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Bro. Bill Nichols
Okay, I'll begin then. This morning we're going to cover the first two verses of chapter 6 of Hebrews. I'm going to begin by reading them. Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrines of baptism, and the laying on of hands, and of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank You for this day. Thank You for the time that You've given us to come together. Thank You for allowing us to meet in person again, and thank You for having the availability and the technology to reach out and touch people that are not able to be here in person.
Bless us and keep us if You know You will. Thank You for giving us Your Son, Your Holy Spirit, and Your written Word that we may study it as we come together to worship You. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Now, the author of Hebrews is not speaking of leaving in the sense of abandoning the foundation, but rather in the sense of starting with the foundation and going on to a more complete understanding. The foundation is the place to start, not the place to stop.
It is, as it were, the on route to the road to salvation, salvation in Christ. Now, the author is not speaking of justification. That's only part of the salvation process. Now, a couple of things that it's important to note.
In this salvation, there are two kinds or types of events. One type is instantaneous. It just happens in a moment of time. The other is ongoing. One precludes any input from the recipient. The other type demands it, demands input.
It's also important to note that this salvation process is not some bandage that God came up with to correct something that He didn't anticipate. It's clear that all of this was part of His plan from before time began.
I thought I would begin today not with Hebrews, but with Ephesians 1 verse 3. So while you're going there, I'll wait just a second. Ephesians 1 verse 3 and the following. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, accordingly as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.
Okay, so that event happened even before there was a world, before there was time, before there was space, before there was anything that had already been done. And we, the elect, had already been chosen at that time.
Chosen that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, and to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved.
We would not have been accepted in the Beloving had He not made us so, in whom we have redemption through His blood, and the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, or His unmerited favor, favor that we did not earn, but He chose to give us anyway.
Wherein He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He hath purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, even in Him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will, that we should be to the praise of His glory who first trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted.
After that ye heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that yet believed you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession under the praise of His glory.
So that's the plan, and the plan was in vogue, established before the foundation of time. The people upon whom the blessings would be bestowed were chosen. The blessings were chosen. The world was created all with the anticipation that all that was going to happen did happen.
And God knew it all from the beginning. And that's probably enough for the establishment of the plan of salvation. Now we're going to look at the specifics of that plan. I think it's fair to view salvation as a four-step process.
Step one is justification. Justification is a legal term which comes from the Greek word meaning righteous, which really means to declare righteous, not to be righteous, but to be declared righteous. And this declaration includes a pardon from the guilt of sin, a pardon from the penalty of sin.
We know the penalty for sin. The penalty of sin is death. It also includes the imputation of Christ's righteousness into the believer's account. Christ's righteousness is counted as if it belongs to you.
And that gives you a positive righteousness that all men need to be accepted by God. Now it's important to note that God declares a sinner righteous solely on the basis of the merits of Christ's righteousness, not on any smatterings of righteousness that he himself might have.
Romans 3 .23 says it clearly, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That's simple enough, clean enough, self-explanatory, but Isaiah says the same thing a little more colorful in Isaiah 64, beginning at verse 6.
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all of our righteousness are as filthy rags. All of the righteousness that we possess, our self-righteousness, are all as filthy rags. And we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away.
And there is none that calleth upon my name that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee. For thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us because of our iniquities. So if we're counting on our own righteousness, that's where we are.
Consumed because of our iniquities. Dead in sin with not even a desire to get out of it. But not only did God impute Christ's righteousness to us, He also imputed our sin to Christ. To Christ to be paid for in full by His sacrificial death.
Well, that's the first stage of salvation, and that stage occurred before time began. If I said, when were we justified, the proper answer would be before there was a time. You can't ask when. Before there was anything, before there was world, before there was a creation, before there was space, before there was time, before there was anything, there was a plan.
Now the second step of this gospel plan is sanctification. Sanctification is to be set apart for God's service. Set apart by justification, and therefore declared to be holy, to be separate. And therefore identified as a saint.
This sanctification is positional and instantaneous. It took place at the same time that the justification took place, before time began. And that sanctification, the positional sanctification and the instantaneous sanctification is not to be regarded or confused with what most people call progressive sanctification.
That's too confusing for my mind. My mind can't handle two different kinds of sanctification. One instantaneous, one set in time before time began, and another one ongoing. One which requires nothing from me, and one which does require something for me.
So I prefer to call that kind of sanctification what most religious scholars call progressive sanctification. I prefer to call it transformation. This first kind of sanctification has to do... I'm sorry.
This transformation has to do... I'm doubly sorry. The first kind of sanctification, that's why I don't like to use the word. The first kind of sanctification has to do with the believer's standing, not his present walk or condition.
It has nothing to do with what the believer is doing right now. It has to do with his standing, the fact that he was declared justified and declared set apart, not his present walk or condition. Okay?
