A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 5 - Pressing on to Possess the Kingdom

"Wherefore leaving the doctrine of the first principles of Christ, let us press on unto perfection; not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the teaching of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this will we do, if God permit" (Heb. 6:1-3).

"Let us go on" or "press on". The entire object and appeal of this whole letter from beginning to end is concentrated in those four words - "let us go on". You notice that they form part of a parenthesis, a parenthesis made necessary by a difficulty up against which the apostle came as he sought to unburden his heart of God's message. That difficulty, as you notice, arises a little earlier, a few verses before when he says regarding Melchizedek: "Of whom we have many things to say, and hard of interpretation, seeing ye are become dull of hearing. For when by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food. For every one that partakes of milk is without experience of the word of righteousness; for he is a babe. But solid food is for full-grown men, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil". That is the parenthesis; it is a very important parenthesis.

He has opened up the great matter of Christ's eternal priesthood, His heavenly priesthood, His great work of mediation and intercession. He wants to get right into the depths of that and finds that he is held, limited, because of the situation existing with which the whole letter was intended to deal. And so, gathering up his one complete object in writing, he concentrates it into this small fragment of four words - "Let us go on". "Let us press on. Let us stop this tarrying in over-prolonged spiritual infancy, let us leave the place of spiritual babyhood, and let us go on to full-growth".

God's Desire for Grown-Up Children

What then, is the object of the whole letter, in the light of this parenthesis? The object of this entire letter is that Christians, believers, should be people of spiritual stature and measure, people who are growing all the time and leaving elementary and rudimentary things behind and coming to a position where their faculties and senses, their spiritual faculties and senses, are developed in such a way as to constitute them spiritually responsible people with spiritual intelligence and spiritual capacity for receiving all that God wants them to have. That is the object of this whole letter - that Christians should be like that. God's thought is to have not only just born anew children, but grown-up children, in all that that means of inward spiritual development and enlarged capacity for the greatness that He has to impart.

Leaving the Earthlies for the Heavenlies

Now, this letter shows us clearly that this is only possible on certain grounds. Firstly, this growing, this enlargement, this development, this increase of spiritual life and ability and capacity and faculty is only possible as we leave the earthlies for the heavenlies. The earthly things are set out, and what I mean, and what this letter means by earthly things, is just earthly representations of Divine things - the representations are to be left for the actualities, the realities, the things which are truly heavenly. The earthly representations are here mentioned - the ritual, the rites, the forms, the ceremonies, the customs, the performances, the externalities of religion; all that system of things which can be seen, touched, handled. That which is merely earthly and of a representative nature should be just left, and the spiritual realities which they represent, the heavenly things themselves, should be apprehended. It is only possible to go on to full-growth as we do that.

In effect, this word says, "Well, all this religious paraphernalia and performance is just child's play, is just kindergarten, just rudimentary, it is just pictures, not realities; pointing to something more but never bringing you to it. Now just leave it and come into the realities, the heavenly, spiritual realities!" It is only possible to grow as that is done, as the temporal is left for the spiritual, and as the passing is left for the eternal.

In order to do this, something else is required, so it is pointed out here: to leave these things, you have got to have something that helps you. You do not leave them unless you have seen something else. Do not leave one thing until you have grasped another. Do not go out into the backwoods. You do not leave what is in a sense concrete for something that is abstract. That is not the point at all, that is not the meaning of "spiritual" and "heavenly" - "abstract". No, no one has ever yet come into God's fuller thought, intention and measure on a negative. It has always been on the positive, and there are certain things, therefore, which have to be apprehended in order to go on, in the sense of leaving those things for these.

The Necessity for an Apprehension of Christ

And the first and all-inclusive thing which has to be apprehended (and forgive me for speaking of it as a thing) is Christ. That is the whole point of this letter. The point is, if you have really seen the Lord Jesus Christ, what He signifies, what He means, your religious toys will be thrown aside. You will rise up, you will move on, you will grow. That you personally have seen the Lord Jesus is the basic and inclusive necessity for all spiritual growth. To have seen Him is to do what those first disciples of His did - they left their nets and they left their boats and they went after Him. The other things of earth are just left behind, even the religious things of earth, and you go on if you have seen the Lord.

