5 

5:11 Concerning whom - The apostle here begins an important digression, wherein he reproves, admonishes, and exhorts the Hebrews. We - Preachers of the gospel. Have many things to say, and hard to be explained - Though not so much from the subject - matter, as from your slothfulness in considering, and dulness in apprehending, the things of God.

5:12 Ye have need that one teach you again which are the first principles of religion. Accordingly these are enumerated in the first verse of the ensuing chapter.And have need of milk - The first and plainest doctrines.

5:13 Every one that useth milk - That neither desires, nor can digest, anything else: otherwise strong men use milk; but not milk chiefly, and much less that only. Is unexperienced in the word of righteousness - The sublimer truths of the gospel.Such are all who desire and can digest nothing but the doctrine of justification and imputed righteousness.

5:14 But strong meat - These sublimer truths relating to "perfection," Heb 6:1.Belong to them of full age, who by habit - Habit here signifies strength of spiritual understanding, arising from maturity of spiritual age. By, or in consequence of, this habit they exercise themselves in these things with ease, readiness, cheerfulness, and profit.

6 

6:1 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ - That is, saying no more of them for the present. Let us go on to perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works - From open sins, the very first thing to be insisted on. And faith in God - The very next point. So St. Paul in his very first sermon at Lystra, Act 14:15, "Turn from those vanities unto the living God."And when they believed, they were to be baptized with the baptism, not of the Jews, or of John, but of Christ. The next thing was, to lay hands upon them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: after which they were more fully instructed, touching the resurrection, and the general judgment; called eternal, because the sentence then pronounced is irreversible, and the effects of it remain for ever.

6:3 And this we will do - We will go on to perfection; and so much the more diligently, because,

6:4 It is impossible for those who were once enlightened - With the light of the glorious love of God in Christ. And have tasted the heavenly gift - Remission of sins, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. And been made partakers of the Holy Ghost - Of the witness and the fruit of he Spirit.

6:5 And have tasted the good word of God - Have had a relish for, and a delight in it. And the powers of the world to come - Which every one tastes, who has an hope full of immortality. Every child that is naturally born, first sees the light, then receives and tastes proper nourishment, and partakes of the things of this world. In like manner, the apostle, comparing spiritual with natural things, speaks of one born of the Spirit, as seeing the light, tasting the sweetness, and partaking of the things "of the world to come."

6:6 And have fallen away - Here is not a supposition, but a plain relation of fact. The apostle here describes the case of those who have cast away both the power and the form of godliness; who have lost both their faith, hope, and love, Heb 6:10, etc , and that wilfully, Heb 10:26.Of these wilful total apostates he declares, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance. (though they were renewed once,) either to the foundation, or anything built thereon. Seeing they crucify the Son of God afresh - They use him with the utmost indignity. And put him to an open shame - Causing his glorious name to be blasphemed.

6:8 That which beareth thorns and briers - Only or chiefly. Is rejected - No more labour is bestowed upon it.Whose end is to be burned - As Jerusalem was shortly after.

8 

8:30 He enjoined them silence for the present,

1. That he might not encourage the people to set him up for a temporal king;
2. That he might not provoke the scribes and Pharisees to destroy him before the time and,
3. That he might not forestall the bright evidence which was to be given of his Divine character after his resurrection.

8:31  Mat 16:21; Luk 9:22.

8:32 He spake that saying openly - Or in express terms. Till now he had only intimated it to them. And Peter taking hold of him - Perhaps by the arms or clothes.

8:33 Looking on his disciples - That they might the more observe what he said to Peter.

8:34 And when he called the people - To hear a truth of the last importance, and one that equally concerned them all. Let him deny himself - His own will, in all things small and great, however pleasing, and that continually: And take up his cross - Embrace the will of God, however painful, daily, hourly,continually. Thus only can he follow me in holiness to glory.