Text -- Hebrews 12:1-29 (NET)

The Lord’s Discipline

12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, we must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us, 12:2 keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set out for him he endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. 12:3 Think of him who endured such opposition against himself by sinners, so that you may not grow weary in your souls and give up. 12:4 You have not yet resisted to the point of bloodshed in your struggle against sin. 12:5 And have you forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons? “My son, do not scorn the Lord’s discipline or give up when he corrects you. 12:6 “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son he accepts.” 12:7 Endure your suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? 12:8 But if you do not experience discipline, something all sons have shared shared in, then you are illegitimate and are not sons. 12:9 Besides, we have experienced discipline from our earthly fathers and we respected them; shall we not submit ourselves all the more to the Father of spirits and receive life? 12:10 For they disciplined us for a little while as seemed good to them, but he does so for our benefit, that we may share his holiness. 12:11 Now all discipline seems painful at the time, not joyful. But later it produces the fruit of peace and righteousness for those trained by it. 12:12 Therefore, strengthen your listless hands and your weak knees, 12:13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but be healed.

Do Not Reject God’s Warning

12:14 Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness, for without it no one will see the Lord. 12:15 See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no one be like a bitter root springing up and causing trouble, and through him many become defiled. 12:16 And see to it that no one becomes an immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. 12:17 For you know that later when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no opportunity for repentance, although he sought the blessing with tears. 12:18 For you have not come to something that can be touched, to a burning fire and darkness and gloom and a whirlwind 12:19 and the blast of a trumpet and a voice uttering words such that those who heard begged to hear no more. 12:20 For they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned.” 12:21 In fact, the scene was so terrifying that Moses said, “I shudder with fear.” 12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the assembly 12:23 and congregation of the firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous, who have been made perfect, 12:24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks of something better than Abel’s does. 12:25 Take care not to refuse the one who is speaking! For if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less shall we, if we reject the one who warns from heaven? 12:26 Then his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “I will once more shake not only the earth but heaven too.” 12:27 Now this phrase “once more” indicates the removal of what is shaken, that is, of created things, so that what is unshaken unshaken may remain. 12:28 So since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us give thanks, and through this let us offer worship pleasing to God in devotion and awe. 12:29 For our God is indeed a devouring fire.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Robertson: Heb 12:1

Therefore ( toigaroun ).

Triple compound inferential participle (toi ,gar ,oun ) like the German doch denn nun , a conclusion of emphasis, old particle, in N.T. only here and 1Th 4:8. There should be no chapter division here, since Heb 12:1-3 really is the climax in the whole argument about the better promises (10:19-12:3) with a passionate appeal for loyalty to Christ.

Robertson: Heb 12:1

Us also ( kai hēmeis ).

We as well as "these all"of Heb 11:39 and all the more because of the "something better"given us in the actual coming of Christ.

Robertson: Heb 12:1

Compassed about ( echontes perikeimenon ).

Literally, "having (echontes , present active participle of echō ) lying around us"(perikeimenon , present middle participle of perikeimai , old verb as in Luk 17:2).

Robertson: Heb 12:1

Cloud of witnesses ( nephos marturōn ).

Old word (Latin nubes ), here only in the N.T., for vast mass of clouds. Nephelē is a single cloud. The metaphor refers to the great amphitheatre with the arena for the runners and the tiers upon tiers of seats rising up like a cloud. The martures here are not mere spectators (theatai ), but testifiers (witnesses) who testify from their own experience (Heb 11:2, Heb 11:4, Heb 11:5, Heb 11:33, Heb 11:39) to God’ s fulfilling his promises as shown in chapter Heb 11.

Robertson: Heb 12:1

Laying aside ( apothemenoi ).

Second aorist-middle (indirect, from ourselves) participle of apotithēmi , old verb as in Col 3:8 (laying off old clothes). The runners ran in the stadium nearly naked.

Robertson: Heb 12:1

Every weight ( ogkon panta ).

