can spot the errors in it yourself, just some absurd things, but it has one of the most exciting adventure stories that you’ll ever want to read, 1 Maccabees, and it’s a real good historic book, heroic stories and it provides a lot of ideal in what people were thinking about at the time of Christ. “Falling away” is used in this following phrase in The Wisdom of Solomon 6:9, (quote): “To you, then oh monarchs,” or kings, “my words are directed,” this is wisdom speaking, “that you may know wisdom and not fall away,” (end quote). So you see again it’s used in the context of wisdom, something that people have known and they have turned away from it; there’s no proof that they’ve been regenerated by their exposure to it. It’s simply that they’ve been exposed to it and then have turned away but there’s no necessity of a regeneration having occurred.

What is it then? We interpret this as we have the other participles, that this is simply people who have been exposed to God’s common grace who have turned away, these are unbelievers who have received a maximum of common grace. In other words, Hebrews 6:4-6 describes a group of people who have had everything possible done for them; God has done everything He can, He has given them the Holy Spirit so they can understand the Scriptures, and in spite of having the Scriptures, in spite of having them repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated, in spite of having the Holy Spirit teach, teach, teach, teach, these people have turned away, they have fallen away; for these people there is no remedy. It’s a very sad situation but there is a limit t God’s grace. And this chapter is teaching the limits of God’s grace. He will only go so far.

Now it says: “it is impossible to renew those to repentance,” now what was the repentance? The repentance was what? Anybody remember? How did we interpret the repentance specifically in chapter 6 because we dealt with that word before we went through this big long hassle about all the terms. “It is impossible to renew them unto repentance; you’ve got the word repentance in the Bible, where do you go to find out what it means. [someone answers] The nearest time it occurs in context; the word repentance occurs where in the context? It occurs back in Hebrews 6:1. And in verse 1 is what is it talking about? It talks about their change away from Judaism which one time was authentic, one time that was good to trust in that, in all the Old Testament legislation and Law. That was all right, but once Jesus Christ has come it has made those laws obsolete and therefore now, after Christ, in these latter days, in the dispensation of Messiah the Jews must turn from obsolete covenants to the new covenant and therefore he says it’s impossible; it’s impossible to get these people back into the new covenant. Once the Holy Spirit has done His work, they’ve been exposed to the Word of God and they’ve turned away from it, it’s just impossible and he admits defeat right at this point of the teaching, there’s nothing he can do for these people, they’re beyond help.

Then we have one final participle, two final ones are in present tense and these participles describe what they are doing, they are “crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh, and bringing Him to an open shame.” That describes their works; now everybody agrees that these are descriptive; there’s no problem here. However, there is a difference of opinion on what kind of participles these are. There are some who argue this is a temporal participle; that means… it would be translated like this, “having fallen away, it is impossible to renew them unto repentance as long as they are crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh, and putting him to an open shame,” see it would be “as long as,” and that would be taking these participles as temporal participles. The problem with that interpretation is that it’s what we call typologist, mean it says nothing, it’s just saying as long as your house is painted red it is not painted white. In other words, it’s a lot of words that say nothing. Or bachelors are unknown, I mean, it’s a nice sentence, it has a subject and a predicate but it’s rather useless saying it, see, it’s a typologist statement. Well then how [can’t understand words] Again, it’s a legitimate sentence dramatically but it doesn’t say anything.

And the phrase “it’s impossible to renew them unto repentance,” these people have done all these things having done this and as long as they are doing it, it just doesn’t make too much sense. So for that reason we aren’t particularly enthused about taking these as temporal participles; so we take these as causal participles, that is, “it is impossible to renew them unto repentance because they are crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh, and because they are putting Him to an open shame.” [tape turns; this section especially hard to hear]

“Now what does it mean “to crucify the Son of God afresh.” Think for a moment. If these people had heard very clearly the message of Jesus Christ, they had heard very clearly that He had died on the cross, they had heard very clearly that He rose from the dead on the third day, that He had died for the sins of the world, and they went back to Judaism. What’s the connection “were crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh,” can you see the link between… why would that act of having heard all of what Jesus Christ has done, turning their back and trotting off into Judaism, thinking now what Judaism is, it’s obsolete. What in effect are they doing? They’ve just made the whole work of Christ completely useless, because Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ came to do what the Law couldn’t do.

