Hebrews 6.1

Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Moshiah, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,

We cannot stay in one place forever, wandering around in circles. Let us go on. We will graduate you to the level of mature disciples. 

You have already received this foundation — 

We will not now lay it over again once more.

Principle one

Repentance from Adamic works

Lifeless works versus life-giving faith in God.

We will obediently trust the word of God given to Abraham and to All Israel and we will (then) come to comprehend what we are hearing.

Principle Two

Faith towards God 

Faith towards God must be repentant faith. Natural faith that does not look for its own salvation will contain denial of corporate sin. Repentant faith must be commanded, asked for. It cannot be asserted, as it were, by the sinner’s own understanding. There is a natural faith in God in a relationship with God as Creator and, while every sin has its own specific form and character, all sins are in their origin a break in that natural faith in God.  A break in one’s natural faith in God involves an act of will. Cannot one, therefore, by an act of will reverse what they did in breaking their natural faith in God and return to having faith in God in that very place where they broke it? But if a person makes the decision to do this, will the faith they come to now have be the same natural faith they had before they broke their faith in God through their sin? 

This new faith they come to have in God might indeed be faith, but it might be said to no longer be innocent faith. There is very much that is different in what is involved in the faith built upon the attempted to repent from having sinned and the original faith in a God. Among the many things that are different the most essential thing is that the original innocent faith was entirely a response to God, to the glory of his revelation of himself and his generosity and careful love, which he expressed in creating. 

Whereas the attempted repentant faith does not originate only in a response to God, but is one step removed from this and originates in part in one’s own will. It’s foundation is one’s own decision. Before sin, before there was any break in one’s faith in God, all freewill acts of obedience were acts arising out of faith. When faith is broken, a decision to return to having faith, if that decision originates only from one’s self, by definition is not an act of the obedience of faith but is, at best an act of remorse for having lost faith. If one breaks faith and breaks relationship with another, one can express remorse and ask for reconciliation and for faith to be restored, but while they can express remorse, ultimately they must wait and listen for the word of the other to initiate reconciliation. 

Only then can they respond with faith in the word of the other. Reconciliation can not be imposed. Faith in another person can only be invited. Faith is not something that can be overlaid upon another by will, as if upon an object, because there is remorse that it has been broken and lost. So it is with a sinner before God. Faith in God cannot be restored by a repentance that is wilful. One who would repent in truth must wait to hear the word of God and respond to the command of God, which is the invitation of God to be reconciled with God. Faith must be made new.

Hebrews 6.2

Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.

Principle 3

Immersions and Washings

All immersions found in the Torah begin with the immersion of Israel in the crossing of the Red Sea in the process of the covenantal redemption of Israel out of Egypt. No baptism has any foundational meaning apart from this first immersion of Israel. And, indeed, this crossing was the salvation that marked the complete escape of the children of Israel from their slavery to Pharaoh and to Egypt. The specific nature of this first immersion reveals the actual spiritual nature of every true baptism.

At the core of the principle of immersions is the washing of the organs of sacrifice in the burnt offering. There cannot be thought to be any element of the world clinging to Mashiach.  There is much more to this.

[[Sacrifices#Washings]] 

Principle 4

Laying on of hands

This principle pertains to the confession of sins. = "If we confess with our mouth and believe in our heart..."  [Romans 10:9]  The principle of laying on of hands is extended from showing identification by faith with the atoning offering to identification by faith between two representatives of Israel's service to God because faith knows that there is only one servant and only one atoning sacrifice. This is the Messianic meaning of Semichah.  [[Sacrifices#Semichah]] -> Psalms 41... see there the confession of the Messiah as the representative of all Israel, "Heal me...I have sinned against You." In this he offers himself as an atonement for Israel in a confessional death that is enacted by the knife of the commandment of God. Accordinly our confession is true if it is an Amen to his confession and our death is unto resurrection if by this semichah knife of the word of God.

