26th October, 2010

BRUCE C. WEARNE

Read Hebrews 5: 11 - 6: 3

When the writer begins to discuss the Kingly-Priesthood of Jesus, according to the arrangement seen in the ministry of Melchizedek to Abraham (briefly mentioned in Genesis 14: 19-20 and then taken up in the royal Psalm 110: 4), he points out to his readers why such an exposition is needed. It raises matters
"which are hard to convey since your hearing has become muffled". (5: 11).

They weren't able to hear clearly. These are believers whose knowledge of God's covenantal mercy should, by this stage, have meant that this letter was not even necessary. There is an important aspect to" by this time shouldn't you have become teachers?" (5: 12)

A NEED FOR A "MILK-LIKE INTRODUCTION": Bruce Wearne says the writer of Hebrews is saying that despite the fact those he is writing to remain immeature in their faith, "the letter is still saturated with God's mercy so they might come boldly to the Throne of Grace". PICTURE: Uros Kotnik (www.sxc.hu) "The Gospel should never have been necessary but it is the definitive 'nevertheless', the announcement of how the Living God has successfully persisted in fulfilling His promises, accommodating the weak and beggarly status we had become..."

This is a New Testament reiteration - at least to Jewish believers and with them all brought up on the faith - of Deuteronomy 9: 6-7: "Know then that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to occupy because of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people. Remember, and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place."

It is as if the letter writer is saying: "This letter shouldn't have been necessary had you readers been following the religion to which you claim to have been so committed."

Part of the problem of their "dullness" lies in their tendency, we might call it a recidivistic propensity, to want to "go back to basics", and thereby turn inward. The Gospel should never have been necessary but it is the definitive "nevertheless", the announcement of how the Living God has successfully persisted in fulfilling His promises, accommodating the weak and beggarly status we had become...and persistently confirm whenever we adopt a "hearing that is not thoroughly imbued with faith" (4: 2).

Their faith should have already been decisively shaped by an intimate generation-to-generation anticipation of the Coming of the Lord. So, when Christ Jesus did appear, they should have been ready to take on the task of teaching this Good News, exercising their own Melchizedekian office of royal service, announcing and demonstrating Christ's merciful rule. But they have somehow or other, along with Jesus' first disciples called from the shores of Lake Galilee, inherited a lazy dullness that seriously afflicts their understanding (Hebrews 5: 11-14). They have a child's need for a simple milk-like introduction. But then we note that the letter is still saturated with God's mercy so that they might come boldly to the Throne of Grace.

In this sense, whoever the writer was, he was framing his communication with a priestly concern, having compassion on the ignorant (5: 2), since he too was well aware that he was beset with the same weakness. This reflexive dimension of the letter should not be overlooked. It helps us work through what is an extremely complex passage which regularly stumps its interpreters.

Indeed this complex passage and the discussion that follows cannot make sense without reference to the "for-as-long-as-it-takes" guarantee given by God to Abraham: "For in giving His guarantee to Abraham, God swore by Himself, because there was no one greater that He could swear by."

This sentence (6: 13) helps us to pick up the thread in this part of the letter. Those who had become dull to God's ongoing promises needed "meat" rather than staying with a baby's milk-based diet. This metaphor is used to tell them that, as people of the Messiah, they were standing in the way of their own maturity by presuming to go "back to basics". Instead of nurturing their false need for first principles they should, by now, have been initiating the new avenues of service that are opened up to them by this glorious doctrine. They were in danger of becoming blind to the way God's Son was ruling their daily lives. Yes, the Messiah has come and sits at the Lord's right hand. So why then is Melchizedek so foreign to them? Had not King David written of the Melchizedekian Priestly-King who will rule the nations? Why then is Christ's Kingly rule so strange? They sing about it, but it sends them to sleep. Why has their hearing become so dull?

The answer is that they have not actually understood that, in the same terms by which Christ performed His royal priestly service, they also inherit an office designed to show the rule of God by a sacrificial life (Romans 12: 1-2). These Christian Hebrews receive their name as children of Abraham (see Genesis 11) but the writer has to jolt their memory about an important episode in their family's ancient history. Genesis 15 tells how God swore a double promise to Abraham (when he was still Abram), that followed his encounter with Melchizedek, the Priestly-King of Salem. There is more, much more, and we shall have to work hard to see how the entire passage hangs together. And it's not always a "nice" story either.

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