Is it necessary for me to say that that is just what He wants for us? And if we really do mean business - for it is a business-like term this, "Let us press on" as those who mean business, who really are after the real thing, who are not satisfied to have mere toys and figures and representations, but are after realities - if we are like that, we shall have a definite business transaction with Him in which we say, "Oh Lord, make this known to me, reveal this to me, show me this". That is His one great desire, because He knows even better than we know, that the only hope of real spiritual fulness is in seeing Him; not literally with natural eyes, but having what the New Testament calls the revelation in our hearts: "It pleased God... to reveal His Son in me" (Gal. 1:15), said Paul. To see Christ in our hearts, the eyes of our hearts enlightened to see Him, is the great inclusive secret of all spiritual progress and development.

The Necessity for a Settlement of First Principles

Then here this word points out that another thing is required - that is, an understanding and a settlement of the first principles; the understanding of the first principles and a getting of them settled once and for all. You notice they are referred to twice here. In Hebrews 5:12 - "Ye have need again that someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God". Then again in Hebrews 6:1 - "Wherefore leaving the word of the beginning of Christ" or "the first principles of Christ..." and the first principles of Christ are enumerated.

Now just for the sake of those who are more instructed in the Word, there are those who argue that these six things mentioned are Jewish ordinances to be left behind. Now, so far, up to date, with every effort to understand that, I find myself unable to accept that interpretation, because I do not believe that Jewish ordinances are the first principles of Christ. These six principles are the foundation of the Christian life, the matters in which young believers are to be instructed. I am not going to stay with them for long. I just pass over them quite quickly with a word on each, but we need to understand what these principles of the Christian life are.

The first principles are said to be these. "Not laying again a foundation of:

"Repentance From Dead Works"

Now, there you have the implication of Jewish ordinances - dead works. Dead works comprehend all those religious activities and engagements in which men engage themselves for their own salvation, by which they hope to save themselves and improve themselves. Judaism was one big system of such works by which men tried to accomplish their own salvation, and it proved to be a hopeless effort. It failed utterly, and the whole of that system of religious activities, no matter how piously and devoutly performed and carried through, and how sincerely intended, the whole category failed and proved to be dead works. This letter goes on to show that all the offerings on Jewish altars, all the bulls and goats ever slain, all the blood ever shed, all the priestly ministrations of that system, never, never solved the problem of a single conscience. It had to be repeated day after day, morning and evening, year after year throughout the whole life, and when a lifetime of shedding blood and making offerings was done, that soul was no more at rest in conscience before God than at the beginning. It all proved to be dead works. And here it says that the very beginning of a true Christian life is to stop your dead works, your religious works for your own salvation, and put your faith in the Lord Jesus. He does it. "Repentance from dead works". I am sure the apostle would not go on mentioning Jewish ordinances immediately after if these things here were only Jewish ordinances to be left behind. No, he is speaking about things of Christ, not of Jewish ordinances.

"Faith Toward God"

That is a basic, foundation principle of the Christian life. First, repentance - oh, do not miss the point of that - not repentance from all your sins merely, but your religion, your dead religion. Repent of your dead religion, repent of your efforts to save yourself, repent of all that faith in things which is not faith in God. "Faith toward God" - in what way? In this way: that God Himself has provided all righteousness that you and I need in His Son Jesus Christ, and has said, "If you will believe on My Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, I place to your account all the righteousness that ever you will need to stand in My presence". Do you believe it? Do you believe God in that way? That is the foundation to the Christian life. You will never get anywhere until you recognise that you can never work your own righteousness; however religious you may be and devout, you never can. The only righteousness which God will ever accept is His own, and He has given us that in the Person of His Son, and He says, "The basis and the beginning of the Christian life is faith toward God in that". You will never get anywhere until that faith in God is exercised.

"Of the Teaching of Baptisms"

It is not 'baptisms' here that is referred to as the foundation. It is the teaching of baptisms. Perhaps that is difficult, but it is very simply explained. There are baptisms - it is plural; evidently there is more than one, and you want to be taught as to the difference between them, to be able to discriminate between the two. There is an excellent example in the New Testament. When Paul arrived in Ephesus he found disciples and said, "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?" (Acts 19:2). They said, "We did not so much as hear whether the Holy Spirit is". "Into what then were ye baptized?" And they said, "Into John's baptism". "Oh," said Paul - and here is the teaching of baptism, instruction - "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on Him that should come after him, that is, on Jesus". When they heard that, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus - not into John.

