Insult By Way of Explanation

If you are reading this, you probably are wondering at the title. Spoiler alert: I’m not going to insult you. Perhaps I should say that I’m not going to insult you intentionally. If you come this blog regularly, you may have found things I’ve said offensive at some point. If so, sorry about that, but only to the extent the offense was distracting from the message. To the extent the offense made the point more clearly, I have no regret.

More than likely, what frequent visitors find is confusing, or worse, boring. For those things, I truly am sorry. I regret being confusing and boring because it obscures the message I believe my Master gives me. Try as I might, I still wind up as either or both. But the writer of Hebrews uses insult to pull his readers into rapt attention:

Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For 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, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

Hebrews 5:11-12 NASB

“Yeah, I’d like to go deeper, but you’re stupid. Are you paying attention now?” That’s what this tactic seems to be for the writer. He goes on in the beginning of chapter 6 to describe some basics he’d like to get past so he can delve into more important things. Why? Why insult his readers/hearers prior to driving to a deeper point?

I get that it’s a literary tactic, but why, with all the available tactics, did he choose that one? Why be insulting? Because they were in grave danger, and I mean “grave” pretty literally, and spiritually. The writer wants his hearers/readers to wake up to this next point, and having insulted them, he is sure to have their attention.

It’s time to leave the connective elements that Jesus’ teachings have with Judaism, and move on to the more important elements. Why? Because if they don’t, they will eventually reach a “point-of-no-return” (see 6:4-8, and my previous entry “No ‘Third’ Repentance“).

As we, Twenty-First Century readers, read this First-Century writing, we need to come to the same abrupt halt. Our attention needs to be arrested. There are points of correspondence between our culture and Christianity. It’s time to get past them into deeper, more meaningful stuff. Because, if we don’t, there will be a point-of-no-return for us as well.

The insult indicates, or explains, the dire importance of “what comes next”. The next thing is pushing past basics elements that teachings of Jesus have with Judaism:

Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

Hebrews 6:1-2 NASB (emphasis mine)

Those disciples of Jesus believed in and taught new converts, but so did Jews. Jews taught their new converts the same basic elements, they simply had different meaning. A Jewish disciple of Jesus could hold to those basics and not run afoul of their traditional Jewish brothers. But those beliefs were not an end, they were supposed to be a foundation for more.

One of the more disastrous problems with way too many churches today is the failure to “make disciples” of those they convert to faith in Jesus. Few failures can more assuredly cause “shallow soil” and “thorny soil” than the failure to disciple. On the flip side are those churches making disciples of their theology rather than of Jesus. That’s almost worse; except that sometimes, within the bad theology, there are kernels that can lead diligent seekers of truth to the feet of Jesus.

Read Hebrews 5:11 through 6:8 again. Wake up, smell the coffee of the call of Jesus. He calls us to seek HIM, not words about Him. He calls us to seek His face, not opinions about Him. We are to be baptized, immersed in His Spirit, not this world’s view of Him, or even this world’s view of this world.

Jesus is the Person who stands as the point of the Scripture He inspired. What is necessary to know to know Him is found in there. Once what is necessary to know Him is found, we actually come to know Him through our obedience to Him. It’s not what we find in Scripture that defines our relationship with our Creator, it’s what we do with what we find in Scripture. It’s obedience to our Creator that defines our relationship with Him.

It’s not “work” that saves us, but work demonstrates we’re saved. It’s not a confession of word as much as a life lived in deeds that declares our allegiance. Do we live as if this world is passing, and we’re looking for that city “who architect and builder is God”? (Hebrews 11:10) Or are we distracted, seeking rather to conform to this world instead of the one to come? The writer of Hebrews leads his readers to an enduring faith, enduring to the Eternal City of God. And yes, he insults people along the way. Because it’s important.

Let’s be insulted, offended, challenged, and driven to reach that city. Let nothing stop us.

Scripture quotations taken from the NASB. Copyright by The Lockman Foundation

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No “Third” Repentance

A few weeks ago, I wrote an entry from Hebrews 3 in which I claimed that the writer held the possibility that salvation could be rejected after being accepted. I said some things in that entry that one visitor took issue with, and we had a lengthy discussion among the comments. Neither convinced the other, but it was interesting to me because his support he used was unexpected. You can read the entry and the comments on that entry, “Falling Away“

One of the things I said there is that I don’t really fit into either camp on the discussion of apostasy (the technical term for “falling away”). And that may sound weird, but the common term is “loose salvation”, and I very strongly disagree with the term “loose” used with this topic. I loose my keys, my phone, my wallet, and so on. I don’t “loose” my salvation. The problem of apostasy Scripture speaks of is not that simple.

