Lesson 11 – Go beyond physical displays of power
Read Hebrews 6 - www.bible.com/bible/59/heb.6.esv

The first 8 verses continue the theme of growing in faith. Those that the writer of Hebrews wrote to were saved but they were thinking of returning to their former religious rituals because of persecution. Here the writer warns them that if they do that they will be not be able to repent of their sin while they put Christ to shame by returning to their own efforts to please Him. God will not hear them and they will fail to progress to maturity. If they return to Christ, God will accept their repentance and they will be able to continue growth but not until then.

One of the things we believers are asked to do in growing is to leave behind the “elementary” things – like we saw in the last lesson. Several things are specifically mentioned that we don’t need to keep dwelling on. Let’s look at these briefly.


First, a foundation of repentance from dead works instead of faith toward God speaks of our salvation. As we grow in faith, we don’t destroy that foundation, but we need to build on it until that foundation is barely visible. We as believers need to make this such a basic part of ourselves that we no longer question it at all, we build our faith on this fact so that how we are saved is never questioned again.

Second, instruction about washings was a part of the Law that should be just as foundational for us. This is about how we live our daily lives. Just because we’ve been cleansed doesn’t now mean we can do anything we want to defile ourselves again – the mature understanding is that we must now pay attention to keeping ourselves clean. Again, we can still not cleanse ourselves from sin, but it should be second nature to us that we go to God whenever He shows us something we’ve done that is not His way, and confess it. We let Him cleanse us from all unrighteousness – 1 John 1:9.

Third, the laying on of hands speaks of power that is given to us by God to act on His behalf. These things should not be uppermost in our minds. Our obedience to God’s will should be a foregone conclusion in our minds.

Last, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment are things of the future. We don’t need to spend our time thinking about these when we should know beyond a shadow of doubt that God has it all planned and will work it all out.

 In contrast, however, God tells those who have not yet accepted Him that there is a level of familiarity with Himself that becomes dangerous to the one who understands but does not accept Him at that time. Remember, God said repeatedly in previous chapters, the time to accept Him is “today” when we understand. There is a point of no return with God for someone who rejects Him. If you’ve never made this important decision to follow Christ, do so today before it’s too late.