Old word (kin to enegkein ,pherō ) like phortos ,baros . Here every encumbrance that handicaps like doubt, pride, sloth, anything. No trailing garment to hinder or trip one.

Robertson: Heb 12:1

The sin which doth so easily beset us ( tēn euperistaton hamartian ).

"The easily besetting sin."There are a dozen possible renderings of this double compound verbal from eu , well, and periistēmi , to place around or to stand around (intransitive). The Vulgate has circumstans nos peccatum (the sin standing around us). Probably this is the true idea here, "the easily encompassing (or surrounding) sin."In this case apostasy from Christ was that sin. In our cases it may be some other sin. The verbal adjective reminds one of the ring of wild beasts in the jungle that encircle the camp-fire at night each ready to pounce upon a careless victim.

Robertson: Heb 12:1

Let us run ( trechōmen ).

Present active volitive subjunctive of trechō , "let us keep on running."

Robertson: Heb 12:1

With patience ( di' hupomonēs ).

Not with impatience, doubt, or despair.

Robertson: Heb 12:1

The race that is set before us ( ton prokeimenon hēmin agōna ).

Note the article and the present middle participle of prokeimai , old compound (already in Heb 6:18, and also in Heb 12:2). Dative case (hēmin ) of personal interest.

Robertson: Heb 12:2

Looking unto ( aphorōntes eis ).

Present active participle of aphoraō , old verb to look away, "looking away to Jesus."In N.T. only here and Phi 2:23. Fix your eyes on Jesus, after a glance at "the cloud of witnesses,"for he is the goal. Cf. Moses in Heb 11:26 (apeblepen ).

Robertson: Heb 12:2

The author ( ton archēgon ).

See Heb 2:10 for this word. "The pioneer of personal faith"(Moffatt).

Robertson: Heb 12:2

Perfecter ( teleiōtēn ).

A word apparently coined by the writer from teleioō as it has been found nowhere else. Vulgate has consummator .

Robertson: Heb 12:2

For the joy ( anti tēs charas ).

Answering to, in exchange for (Heb 12:16), at the end of the race lay the joy "set before him"(prokeimenēs autōi ), while here was the Cross (stauron ) at this end (the beginning of the race) which he endured (hupemeinen , aorist active indicative of hupomenō ),

Robertson: Heb 12:2

despising shame ( aischunēs kataphronēsas ).

The cross at his time brought only shame (most shameful of deaths, "yea, the death of the cross"Phi 2:8). But Jesus despised that, in spite of the momentary shrinking from it, and did his Father’ s will by submitting to it.

Robertson: Heb 12:2

Hath sat down ( kekathiken ).

Perfect active indicative of kathizō , and still is there (Heb 1:3).

Robertson: Heb 12:3

Consider ( analogisasthe ).

First aorist middle imperative of analogizomai , old word to reckon up, to compare, to weigh, only here in the N.T. See katanoēsate in Heb 3:1. Understanding Jesus is the key to the whole problem, the cure for doubt and hesitation.

Robertson: Heb 12:3

Endured ( hupomemenēkota ).

Perfect active participle of the same verb hupomenō used in Heb 12:2.

Robertson: Heb 12:3

Gainsaying ( antilogian ).

Old word from antilogos (from antilegō ), already in Heb 6:16; Heb 7:7.

Robertson: Heb 12:3

Of sinners ( hupo tōn hamartōlōn ).

"By sinners."

Robertson: Heb 12:3

Against themselves ( eis heautous ).

Against their better selves if a genuine reading. But eis heauton (against himself), against Christ, is far more likely correct.

Robertson: Heb 12:3

That ye wax not weary ( hina mē kamēte ).

Negative final clause with hina mē and the second aorist active subjunctive of kamnō , old verb to be weary as here or sick as in Jam 5:15.

Robertson: Heb 12:3

Fainting in your souls ( tais psuchais humōn ekluomenoi ).