So the first kind of sanctification, the one that we're going to call from now on sanctification, has nothing to do with the believer's present condition or walk. It has everything to do with his standing as being justified by God.
2 Thessalonians 2, verse 13 says it more clear than I can. But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of God, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through the sanctification of the Spirit.
That's the sanctification we were talking about as the second element of salvation. And the belief of the truth, wherein to you, wherein to He called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That previews what's going to happen to us. So here's where we are now. You have been chosen and set aside for God's purpose. And all of that was done before time began. Now, you don't know that. You don't know that until He notifies you of that.
You couldn't have possibly begun to do anything about anything until you knew about it. And so now we come to the continual of the progressive sanctification, the transformation. There is also a work by the Holy Spirit, a progressive sanctification, which from now on we're going to call transformation, by which the state of the believer is brought closer to the likeness of Christ through the obedience to the Word of God and the empowering of the Holy Spirit.
Now, the first thing you need to know is, you can't enter this phase of sanctification. You can't enter transformation. You can't be transformed until you begin, through obedience, to obey the Word of Christ, the Word of God.
So you can't do anything until you have read the Word of God and have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to understand what He is saying. The believer, then, is able to live a life of increasing holiness in conformity to the will of God, and becoming more and more like our Lord Jesus Christ.
So the transformation process is living in a way of increasing holiness in conformity to the will of God. Romans 6, verse 1 says,. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
God forbid! How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know you not that so many of us, as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized unto His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by the baptism unto death.
And like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so should we also walk in the newness of life. So how are we to walk? We are to walk as if we wanted to conform ourselves to walking as close as we possibly can to the walk that Jesus walked, and certainly to the walk that Jesus would want us to walk.
Paul has another stab at it in Romans 12, 2. Be ye not conformed to this world. Romans 12, 2. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. That's why I chose to pick the word transformed.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove or show what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So we are to live in a way that shows that we are attempting to match as close as possible our walk to the walk of Jesus.
Transformed. Not conformed to the world. Not acting like the world acts. Not looking around and see what the world wants to do. Not taking a vote. How? By doing what is good and acceptable and complete or perfect in the will of God.
So that's the third step of salvation. The changing process. And then the fourth and final is glorification. I'm just going to read a couple of statements from Corinthians that mention glorification. The first one is the famous passage on love.
Charity never fails. Whether they be prophecies, they shall fail. I don't know if I told you where this is. This is 1 Corinthians 13, verse 8. Charity never fails. But whether they be prophecies, they shall fail.
Whether they be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there shall be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child. I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part. Then shall I know even as also I am known. Now by faith, hope, and charity, these three. But the greatest of these is charity or love. So now we see through a glass darkly. Then we shall know even as we are known.
So we'll be different. We'll be able to see more clearly what the Lord has in store for us. And we will be able to see ourselves and see things around them as God sees them. And then verse 15 of 1 Corinthians, starting at verse 51, and we all know this one almost by heart.
Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep. That's to say we shall not all die. But we shall all be changed. The ones that are dead will be changed, and the ones that are remaining alive will be changed.
He's talking right now of the ones that are alive at this point. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trump shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible. So what was dead is now alive.
What could die is now alive forevermore and will be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption. What used to be able to die will now no longer be able to die. And this mortal must put on immortality.
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But give thanks to our God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay. That's so much for getting ready to go into chapter 6 of Hebrews.
Now as we begin to read chapter 6 of Hebrews, look for six blocks to the foundations that are listed in the first two verses. So there are two verses of Hebrews that we're going to cover today, verses 1 and 2 of chapter 6.
So here we go. Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection, not laying again the foundation. Now what's in the foundation? We're looking for six things. Here's the first one.
Repentance from dead works. This is the second one. Faith toward God. And of the third one, the doctrine of baptisms, and pay particular notice that that word is plural. Not a single event, but a plural event of the doctrine of baptisms.
And of, this is the fourth one, laying on of hands. And of the fifth one, resurrection of the dead. And of, this is the sixth one, eternal judgment. So here we have them, the basics, basic building blocks of the foundation.
Repentance from the dead, faith toward God, baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. Now what the writer is referring to are the basic Old Testament teachings that are used to prepare the way for the Messiah.
The beginning teaching about Christ found in the Old Testament. These Old Testament principles include the six features that are listed in verses 1 and 2, and there are others as well. But then after you are there, what do you do?
You go on to perfection. Salvation by faith in the Messiah, Jesus. The verb is passive, so it could be read, let us be carried to salvation. And that's not a matter of the learners being carried to salvation by their teachers.
Rather it's by both the learners and the teachers being carried to their salvation by God. The writer warns his Jewish readers that there's no value in stopping with the Old Testament basics. The Old Testament basics are not the completion.