Well, after you know what Christ has done and you go back to the Law, what have you, in effect, done. You’re looking for Christ again, you see all the time that the Jew was keeping the Law back here, he was looking ahead by faith; he didn’t quite know what he was looking for but he was looking for a time when his sins would be forgiven. So when the Law was legitimate the Law was always promissory, I’ll do this ritual, I’ll do this ritual, I’ll do this ritual, I’ll do this ritual but while I’m doing all these rituals my eyes are looking on that future resolution of the problem, how can God justify people and how can I, a sinner, be justified without [can’t understand several words]. That is an unresolved tension in the Old Testament. And I always, if I were an Old Testament believer, I would engage by faith in all of what Yahweh commanded me in the Law but I would know that on down in history, way far ahead would be the time when Jehovah would solve all these problems.

Well, after having the solution staring me in the face, the gospel message of Christ, then I turn back into this Law system again, I’m having to look ahead again. So in effect I’m having to demand that God bring His promise again. So I’m “crucifying the Son of God afresh,” just made it useless. And when it says… the other way of saying it is, I have “put him to an open shame” it means I’ve made Him a bad example, He’s a bad example because He’s a useless example.

Now there are two further verses that we want to cover tonight; Hebrews 6:7-8 and they will shed further light on our interpretation. Remember, if our interpretation is correct it ought to fit the context; all the images, symbols, words used in the immediate context to support our interpretation. In other words we would expect, before we head into verses 7-8 that after we finish verses 7-8 what we find there will substantiate the position that these people never were Christians. We should not find in verses 7-8 anything that would give you the idea that Christians were involved, that Christians have fallen away; that all that we should find in verses 7-8 are something that should testify they never were born again, they never were justified, they never were regenerated.

Let’s look at Hebrews 6:7-8, “For the earth, which drinks in the rain that comes forth upon it, and brings forth herbs meet [fit] for them by whom it is dressed [tilled], receives blessing from God. [8] But that which bears thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned.” Now from what you know of the Bible, and this is what’s kind of a habit, the Wednesday night class, you ought to learn, as I said, to read the Bible yourself intelligently. One of the things you want to do is always think and look, be on the lookout for Biblical imagery and as you read verses 7 and 8 certain Biblical images should have just stuck [can’t understand word] right out at you. What part of Scripture is that guy thinking of? Genesis. All right, and tell us a little bit more about Genesis, he’s got Genesis on his mind here, what gives you the idea he’s got Genesis on his mind? Let’s get some specifics in verses 7-8. What makes you, as you read that, think of Genesis.

[someone answers] Okay, dress, thorns, what else, the vocabulary is loaded, cursing, rain, of course that’s not in Genesis, until at least Genesis 9 but that’s all right. Now let’s go through the verses, 7-8, you’ll notice both are opposite, verse 7 one kind of ground, verse 8 another kind of ground, then we are going to interpret and then we’re going to check our interpretation by looking elsewhere in the Bible, make sure we’re on the right track.

“The earth, which drinks in the rain,” now the word “drink in” is an aorist participle, it’s something that has happened in time past. For example, the ground outside, at least in the northern part of the city of Lubbock had some rain, so it drank in what it could, the land around here doesn’t drink very well, it just runs off. But “the earth has drunk in the rain,” it should be in verse 7, past tense. So the picture is of a garden that has already in the past received rain. So we’ll just say rain, past, because the tense is past. “The earth which has drunk in the rain in the past that comes often upon us,” this is a present, a gnomic present, it’s the kind of present that means a general rule, “the rain that comes on it, and is now bringing forth herbs,” notice it’s present tense now in verse 7, it “has drunk in the past the rain as a result now it is bringing forth herbs, meet for them,” now “bringing forth herbs” the word “herbs is the same word in the Greek in the Septuagint, that’s the Roman numeral 70 you’ll see, that’s how the Septuagint translates Genesis 1, let the earth bring forth herbs, the exact vocabulary word. This is one you might have missed on your way through this. “…bring forth herbs, that is a Genesis word, “meet for them,” fitting for them, that’s the same word used for the first woman in the world, “meet” for her husband, [can’t understand words] she was his helper, his ezer,” bring forth herbs meet for them by whom it was dressed,” “dressed” is the word to till, obviously another Genesis word, “by whom it is tilled.” Now since obviously this man is talking about an illustration, obviously this illustration is going to be symbolic of something, can you guess what the rain represents and what the tilling represents?