Present passive participle of ekluō , old verb to loosen out, to set free, and in passive to be enfeebled, to be tired out (here in soul with locative case), as in Heb 12:5. The rest of the Epistle drives home the argument.

Robertson: Heb 12:4

Resisted ( antikatestēte ).

Second aorist active indicative (intransitive) of the double compound antikathistēmi , old verb to stand in opposition against in line of battle, intransitively to stand face to face (anti ) against (kata ), here only in the N.T.

Robertson: Heb 12:4

Unto blood ( mechris haimatos ).

"Up to blood."As was true of Jesus and many of the other heroes of faith in chapter Heb 11.

Robertson: Heb 12:4

Striving ( antagōnizomenoi ).

Present middle participle of antagōnizomai , old verb with the same figure in antikatestēte .

Robertson: Heb 12:4

Against sin ( pros hamartian ).

Face to face with sin as in Heb 12:1.

Robertson: Heb 12:5

Ye have forgotten ( eklelēsthe ).

Perfect middle indicative of eklanthanō , to cause to forget, old verb, here only in the N.T. with genitive case as usual.

Robertson: Heb 12:5

Reasoneth with you ( humin dialegetai ).

Present middle indicative of dialegomai , old verb to ponder different (dia -) things, to converse, with dative. Cf. Act 19:8. The quotation is from Pro 3:11.

Robertson: Heb 12:5

Regard not lightly ( mē oligōrei ).

Prohibition with mē and the present active imperative of oligōreō , old verb from oligōros and this from oligos (little) and hōra (hour), old verb, here only in N.T.

Robertson: Heb 12:5

Chastening ( paideias ).

Old word from paideuō , to train a child (pais ), instruction (2Ti 3:16), which naturally includes correction and punishment as here. See also Eph 6:4.

Robertson: Heb 12:5

Nor faint ( mēde ekluou ).

Prohibition with mē and present passive imperative of ekluō (see Heb 12:3).

Robertson: Heb 12:6

Scourgeth ( mastigoi ).

Present active indicative of mastigoō , old verb from mastix (whip). This is a hard lesson for God’ s children to learn and to understand. See Heb 5:7 about Jesus.

Robertson: Heb 12:7

That ye endure ( hupomenete ).

Present active indicative or present active imperative and so just "endure for chastening."

Robertson: Heb 12:7

Dealeth with you ( humin prospheretai ).

Present middle indicative of prospherō , but this sense of bearing oneself towards one with the dative here only in the N.T., though often in the older Greek.

Robertson: Heb 12:7

What ( tis ).

Interrogative.

Robertson: Heb 12:7

Whom ( hon ).

Relative. Cf. Mat 7:9.

Robertson: Heb 12:8

If ye are without chastening ( ei chōris este paideias ).

Condition of first class, determined as fulfilled. Note position of este (are) between the preposition chōris and paideias (ablative case).

Robertson: Heb 12:8

Have been made ( gegonasin ).

Perfect active indicative of ginomai .

Robertson: Heb 12:8

Partakers ( metochoi ).

Partners (Heb 3:14).

Robertson: Heb 12:8

Then ( ara ).

Accordingly, correspondingly.

Robertson: Heb 12:8

Bastards ( nothoi ).

Old word, here only in N.T. Illegitimate.

Robertson: Heb 12:9

Furthermore ( eita ).

The next step in the argument (Mar 4:17).

Robertson: Heb 12:9

We had ( eichomen ).

Imperfect indicative of customary action, "we used to have."

Robertson: Heb 12:9

To chasten us ( paideutas ).

Predicate accusative after eichomen , "as chasteners."Old word from paideuō , as agent (-tēs ). Only once in lxx (Hosea 5:2) and twice in N.T. (here and Rom 2:20).

Robertson: Heb 12:9

We gave them reverence ( enetrepometha ).

Imperfect middle of old word entrepō , to turn in or at. Here "we turned ourselves to"as in Mat 21:37, habitual attitude of reverence.

