My ears twitch when the apostle says let us leave the elementary things alone. But then he lists them. Repentance. the resurrection of the dead. Baptism (washings) Lay on of hands (in blessing and for healing). Faith.
I find these things more mysterious the more I think about them. I struggle with them all. Repentance is something that has to be daily. We need to choose to walk by faith daily. And in this time we need to choose to be washed by the word of God, as much as by any sacrament, and discipline ourselves. For if we choose not to please God, and instead fear men, there lurks apostasy.
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. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
I have always been taught that this passage is about Apostasy. In part, because it makes no sense otherwise. For if we have to be perfect following baptism, or being saved, or being blessed, or seeing the riches of God we are making a terrible error. None of us are perfect. Here Calvin comments wisely.
The knot of the question is in the word, “fall away”. Whosoever then understands its meaning, can easily extricate himself from every difficulty. But it must be noticed, that there is a twofold falling away, one particular, and the other general. He who has in anything, or in any ways offended, has fallen away from his state as a Christian; therefore
all sins are so many fallings. But the Apostle speaks not here of theft, or perjury, or murder, or drunkenness, or adultery; but he refers to a total defection or falling away from the Gospel, when a sinner offends not God in some one thing, but entirely renounces his grace.
To this I would add that many who call Christ LORD are not of him. And thew fall away. One prays that they do not fall completely, for the apostate has not sinned against Jesus, but the Holy Spirit, and expunged the voice of the Spirit from his mind, his life, having seared his conscience.
The rest of us read this passage in terror, and think about what we did yesterday that led us to fall. To them, and to me, I say this: God gave you knees. Confess your sins to God, and ask for his strength for today. Today you have to live for him. You cannot do anything about yesterday. And the future is a mystery. For we are not judged by our feelings or our failings.
We are clay, we are not steel. Bur pottery survives the furnace, when steel melts. And the judgement of God is not on what we feel, nor our sense of spiritual achievement — note that the apostate talks about spirituality and often has a great pride in their enlightenment — but how we have influenced those around us. We judge on what we feel or how we look.
And we are therefore inaccurate.
So, please God, and not men. For men are owned by the spirit of this age, and the elite teach us the ways to death. Do not follow that. Do not be like that. And do not walk away from the Spirit and join them.
