Hebrews 12: 14 – 29
Little concern for ‘the way of promise’
14 Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: 15 looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; 16 lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. 17 For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears. 18 For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, 19 and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. 20 (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” 21 And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”) 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. 25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, 26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” 27 Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.
Have you seen the new movie made especially for Christians? It is called ‘Lambo’. In this movie our hero, a master of martial arts and weapons defeats the evil Pagans –[people against God and nice Spirits]. It’s time to put into practice the famous scripture – ‘God helps those who help themselves.’
Well, in truth, there isn’t any new movie coming out. The last time I checked Benjamin Franklin was not a prophet of God because he was the one who made that statement. In addition, our Lord did tell us that ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.’
I do not need to remind you that our Holy Ruler Is The Prince of Peace. Nothing will be right until He Is Lord of all people. All things are His workmanship. And in the fullness of His Wisdom He will come back and make things right again.
We continue will our study of chapter 12 of the book of Hebrews and we come across this verse.
12.14 ‘Follow after (‘pursue’) peace with all, and the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord.’
Some see this as meaning ‘all men’ as in Romans 12.18, but the context rather suggests it means all their fellow Christians with whom at present they are not perhaps fully at peace because of their Judaist tendencies. They should seek to be aligned with them in their beliefs and hopes. But whichever way it is, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God’ (Matthew 5.9). Those who are His seek peace with all, and peace between all, for that is how God’s children should be. And this should be accompanied by following ardently after ‘sanctification’, that sanctifying process whereby they are being conformed into the image of The Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 8.29), for in this they will have peace with God. It is peace to be achieved within sanctification. We must never seek a false peace which is not accompanied by sanctification. Oneness is important, but never at the cost of holiness or truth.
Please notice the statement ‘Without which no man shall see the Lord.’ ‘The Lord’ here probably means ‘our Lord Jesus Christ’ rather than ‘God The Father’, for outside of quotations this is how the writer usually uses the title. Thus ‘seeing the Lord’ here probably refers primarily to His second coming (9.28; 1 John 3.2-3). It is a reminder that if we are to see Him we will at present be experiencing His sanctifying work (2.10-11).
12.15 ‘Looking carefully lest there be any man who falls short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby the many be defiled.’
The seeking of peace and sanctification should be carried through with greatest care as they keep their eyes open to ensure that none of them ‘fall short of the grace of God’. For those who are in the grace of God (God’s action towards us in unmerited love and favor) it is impossible to fall short of it, for it is God’s gift whereby we are His workmanship and whereby He will make us truly righteous in deed as well as in standing (Ephesians 2.9-10). The idea here is rather of someone who falls short of God’s grace that has been offered to them, by a refusing to believe in Him truly in genuine response, by a holding out on His calling. They will be revealing that they have not yet truly become His, and such persons should be the concern of all God’s people.
The writer is concerned lest there be those among them who have within them bitterness at what they are facing which like a root will spring up and spread and begin to produce a more mature fruit of bitterness, causing many to be led astray. We see this same point brought out in the book of Deuteronomy 29.19 where the idea is used of turning from God to false religion. They may feel that they had followed the Messiah expecting him to lead them into pleasant paths, and that He had clearly failed because of their present situation. And once such ideas begin to be mooted they can soon spread, and he is fearful lest it weaken the church in its faith and in its resolve.
Now let us look again at this charge - ‘Thereby the many be defiled.’ Being defiled is the opposite of being made holy. They cease from their separation to God and become worldly minded because their faith has dwindled. This may then manifest itself either in sexual misbehavior, or in being taken up with the world so that heavenly things cease to be important and their ‘holiness’, their outward separation to God, is marred.
12.16-17 ‘Lest there be any fornication, or profane person, as Esau, who for one portion of food sold his own birthright. For you know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place for a change of mind, though he sought it diligently with tears.’
This root of bitterness is now defined in terms of Esau who ‘sold his birthright’ because it meant so little to him. He was a worldly person. He despised what was spiritual. He looked at present benefits not at the future.
What he lost had never been his in any genuine way, for he had always despised it in his heart. It meant nothing to him, and he had casually exchanged it for a dish of soup. He did not have a faith that dwindled; it was a faith that had never existed.
