Second Sunday of Lent (Hebrews 6:1-8)

6 Therefore leaving the teaching of the first principles of Christ, let’s press on to perfection—not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith toward God, ² of the teaching of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. ³ This will we do, if God permits. ⁴ For concerning those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, ⁵ and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, ⁶ and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance; seeing they crucify the Son of God for themselves again, and put him to open shame. ⁷ For the land which has drunk the rain that comes often on it and produces a crop suitable for them for whose sake it is also tilled, receives blessing from God; ⁸ but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is rejected and near being cursed, whose end is to be burned.

Commentary

When [the author says] to leave behind the elementary matters concerning Christ and leave behind the word which stops any progress at the beginning and to be carried "to perfection," he does not simply say perfection in its proper sense, but the perfection, as it were that, that exists between the rudiments of the oracles of God and the heavenly perfection. For the "elements of the beginning of the oracles of God" consist of renouncing Satan and his works, believing in God, being baptized, receiving the Holy Spirit, knowing about the resurrection of the dead and believing that there is a judgment. These things are the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God but the "elements of the articles of God" — not merely the beginning of the oracles of God is to know that Christ suffered on our behalf, that he removed our sins, that he wrought our salvation for us, that he has become our high priest, that he offered himself on our behalf, and such other things. And "perfection" in renouncing Satan and his cohorts consists of advancement in the virtues and endurance amid tribulations, persecutions and periods of testing. And heavenly "perfection" is the exact apprehension concerning the divine teachings of Christ, insofar as is humanly possible. So first we believe and are baptized, then we know what sort of things Christ underwent for our sake and what sort of things he did in his human nature, then we are perfect it in the virtues, then we are deemed worthy of the knowledge which is in accordance with divine wisdom. (Photius)

That which [Paul] says in this epistle to the Hebrews, that it is impossible for those who have fallen to be "renewed unto repentance, crucifying again the Son of God and putting him to open shame," must be considered as having reference to baptism, whereby we crucify the Son of God in ourselves that the world may be by him crucified for us. We triumph, as it were, when we take to ourselves the likeness of his death. We put to open shame upon his cross principalities and powers and triumphed over them, that in the likeness of his death we, too, may triumph over the principalities whose yoke we throw off, But Christ was crucified once and died to sin once, and so there is but one not several baptisms…

And indeed I might also say to anyone who thought that this passage spoke of repentance, that things which are impossible from the human point of you are possible with God. God is able whenever God wills to forgive us our sins, even those which we think cannot be forgiven. And so it is possible for God to give us that which it seems to us impossible to attain…. It seemed impossible that sins should be forgiven through repentance but Christ gave this power to his apostles, which has been transmitted to the priestly office. That, then, has become possible which was impossible. But by true reasoning, the apostle convinces us that the reiteration by anyone of the sacrament of baptism is not permitted. (Ambrose of Milan)

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Collect

Monday of the Second Week of Lent (Hebrews 6:9-20)

⁹ But, beloved, we are persuaded of better things for you, and things that accompany salvation, even though we speak like this. ¹⁰ For God is not unrighteous, so as to forget your work and the labor of love which you showed toward his name, in that you served the saints, and still do serve them. ¹¹ We desire that each one of you may show the same diligence to the fullness of hope even to the end, ¹² that you won’t be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and perseverance inherited the promises. ¹³ For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, ¹⁴ saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.”¹⁵ Thus, having patiently endured, he obtained the promise. ¹⁶ For men indeed swear by a greater one, and in every dispute of theirs the oath is final for confirmation. ¹⁷ In this way God, being determined to show more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the immutability of his counsel, interposed with an oath, ¹⁸ that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have a strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to take hold of the hope set before us. ¹⁹ This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and entering into that which is within the veil; ²⁰ where as a forerunner Jesus entered for us, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Commentary