They're not the perfection of the plan. They are only the basic foundational statements. When he says laying again, that's what he's talking about. There's no value in stopping with the Old Testament basics and repeating or laying again what was only intended to be a foundation.
It was never intended to be the entire salvation process, just the foundation. So here again are the six. Repentance from dead works. This Old Testament form of repentance is turning away from evil deeds that bring death.
Is there anything wrong with turning away from evil deeds? No, there's nothing at all wrong with turning away from evil deeds. We should turn away from evil deeds. What do evil deeds do when we don't turn away from them?
They lead to death. Ezekiel 18 .4 says this, Ezekiel 18 .4, Behold, all souls are mine. As the soul of the Father, so also the soul of the Son is mine. And here's the importance. The soul that sinneth, it shall die.
But if a man be just and do that which is lawful and right, and hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted his eyes up to the idols of the house of Israel, neither defiled his neighbor's wife.
Now, let me pause here a second and say, these things have to do with the adulterous practices that were done in the raised places, on the high places, the mountains near Jerusalem. Part of the pagan religion was doing these things, eating on the mountains and lifting up idols and defiling your neighbor's wife, and hath not oppressed any, but hath restored to the debtor his pledge, hath spoiled none by violence, hath given his bread to the hungry, hath covered the naked with his garment.
He that hath not given forth to usury, neither hath taken any increase. He that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man, hath walked in my statues, hath kept my judgments to deal truly.
He is just and shall surely live, saith the Lord God. Now, how would we respond at this point to Ezekiel? Fat chance. There is no way that any of us are going to do all of these things. Some of us might do one of these things, and some of us might do another one.
Some of us might give bread to the hungry. Some of us might not charge interest for what we loan. I don't think any of us would ever be able to judge truly between man and man. I don't think a single one of us could ever do that because we don't know everything that we need to know to judge fairly.
So what do you think? Do you think there's a chance for anybody to actually come to repentance from dead works and succeed in obtaining salvation by doing that? Christ told us that we can't. Romans says this, For the wages of sin is death.
Well, why don't we all have death? Because there's a semicolon after that word death in Romans 6 .23. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God, not anything we did, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So have we a chance for salvation? Yes. How do we have that chance? Because it was a free gift given to us by God. Turning away from evil deeds and turning to God. That's good. But too often, the Jews only turn to God in a superficial fashion.
Fulfilling as best they could the letter of the law as evidence that they had repented. But the inner man was still dead. Here's how we know. Matthew 23, verse 25. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For you make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but within they are full extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee! First cleanse that which is within the cup and the platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
Don't worry so much about what the outside looks like. Worry about what's on the inside. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are likened to whitened sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward.
But are within full of dead men's bones and of uncleanness. Even so, you also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. The kind of repentance that the scribes and the Pharisees were showing was not the kind of repentance that brought salvation.
It was a kind of repentance that brought them praise from their fellow men. Under the New Covenant, however, repentance toward God is coupled with faith in Jesus Christ. Christ's atoning sacrifice saves from dead works.
John 14, 6 says, Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me. So the first thing that we dealt with was what? Repentance from dead works. Is repentance from dead works good?
Yes. Is it sufficient? No. What has to be coupled with it? Faith in Jesus Christ.
The next thing. Well, this is not the next thing. This is more of the same thing.
Faith toward God. Faith directed only toward God is, John MacArthur said, unacceptable. I would have preferred it had he said insufficient. Faith toward God, faith directed only toward the Father is unacceptable.
I would have preferred it to have been said insufficient. It's certainly necessary, but it's not sufficient. Without faith in his Son, Jesus Christ. Let's look at Acts 4, verse 10. Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.
This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there any salvation in any other. For there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
So that's the second item. That was the second item. And what was that? Faith directed only toward God. No, faith must be directed toward God and to Jesus, coupled with faith. Baptisms. Now John MacArthur says a better translation would have been washings, as was used when the same word was translated in chapter 9 of Hebrews, verse 10.
The Greek term found here in this verse, baptismos, is never used of Christian baptism. The term that is used for Christian baptism is baptizo. Now I'm going to spell those two words so you can tell the difference and not rely on my pronunciation.
The Greek term found in this verse, in Hebrews 6, verse 1, is baptismos, B-A-P-T-I-S-M-O-S. That's the word used here and it's never used of Christian baptism. The term that's used for Christian baptism is this word, baptizo, B-A-P-T-I-Z-O.
Two different words. Now there's a second item that MacArthur points out is inconsistent with Christian baptism. How many times, John, can you be baptized as a Christian? Okay, but which one? It's by changing and by accepting and by showing your acceptance, and it's one time.
One time, you're baptized one time. Once you're baptized one time, you can renew your covenant. You can pledge to become more faithful to it. You can do all kinds of things, but you got it one time. In the Old Testament, there were continual washings.
There were washings for everything. There were washings before you ate. There were washings before you took part in any religious ceremony. Washing after washing after washing. That's an Old Testament thing.