Later when he realized that it did matter it was too late. He had chosen his path and could not turn back. No amount of tears could change the situation. He had made an irrevocable decision and was now stuck with it.
This does not mean that Esau was lost forever. The writer is not talking about his eternal state. He is making a comparison between the loss of his birthright through folly, with the greater danger of others of losing everything through folly, and stressing how such a situation can become irrevocable. Esau could still repent of his sin and find forgiveness before God, but there was no way in which he could bring about a change of mind concerning his birthright. He had lost it permanently. The danger, however, for those who ‘despise’ our Lord Jesus Christ is that they may truly reach a stage where they themselves are lost forever.
Esau married a number of foreign wives, wives outside the covenant, which grieved his father and mother deeply. He was unequally yoked together with unbelievers. That may be partly the idea here. That too demonstrated that, unlike Jacob, he had little concern for ‘the way of promise’. God’s purposes were not important to Him. And that eventually was why he was able to dismiss his birthright so easily and with such disinterest. First he went wrong with his choice of women, and then he demonstrated his contempt for the promises of God. As it turned out he was concerned what his father thought about him, but he was not concerned with what God thought about him.
But moving from the example to the people he was writing to the writer probably has literal fornication in mind for them (compare 13.4). Relationships with women have always been vitally important for the Christian, and fornication and sexual misbehavior, is always a present danger. Wrong attitudes lead to wrong relationships. Thus they are to avoid fornication, the idolatry of the flesh; and they are also to avoid being profane and worldly minded, the idolatry of the spirit, that is, looking only at what is seen and putting such things before God.
Once again we are brought back to the comparison between the old and new ways, the old and new covenant, the old and new Law. His readers have less excuse for failure than Israel of former days, and more to be afraid of. For they have not come to something earthly, fearsome and awesome though it may be, and something which makes men tremble, and made even Moses fear and quake. As well as being a time of great import to Israel it was also a time of exclusion. God was there but they were not to approach Him hidden in the darkness. Only Moses could enter the cloud and even he trembled.
But rather they have come to the glory of heavenly realities, and the wonder of the new Mediator Who mediates the new covenant in Heaven. It is no longer the terror of Mount Sinai, but the glory of the heavenly Mount Zion, with all that goes with it. It is an entrance with joy. But it is still the dwelling place of the Consuming Fire for those who have turned their backs on Him.
12.18-20 ‘For you are not come to what might be touched, and which burned with fire, and to blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words.’ ‘Which voice they who heard it entreated that no word more should be spoken to them; for they could not endure that which was enjoined. If even a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned.’
The situation of those of old is first dealt with vividly. He is trying to establish for his readers, by negatives, a sense of the holiness and awesomeness of God - For the new covenant and the new realities have not changed the nature of God. Let them not forget that. He is still a consuming fire (verse 29). What they have changed is the situation for those who are truly responsive to Christ, and His approachability.
When the first covenant was given it was on an earthly mountain, one that was tangible and of this world. And yet it had with His presence become so holy that it could not be touched, because God was there. It was a mountain which burned with awesome fire. It was a mountain of blackness and pitch darkness and tempest. It was a mountain from which came a blaring sound as of a trumpet and the voice of words. There was no closeness of relationship here, no sense of ease and calm, no easy approach, but a sense of fear, and terror before the glory of the Lord that shook the very being, and an awareness that God was revealed and yet hidden, local and yet could not be approached
Mount Sinai could in fact normally be touched because it was of the earth and therefore attainable by man when God was not there. It was of this world. For with all its manifestations at that time it was in the end but an earthly mountain, in total contrast with the heavenly Mount Zion. However, because God was there it could not be touched at that time, for even an animal straying onto it would immediately become ‘holy’ and had to be slaughtered by stone or arrow (it could not itself now be touched) - verse 20. Thus it was both earthly and heavenly at the same time.
The sound of a trumpet is regularly the indication that God is approaching to act, and here He acted with the voice of words in giving the covenant in terms of being their sovereign Lord in a way that would never be forgotten. And yet even so it failed because of the sinfulness of their hearts.
