Hebrews chapter 6

vs 1

I wonder if "useless rituals" is an alternate manuscript or a translation of an idiomatic phrase.

The interesting thing being that we will get back to Melchi, but for the moment we've gone off on this tangent about maturity.

So for the moment, he wants to go past these simple foundational things to the faith. This list starts off normal here -we think "Ahh, yes. Repentance and faith, the cornerstones of our beliefs."

vs 2

Cleansing rites? That confused me. It means baptism, or at least that's what most other translations say. Assuming that it means baptism, then we have resurrection and eternal judgment, which are all part of the typical church teaching in one form or another. Then we have "laying on of hands". Forgive me for not recognising which part of the "foundational" part of my faith this is linked with.

vs 3

The author is keen to move past this stuff and teach something deeper. Not because it's not important, but because maturity demands building on a foundation, not just pitching a tent on it.

vs 4-5

So the question here is whether these things are all the same, or whether this is a progressive thing. That is, is it an and or an or - do you need to have been enlightened, then tasted the heavenly gift, then shared in the Spirit, then tasted the goodness of the word, and then fall away? Or are all of these things more or less the same? I get the feeling of the latter. But why say four things? Perhaps three is the new four - for emphasis.

vs 6

If you consider what the author compares these actions to - that is, crucifying Christ again - it makes me think that all the different things describe a situation or position. That is, I don't think they describe a to-do list in order to recrucify Christ.

Of course, the question everyone wants to know is can a Christian fall away. The answer given by Sydney Anglicans is "Don't", which is not very intellectually satisfying. But my question is what is really meant by falling away here? The language is so vague. Sure, you can say that it means "Someone who had faith", but why not just say that? Why go on about tasting and sharing. A taste doesn't sound too serious to me, see. But sharing the Holy Spirit sounds mega serious. I guess that we can only taste the heavenly gift and the powers of the coming age, because we will only see them in wholeness at the end. Can that be said of the Word of God too? Possibly.

My understanding is that people don't just get a mixed sampler of the Holy Spirit - you either have it and are one of God's people, or you don't, and you aren't. So then that does sound like it's overall pretty serious. But that still doesn't answer what "fall away" means. I can tell you what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean "sin", because John makes it clear in his epistles that Christians still sin and are forgiven. Does it mean deny salvation, deny Christ's sufficiency? The kind of falling back into reliance on ritual and history and Law? That seems to fit, but I'll keep my options open, because how is that different to other sin?

Perhaps the idea is that if you think your falling away is really a step forward, then from that position you can't accept repentance or the sacrifice of Christ. But then that doesn't really seem to be the message here. The language seems so final. Difficult.

vs 7-8

This is obviously not about farming - it's a picture of what has just been talked about. So that means that this "falling away" business is at least somewhat to do with fruit. There has to be something to show for your faith. If there's no fruit, then you're useless, and then it's burning time.

vs 9

Well, that's nice. So this was a little warning, but really the author doesn't think his audience is in that dire a straits yet.

vs 10

And this verse, see, is about fruit. So as far as the author is concerned, he can see the fruit of their salvation, and therefore doesn't think that they're in for the inability to return fall. So this subject of falling was important enough to get a mention, but not really so important as to spend time and clarify. Perhaps the author didn't know any better than us anyway.