Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

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438 Hebrews VI. 7-12.
deemer, and yet after all falls away from Christianity, actually
declares liim wliom he has known as the Son of God to be a pseudo-
Messiah, and contemns him.
If now by dvvd^ti^ are meant the gifts communicated by the
laying on of hands, then (as the laying on of hands took place after
baptism), the readers must have been baptized, and only taken again
under instruction afterwards. Still dwdfULg may mean also the
powers of sanctification in the wider sense. The former is, however,
the more probable.
Vers. 7, 8.—The apostle here remembers Christ's parable of the
different kinds of ground. In this parable, however, we find the
best refutation of the Calvinistic exegesis of vers. 4-6. The fruitful
as well as the unfruitful soil received the same rain and blessing
it is the fault of the soil if the seed is choked by thorns or evil lusts.
The cause of the falling away lies not in the want of an abstract
gift of perseverance withheld by God, but in a shortcoming in the
struggle with the old man. In the words Ka-dpac tyyiV the author
cannot intend to say that the curse is still uncertain (this is forbidden
by the words that follow), they simply mean " it is advancing
towards the curse," "the curse is impending over it." (Comp.
chap. viii. 13).— Etf Kavaiv for the nominative aavoK; is a Hebraism =
nsaV with the \ substantiae, comp. LXX. Is. xl. 16 ;
xliv. 15. The
meaning of the author is, of course, not that the thorns and thistles
merely, but that the w^hole land itself shall
be burned up with
fire and brimstone (comp. Deut. xxix. 22). This is, then, a type of
the eternal destruction of the individual who was compared with an
unfruitful field.
Vers. 9-12.—The author now turns to the other side of the subject,
to the comforting hope that in the case of his readers it has not
yet come to a falling away. " If we thus speak to you (in this
style of earnest warning) we are yet persuaded of better things concerning
you, of things that pertain to salvation."
('E\;6/ifva auyrrjpiag
a classical amplification of the adjectival idea = baud insalutaria.
"Exeodai rivoc;, pertinerc ad aliquid, to be connected with anything,
to have part in anything. The expression is purposely left indefinite,
and it is wrong to attempt to find in it one or another precise
sense.
^Exopeva aioTTjpiag forms only the general antithesis to Kardpag
iyyvg. The change here from severity to gentleness reminds us of
the Pauline j)a.ssages Gal. iv. 12 and 19 ; 2 Cor. x. 11.
Ver. 10.—The more that the new life has already shewn itself
to be efficacious in a Christian, the more that the fruits of holiness
have already been visible in him, so much the more safely may it be
concluded tliat his has been a true central, fundamental, and deep
conversion. The more that his Christianity consisted only of theory
and head orthodoxy, so much the more reason is there to fear that