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"Leaving the account (narrative or treatise) of the beginning of Christ",
it may turn us to the opening of the Acts of the Apostles. Green translates the passage
"The former account I composed, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to
teach", and this leads us to the Gospel by Luke. Here we arrive at something tangible.
The Gospel narratives are a beginning, their sequel, "perfection" or completion must be
sought elsewhere. Where we are speaking of Israel, the Hebrews, perfection will be
found in the New Covenant. The exhortation of Heb. 6: 1 does not speak of the present
calling of the church of the Mystery, although, any believing Hebrew, who went all the
way with the Apostle in this epistle, would find no barrier that prevented him from taking
the step of faith to pass through the broken middle wall and to find himself a member of
the One Body. That however is not visualized here.
To all believers whose pasture is mainly the Gospels, we would say "go on". The
Lord Himself told His disciples that He had many things to say which could not be
imparted unto them until the Holy Spirit was given, and promised that then He would
guide them into "All Truth" (John 16: 13), and that moreover, this complete body of
truth would have as its outstanding characteristic the glorifying of the Saviour, and
anything new that might be thus revealed would still be, He said, taking of Mine and
showing it to you. What is true of a foundation is true also of a house. A foundation that
is never built upon, or is continually being re-laid, taken up and put down is not a
foundation at all. "Whose house are we, IF" which implies continuance and endurance
until the end be attained. If we receive the elementary doctrines of Christ, but never build
upon them, these doctrines will never be, so far as we are concerned, a foundation. Most
of our readers are aware that we translate the Greek of Eph. 1: 4 pro kataboles kosmon
"before the overthrow of the world", and some who endorse this translation would read
Heb. 6: 1 similarly "Not overthrowing again a foundation". The two passages are
however not quite comparable. There is no word for foundation in Eph. 1: 4, but in
addition to kataballo, Heb. 6: 1 uses the word themelion, which does mean a foundation
(Eph. 2: 20). Bloomfield, commenting on Erhard's rendering "not demolishing", says
"Not demolishing is forbidden by the usus loquendi, for I cannot find a single example of
the middle form in the sense "to demolish", but only in the sense of jacere "to lay down"
whether in a literal or figurative sense". While therefore we leave the new translation of
Eph. 1: 4 unimpaired, for the actual word "foundation" is not used there, we can and must
endorse the translation of the A.V. of Heb. 6: 1 "not laying again". Paul was not the
founder of this company. Peter, not Paul, is the apostle of the circumcision, and the
foundation had been laid by him and his associates. Paul had however exercised his
privilege as a private believer, and a Hebrew by race, to write to the dispersion, as Peter
himself acknowledged in II Pet. 3: 15, 16, and as no other such epistle than Hebrews is
known to us, we cannot help but believe that it is to this epistle that Peter refers. Peter
uses the figure of blindness as a consequence upon forgetfulness (II Pet. 1: 9), and urges
his reader to make his calling and election sure. He directs his reader to the "honour and
glory" that Christ as "The Beloved Son" received on the Mount. The dissolution of
heaven and earth of II Pet. 3:, finds an echo in the shaking of heaven and earth in
Heb. 12: The preservation through it all, indicated in II Pet. 3: 13, finds its parallel in
the kingdom that cannot be shaken of Heb. 12: 28. The doctrines that the Hebrew