Hebrews 6:1Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

As one beginning to learn letters must first learn the alphabet, so a Christian must first know these truths firmly and have no doubt about them.

Whoever lacks knowledge of these things does not yet have a foundation. One must be firm in what has been learned, standing and standing immovable.

Suppose someone already catechized and baptized, ten years later, needed to learn the faith again. Suppose he needed to learn, for example, that one must believe in the resurrection of the dead.

Such a man does not yet have a foundation. He is still seeking the beginning of Christianity.

Listen to how the Apostle himself says that faith is the foundation, while the rest is the building.

"According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds upon it. But let each one take heed how he builds. If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw" (1 Cor 3:10, 12).

Therefore he says, "Let us not lay again the foundation of repentance from dead works."

What does "let us press on to perfection" mean? Let us reach, he says, the very summit. That is, let us lead a virtuous life.

As in the alphabet everything depends on the letter "A," and as the whole building depends on the foundation, so purity of life depends on the fullness of faith.

Without full faith it is impossible to be a Christian. A building cannot exist without a foundation, and one cannot know writing without knowing the letters.

But if a person studies only letters, or remains at the foundation without striving to raise the building itself, he will never make further progress.

So it is with us. If we always remain at the beginning of faith, we shall never reach its perfection.

Do not think that faith is lowered because it is called a beginning. The whole power is contained in it.

When the Apostle says, "Everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child" (Heb 5:13), he does not call faith milk.

Rather, he calls milk the doubting of its truths. Such doubt is the sign of a weak mind, which needs many proofs. The truths themselves are sound.

We call perfect the one who, together with faith, also conducts his life rightly.

But if someone has faith yet lives badly, and still doubts the truths of faith themselves, he insults the teaching.

We may justly call such a man a child, barely entering the beginning.

Thus even if we have remained in the faith for a thousand years, we are still children if we are not firm in it.

We are children if we do not live according to it, and if we are only still laying the foundation.

The Apostle reproaches the Hebrews not only for their life, but also for something else. He reproaches them because they were wavering and needed to lay the foundation of repentance from dead works.

Whoever passes from one thing to another leaves one and receives the other. He must renounce the former and abandon attachment to it, and then pass to the new.

If he begins again to cling to the first, how can he reach the second?

What then, you will say, is this not about the Law? Have we not renounced it, and are we not returning to it again?

But this is not a change, for even now we have the Law. "Do we then make void the Law through faith? Certainly not. On the contrary, we establish the Law" (Rom 3:31).

I am speaking about evil works. Whoever intends to turn to virtue must first renounce vices, and only then enter the virtuous life.

Repentance could not make believers clean. Therefore they were baptized at once, so that what they could not accomplish by themselves they might attain through the grace of Christ.

Consequently, repentance is not sufficient for purification. One must receive Baptism.

Rather, you must strive also for perfection, that is, for the better life. For the perfect man is the one who, together with faith, also leads an upright life.

Faith is the beginning and foundation, and without it nothing can be done, just as one cannot know letters without the alphabet.

Yet as one cannot always occupy oneself only with letters, so one cannot always be instructed in faith like infants and the imperfect.

If someone wishes to accept the first interpretation and reject this one as not corresponding to what Paul said earlier, let him remember Paul's habit.

When speaking of one thing, Paul quickly passes to another. For example, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, while discussing meals, he passed to discourse about the mysteries (1 Cor 11:20-30).

So now, after first reproaching them for weakness and inability to receive what is more perfect, he turns to the discussion of their manner of life.

He calls them imperfect also because they have not ordered their life according to the faith.

"Not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God."

That is, do not begin again from the very start those things you did when you were preparing to be baptized, such as repentance from dead works, meaning renunciation of the works of Satan.

Whoever comes to Christ clearly comes in this way, repenting of what came before, both in teaching and in life.

For if one does not reject the former things, how can one reach the second? Therefore he adds, "and faith toward God."

Then comes faith, namely after repentance from dead works.

Thus he says: you must not be instructed about faith as beginners, for you have already believed. Yet by this he hints that they were wavering and therefore needed a foundation.

This is what the Apostle called the "letters of the oracles." As a teacher of letters first shows children the shapes of the letters, so teachers of piety instruct those approaching the faith in the first principles.

Therefore the divine Apostle says that one must desire what is more perfect, and not learn again from the beginning the letters of piety.

The words "and this we will do, if God permits" are connected by the Apostle with what was said above: "Therefore, leaving the elementary word of Christ, let us be led on to perfection."

"And this we will do, if God permits" means: we shall make every effort and desire to love every labor for the sake of perfection.

