Two Types of People Near to God
Rev Tay Piak Kheng 30 August 2026
In the sixth chapter of Hebrews, there is a stern warning to two types of people who are near God. One is the Jews who refused to believe in Jesus, and the other is the Jews who believe in Jesus but remain stagnant and do not grow.
The Jews are God’s chosen people. God made a covenant with them, granted them the promised land, established laws for their nation, and promised an unshakeable kingdom. God’s purpose is to, through Israel, let the whole world know that “the Lord is God, and there is no other.” (1 Kings 8:60)
For this reason, the Jews enjoy greater spiritual advantages than any other people: God inspired prophets to speak to them, appointed priests to offer sacrifices on their behalf, and sent a Messiah to lead them into eternal life. But they rejected the Messiah, Jesus! They are mentioned in verses 4-6 and are the first type of people being warned: “4 For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 if they then commit apostasy” Despite their diligence in observing the Sabbath, the Passover, keeping circumcision and festivals, and sprinkle the blood of countless bulls and sheep on the altar, they still cannot enter eternal life!
The second type of people is mentioned in 6:1-3. They were the Jewish Christians who, nonetheless, continued to worship God in the temple and synagogues according to the Old Testament rituals in order to avoid persecution from the Jewish community. They skipped church services and the Lord’s Supper, missed the apostles’ teachings and did not know that the old covenant had become obsolete. Thus, the author urges them to leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and strive to learn the whole contents of the gospel so as to “go on to maturity”, which in Greek describes a chicken raised and ready for market, or a ship fully prepared for its maiden voyage. For us, it means being a testimony for Christ.
These two types of people are still around today. The first type lives in the church community and enjoys the love of God’s people. They have heard about God’s ultimate judgment and the hope of eternal life, yet they stubbornly resist the Holy Spirit and continually ignore His promptings, thinking that they could ride with the church to the Holy City of God on the last day, only to regret that it was but a willful wish. The second type is Christians who do not take the pulpit messages or worship or study God’s words seriously, but are addicted to scrolling on their phones, reading sweet talk or nonsense generated by AI. They are in danger of drifting away. Let us self-inspect: Am I among these two types?
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