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Even the names brought together, when Paul says `the time would fail me to
tell', are seven, and their exploits are given as follows:
A
Heb. 11:33
-35.
Eleven positive acts of faith.
B
Heb.
11:35.
The better Resurrection.
A
Heb. 11:36
-39.
Eleven negative acts of faith.
B
Heb.
11:40.
The better thing.
The historical background of this epistle is the period of temptation in the
wilderness (Heb. 3 and 4), and it must be remembered that `Jesus' of Hebrews
4:8 is not the Lord, but the Greek spelling of Joshua.
`Leaving ... let us go on' (Heb. 6:1,2).
As Hebrews 6:1,2 is of importance dispensationally, we give the following
somewhat extended analysis. Whatever view we may entertain as to what
constitutes `the principles of the doctrine of Christ', one thing is certain
and beyond controversy -- that Hebrews 6:1 bids us leave them:
`Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on
unto perfection' (Heb. 6:1).
Whatever view we may entertain as to these `principles', this verse not only
says `leave them', but sets over against them `perfection'.
`Therefore leaving ... let us go on'.
Yet again, whatever place in the doctrine of Christ we may give:
`Repentance from dead works, faith toward God, the doctrine of baptisms,
the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and aionian
judgment',
the same verse says `not laying again the foundation'. Leaving for the moment
the question of the exactness of this translation, we feel that no system of
sound exegesis can ignore the obvious relation established in this verse
between the commands `Leave ... go on ... not lay again'. `Leave' is echoed by
`not lay again', and by parity of reasoning and structural correspondence `the
principles of the doctrine of Christ' are echoed by the six items of doctrine
mentioned in verses 1 and 2. It must strike the ordinary reader as somewhat
strange to be urged by Scripture itself to leave the principles of the doctrine
of Christ, and therefore it becomes us patiently to search the Scriptures to
find the mind of God on the subject.
Casting our eye back to chapter 5 we find that these Hebrews, who for the
time ought to have been teachers, were so dull of hearing that they needed to
be taught again certain rudiments of the beginning of the oracles of God. The
word `principles' in Hebrews 6:1 is this same word `beginning'. The word
`doctrine' is the ordinary logos, very like logion (`oracles') in 5:12. So
that the theme of Hebrews 5:12 is resumed in 6:1: `Therefore leaving the word
of the beginning of the Christ, let us go on unto perfection'. Let us return
to Hebrews 5. These believers who needed re -instruction in the rudiments were
`babes', and are set in direct contrast with `full grown' or `perfect'
(teleios); this is parallel with the thought of Hebrews 6:1, which says `let us
go on unto teleiotes'. We are told not to forsake principles, but leave
rudiments, babyhood, beginnings.