Elementary Doctrine and Dead Faith

 

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. (Hebrews 6:1–3 ESV).

 

This reading is certainly worded in a way that captures our attention. Something doesn't seem to fit. Look back at an earlier verse: "Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God" (Hebrews 5:12). The question is how this fits together with our reading today where it says, "Leave the elementary teachings and don't lay a foundation again" (v. 1). One seems to say you need to be taught the basics again (v. 12), and the other seems to say you should not lay that foundation again (v. 1). Well, which is it!

 

I think the teaching they need about the basics (cf. Hebrews 5:12) is how to use these basics for Christ's sake to press on to maturity. But laying a foundation again, I think, implies that they are losing sight of the basics about Christ and are beginning to occupy themselves with Old Testament and Jewish truths that were used as the foundation for presenting and understanding Christ. And the writer doesn't want them to go that far back.

 

In this writer's mind, laying a foundation for the understanding of Christ is different from teaching about how to live in Christ based on that foundation. The striking thing about this list in the first two verses of our reading is that it is not distinctively Christian. It is made up of foundational Old Testament and Jewish truths and practices that the readers probably built on when they were converted. The context of his readers makes this easier to understand.

 

He lists "repentance from dead works and of faith toward God" (v. 1d); "instruction about washings and laying on of hands"; and, "the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment" (v. 2). All these are common Old Testament beliefs or current practices among the Jews. When these readers were evangelized and converted, these things, it seems, had been made foundational as a way of helping them understand the work of Christ. Christ is the goal and fulfillment of all these things. So when verse 1 says they should leave the "elementary teachings about Christ (or literally: "the word of the beginning of Christ"), what I think it means is that they should not occupy themselves so much with the pre-Christian foundational preparations for Christ that they neglect the glory of the gospel and how to use it to grow into maturity and holiness.

 

I wonder if we are guilty in this sometimes. We spend so much energy teaching people how to begin that I fear we have lost the mechanism of producing disciples. And, yet that is precisely what we are called to do. That is Jesus’ desire for the church. We should then take care to move forward from the foundation of our faith. We can’t neglect it. However, once we have that truth, there is so much more! We must always be in the mode of learning.