It is usual for the Apostle to make everything depend on God's providence. Therefore he added, "if God permits."

So also in the Epistle to the Corinthians he said, "I will come to you, if the Lord wills" (1 Cor 4:19).

The Apostle placed the word "Baptism" in the plural not to teach that there are many baptisms, but because many make use of the grace of Baptism.

That he preached one Baptism is taught by what follows.

"And of faith toward God, of teaching about baptisms, of the laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment."

Likewise, we shall not again from the beginning, as said above, offer you the teaching about faith in God and all the rest in order.

For example, that you must believe in the true God; concerning Baptism, that you must be baptized; concerning instruction in the faith, that you must learn what is needed by the newly baptized.

Concerning the laying on of hands, that with the laying of the Apostles' hands upon the baptized, the Holy Spirit descends upon them.

Concerning the resurrection of the dead, that it will take place; and concerning eternal judgment, that its sentence will be eternal and forever.

Thus we shall not teach you all this a second time, for we have already taught you all this, and everything was done in proper order.

The Apostle used the word Baptism in the plural not because of the mystery of Baptism itself, for it is one and the same, but because of the multitude of those baptized.

This, then, is what he says: one must not return to the Law after leaving repentance from dead works, faith in God, and Baptism.

He spoke of Baptism in the plural because of the multitude of those counted worthy of it.

He spoke of baptisms, and of teaching, and of the laying on of hands, through which ordination takes place, and of the hope of resurrection, and of the rest.

He prepares this in advance because the priests in the Law defended the Law, while Melchizedek was outside the Law.

Although the Lord did not come from the tribe of Levi, He was Priest according to the order of Melchizedek (Heb 5:10; 6:20).

The Apostle says that one must not leave the Priest according to the order of Melchizedek and defend the priests in the Law, so that the things written in the Law may be established.

Nevertheless, he calls these things a foundation, because they served as an introduction into piety for men.

In Christianity these lost their binding force and their significance for salvation.

In Galatians the Apostle calls the Law a tutor unto Christ. He says that before faith came, the Jews were kept under guard by the Law.

But after faith came, they no longer had need of a tutor (Gal 3:23, 25). The Apostle develops the same thought here.

The works of the Law are works fitting for the time of upbringing, school works, preparatory works. They lose their force when upbringing and preparation have been completed.

School exercises and preparatory work are no longer needed when the course of learning is finished and life itself, the work itself, has begun.

So scaffolding is no longer needed when the building has been constructed.

The Jews were accustomed to regard the Law as a divine institution and the fulfillment of the Law as a work pleasing to God.

They could not in any way come to the thought that this very Law, once Christianity was accepted, ceased to be obligatory for them.

They could not accept that the very works which yesterday were considered necessary and holy had today become superfluous for them, and even unclean.

The Apostle does not call them sinful. As though sparing the convictions of his Jewish readers, he calls these works dead, having lost their power and meaning for salvation.

Yet by requiring repentance from these works, he thereby showed that if anyone stubbornly clings to them, he becomes a sinner before the law of faith.

Such a person himself dies to the new life in Christ.

Every form of knowledge, once established on known foundations, no longer touches them, so as not to damage its own firmness.

It is good to build a building on a foundation. Yet it would be strange if someone spent the whole time building only the foundation and never passed on to the upper parts.

In the same way, it would be strange if Christians did not extend their inquiry beyond the basic and initial truths of the faith.

This discussion of the "beginnings," including the teaching on Baptism, was all the more useless because they had already confessed faith in these truths upon entering the Church of Christ.

Here baptisms are mentioned in the plural because the superiority of Christ's Baptism over John's Baptism, which still existed then, is meant (Acts 19:8).

"I confess one Baptism" are words of the symbol. Now the time had come to bring forth the fruits of this faith, not to investigate its subjects anew.

Thus the cited words contain no censure of the teaching on Baptism. On the contrary, they include it among the fundamental truths of Christianity.

For this reason, persistent and detailed explanations would be required. Yet this is not an insurmountable obstacle, and the Apostle hopes to overcome it with God's help.

"And this we will do, if God permits," he says a little later (Heb 6:3).

"Not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of teaching about baptisms, of the laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment" (Heb 6:2).

Or, as in the Russian translation: "let us not again lay the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of teaching about baptisms, about the laying on of hands, about the resurrection of the dead, and about eternal judgment."

The subjects enumerated by the Apostle are, of course, those beginnings of Christian doctrine and those articles of faith which entered into the brief symbol in apostolic times.

Newly converted Christians, infants in the faith of Christ, were taught these things.