One of the several issues I rarely hear those in the camp of “transitory salvation” is that there is only one chance at it. I said in my entries on Hebrews that the writer seems to support both sides of the issue of salvation loss. Here’s one of the reasons I say that:

For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.

Hebrews 6:4-6 NASB (emphasis mine)

What this clearly says is that, if someone has a relationship with their Savior, and then rejects it (looses it), there’s no coming back. “It is impossible to renew them again to repentance”. Repentance, the change of mind, heart, and then behavior, which indicates a state of being in relationship with our Savior, is impossible if we “repent” from it back to where we were before.

Said another way, people say (not me, but others) that repentance is a 180-degree turn away from what we were, how we thought, and how we lived, and toward our Savior, His ways, and His thoughts. If so, then the loss of salvation represents a “repentance” away from our Savior, a 180-degree turn away from His ways and His thoughts, and toward what we were, how we thought, and how we lived. And once that “second repentance” happens, there’s no hope of coming back again to our Savior.

Did anyone experience a “chill” reading that? I felt one writing it. It’s frightening, and it’s supposed to be. Salvation, our relationship with our Savior is serious. And it’s so serious, it isn’t something that can be left on the subway by accident. It’s not something buried under your jacket around the house. You can’t leave it in the last place you remember having it. You can’t loose it. It’s life and death, not a ticket to heaven!

It’s like being married, being in the military, or being employed by large company: you don’t forget those things, you consciously choose to break with those things. And for that there are, or can be, serious consequences. “Saved” means you are a disciple of Jesus, and that is an expensive commitment to make. It’s not something you take lightly, nor do you live it out lightly.

In fact, one of the claims of those in the eternal security camp is that anyone who “falls away” was never actually saved in the first place. That, while wrong and missing the point, is closer to the truth than the other side. The danger of that position is that it holds the hope of being saved eventually. Sorry, there’s no pass to get around this inspired claim of the writer of Hebrews. Our Savior, the Spirit of Jesus, inspired this passage to deliver a message to us: DON’T GIVE UP! It comes with the associated warning that, if we do, we’ve made an eternal choice from which it is impossible to come back.

But there’s no reason to fear. The point isn’t to be afraid that you might “fall away” by accident or unknowingly. The point is that we don’t out and out reject the “Way” of Jesus for another path. If you question your commitment, you are probably good to go. You show interest in your relationship with Jesus. You may not be a great disciple, but you’re in the fray. And being in the fray means there’s hope you will be an even more faithful servant of Jesus.

See, it’s not the husbands who wonder if they’re good husbands that are the “looser husbands”. It’s not the wives who wonder if they’re good wives that the “worst wives”. It’s the spouse who doesn’t care about the other, the ones who think only of themselves, what they want, their desires and their feelings. When there’s no regard for the other spouse, then the marriage is basically a paper certificate filed in some county records holding area. But when there is some regard, some thought for the other, spouse, then there’s hope. They may not be a great spouse, but there’s hope for improvement.

In the same way, if there is some regard for our Savior, even misguided, there’s hope. There are exceptions, such deep deceptions that the regard isn’t for anything even close to Jesus, but in general, those are rare. I’m not a perfect disciple of Jesus. Sometimes, I’m not even a good disciple, and at other times, I’m a down right bad disciple. But I have regard for my Savior, I seek to please Him, I’m concerned about how I treat Him, and it wounds my heart to be that bad disciple, and even missing the mark of “good disciple”. I want to be a great disciple. But one thing I don’t fear is forgetting where I put my faith.

Where is your faith, your hope in eternity? If you have never had hope, then I recommend Jesus. If your faith is in Jesus already, live it out, follow His pattern of living. If it used to be Jesus, but you’ve woken up and realized it’s been years since you were living as a disciple, is this a wake up call? See, if you’re looking at Him again, I believe it’s possible you didn’t actually “reject” Him, or it’s possible you never really had faith in the Savior revealed through Scripture (see how close I am to the “eternal security camp”?).

In any case, where are you now, and what will you choose today? I’m choosing to be a disciple, and I am going to work on being a great one, even though the prospect terrifies me. I may only end up being a good one. Okay, as long as I’m a disciple, I can’t let go of that.

Scripture quotations taken from the NASB. Copyright by The Lockman Foundation