These Jewish people to whom the letter to the Hebrews was written were saying, "John's baptism is the thing!" "Oh", says the instructed, enlightened apostle at once, "no, it is baptism into the Lord Jesus, you must know the difference between these two baptisms - the teaching of baptism, discrimination - and see that it is baptism into the Lord Jesus that is the foundation, and the understanding of what that means". What does it mean? Simply, it means that as the baptism is a grave, a burial, you on the one side died to an old relationship, to an old life, to an old world, to an old system of interests - you died to them and are buried, and you take up a position on the other side of that grave as alive now unto heavenly, eternal interests, God's interests; it is all a new world and a new life; it is simply a dying and being buried and being raised again. And the baptism is a testimony to that, and that is foundational to the Christian life. It is a first principle to say in Christ I have died to my old life, to my old realm of things, and in Christ as risen from the dead I live henceforth only unto Him.

"Of Laying on of Hands"

This is a large matter, wanting a lot of explanation. One point only I fasten on. You remember when the apostle Paul was converted and was instructed to go into Damascus, the Lord sent a man named Ananias to him. And it says, "Ananias... entered into the house, and laying his hands on him, said, Brother Saul..." (Acts 9:17) - and that was one of the greatest victories ever won in a man's heart. He had already argued out the matter with Christ, when He said to Ananias, "Go... inquire in the house of Judas for one named Saul, a man of Tarsus: for behold, he prayed". Ananias said, "Lord, I have heard from many of this man, how much evil he did to Thy saints at Jerusalem; and here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call upon Thy name - I am not touching that man, he has come here for that very purpose." The Lord said, "Go thy way; for he is a chosen vessel unto Me", and the victory was gained after a big struggle in the heart of Ananias. And he came in and, instead of looking at him askance, he went straight up - "Brother Saul". What is that? That is the family relationship. And he laid his hands upon him. There are many aspects of this matter of laying on of hands, but that is one aspect. It is the acknowledgment that all those who are accepted by Christ are one family, are one Body, are brought into a oneness together. There is an identification, and this giving of hands, so to speak, is an act of identifying one another as in the family, a brother, a sister, in Christ. It is basic, it must be basic, it must be a first principle. That is simple; it is not all, but it is enough to indicate.

"Of Resurrection of the Dead"

Is it necessary to say anything about that? It is basic, a foundation.

"Of Eternal Judgment"

Whatever we have to say about the nature of it, the point is that it is indicated here as a fact. The resurrection of the dead is a fact, eternal judgment is a fact. If you hesitate as to what it is like, do not let that kind of mentality rule out the fact: the fact is there.

These are six things, foundations, and the apostle says, "You have got to understand them before you go on; you have to understand what these things mean, you have to recognise their significance and then you have to settle them - 'not laying again...', not getting back behind this and having to do it all over again, settle it once for all; have these things settled as your foundation". Now then, when they are settled, you are ready to go on.

The Necessity for Singleness of Heart

One other thing I am going to mention which is required in order to go on to full-growth. It is that which lies implicit in Hebrews 4:12 - "The word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart". What does that mean? That is not talking about the difference between soul and spirit. It means getting right down through all your thoughts, intents and motives and discovering whether, in the depth of your being, in your spirit you are real, whether you mean business, whether you have a true, pure, earnest spirit, that your motives are not mixed, your thoughts are not false, but right down deep where only the word of God as a sharp two-edged sword can pierce, where it gets right in, it discovers that you are really meaning business, that your spirit is pure and right with God, that you are not playing at things, not hedging things, not trying to wriggle, there is no duplicity about you, but you are absolutely true in your attitude toward God, there is no prevarication at all. Unless that is so, we will not go on, we will not come to full-growth, we shall not be Christians developed with senses and faculties capable of apprehending the fuller meanings of God and attaining unto a position of responsibility and trustworthiness in the things of God, having our senses exercised to discern, having capacity developed.

It is only if we are true, utterly real, completely meaning business with God, only if arguments are not introduced, only if personal interests have no place - how things are going to affect us if we take this step - policy, diplomacy, considerations like that: "If I become a Christian, then so-and-so; if I take this step, it will involve me in such-and-such and I am not prepared for that" - that is policy; that is not a true earnest spirit with God. You will never get anywhere if there is anything like that at all. It is only if you are in a place where, no matter what it costs, what it means, I am going on with God; no matter what people say or do.

The letter to the Hebrews leads right up to this at the end - "Let us therefore go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach" (Heb. 13:13); the camp of social life, the camp of religious life as it is here. If we take the attitude that it is better to suffer reproach with the Lord than to escape reproach and lose the Lord, we will go on. Let us go on, let us be like that, and we shall go on to full-growth.