Choice And Consequence Series

The contrast with Zion is startling. (read vss. 22-24). Jerusalem itself is, of course, in the heart of the Promised Land, the rest of God’s people. But what the writer of Hebrews is really talking about is the heavenly Jerusalem. This is an eternal, spiritual kingdom he’s talking about. It’s an image that seems to be taken straight out of Revelation 21, although Hebrews was almost certainly written beforehand. We’re not there yet, but the implication is that we’ve come to heaven itself. The place where the living God dwells, where thousands of joyful angels congregate, where the people of Christ, the church of the firstborn are made perfect and have their names written in Lamb’s book of life.

At Sinai the people had to stay back. God was too holy and they were too imperfect to approach. But at Zion vs. 23 says “you have come to God, the judge of all men”. Revelation 21 says we will see God face to face. And how? Because we’re also coming to Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant whose sprinkled blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

(pause)

If you’ve been with us since the beginning of our series on Hebrews you may have been able to stay with me through Moses and the Promised Land and God’s rest, hopefully too the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. But here the writer throws another OT reference in for good measure.

“The sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel”. It’s of course a reference to Genesis 4 when Cain, in a fit of jealousy, kills his brother Abel. And this is what God says to Cain:

GE 4:10 The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."

Abel’s blood cries out – and what word does it speak? It speaks guilt and speaks vengeance. It cries out to God, condemning Cain for his sin and calling on God to act with just punishment. But the blood of Jesus speaks a word of forgiveness rather than accusation. It speaks from the right hand of God in heaven, not from the ground. It cleanses us of guilt rather than condemning us for it.

And so we have the words that God has spoken – the thunderous, terrifying voice on Sinai under the Old Covenant and the word of the blood of Jesus shed for us. Both those words are from the same God and we should be thankful that are we this side of the cross. We are this side of the victory that Jesus won. So we can approach God with confidence.

So what are we to do? We are to listen to these words of God and obey – vs. 25 “See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks” and then the writer again returns to the warning. “If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven.” If the Israelites could not escape when they were warned from the mountain, if Cain could not escape when Abel’s blood cried out from the earth, how can we escape our God who now speaks from over and above and beyond the earth – from heaven itself? Just as the reward under the New Covenant is greater, so the peril is greater. You wouldn’t simply be throwing away lands and herds and servants like Esau – you would be throwing away eternity.