“"The Hope Set before Us"”

Sunday, July 06, 2025

Our series covering the book of Hebrews by chapter has accelerated of late, for reasons of which you may or may not be aware at this time. Regardless, you can expect to see the next chapter (or so) briefly analyzed in each successive week, until the series terminates with chapter 13. We’ve already been up through chapter five, and a brief review, as always, can help propel us into the next installment.

In chapters 1 and 2, the author of Hebrews used the Scriptures to remind his audience that Christ is better—better than angels, and better than us. Yet because he shared our human experience, he’s an effective mediator between man and God. In chapters 3 and 4 he focused on one Scripture—Psalm 95—to warn Christians against hard-heartedness leading to apostasy. Then, in chapter 5, he reiterated his earlier claim (from 2.17 & 3.1) that Jesus is our new—and better—high priest. He compared Jesus’ priesthood to the Levitical order, but pointed to yet another Scripture to establish that Christ’s priesthood is of a different and better order—that of Melchizedek (5.10).

But now he observes a problem.

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.

(Hebrews 5.11)

This is one of many hints that this book originated as a sermon, but we don’t have time or space to follow up that premise. However, the observation helps to make sense of what follows. From here through the end of the sixth chapter of Hebrews, is a digression from the central argument. The author will pick up where he left off at the end, getting back to his point that “Jesus has gone” into God’s presence “as a forerunner on our behalf” and that he is able to do this because he has “become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (6.20); but first, he needs to rake his audience over the coals.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

(Hebrews 5.12-14)

At one time, it was perfectly appropriate for these Christians to be spiritual children—“infants in Christ,” as Paul called a different audience many years prior (1Co 3.1). But the years between their coming to believe in Jesus and the present occasion should have been marked by growth, maturity, a need for more substantial spiritual food, and—what the author implies but doesn’t mention—greater strength, with a longer list of fruits borne. Instead, they were in a state of stunted growth, which—to continue the analogy—would surely end in spiritual death, if not corrected. He pleads with his audience,

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity…

(Hebrews 6.1)

He doesn’t mean, of course, that believers should forget the basics—things like repentance, faith, baptism, the Holy Spirit, the organization of the church, the coming resurrection, and judgment (vv1b-2). These remain the “foundation” (v1). But a foundation isn’t of much use, unless the intended structure is built atop it!

After another short detour from this tangent, to the effect that people who refuse to grow beyond the basics are rejecting those very basics and their “end is to be burned” (v8), the author softens his tone, extending hope.

Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

(Hebrews 6.9-12)

He doesn’t want his audience to forget, or stop looking for the fulfillment of God’s promises through Christ. Where does he go, for an example to help us better understand this? Same as usual—the Scriptures.

For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.

(Hebrews 6.13-15)

Abraham waited a lifetime, and although the fulfillment of God’s promises seemed to grow more and more impossible by the day, he maintained his hope. In the present life he never saw a “a great nation” of offspring (Ge 12.2); he never saw “all the land” of Canaan” given to his “offspring forever” (13.15); he never saw “all the nations of the earth…blessed in him” (18.18). But he did see a son born to aged parents; he did receive a small portion of the promised land; he did see his prosperity amplified to bless the people around him. These shadows served to guarantee the real promises.

This is the primary lesson in our author’s tangent, and in fact the whole book. Don’t give up hope! This life of waiting seems endless at present, but it will pass in the blink of an eye. God always keeps his promises. So

hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf…

(Hebrews 6.18-19)

Jeremy Nettles

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