Hebrews’ concern is not that his readers are plenty familiar with gospel basics and now need to advance to other deeper Christian teachings. Rather, his concern is that in toying with the idea of returning to Judaism, they are demonstrating that what they lack is precisely an understanding of the gospel itself, the exclusive sufficiency of Christ and his work, and that the Old Testament Scriptures themselves testify to Christ as the great high priest and final sacrifice.

Let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. (Hebrews 6:1–2)

Does Hebrews teach its readers to “leave behind” the basics of the Christian faith in order to press on to maturity?

In the past generation, a chorus of voices, including Tim Keller, D.A. Carson, and John Piper, have encouraged their audiences, in various ways, toward a “gospel-centered” or “cross-centered” faith. Rather than leaving behind Christian basics such as the cross and Christian gospel, they would have us go deeper into them, and find true Christian maturity in these basics, not beyond them. The origins of such a gospel-centered Christianity are found in the pages of the New Testament, drawing most explicitly from the epistles of Paul, John, and Peter, as well as Hebrews.

It is Hebrews, after all, that opens with a stunning celebration of the uniqueness and centrality of God’s eternal Son, made human as the long-awaited Christ — an opening that culminates in the charge in Hebrews 3:1 to “consider Jesus.” This directive, programmatic for the entire epistle, then leads to a striking focus on Jesus’s person and work (as high priest and sacrifice) at the heart of the letter (chapters 7–10), and recurs in Hebrews 12:1–2, at the climax of the great tour of the faithful (11:1–40), in the charge to “run with endurance . . . looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” Hebrews 12:3 then follows immediately with the reprise, “Consider him . . .”

“Leave the Elementary Doctrine”

However, readers today might find, at least on the face of the text, an exception to this gospel-centered focus in Hebrews 6:1–2. Before advancing to make his Melchizedek argument (in chapter 7), Hebrews pauses, from 5:11–6:20, to freshly secure his readers’ attention because, he says, they “have become dull of hearing” (Hebrews 5:11). “Though by this time you ought to be teachers,” he explains, “you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food” (Hebrews 5:12). Most commentators then take the list of six items in Hebrews 6:1–2 as Christian basics from which Hebrews’ audience should “move on” (or “leave behind,” Greek afentes, 6:1) in order to advance to Christian maturity:

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

We can understand why most commentators would read this as a summons to leave behind the Christian basics. Nevertheless, when read in light of the full text of Hebrews, an apparent problem surfaces. Commentators generally agree that Hebrews addresses Jewish converts to Christianity pressured (and persecuted) by non-Christian Jews to discard Christianity’s distinctive faith in Jesus (as Messiah and eternal divine Son) and return to the emphases of their former Judaism.¹ Within this understanding, viewing the list as basic Christian teachings fits less cogently (though not impossibly) with the design of the letter as a whole.²

Stirred by this tension, I undertake in this essay to newly examine Hebrews 6:1–2, and make the case that the six items in this list are not Christian basics, but pre-Christian (Jewish) teachings.

Usual Reading: Christian Basics

One caution to take in revisiting Hebrews 6:1–2 is that we are working against a long-established majority opinion. As we’ll see, however, several voices acknowledge some (serious) problems with the typical interpretation.

Andrew Lincoln sees the list in 6:1–2 as a reference to basic Christian teaching,³ as does William Lane, author of the magisterial two-volume commentary.⁴ Lane argues elsewhere⁵ that the list refers to “the firm foundation of Christian truth they had received when they first came to faith. . . . The men and women of the house-church had received catechetical instruction concerning these matters of Christian conviction when they first came to faith.”⁶ Harold Attridge finds that “the phrase [“elementary doctrine of Christ”] refers to the proclamation that Christ himself delivered. The phrase may allude to the same schematic view of the development of Christian preaching that was evident in 2:3.”⁷ Yet Attridge also concedes an enigma about the claim: “It is striking how little in this summary is distinctive of Christianity. This suggests that the formula was at least inspired by, and is, in fact, a catalogue of Jewish catechesis.”⁸ Importantly, Attridge adds, “Most conspicuously absent is any explicit Christological affirmation.” So too John Owen (1616–1683) catalogues another hesitation. He sees the list as basic Christian teaching, but acknowledges, “There is no little difficulty by the word ‘baptisms’ being in the plural.”⁹

Leon Morris¹⁰ and David deSilva¹¹ both view verses 1–2 in reference to Christian basics.¹² Interestingly, F.F. Bruce, finding something amiss with the usual reading, points out how surprising it is that verse 1 begins with therefore rather than nevertheless.”¹³ In the end, though, Bruce concludes that the list represents basic Christian teaching, but he notes how such basic teaching would correspond to Jewish teaching:

When we consider the “rudiments” one by one, it is remarkable how little in the list is distinctive of Christianity, for practically every item could have its place in a fairly orthodox Jewish community. Each of them, indeed, acquires a new significance in a Christian context; but the impression we get is that existing Jewish beliefs and practices were used as a foundation on which to build Christian truth.¹⁴

Overall, the mainstream of Hebrews commentators take the items in 6:1–2 as a list of Christian basics that the author is challenging his audience to “leave behind” or “leave standing” (afentes) so that they might be carried (ferometha) into Christian maturity (teleioteta). However, as we have seen, several observe some latent difficulties in this majority view, difficulties that I hope to show are better explained by a different interpretation.

Arguments for Pre-Christian (Jewish) Reference

The following five observations and arguments lead me in a different direction: that the six items in this list are not Christian basics, but pre-Christian (Jewish) teachings. This reading is both preferable exegetically and more coherent with the thrust of the letter as a whole.

1. “Washings” (baptismōn) in the Plural

Hebrews’ use of baptismōn (“baptisms” or “washings”) is one of the reasons, on the surface, why this passage appears to offer a list of Christian basics. Our English baptism so closely resembles the Greek baptismōn that we might be prone to overlook two important realities.

First, as observed by John Owen, among others, baptismōn is plural, not the singular that would be expected in a Christian (new-covenant) context, where, as the apostle Paul notes in Ephesians 4:4–5, there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Second, and more significantly, as noted by Bruce, “It may be significant that our author does not use baptisma, the Greek noun regularly employed in the New Testament to denote Christian baptism (and the baptism of John), but baptismos, which in its two other indubitable New Testament occurrences refers to Jewish ceremonial washings.”¹⁵ The other two occurrences are Mark 7:4 and Hebrews 9:10.

In Mark 7:4, Jesus refers to “many other traditions that [the Pharisees] observe, such as the washing [baptismous] of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.” The reference to the Pharisees gives to this use the plain association of Judaism and the old covenant, not of Christianity and the new. The same is true for Hebrews 9:10, which is, of course, even more important for our purposes since it occurs within the same letter.

Hebrews 9:9–10 reads, “According to this arrangement [namely, the old covenant], gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings [baptismois], regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.” Not only are these “washings” in Hebrews 9:10 unmistakably associated with the old covenant, but also they have an important “expiration date,” so to speak, in the temporal marker “until the time of reformation,” which has now come in Christ and corresponds with Hebrews’ underlying chronological and redemptive-historical framework throughout the letter.

2. No Distinctly Christian Item

Second, no explicitly Christian reference appears in the list of six — and this in a letter that is at pains to show the distinctiveness of the new covenant with reference to the old. This is the concern Attridge captures: “Most conspicuously absent is any explicit Christological affirmation.”¹⁶

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