Here’s the ground, let’s see if we can judge, just from you’ve seen so far of what he’s going to show in his illustration, we’ve got three things here, the ground, take off the herbs here for a minute, the rain, the tilling and the ground? What do you think these represent? See if we can plug it into the problem that we just encountered. [someone answers] Okay, the rain comes from heaven, then you have God working in nature to bless the ground, to supply the ground with that which is sufficient towards production. So there’s the Holy Spirit. The tilling, what do you suppose the tilling represents? It’s obviously the work of man. What work of man would be involved in those previous verses? [someone answers] Yeah, and in particular in the symbology of the thing, what would that be analogous to. Remember, he’s talking about the Jews after Christ and he’s going to use this as the illustration and the rain is going to be symbolic of the work of the Holy Spirit, what is the tilling symbolic of? [someone answers] Okay, who is doing the work in this historical illustration; in this historical illustration we’ve just worked with, that group, that generation was what? [someone answers] Okay, see the point are the first Christians, these are the Jewish Christians tilling the ground to try to announce Messiah had come, Messiah had come, come on, let’s go they would be saying.

So you have the rain from heaven, that’s the work of God, the tilling of the ground, that’s the announcement of the preaching of the gospel. Now who’s the ground? These are the unsaved Jews, unsaved Israel. So you’re going to have now the rain, the Holy Spirit blessing unsaved Israel, the prophets and the apostles are preaching to unsaved Israel, and so verse 7, “the earth that has drunk in the rain,” that has “become a partaker of the Holy Spirit,” and it was “bringing forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, received blessing from God.” The ground that is productive, that is, that portion of unsaved Israel that is responding to the gospel proclamation receives blessing. The blessing is the Messiah, the blessing is their position in Christ, if they’ll receive it.

Now Hebrews 6:8, “But that which brings forth thorns and briars is rejected,” now notice something, this second kind of ground, we’ll call this ground too, this second kind of ground is ground, the rain has come upon it and the people have tilled but the ground has brought forth something; the ground has been changed by the rain and has been changed by the tilling. Something has come forth, but what has come forth? The exact phrase that is described here, briars, “thorns and briars” in the Greek is the exact same Greek word used to translate Genesis 3:18, “thorns and thistles.” This is obviously thinking of Genesis. So the thorns and the thistles; now what are thorns and thistles basically, versus herbs? [someone answers] They’re useless aren’t they, they’re fruitless, at least as far as man is concerned, he doesn’t like to eat roses. In a general sense the thorns and the thistles are pictures of production-less plants. That’s the point. So something has changed… something has changed, the ground has reached up and it has defied both the rain and the tiller and has produced something [can’t understand word]. And what is the thorns and the thistles? The thorns and the thistles are the hardening of the Jewish heart. Hence we have seen since the proclamation of the gospel of Christ, the hearts have been hardened, where it says this ground “is rejected,” and this word, adokima or rejected is used in a very startling way in the New Testament.

Turn to 2 Timothy 3:8, “Now as Jannes and Jambres,” we don’t know how Paul knew these two men but they were two of Pharaoh’s court, “withstood Moss, so do these also resist the truth, men of corrupt minds, rejected [reprobate] concerning the faith.” And he’s talking about unsaved teachers. They’ve heard the priests and they’ve rejected. It’s also used in Romans 1, people who are God-conscious, “they did not like to retain God in their minds so God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” Same concept, rejection. So it’s a picture of rejection.

And such ground, that which bears thorns and briars when the rain and the tiller, when God the Holy Spirit works and the prophets teach the Word and teach the Word and teach the Word and all that ever comes out of it is thorns and thistles, that’s rejected ground. “…and it is near to cursing,” the word “curse” is exactly the same Greek word used in Genesis when [can’t understand words] and has the a prefix, that’s precisely the same word. “…whose end is to be burned.” It has the idea that when the ground wouldn’t bring forth what the farmer in Israel wanted it to bring forth he just burned it, he’d just start burning the ground, burn the thorns and thistles off of it.