When [the Apostle] says, we have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, he shows that faith will obtain that promise; and he makes use of a simile. For he compares hope to an anchor, which just as it secures ship in the sea, so hope secures the soul in God in this work, which is, as it were, a kind of sea: ‘So is this great sea, which stretches wide its arms’ (Ps. 103:25); hence, it is made of iron: ‘I know whom I have believed and I am certain’ (2 Tim. 1:12). Also it should be firm, so that is it is not easily removed from the ship; thus a man should be held fast to that hope as an anchor and hope is that the anchor is fixed to a low place, but hope is fixed in the highest, namely, to God. For nothing in the present life is so firm that the soul could be secure and at rest; hence, it says in Gen. (8:8) that the dove found no place where her foot might rest. And, therefore, he says that this hope should enter into the inner shrine behind the veil. For the Apostle understand the present condition of the Church by the holy things that were in the tabernacle; but by the holy of holies, which was separated from the saints by a veil, he understands the state of future glory. Therefore, he wills that the anchor of our hope be fixed in that which is now veiled from our eyes: ‘The eye has not seen, O God, besides thee, what things you have prepared for them that wait for you’ (Is. 64:4); ‘How great is the multitude of your sweetness, O Lord, which you have hidden for them that fear you!’ (Ps. 30:20). This, our forerunner, who has entered there, has fixed there; hence, it says in Jn (14:2): ‘I go to prepare a place for you.’ He shall go up that shall open the way before them’ (Mic. 2:13). Therefore, he says that Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf within the veil and has fixed our hope there, as it says in the collect of vigil and of Ascension day. Yet because the high priest alone was permitted to enter within the veil (Lev 16), he says that Jesus has entered on our behalf, having become a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. Notice how elegantly the Apostle returns to his main theme. For he had begun to speak of the priesthood and then digressed; but now he returns to it, as is obvious. (Thomas Aquinas)

The priests of the first temple knew an invisible, heavenly world on which the tabernacle or temple had been modelled; that they spoke of forms: the form of a man and the form of a throne; that they described the heavens as an embroidered curtain; that they knew the distinction between time, outside the veil, and eternity within it. They knew that time was the moving image of eternity. They knew of angels, the sons of God begotten on Day One, as Job suggests. They concerned themselves with the mathematics of the creation, the weights and the measures. They believed that the creation was bonded together by a great oath or covenant. They believed that the stars were divine beings, angels, and they described a creator whose work was completed not by motion but by Sabbath rest. There is a pattern about the symbolism of the veil, a logic which is consistent through many centuries, and through all the Abrahamic faiths. The veil divides the material world from other states beyond it yet still within the greater creation. The veil conceals yet reveals the Glory of God. Beyond the veil is the unity which is the heart and the source of the material world….The veil as the flesh of the LORD had been assumed by the Letter to the Hebrews, and implied by the gospel writers who linked the death of Jesus to the tearing of the temple veil….Only the high priest was permitted to pass through the veil and to stand before the throne or, in the desert tradition, before the ark, and he was only permitted to do this once a year on the Day of Atonement….What had been ritualized annually in the Day of Atonement was happening in their own times through the self sacrifice of the great high priest Jesus. Jesus had passed through the veil into eternity; he was outside time and matter and so had passed into the eternal present, no longer limited by the particular time and place of first-century Palestine…. This was how the first Christians had understood the veil. The writer to the Hebrews, who knew that the high priest was the LORD and Melchizedek, could say, without any explanation, that the veil of the temple was the flesh of Jesus (Heb. 10.20).(Margaret Barker)

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Collect

7 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of God Most High, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, ² to whom also Abraham divided a tenth part of all (being first, by interpretation, “king of righteousness”, and then also “king of Salem”, which means “king of peace”, ³ without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God), remains a priest continually.

⁴ Now consider how great this man was, to whom even Abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth out of the best plunder. ⁵ They indeed of the sons of Levi who receive the priest’s office have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brothers, though these have come out of the body of Abraham, ⁶ but he whose genealogy is not counted from them has accepted tithes from Abraham, and has blessed him who has the promises. ⁷ But without any dispute the lesser is blessed by the greater. ⁸ Here people who die receive tithes, but there one receives tithes of whom it is testified that he lives. ⁹ We can say that through Abraham even Levi, who receives tithes, has paid tithes, ¹⁰ for he was yet in the body of his father when Melchizedek met him.

Commentary

The reason Paul saw a likeness to Christ in Melchizedek is that he was called king of justice and peace. This title, in its deeper, spiritual sense, is fitting for none but Emmanuel. who was proclaimed prince of justice and peace to all who dwell upon earth. Through him we have shaken off the burden of sin and have been justified. The impurity of our lives, which separated us from God the Father, has now been washed away and we are at peace with him; indeed we have, in a sense, been made one with him through the Spirit, according to the words of Scripture: He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. (Pope John Paul II)

Melchizedek gave Abraham his blessing and offered him bread and wine. Christ, the great and true priest, gives us a similar blessing in the Eucharist, the heavenly gift that supports us on our journey through life. Saint Paul therefore took Melchizedek’s blessing as a symbol of the priesthood that is greater than the Law. And so Paul saw Melchizedek as a foreshadowing of Christ, both because of the interpretation of his name, and because of his offering of bread and wine, which showed quite clearly the kind of priesthood that Christ would exercise. Moreover, he reveals that Christ’s priesthood was to be eternal by saying of Melchizedek that he has neither beginning nor end but, like the Son of God, he remains a priest for ever. (Cyril of Alexandria)

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Collect