Chizkuni

Sacrifices#Maaseh Hakorbanot - Chapter 3

Numbers 8:10

וסמכו בני ישראל את ידיהם

...and the Children of Israel shall place their hands, etc;” the “Children of Israel” referred to here are the firstborn for whom the Levites had served as atonement. Every firstborn Israelite would place his hands on the Levite who was to perform that service for him. 

וסמכו בני ישראל את ידיהם על הלוים, 

...we find this kind of procedure also in Numbers 27,18, where G-d tells Moses to appoint Joshua as his successor, i.e. וסמכת ידך עליו, “you are to place your hand upon him.” Whenever this procedure is mentioned in the Bible it means that authority is being transferred by the person placing his hand or hands on the person to be appointed. The first person to do so was Yaakov in Genesis 48,14, where he placed his right had on Joseph’s younger son Ephrayim, indicating that he should be treated as his firstborn.

In both of these cases the authority transferred pertains to the position of the firstborn. The whole subject of the word of God concerning the world having a future is centred on the firstborn, in other words, the Son of Adam. In the case of Jacob and Ephraim it involved the matter of making Israel corporately whole. This is something that must be discussed later.  In the case of the firstborn of each tribe of Israel placing hands on the Levites, this is a matter that is foundational to the whole teaching of the Book of Hebrews. It needs to be clearly understood from the outset.

Principle 5

Resurrection of the dead 

It is confessed in the true faith of all Israel that Israel cannot stand before God forever except through the resurrection of the dead. 

It is confessed in the true faith of the remnant of Israel that it was necessary for the one appointed in Isaac to come up from the grave in order to become the firstborn of Abraham and so of Adam and, therefore, of God, to be the heir of the world and the High Priest of the corporate branch of Adam chosen by God and claimed as his own inheritance of humanity, by right as the Creator, in order that all who come to him might be sanctified in him, through his justification of life, by his completion of Adam’s corporate sentence of death in his own body, according to his confession of the righteous judgment of God.

Principle 6

Eternal judgment 

All judgment for sin has been carried out in the redemption of Israel. God does not sit as judge in a criminal court in the judgment to come but sits upon his Throne as a Householder judging all souls as the potential soil of the fields of the eternal world to come where he build upon his mansion to enlarge it for ever. Whatsoever he judges to be good soil, cultivated by the word of God as the Israel of God for the corporate redemption of Adam he will survey and measure according to his purposes. And what soil he has not cultivated he will not recognize as his own and he will look upon it no more.

Hebrews 6.3

And this will we do, if God permit.

The 7th principle

Subjection to God's sovereignty

The sovereign design of the Galut and the Geula by God is a principle of the doctrine of Moshiah.

Hebrews 6.4

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,

1. Enlightened 

2. Tasters of the gift

3. Partakers of the Presence

They have a repentance based in their own perceptions in these three things.

Hebrews 6.5

And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,

Tasters of the word of God

Tasters of the new creation

Like guests who sit at the table and taste of the strange and exotic food there but do not fully join in the eating of the meal.

Hebrews 6.6

If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

There is nothing more for them to taste, they have tasted of all and have left the table wanting to be filled with none of it.

Those who do not taste and refuse the revelation of the corporate redemption of Israel as God’s means of the salvation of the world do not reject the crucified Moshiah. They may be in a part of the body of faith that is still being repaired but it will be repaired and these will be given a full and true repentance. But those who do not go on from those first principles of the doctrine of Moshiah perceive Israel to be something less than what is worth Moshiah dying for, and they have come to their final decision about this.

Hebrews 6.7

For the earth which drinks in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and brings forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receives blessing from God:

Just as a prepared soil receives the rain, so a prepared soul receives the resurrection of the dead.

Hebrews 6.8

But that which bears thorns and briers is rejected, and is near unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.

God alone knows good soil.

Hebrews 6.9

But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this way.

Beloved... The book is written openly to all Israel, to whomsoever among the children of Abraham, Isaac and Israel want to listen in, but it is spoken face to face in the synagogue of the followers of Yehoshua HaMoshiah.

Hebrews 6.10

For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which you have showed toward his name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.

“Those who receive you receive me”.