Robertson: Heb 12:9

Shall we be in subjection ( hupotagēsometha ).

Second future passive of hupotassō . There is no de here to correspond to men in the first part of the verse.

Robertson: Heb 12:9

Unto the father of spirits ( tōi patri tōn pneumatōn ).

Rather, "Unto the Father of our spirits"(note article ton ). As God is.

Robertson: Heb 12:10

They ( hoi men ).

Demonstrative hoi in contrast (men ).

Robertson: Heb 12:10

Chastened ( epaideuon ).

Imperfect active, used to chasten.

Robertson: Heb 12:10

As seemed good to them ( kata to dokoun autois ).

"According to the thing seeming good to them."Dokoun is present active neuter singular articular participle of dokeō .

Robertson: Heb 12:10

But he ( ho de ).

Demonstrative with de vs. men .

Robertson: Heb 12:10

For our profit ( epi to sumpheron ).

Present active articular neuter singular participle of sumpherō , to bear together as in 1Co 12:7.

Robertson: Heb 12:10

That we may be partakers ( eis to metalabein ).

Articular second aorist active infinitive of metalambanō with eis for purpose, "for the partaking."

Robertson: Heb 12:10

Of his holiness ( tēs hagiotētos autou ).

Genitive with metalabein (to share in). Rare word, in N.T. only here and 2Co 1:12.

Robertson: Heb 12:11

For the present ( pros to paron ).

A classical phrase (Thucydides), pros with the accusative neuter singular articular participle of pareimi , to be beside.

Robertson: Heb 12:11

Not joyous, but grievous ( ou charas ,alla lupēs ).

Predicate ablative (springing from) or predicate genitive (marked by). Either makes sense, but note predicate ablative in 2Co 4:7 (kai tou theou kai mē ex hēmōn ).

Robertson: Heb 12:11

Peaceable fruit ( karpon eirēnikon ).

Old adjective from eirēnē (peace), in N.T. only here and Jam 3:17. Peaceable after the chastening is over.

Robertson: Heb 12:11

Exercised thereby ( di' autēs gegumnasmenois ).

Perfect passive participle (dative case) of gumnazō , state of completion, picturing the discipline as a gymnasium like Heb 5:14; 1Ti 4:7.

Robertson: Heb 12:12

Wherefore ( dio ).

Because of the chastening.

Robertson: Heb 12:12

Lift up ( anorthōsate ).

First aorist active imperative of anorthoō , old compound (from ana ,orthos ) to make straight, in N.T. here and Luk 13:13; Act 15:16.

Robertson: Heb 12:12

Hang down ( pareimenas ).

Perfect passive participle of pariēmi , old verb to let pass, to relax, in N.T. only here and Luk 11:42.

Robertson: Heb 12:12

Palsied ( paralelumena ).

Perfect passive participle of paraluō , old verb to loosen on the side, to dissolve, to paralyze (Luk 5:18, Luk 5:24).

Robertson: Heb 12:13

Straight paths ( trochias orthas ).

Track of a wheel (trochos , Jam 3:6 from trechō , to run), here only in N.T. "Straight (orthas ) wheel tracks."

Robertson: Heb 12:13

Be not turned out of the way ( hina mē ektrapēi ).

Negative final clause with hina mē and second aorist passive of ektrepō , old verb to turn out, to twist, to put out of joint. So 1Ti 1:6. Vivid picture of concern for the lame (chōlon , as in Mat 11:5). Graphic picture of concern for the weak, a good argument for prohibition also.

Robertson: Heb 12:14

Follow after peace ( eirēnēn diōkete ).

Give peace a chase as if in a hunt.

Robertson: Heb 12:14

With all men ( meta pantōn ).

Like Paul’ s use of diōkō with eirēnēn in Rom 14:19 and his to ex humōn (so far as proceeds from you) in Heb 12:18. This lesson the whole world needs including Christians.

Robertson: Heb 12:14

Sanctification ( hagiasmon ).

Consecration as in 1Th 4:7; Rom 6:19, etc.