There were many ceremonial cleansings, which were signs of the heart's cleaning. It was signs of the cleaning of the heart. The Old Testament, you did the washing to show that you were attempting to cleanse of your heart being cleansed.
The New Testament calls for an inner washing. Titus talks about this. Not by works of religious righteousness. This is Titus 3, 5. Not by works of righteousness, which we have done. That's not what does it.
But according to His mercy, He saved us. Jesus saved us by His mercy. By the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. An inner washing that regenerated the soul. That's the kind of washing that is signified by Christian baptism.
A one-time washing that regenerates the soul. The fourth item in this list of six is the laying on of hands. In the Old Covenant, a person who brought a sacrifice placed his hands on it to symbolize his identification with it as a substitute sacrifice for his sins.
So he says, he put his hands on it and says, I'm identifying with this thing that's going to be sacrificed. My sins should be placed on it and I will be cleansed for a year or at least the next time that I come.
Laying on of hands. The fifth item. Laying on of hands in the Christian church, they know it was only laying the hands on the sacrifice to show that that animal is being slain to cover my sins. That's all that laying on of hands did.
This laying on of hands that's done in the churches today is not part of the Levitical system. It's a whole different thing. Resurrection. Well, the Pharisees believed in resurrection from the dead. We know that.
Acts 23, 8 says, For the Sadducees say, There is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit. But the Pharisees confessed both. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection from the dead, but they were still spiritually dead.
We read already, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, for you are like white and sepulchers, which appear beautiful on the outside, but are full of dead men's bones. Yes, they believed in resurrection from the dead.
They also believed in the judgment of God. And that was the sixth item that was on the list. Eternal judgment. They also believed in the judgment of God, and they were headed straight for it. Now, it's significant that all of the doctrine listed in verses 1 and 2 can be associated with the Pharisees.
Every one of them. The Pharisees believed in every one of these. And the Pharisees often were attracted to and even sometimes associated with Jesus. The Pharisees were much more likely to be in the audience of Jesus than the Sadducees.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee. Paul was a Pharisee. There were many Pharisees that were actually called to Jesus Christ, but not all. Nicodemus and Paul were both Pharisees before their conversions. The Pharisees were products of the pursuit of righteousness by works of the law rather than by faith.
So what they were doing, the Pharisees are Pharisees because they're pursuing righteousness by trying to follow the law. And what's their chances of succeeding? None. They have absolutely no chance. When Paul was on the road to Damascus to bring the church people back to be punished, he thought he was carrying out the works of the Lord.
He thought he was carrying out the works of the law, but he wasn't. It was only after he recognized, after the Lord pointed out to him that he was wrong, it's hard for you to kick against the prick. It was only then that he actually was saved or that knew he was saved.
When was he saved? He was always saved. When did he know he was saved? He thought he was saved when he was on the way from Jerusalem to Damascus. He knew he was saved just before he got there. On his way to Damascus, he was as blind as a bat, but he didn't know it.
On the road, he became physically blind, but spiritually aware. Isn't that amazing? Paul says in Romans 10, 1, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
They're like I was. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, are going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. Until they learn to turn loose of the search for their own righteousness, they will never seek the righteousness that God is willing and wants to give them.
And a portion of Hebrews, to whom this epistle was written, may very well have been written directly to and directly at the Pharisees. Okay. I'm going to read verses 1 and 2 again. It's been a long time.
Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection. Keep that in mind. Go on to perfection. Not laying again the foundations of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of doctrine of baptism, of laying on of hands, and of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
And this we will do if God permit. Now the writer of Hebrews is likely giving both his own testimony about going on from the Old Testament teaching to embrace the new covenant in Christ. He probably is telling his audience that this is where he was, that I was going about trying to establish my own righteousness, and now I understand that I need to pursue the righteousness that God gave me.
But keep this in mind. The decision is not really his to make. Look at John 6, 44. John 6, 44. No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
And then John 6, 39 and 40. And this is the Father's will, which hath sent me that of all which He hath given me, I should lose nothing, but shall raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him on the last day.
Now, I'm not going to go here today because we're just about out of time, but verses 4 through 6 catalog five advantages that the Jews possessed. All advantages that they had, but all the advantages that they had were insufficient to acquire salvation.
They were enlightened. They had received instruction in biblical truth. The truth that they received was accompanied by an intellectual perception, but that was not enough. Understanding the gospel is not the equivalent of regeneration.
And I'm going to leave it there. Just because we read the Scripture, just because we understand what it says, does not necessarily mean that we are going to be regenerated. Many of the Pharisees read it and understood it, but didn't receive it.
Some of them did. Any comments or questions? In that case, Most Gracious Heavenly Father, thank You for this day, and thank You for all our many blessings. Go with us through the rest of the services today.
Bless us and keep us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.