Hebrews 6.11

And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end:

As sinners we believe we define our own identity. In truth, only one’s Creator defines their identity. The proud rebel, even to the point of boasting that they are not created at all but exist inherently like a god unto themselves. Repentance from sin is not something done once and then it is over. The act of sin is an act that completely puts our lives on a different path of development. Repentance does not simply pick us up and place us back on God’s path for the development of our identity at the exact point where we took ourselves off of it. When we sinned, we decided that we would define our own identity and this changed everything in us and everything about us, so that repentance must be a life process that repairs everything we are.

Hebrews 6.12

That you be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

As redeemed sinners and new creations you do not have a solitary nature as you did as a sinner. You do not and cannot grow in faith in spiritual solitude. You are members of the redeemed corporate body of Israel, according to the promise to Israel in the Scriptures.

Hebrews 6.13

For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself,

Why did God swear an oath to Abraham?

He swore upon his Eternal name

This corresponds to “Because you have...” performed this sign that gives this witness.... I too will signify to you in turn my own witness concerning the same thing by putting my name on the line. To what do they testify?  That the promised one in Isaac will become the Redeemer of the branch of Abraham through the resurrection of the dead. And God swears that in his resurrection from the dead he shall be accompanied by God’s own eternal name.

Hebrews 6.14

Saying, Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.

See on 6:13

This is the very thing he promised before, but now because he repeats it it’s meaning is doubled. It was necessary that Abraham rectify his testimony on account of blemishing it with the confusion of doubt incarnated in Ishmael. In giving his testimony that his faith was in the seed who would be called in Isaac would be raised from the dead, he reframed his doubt as the aspect of death that was ever working in him but was overcome by faith expressed in obedience to the commandment of God. 

And he gives now as an example of the meaning of the doubling of his promise of Abraham’s seed inheriting the world of redeemed eternal life the promise that their enemies will not be able to possess their gates.  The meaning of this is that no replacement theology will be able to establish itself against them. Rather, the certainty of their witness will arise in the end and its clarity will destroy all false testimony.

Hebrews 6.15

And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.

He learned obedience by the things that he suffered. There we saw that he did not inherit by virtue of entitlement but inherited in solidarity with sinners whom he came to save. Here, he endured the long veiling of the power of his faith in order that the testimony of faith might be cultivated and bear fruit in those sinners whom he redeemed. And in the fullness of time he received the promise that was incarnated in him.

Hebrews 6.16

For it is the way of humans to swear by one who is greater than them: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.

For God, wanting to bring humans across the gulf between them and his word, used his words so as to bridge the gulf to them.

Hebrews 6.17

Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:

Knowing the natural way of faith that was in the human heart and mind which faith he desired to repair, he put his own reputation, his own name at stake by subjecting it to the human way of faith in the swearing of oaths.  Accompanying them thereby in their imperfection he elevated them to his perfection. For though it was possible for them to break their word it was impossible for him to do so.

Hebrews 6.18

That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:

We still see through the veil of death, which has layers blocking the light of truth. For not only must we look forward to life through our own coming death, but we must do so from the vantage point of standing in the world of mortality, where all things have become subject to corruption. Therefore, like Abraham and Sarah, we cannot see at all by our understanding at the time we are tested but only by the obedience of faith toward the commandment of God. By this faith in the atonement made by Moshiah for Jerusalem and in his resurrection from the dead, we see the eternal name of the God of Israel revealed and flee to the faithfulness of his word for a refuge of hope, stepping forward with our hand in his.

For in two things he redeems our faith, in commanding his claim upon humanity to be redeemed in a son and in putting his own name through all the suffering of the son with him, so that the name of the father is made known forever only through the son.

Hebrews 6.19

Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which enters into that within the veil;

This Jewish son of God is, therefore, our incarnate hope, entered for us into the Holy of Holies in heaven, which remains veiled to us, though it is for a shortened time, because he tore the veil, remaining united corporately with us when he entered there.

Hebrews 6.20

Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

Melchizedek himself testifies to this, as if he were the very author of this book, as we will see. For now those who are being weaned from milk will be introduced to solid food.