Hebrews 5:11-12 English Standard Version

Warning Against Apostasy

¹¹ About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. ¹² For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,

Avoid becoming dull of hearing.

This is worth repeating because as we age naturally, we have a tendency to go hard of hearing. In some ways our spiritual hearing can suffer the same ill-effect as our natural ears. So this warning about apostasy applies to all of us and if we refuse to acknowledge that possibility, perhaps that is the first sign of a dull ear.

We must agree with the writer of Hebrews in this one aspect, it is hard to explain. Most of us by this time of life have lived by faith for some time. Having had some measure of success in hearing by faith we become spiritually tone deaf to any voice but His. In doing this we can begin to tune out the voices of others. Doing this will cause us to stop hearing from Christ through others, we will find ourselves losing trust in what others have to say.

One of the hidden meanings within this warning is that we begin to sound to others as if we are deaf and become loud. Deaf people do not know they are loud when they speak, they cannot hear themselves as others do. Nor do we hear ourselves when we begin to be dull of ear.

All of us, no matter how long we have walked with the Lord need sound counsel, accountability partners that know you well enough to recognize when and why we get loud. Even more important is the issue of continued fellowship with the saints. It is in fellowship that these issues of becoming loud are first seen.

The words loud and proud sound alike for a reason.

Hebrews 5:8-9 English Standard Version

⁸ Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. ⁹ And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,

There will be some who do not have a proper understanding of the Word and in their view these verses will be used to make others insecure about their salvation.

Jesus did not learn to be obedient because He suffered. As with all of us, and Jesus is a man, what we believe has to be experienced to know in truth. He experienced obedience after He suffered and found in Himself the ability to obey as He believed. It was not His suffering that made Him obey, it only gave Him the opportunity to experience it.

As to “made perfect”, there is a way to read this line of verse that implies Christ was not born perfect and that something happened to Him in life that created perfection. Jesus was born fully man and fully God, perfectly man and perfectly God. The man in Him could not resist the God in Him which made His actions reflect His identity.

For those who insist that salvation only comes through obedience, we must submit to the oracles of God for truth in salvation.

Ephesians 2:8-9 English Standard Version

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Hebrews 5:11-12 English Standard Version

Warning Against Apostasy

¹¹ About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. ¹² For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,

Avoid becoming dull of hearing.