There were the fiery flames, the blackness and darkness, the sound of a roaring tempest; the notes of an unearthly trumpet, all swirling round the top of the mountain in awesome power. And then there came the words. And the words themselves came over so fearsomely that the people who heard them pleaded that they might not hear them again. They could not endure what was said or how it was said. It was all too much for them. They could bear neither His presence nor His words. They were fearfully afraid.
The old covenant was in fact good news for them. It was the gracious acceptance of them into His covenant. But what they retreated from was not the covenant but this personal and vivid experience of a holy God. They could not face Him as He was, because of what they were. They preferred to leave that sort of thing to Moses. And it would continue to be so when later Moses’ face shone with the glory of God, and they pleaded that that might be covered up as well. Many of us are like that. We like to come close to God, but not too close.
12.21 ‘And so fearful was the appearance, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake.’
But the experience was so dramatic that even Moses found it hard to bear. We tend to forget that Moses was human too, and that he was dealing with something that was beyond his understanding. We read in the book of Deuteronomy ‘and I was greatly terrified because of the wrath and the anger’ in respect of the golden calf experience and Exodus 3.6, ‘he was afraid to gaze on God’, in respect of the burning bush experience. Moses trembled there before God, and here too he trembled along with all the people (Exodus 19.16). The writer puts words into Moses’ mouth, based on what is revealed about his experience so as to make it more vivid. (Please note that he does not represent it as from Scripture), probably based on some well known Jewish tradition. Such tradition often mentions Moses’ terror.
12.22-24 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.
But what his readers have come to is not like that. Rather it is glorious and wonderful and heavenly. It is both a place of welcome and a place of awe. Because a way has been provided for them through Christ, by which they could enter boldly, they have come into the very presence of God and the glory of the heaven lies, but they must never forget that He is a consuming fire for all but what is acceptable to His nature.
Please take note that the verses are in couplets, not in order to present it as poetry but in order to bring out the pairings and contrasts. It is noteworthy that in each pairing the first part of the pairing is a straight statement and represents that which is permanently of Heaven, and the second part represents the people of God who have become a part of Heaven, and in each of the second items in the pairings a further explanation is added on. Thus the first phrases present basic, enduring, heavenly facts, the second refer to their connection with mankind and require expansion. They are interwoven to emphasize the closeness with which they are now combined. Heaven and earth has met together.
The first parts of the pairings are, ‘To Mount Zion -- to innumerable hosts of angels in festal gathering -- to the God of all as Judge -- to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant.’
In these we have that which is heavenly and permanent, the heavenly source of earthly blessing and protection and sustenance. We might almost see it as the sights that meet us as we approach into His presence. First we come to His dwelling place, to the heavenly Mount Zion. Then we come to the festal gathering of angels. Then we approach the throne itself where the Most Holy Ruler of the Universe Is seated, but which can approach without fear because our mediator sits at His right hand.
‘Mount Zion’ represents the original and permanent dwelling place and, the very throne room of God in which is the heavenly tabernacle to which we are privileged to come to seek help in time of need. On that heavenly Mount Zion we see the ‘innumerable hosts of angels’, gathered as one whole in festal joy, both rejoicing in God and also rejoicing in every sinner who repents (Luke 15.7, 10), who are the servants of God who have always awaited His heavenly bidding, and who minister to us as the heirs of salvation. They are gathered here for the worship of God as we read about in the book of Revelation 5.11-12.
Here too is ‘the God of all as Judge’. He represents the One Who Is over all, ruling over all and responsible for all. This is not a scene of judgment, He Is there as the ‘Judge’ in the wider sense as the One Who exercises authority over all and governs all, Who Is responsible for maintaining and dispensing justice, and giving guidance and help to the people. He Is the One Who will one day call all to account, but as yet acts as Moral Ruler and Guide and awaits the petitioner who seeks His aid and mercy.
And there too on Mount Zion is ‘Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant’. Without Him we would have no approach. He is the One Who as Eternal God (‘the Son’) and Representative Man acts in Heaven to make His plea on behalf of those who are within the new covenant on behalf of those who approach through Him.