Robertson: Heb 12:14

Without which ( hou chōris ).

Ablative case of the relative with chōris (post positive here). About seeing God compare Mat 5:8 where we have katharoi .

Robertson: Heb 12:15

Looking carefully ( episkopountes ).

Present active participle of episkopeō , to have oversight, in N.T. only here and 1Pe 5:2. Cf. episcopos (bishop).

Robertson: Heb 12:15

Lest there be any man ( mē tis ).

Negative purpose clause with ei (present active subjunctive) omitted.

Robertson: Heb 12:15

Falleth short of ( husterōn apo ).

Present active participle of hustereō (see Heb 4:1) agreeing with tis . Followed here by apo and the ablative.

Robertson: Heb 12:15

Root of bitterness. ( riza pikrias ).

Quoted from Deu 29:18. Vivid picture.

Robertson: Heb 12:15

Springing up ( anō phuousa ).

Present active participle of phuō , to sprout. Pictured here as a quick process. Also from Deu 29:18.

Robertson: Heb 12:15

Trouble ( enochlēi ).

Present active subjunctive (in final clause with mē tis ) of enochleō , old verb to trouble with a crowd, to annoy. In N.T. only here and Luk 6:18.

Robertson: Heb 12:15

Be defiled ( mianthōsin ).

First aorist passive subjunctive (in final clause with mē ) of mianō , old verb to dye, to stain, to defile as in Tit 1:15 (the conscience). The contagion of sin is terrible as any disease.

Robertson: Heb 12:16

Profane ( bebēlos ).

Trodden under foot, unhallowed (1Ti 1:9).

Robertson: Heb 12:16

For one mess of meat ( anti brōseōs mias ).

Idea of exchange, "for one act of eating"(1Co 8:4).

Robertson: Heb 12:16

Sold ( apedeto ).

Second aorist middle indicative from Gen 25:31, Gen 25:33, and with irregular form for apedoto (regular mi form).

Robertson: Heb 12:16

His own birthright ( ta prōtotokia heautou ).

From Genesis also and in Philo, only here in N.T. From prōtotokos (first born, Heb 1:6).

Robertson: Heb 12:17

Ye know ( iste ).

Regular form for the second person of oida rather than the Koiné oidate .

Robertson: Heb 12:17

He was rejected ( apedokimasthē ).

First aorist passive indicative of apodokimazō , old verb to disapprove (Mat 21:42).

Robertson: Heb 12:17

Place of repentance ( metanoias topon ).

Metanoia is change of mind and purpose, not sorrow though he had tears (meta dakruōn ) afterwards as told in Gen 27:38. He sought it (autēn , the blessing eulogian ) with tears, but in vain. There was no change of mind in Isaac. The choice was irrevocable as Isaac shows (Gen 27:33). Esau is a tragic example of one who does a willful sin which allows no second chance (Heb 6:6; Heb 10:26). The author presses the case of Esau as a warning to the Christians who were tempted to give up Christ.

Robertson: Heb 12:18

Ye are not come ( ou proselēluthate ).

Perfect active indicative of proserchomai . There is no word here in the Greek for "a mount"like orei in Heb 12:20, Heb 12:22 (and Exo 19:12.; Deu 4:11), but it is clearly understood since the dative participles agree with it unless they be taken as descriptive of puri ("a palpable and kindled fire "when puri would be the dative case after proselēluthate ).

Robertson: Heb 12:18

That might be touched ( psēlaphōmenōi ).

Present passive participle (dative case) of psēlaphaō , old verb to handle, to touch (Luk 24:39).

Robertson: Heb 12:18

That burned with fire ( kekaumenōi puri ).

Perfect passive participle of kaiō , old verb to burn, with instrumental case puri (fire), unless the other view (above) is correct.

Robertson: Heb 12:19

Unto blackness ( gnophōi ).

Dative case of gnophos (late form for earlier dnophos and kin to nephos , cloud), here only in N.T. Quoted here from Exo 10:22.