And so this is a graphic picture of the judgment that would descend upon unsaved Israel because they had rejected those 40 years of Messianic proclamation and in 60-70 AD the Roman army would come in and they would burn it to the ground. They’d destroy the temple; one of the famous accounts is given in Josephus when the Roman legions finally broke into the city the commander gave the orders to save that holy temple, it is one of the great landmarks of the ancient world, and as the Roman armies marched up to it and close to it, they don’t know to this day what happened, but somebody threw a torch into some flammable material inside the temple and the whole temple burned and some of the supports into the rocks burned and the roof caved in and the whole thing went down. The Roman legions tried to put the fire out and they tried to save it while they were fighting at the same time but they weren’t able to do so. And so the great wonder of Herod was burned to the ground, just as Christ prophesied, that there might not be one stone left upon another in the end of this [can’t understand word/s]. So this is the great burning.

Now to show that this is not something new to the author of Hebrews I want to conclude by taking you to some other places in Scripture where this occurred, two in particular. One in Isaiah 5, the parable of the vineyard or the song of the vineyard actually. It shows you how God is expressing Himself in the vocabulary of an agrarian people, looked upon those who had heard, who had heard, who had heard, who had heard and heard and heard again. By the way, this is an example of hymnology in the Old Testament that was hymns that condemned. They not only sang praise hymns but they sang hymns that curse. That’d be interesting to sing some Christian hymns some time, we’ll have to put those in our hymnal too.

Isaiah 5:1, “Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved has a vineyard in a very fruitful hill; [2] And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress in it, and he looked for it to bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. [3] And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judge, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard. [4] What could have been done more to my vineyard,” that’s the key in verse 4, “What could have been done more,” you see, they had already been the recipients of everything God could do. “What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked for it to bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? [5] And no go to, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall therewith, and it shall be trodden down. [6] I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned, nor digged, but there shall come up briers and thorns: I also will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. [7] For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plan; and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; he looked for righteousness, but behold a scream.”

And so there is God breaking it down, what more could I have done, and so God lets the nation have it. The other place where the vine occurs is in John 15. This is actually the Messiah’s continuation of the vineyard, it’s the same kind of illustration, there’s a point in grace, when the limits of grace are reached. In John 15:1-6, Jesus is proclaiming Himself as the vine. Remember it’s taken from Isaiah 5. In Isaiah 5 it was the nation that was the vine; Jesus Christ says I am the vine, it means that group of the nation that will adhere to His Messianic claim. In other words, the nation under me is the vine; this is not a fore view of the Church, by the way, in John 15. It’s thoroughly Jewish and thoroughly Israelitish.

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman [vinedresser].” Again it’s saying nothing more basically than Isaiah 5. [2] “Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” Now the fruitless branch, you notice, is taken away in verse 2, we’ll see more about that in a moment. “The branch that bears fruit,” that would be the work through the Holy Spirit in the Christian’s life, including every soul that’s led to Christ, “that bears fruit He purges it,” now anybody have vines, grape vines in their backyard. Do you know what you do with them? You trim them, the purging here is the thinning process and this explains why oftentimes we experience pressure in the Christian life. That pressure is a trimming process, we have suffering, category type five type suffering.

[someone says something] Well, we have a husbandman in the area. Okay, so now we see the purging, “that bears fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” And this again is a cutting down out of the waste areas of our life. [3] “Now you are clean through the word I have spoken unto you, [4] Abide in Me, and I in you. as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you, except you abide in Me. [5] I am the vine, you are the branches. He that abides in Me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit; for without me you can do nothing.” And then in verse 6, “If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” And that’s the rejection of those who are in the Messiah’s nation, who have been exposed to Messiah’s claims. Don’t read Pauline church positional truth into John 15; this is not Paul 15, it’s John 15 and when it says “in Me,” it isn’t talking about “en Christos,” like Paul’s talking about.
If you’d like further study there’s a book we just put in our library, Abiding in Christ by Professor James Rosscup, it’s 250 pages on the study of six verses of John 15 and if you want the back up on that interpretation you can read it for yourself.

Okay, we are through that section of Hebrews, now we can get going and finish out the warning passage hopefully in one more session and get on I the epistle. See, we haven’t got to the deep things yet, of chapter 7, where it’s talking about the deeper things, these are just trivial; now we are through the trivial we can get on.