So, we see that all the participants are there to welcome God’s people. The way has been made open. The man or woman in Christ may approach God continually in Heaven, looking to worship Him and seek His aid in living their lives for Him under His care. There is no more fear, nothing to keep man away. For our Great King and Lord Jesus Christ has through His offering of Himself removed the veil that kept men and women from God. Through Him therefore we have access, and there is thus only peace and love in His presence.
The second parts of the pairings are:
‘To the city of the living God, ---- the heavenly Jerusalem, To the church of the firstborn ones --- who are enrolled in Heaven, To the spirits of just men -- made perfect.’ To the blood of sprinkling -- which speaks better than that of Abel.’
It will be noted that the first of the first pairings, and the last of the second pairings differ from the other three in each case in that they refer to what are non-personal descriptions. Thus Mount Zion is followed by three references to heavenly personages, and the blood of sprinkling is preceded by three references to the people of God. The pattern is clear.
It should further be noted that these second parts of the pairings do not just refer to those who have died and are in Heaven. They refer to all who become His from the moment that they do so. They include the whole true people of God on earth and in Heaven. ‘You have come.’ Once we become His, we come to this heavenly sphere as we seek to worship God. We, along with those who have gone before, are thus spiritually part of the city of the living God, citizens of Heaven even though we travel as ‘strangers’ on the earth. And here we can come in Christ to worship.
We are also therefore part of the assembly of the firstborn ones, whose names have been written in Heaven, which indicates that we are enrolled in Heaven, that we are citizens of Heaven. And we are those who have been called and set apart by and for Him Who is the Firstborn, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8.17). And we are also included among the spirits of just men made perfect, for God is the Father of spirits including our spirits (12.9), and we have been perfected in Christ (10.14). And we are also united with Him and with all God’s people in the covenant by the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus.
The words ‘You are come.’ Is saying -‘you have come and are now here’ (perfect tense). It means to come to God, to draw near to God. And to where have we come to draw near to God? To the new Jerusalem, and to the church of the firstborn ones, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to the blood of sprinkling. We can approach in worship here precisely because in Christ we are present in the spiritual realm, in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2.6), because we have been raised with Him, because we are even now a part of this great assembly and gathering, are even now citizens of this heavenly Jerusalem.
We are not on earth cowering before Mount Sinai in fear, standing in a barren wilderness and petrified at the sound of His voice, rather, together with all those who have passed on before us, we rejoice in this heavenly Mount Zion, in the glory of God’s presence, and we glory in Him, being brought near and having access through the blood of Jesus (10.19). For the work of Christ on the cross and His establishment as High Priest on our behalf (the resurrection being assumed) has all been in order to make this possible.
The works ‘To the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem’ is paralleled with Mount Zion, the dwelling place of God. And its second part in the parallel demonstrates that it refers to man’s part in the heavenly realm, where those who have gone before can worship God, and those still on earth can worship Him too (10.19). At Sinai the people stood afar off and could not approach the mountain because of their fear, for God temporarily abode there (Exodus 24.16) and they were afraid, for they were kept from Him by their sinfulness and by His awful holiness. But the people of the New Jerusalem gather on Mount Zion, the very permanent dwelling place of God, and are not afraid like we learn in the book of Revelation 14.1.
This city of the living God represents the whole of the people of God whether in Heaven or on earth, all who are founded on the Apostles (Revelation 12.14), for in Christ all who are His dwell in the heavens, in the spiritual realm (Ephesians 2.6), and dwell in the new Jerusalem (‘you have come and are now there’) and will one day dwell in the new creation. This is the city which has foundations (11.10), the foundations being the Apostles and Prophets with Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2.20), or seen in another light the twelve Apostles (Revelation 21.14), with the twelve tribes of Israel as the gates. The latter stresses that our access is thus through being of His true people
It is the city for which Abraham looked, whose builder and maker is God (11.10), which we can even now enjoy. Abraham could only look out for it in hope. We can experience it. It is God’s replacement for rejected earthly Jerusalem. It is the heavenly Jerusalem (Galatians 4.25-26), the whole people of God, established in the heavenly Mount Zion, in God’s permanent dwelling place, through the work of Christ. It’s coming and final triumph was vividly portrayed in pictorial fashion in Isaiah 66.10-24, with the wicked evermore excluded
12.25 ‘See that you do not refuse him who speaks. For if they escaped not when they refused him who warned them on earth, much more shall not we escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven:’
It is true that this glory is now theirs if they truly belong to Christ. Yet they must beware. For if they refuse Him Who speaks, Him Who calls them to this glory, they will find Him far more fearsome than the God of Sinai. He spoke to men from Sinai and they did not escape when they refused Him by their behavior and their lives, outwardly entering into covenant but inwardly rejecting it. How much more then shall men not escape if they refuse the One Who speaks from Heaven itself, also outwardly accepting His new covenant but inwardly rejecting it. Laying their claim to the right to Heaven and then spurning it. For, for those who refuse Him Who speaks, Mount Zion will be more terrifying than Mount Sinai (just as Jesus will one day be more terrifying for unbelievers). They will find His judgment to be even more severe.
