Why don’t New Year’s resolutions ever work? I think it’s because we’re not really serious about them. Oh, we want to do them, it’s just that we want to do other things or the same old things more. We’re serious about New Year’s resolutions, at least when we make them, we’re just not serious enough. The same can be said of many people and discipleship. We’re serious about wanting to grow and wanting to want more of God, we’re just not serious enough. We allow things to slide, we make excuses, we allow busyness and pressures to crowd the Word of God in our lives.
Jesus’ Parable of the Sower is informative [see: Matthew 13:1-23] Jesus’ point is that the seed of the Gospel is sown and, depending upon the type of soil, it will either root and grow and bear fruit or it will not. And that is also what we read in our passage in 6:7-8, “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.” And so, with these strong words, the author of Hebrews challenges his audience, including us, to take following Christ seriously. He calls us not to a New Year’s Resolution, but to a New Life Revolution.
And, in pushing us toward that end, the author of Hebrews let’s his readers have it. He states, “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.” The author recognizes that he has written about some weighty theological points and believes that his readers, by this point in their journey of discipleship, should be up to the challenge. However, though they ought to be teachers by this point, they still need instructions on the ABC’s of faith. They haven’t been weaned from milk yet. They should be having filet mignon and they’re slurping a bottle.
The reason for this is not that the word is too hard for them to understand or the work too difficult for them to do, it’s because they’re being lazy. They’ve become dull or sluggish of hearing. Therefore, they are unskilled in the word of righteousness. They are inexperienced and untried in the way of Christ. They have not progressed in discipleship, not because they don’t know about the Gospel, but because they have not practiced the Gospel life. They are trying to get by on milk instead of growing healthy and strong with solid food. They would rather keep rehearsing their ABCs instead of forming words and grasping ideas and expressing thoughts.
And they are contrasted with the mature believer who has his or her powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. For one develops in knowledge and character from training and constant practice. That is true intellectually, occupationally and physically. Growth requires solid food, training and constant practice.
“Therefore,” the author states, “let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity.” What is the elementary doctrine of Christ? He says, “not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God … instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.” Now, please recognize that the writer here is not putting these things down – they are not bad, they’re just basic. They are foundational and a foundation is meant to be built upon. You don’t lay a foundation for the heck of it. It’s meant to hold up a structure. You can’t have a livable house if you never add anything to the foundation.
The author encourages us to be carried on to maturity so that we will be like “land that drinks in the rain” and produces a crop rather than land that is worthless and bears only thorns and thistles. That kind of land he describes in vv4-6 and so warns his readers once again against falling away.
These are difficult verses to understand. Much discussion and debate surrounds them. For those from a Reformed perspective, the question is: what does this passage say about our belief in the gracious calling of God in our lives and god’s gracious sustaining of that calling? In other words, can we lose our salvation?
Some read these verses and say ‘yes’ – that this clearly refers to a Christian believer who has turned away from Christ to his or her own destruction. Others read these verses and say ‘no’ – that anyone who persistently rejects Christ proves that they were never a true believer to begin with.
And whatever one’s interpretation of this is, we see that there are people who regularly attend church, participate in worship, they may even have made a public confession, been baptized and taken communion and yet do not really believe nor have they truly submitted themselves to Christ in repentance, faith and obedience; there are people who have been inoculated by a little Christianity so as to become immune to the real thing; there are people, like the Israelite spies who entered the Promised Land, saw its goodness and tasted its fruit and yet refused to enter in because of stubborn unbelief. For these people, who stubbornly and persistently reject Christ, repentance is impossible because they refuse to repent. Their hearts are hardened so that they refuse to receive the grace offered. They are like land that received rain, but then produces only thorns and thistles; soil that receives the seed, but does nothing with it (so the birds eat it) or is to shallow for it to take root or allows weeds to come in and choke it out.
Now to understand these verses I believe we must hold in tension the fact that we are saved and sustained by grace AND that we are called to strive to enter God’s rest and therefore to train and practice and be diligent and earnest. God carries us to maturity – that’s a reality. But we have to strive, hold fast and run with perseverance – that’s our experience. We have to hold those two perspectives together and trust God’s grace while at the same time take our responsibility and culpability very seriously. That’s why the author gives such a harsh warning. We show that we are disciples by our fruit.
And so the author feels sure that his readers are in the fruitful and blessed category rather than the thorns and thistles category, for he himself has seen their work and their love for god and others expressed in their serving the saints (their brothers and sisters in Christ). They have produced fruit – good works and love – that ‘belongs to’ or ‘accompanies’ salvation – that springs from grace.
He therefore encourages them to continue in that – “to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end.” For it is that persevering, continuing grace-rooted love and grace-inspired works which reveals one is a true disciple of Jesus. (Jesus himself said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”) Enduring love and obedient action give us then assurance and hope. They reveal that we are alive and growing and moving into solid food.
And so, the author of Hebrews challenges us, once again, to take following Christ seriously. He calls us not to a New Year’s Resolution, but to a New Life Revolution. Not plodding along; not discipleship in fits and starts and starting all over; not being dull of hearing and lazily unskilled in the way of Christ, but rather training ourselves through constant practice to discern good from evil and to growing in the good – in the Way of Christ; to show diligence to the very end in order to make our hope sure. He calls us to allow Christ to revolutionize our lives now to the very end. He calls us to be people like Eugene Peterson describes, “people who spend our lives apprenticed to our master, Jesus Christ…[who] are in a growing-learning relationship always… people who spend our lives going someplace, going to God, and whose path for getting there is the way, Jesus Christ” (A Long Obedience).
May our prayer this new year be for God to carry out a new life revolution in each of us.
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