Hebrews 6

Verses 1-8. This is the " perfection " he means; these are the first principles; it is not Christianity at all. What! you say; not a converted man! No, not at all. None of these things are within the brackets. You might have a man have them all without being born again. We have very much lost a true thought which the churchmen have. The dissenters are all for membership; but it is members of a church, not of Christ's body, with them. A churchman, on the other hand, is all for getting a man to church. If you ask him, " Why cannot you say what you want to him here?" he answers, " Oh, no! I must get him into church." This thought we get in 1 Cor. 14, which shows us the power of God in the house of God. In that chapter is the only time the word "layman " is used. The layman there falls down, worships God, and acknowledges that God is " in you" clergy, not in himself. Being there, he is in a place of blessing; and if he go out from it there is no other for him; he had better take care not to leave it. Just as Noah might have said in the ark: Now, my son, you are in a safe place; do not leave it, or you will be drowned. It is no question of conversion. Then, you ask, what does he gain? He gets what we have in these verses 4 and 5. There is a wonderful sheltering power in the word; he is made a " fellow" of the Holy Ghost (not partaker); he is in company with Him, though not indwelt by Him. If I go into a house, and it down in a comfortable chair there, do you mean to say that I have not got some of the privileges of the house, though I do not belong to it? You know that I have. And you know perfectly well the power that is felt sometimes in a meeting; how every soul is hushed; and how the presence of God is felt, whether by converted or unconverted. The man at the feast, he got the feast, but he did not get the garment; he sat all through the wedding supper, and no one found him out until the king came in.
There is no real conversion in these verses. It is the wonderful action that takes place in the house of God short of conversion. We have lost too much the thought of the power of God's presence on the earth; we look at it too much only in connection with souls that are converted. It never says in Corinthians that the man who came in was converted; only that the " secrets of his heart were made manifest." The house is " the habitation of God through the Spirit;" it takes the place that the schekinah glory did in the temple: every one who came in was not a believer, but every one who came in was in contact with the glory. The question in Scripture is whether a man who takes a Christian position be able to maintain the position he has taken. The man in 1 Cor. 5 is admitted to be converted, yet he is put outside the assembly; he is not fit to be in it. It is, "Put away from among yourselves that wicked person;" and that though he be a converted man. But he was brought back again among them very soon afterward. In this chapter of Hebrews the apostle is showing how a Jew, having taken Christian ground, if he turn away from it, crucifies for himself the Son of God, and from that there is no return; for if this wonderful thing come upon a soul and there be no answer to it, it is like earth drinking in rain from heaven, and bearing only thorns and briars after-fit for nothing but burning.
Verses 9-17. "But," he says, a "we are persuaded better things of you." There are real things that accompany salvation. You take an interest in what belongs to God: " We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." We are thrown into a new circle, a new relationship, and the question is whether we like this relationship. We must be relations to them. A man does not love his relations without their being his relations. In the church a man has got out of his own natural circle into one outside nature. "As I have loved you, ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."
Verses 18-20. In chapter 4. we had the rest of God; now we have the hope. In Hebrews you are going on to heaven, and Christ is always the object before you. Are you in heaven? No; but He is there. Are you on shore? No; but the Captain is: " The forerunner is for us entered." And He is bringing us on to where He is Himself. It is not with us as it was with Israel; Canaan is not the type of our position; there is nothing about Canaan here except in contrast; it is heaven that is brought out here. Canaan is the heavenly man upon earth; there is nothing at all about that in Hebrews. The wonderful thing in the tabernacle is that it is not a type at all; it is a copy of the original. We are going on to the original of which it is the image. If you say the tabernacle is a type, then you must have an antitype of it to come after it; but it is not; Moses saw it up in the mount, and came down and gave the children of Israel' the pattern of it. If the tabernacle be only a type, then I must be waiting to come to the antitype of it; whereas, if it be an image, I am only going on to that which was there before the tabernacle ever was.
Abraham rested everything on the heir (verse 14); how much more do we rest everything upon One who is greater than the heir-upon that Christ who is the fulfillment of and answer to the heir, though I am down here and He in heaven a great way off.
There are three different ways in which we are looked at in connection with heaven. In Hebrews, the lowest of the three, we are seen on earth looking up into heaven; in Joshua we are in Canaan, heavenly men fighting on earth; and in Ephesians we are seated in Christ in heaven, which necessarily includes the two others. But Christendom is nothing more in principle than Jewish converts. They have not occupied the place of heavenly men for centuries; they have made the earth their center; converting the earth has been their aim. " They say they are Jews and do lie;" they are not Jews; if they were it would be no lie. And this is what makes the camp which you get at the end of the book. There is no Christianity proper if you leave out heaven; earth does not belong to Christianity proper, because Christ has been rejected from earth. We have not only the certainty of getting into heaven at some future time, but it is ours now. People say, I shall get into heaven when I die. And what will you get till you die? Earth. Exactly; and that is what object to. The apostle says, Though you are not in heaven yet, still I give you the place, and I set your eye on the One to whom it all belongs, and who is gone in there for you. God could not give us the earth that rejected His Son. My heart is to be occupied with the One who has entered there for me as High Priest; and therefore the apostle beautifully says that He is gone, not either into Canaan or into heaven, but " within the veil." He says, I will not talk to you of either earth or heaven; but is your eye on Christ? Is it turned to the magnet, the loadstone of the heart?
The truth that will deliver souls in the present day is the book of Hebrews, though it be a child's book. Souls do not know that they are saved. They have got hold of the value of the sacrifice on earth; but they will talk of " a fresh application of the blood; " they have not got a Priest in heaven.
Hebrews is uncommonly lovely to the heart, because it always draws it up. It says: It was quite right for you to listen to the prophets; but here is the Son of God for you-the One who has come down to contend with all your foes, and who has gone back to heaven, having overcome them all for you, and who now makes you His fellows. As already said, it is like the whole congregation of Israel going up with the high priest to a certain point, and then, to use a common expression, they are " at fault"-they have lost him. But we " see Jesus." If I look up to the highest point, I have Him there; and if I look down to the lowest point-to my weakest point-I have Him here.