12.26 ‘Whose voice then shook the earth. But now he has promised, saying, “Yet once more will I make to tremble, not the earth only, but also the heaven.” ’
God has spoken and will yet speak again even more terribly. For at Sinai His voice shook the earth (Exodus 19.18), and it trembled before Him. That was terrible for those who experienced it. But now His promise is that He will once again shake the earth, and not only the earth but the heaven also will tremble before Him (Haggai 2.6). One day God will reveal Himself as He never has before.
12.27 ‘And this word, “Yet once more”, signifies the removing of those things which are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.’
For this ‘yet once more’ (speaking from the time of the prophet) signifies that God was again to finally shake creation once and for all. It was shaken by the coming of Christ and of the Holy Spirit bringing His Kingly Rule among men, for it was through His coming that the house of David would triumph and be made God’s sign (Haggai 3.23). But it will be shaken even more in its final destruction, which is to be the result of His coming, for the words ‘yet once more’ signify the once-for-all final removal of the things that have been made. We learn that all that is shaky and of this creation will be removed because they are things that are made. But what will not be shaken, and cannot be shaken, are the things which have not been made, that which is spiritual and connected with Jesus Christ and God’s Kingly Rule, and they will remain. The things that are seen are temporal, they will come to an end, the things that are not seen are eternal, and they will endure (2 Corinthians 4.18).
In the next verse he specifically includes among the things that cannot be shaken the Kingly Rule of God. It is that which is among us now for those who will respond to it, ruled from Heaven, and we should ensure that we enter into it. For one day the new heavens and the new earth will replace the old, but the Kingly Rule of God will go on, under the God of all Who Is Judge, and under His royal King Messiah. It will go on forever (2 Peter 1.11).
These prophesy from Haggai 2.6-7 had a twofold application. It referred first to the success of Zerubbabel, David’s ‘son’. But in the final analysis it related to the coming success of the house of David which Zerubbabel represented, and thus to great David’s greater Son, the Messiah, Who would finally bring about all that was promised. The Rabbis also saw the words as Messianic.
12.28-29 ‘Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, may we have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.’
At Sinai Israel received a kingdom that could be shaken (Exodus 19.6). It was a kingdom of priests, and it was of the earth. But Israel failed in its destiny to be priests to the nations, and as we have seen their priesthood has been superseded. It has passed away as far as God is concerned. And it would soon be gone. But we are even now continually receiving and accepting a Kingly Rule that cannot be shaken, a spiritual Kingly Rule, the Kingly Rule of God which Jesus declared was present in Him and is to be ours forever, which we enter into when we put our trust in Jesus Christ. We thus need to ensure that we have continual grace, God’s gracious love and favor revealed in action in a way which we can never deserve, received through faith (Ephesians 2.8-9), so that by it we may offer service which is well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe.
And we are under His Kingly Rule as priests. We have become the ‘kingdom of priests’ (Revelation 1.6), replacing the old (Exodus 19.6). The idea here is of priestly service, acceptable to God because we come through our great High Priest, Jesus Christ. It is a priestly service of the offering of spiritual sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving (13.15) and of the offering of us to total obedience (Romans 12.). A sacrifice of doing good and helping and encouraging one another. And these sacrifices are to be brought ‘with reverence and awe’. Though we come boldly we must not approach God lightly for we must ever remember Sinai (Deuteronomy 4.14). ‘Our God is a consuming fire.’ He Is a God Who destroys all that is unworthy.