Robertson: Heb 12:19

Darkness ( zophōi ).

Old word, in Homer for the gloom of the world below. In the Symmachus Version of Exo 10:22, also in Jud 1:6; 2Pe 2:4, 2Pe 2:15.

Robertson: Heb 12:19

Tempest ( thuellēi ).

Old word from thuō (to boil, to rage), a hurricane, here only in N.T. From Exo 10:22.

Robertson: Heb 12:19

The sound of a trumpet ( salpiggos ēchōi ).

From Exo 19:16. Echos is an old word (our echo ) as in Luk 21:25; Act 2:2.

Robertson: Heb 12:19

The voice of words ( phōnēi rēmatōn ).

From Exo 19:19; Deu 4:12.

Robertson: Heb 12:19

Which voice ( hēs ).

Relative referring to phōnē (voice) just before, genitive case with akousantes (heard, aorist active participle).

Robertson: Heb 12:19

Intreated ( parēitēsanto ).

First aorist middle (indirect) indicative of paraiteomai , old verb, to ask from alongside (Mar 15:6), then to beg away from oneself, to depreciate as here, to decline (Act 25:11), to excuse (Luk 14:18), to avoid (1Ti 4:7).

Robertson: Heb 12:19

That no word should be spoken unto them ( prostethēnai autois logon ).

First aorist passive infinitive of prostithēmi , old word to add, here with accusative of general reference (logon ), "that no word be added unto them."Some MSS. have here a redundant negative mē with the infinitive because of the negative idea in parēitēsanto as in Gal 5:7.

Robertson: Heb 12:20

For they could not endure ( ouk epheron gar ).

Imperfect active of pherō , "for they were not enduring (bearing)."

Robertson: Heb 12:20

That which was enjoined ( to diastellomenon ).

Present passive articular participle of diastellō , old verb to distinguish, to dispose, to order. The quotation is from Exo 19:12. The people appealed to Moses (Exo 20:19) and the leaders did so also (Deu 5:23.), both in terror.

Robertson: Heb 12:20

If even ( kan ).

"Even if."Condition of third class with second aorist active subjunctive of thigganō as in Heb 11:28, followed by genitive orous (mountain).

Robertson: Heb 12:20

It shall be stoned ( lithobolēthēsetai ).

From Exo 19:13. Late compound verb from lithobolos (from lithos ,ballō ) as in Mat 21:35.

Robertson: Heb 12:21

Fearful ( phoberon ).

As in Heb 10:27, Heb 10:31, only in Heb. in N.T.

Robertson: Heb 12:21

The appearance ( to phantazomenon ).

Present passive articular participle of phantazō , old verb from phainō , to make visible, here only in N.T. "The manifestation."

Robertson: Heb 12:21

I exceedingly fear and quake ( ekphobos eimi kai entromos ).

"I am terrified (ekphobos , late compound like ekphobeō , to frighten, Mar 9:6) and trembling"(entromos , late compound like entremō , to tremble at, as in Act 7:32; Act 16:29). Ekphobos is quoted from Deu 9:19.

Robertson: Heb 12:22

But ( alla ).

Sharp contrast to Heb 12:18 with same form proselēluthate .

Robertson: Heb 12:22

Unto Mount Zion ( Siōn orei ).

Dative case of oros , as with the other substantives. In contrast to Mount Sinai (Heb 12:18-21). Paul has contrasted Mount Sinai (present Jerusalem) with the Jerusalem above (heaven) in Gal 4:21-31.

Robertson: Heb 12:22

City ( polei ).

As in Heb 11:10, Heb 11:16. Heaven is termed thus a spiritual mountain and city.

Robertson: Heb 12:22

The heavenly Jerusalem ( Ierousalem epouraniōi ).

See Heb 11:10, Heb 11:16; Isa 60:14.

Robertson: Heb 12:22

Innumerable hosts of angels ( muriasin aggelōn ).

