Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Hebrews 6:12

Hebrews 6:12. In this hope ye need to persevere, that ye become not slothful, but imitators (a favourite Pauline word, see 1 Thessalonians 1:6, etc.) of those who through faith and patience (generally ‘long-suffering') inherit the promises. ‘Become not slothful,' a more delicate and hopeful way of expressing the exhortation than ‘be.' The same word (‘slothful') is used in Hebrews 5:11, and the writer affirms that they had become so. But there the reference is to hearing, and is the opposite of vigorous thought and knowledge; here the reference is to Christian practice, and is the opposite of a diligent, earnest life. The sluggishness had already invaded the outer sense the mental faculty; the writer's hope is that it may not reach the inner spiritual nature.

But rather imitators. The Greek word has a nobler meaning than this English equivalent. Scholars, it was said of old, should not only learn from their master, they should imitate (or, as we say, should copy) them. ‘Copy' itself is also misleading. Both words indicate too much a servile superficial reproduction of the original, and hence the ‘followers' of the Authorised Version is not unlikely to retain its place with ‘imitators' in the margin. Patience or lone-suffering is the mental state that bears long with the trials of the Christian life, and with the delays of the fulfilment of the Divine promise, with cheerful courage and without despondency or dejection. We believe what is promised, we patiently wait and endure, and in the end we shall come into the full enjoyment of the blessings themselves.

Of them that inherit the promises. What is it, then, they inherit, and who are they? A needless difficulty has been created by the statement of chap. Hebrews 11:39, that the Patriarchs did not obtain the promises, i.e the blessings promised, and hence it is concluded either that what they inherited was simply a promise, not the blessing promised (Bleek), or that the words here used cannot refer to Abraham or to the spiritual blessings of the Gospel (Alford). But the argument is clear enough. Our fathers and others of later times walked by faith; they were stedfast amid the trials to which they were exposed; but they inherit the promised blessings, some in the fulness of God's grace on earth, and others in heaven. The specific instance quoted, that of Abraham, had a double fulfilment the promise of a large seed, though long delayed, began to be fulfilled in his lifetime, and under the old economy (Deuteronomy 1:10); its complete fulfilment belongs, of course, to the Gospel, and Abraham sees and enjoys it now, as he saw and enjoyed it even when the Epistle was written.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Hebrews 6:12

Old Testament

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