"Myriads of angels."Murias is an old word (from murios , 1Co 4:15) as in Luk 12:1.

Robertson: Heb 12:23

To the general assembly ( panēgurei ).

Old word (from pas and aguris ,ageirō ). Here only in N.T. Panēgurizō occurs in Isa 66:10 for keeping a festal holiday. Possibly to be connected with aggelōn , though not certain.

Robertson: Heb 12:23

Church of the firstborn ( ekklēsiāi prōtotokōn ).

Probably an additional item besides the angelic host as the people of Israel are called firstborn (Exo 4:22). The word ekklēsia here has the general sense of all the redeemed, as in Mat 16:18; Col 1:18; Eph 5:24-32, and equivalent to the kingdom of God.

Robertson: Heb 12:23

Who are enrolled in heaven ( apogegrammenōn en ouranois ).

Perfect passive participle of apographō , old verb to write off, to copy, to enroll as in Luk 2:1, Luk 2:3, Luk 2:5 (only N.T. examples). Enrolled as citizens of heaven even while on earth (Luk 10:20; Phi 1:27; Phi 3:20; Phi 4:3; Rev 13:8, etc.).

Robertson: Heb 12:23

To God the Judge of all ( kritēi theōi pantōn ).

All these chief substantives in the dative case. People should not forget that God is the Judge of all men.

Robertson: Heb 12:23

Made perfect ( teteleiōmenōn ).

Perfect passive participle of teleioō , perfected at last (Heb 11:40).

Robertson: Heb 12:24

To Jesus ( Iēsou ).

This great fact is not to be overlooked (Phi 2:10.). He is there as Lord and Saviour and still "Jesus."

Robertson: Heb 12:24

The mediator of a new covenant ( diathēkēs neas mesitēi ).

As already shown (Heb 7:22; Heb 8:6, Heb 8:8, Heb 8:9, Heb 8:10; Heb 9:15) and now gloriously consummated.

Robertson: Heb 12:24

To the blood of sprinkling ( haimati rantismou ).

As in Heb 9:19-28.

Robertson: Heb 12:24

Than Abel ( para ton Abel ).

Accusative as in Heb 1:4.

Robertson: Heb 12:24

Better ( kreitton ).

Comparative of kalos . Abel’ s blood still speaks (Heb 11:4), but it is as nothing compared to that of Jesus.

Robertson: Heb 12:25

See ( blepete ).

Earnest word as in Heb 3:12. Driving home the whole argument of the Epistle by this powerful contrast between Mount Zion and Mount Sinai. The consequences are dreadful to apostates now, for Zion has greater terrors than Sinai, great as those were.

Robertson: Heb 12:25

That ye refuse not ( mē paraitēsēsthe ).

Negative purpose with mē and the first aorist middle subjunctive of paraiteomai , the same verb used in Heb 12:19 about the conduct of the Israelites at Sinai and also below.

Robertson: Heb 12:25

Him that speaketh ( ton lalounta ).

Present active articular participle of laleō as in Heb 12:24 (Jesus speaking by his blood).

Robertson: Heb 12:25

For if they did not escape ( ei gar ekeinoi ouk exephugon ).

Condition of first class with ei and second aorist active indicative of ekpheugō , to escape. Direct reference to Sinai with use of the same verb again (paraitēsamenoi , when they refused).

Robertson: Heb 12:25

Him that warned ( ton chrēmatizonta ).

That is Moses. For chrēmatizō see Heb 8:5; Heb 11:7.

Robertson: Heb 12:25

Much more we ( polu mallon hēmeis ).

Argument from the less to the greater, polu , adverbial accusative case. The verb has to be supplied from the condition, "We shall not escape."Our chance to escape is far less, "we who turn away (apostrephomenoi , middle participle, turn ourselves away from) the one from heaven (ton ap' ouranōn ),"God speaking through his Son (Heb 1:2).

Robertson: Heb 12:26

Then shook ( esaleusen tote ).

Old verb as in Mat 11:7.

Robertson: Heb 12:26

He hath promised ( epēggeltai ).

Perfect middle indicative of epaggellō and it still holds. He quotes Hag 2:6.

Robertson: Heb 12:26

Will I make to tremble ( seisō ).

Old and strong verb (here future active) seiō , to agitate, to cause to tremble as in Mat 21:10. The author applies this "yet once more"(eti hapax ) and the reference to heaven (ton ouranon ) to the second and final "shaking"at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ for judgment (Heb 9:28).

Robertson: Heb 12:27

And this word ( to de ).

He uses the article to point out "eti hapax "which he explains (dēloi , signifies, present active indicative of dēloō ).

Robertson: Heb 12:27

The removing ( tēn metathesin ).

For this word see Heb 7:12; Heb 11:5. For the transitory nature of the world see 1Co 7:31; 1Jo 2:17. "There is a divine purpose in the cosmic catastrophe"(Moffatt).

Robertson: Heb 12:27

Made ( pepoiēmenōn ).

Perfect passive participle of poieō . Made by God, but made to pass away.

Robertson: Heb 12:27

That those things which are not shaken may remain ( hina meinēi ta mē saleuomena ).

Final clause with mē and the first aorist active subjunctive of menō . The Kingdom of God is not shaken, fearful as some saints are about it.

Robertson: Heb 12:28

Wherefore ( dio ).

Ground for loyalty to Christ and for calm trust in God.

Robertson: Heb 12:28

That cannot be shaken ( asaleuton ).

Old compound with alpha privative and the verbal adjective from saleuō just used. In N.T. only here and Act 27:41.

Robertson: Heb 12:28

Let us have grace ( echōmen charin ).

Present active volitive subjunctive of echō , "Let us keep on having grace"as in Heb 4:16, though it can mean "Let us keep on having gratitude"as in Luk 17:9.

Robertson: Heb 12:28

Whereby ( di' hēs ).

That is dia charitos .

Robertson: Heb 12:28

We may offer service ( latreuōmen ).

This subjunctive in a relative clause can be volitive like echōmen just before (cf. imperative stēte in 1Pe 5:12) or it might be the futuristic subjunctive as in Heb 8:3 (ho prosenegkēi ).

Robertson: Heb 12:28

Well pleasing ( euarestōs ).

Old compound adverb, here only in N.T.

Robertson: Heb 12:28

With reverence and awe ( meta eulabeias kai deous ).

For eulabeia see Heb 5:7; Heb 11:7. Deos is apprehension of danger as in a forest. "When the voice and tread of a wild beast are distinctly heard close at hand the deos becomes phobos "(Vincent).

Robertson: Heb 12:29

A consuming fire ( pur katanaliskon ).

From Deu 4:24. Present active participle of katanaliskō , old compound verb, here only in the N.T. This verse is to be coupled with Heb 10:31.

Vincent: Heb 12:1

Therefore ( τοιγαροῦν )

An emphatic particle, strongly affirming the facts on which the following exhortation is based.

Vincent: Heb 12:1

We also are compassed ( καὶ ἡμεῖς )

According to this the sense would be, those described in ch. 11 were compassed with a cloud of witnesses, and we also are so compassed. Wrong. The we also should be construed with let us run . " Therefore let us also (as they did) run our appointed race with patience."

Vincent: Heb 12:1

Seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses ( τοσοῦτον ἔχοντες περικείμενον ἡμῖν νέφος μαρτύρων )

Lit. having so great a cloud of witnesses lying around us . Νέφος cloud , N.T.o , means a great mass of cloud covering the entire visible space of the heavens, and therefore without definite form, or a single large mass in which definite outlines are not emphasized or distinguished. It thus differs from νεφέλη , which is a detached and sharply outlined cloud. Νέφος is therefore more appropriate to the author's image, which is that of a vast encompassing and overhanging mass. The use of cloud for a mass of living beings is familiar in poetry. Thus Homer, a cloud of footmen ( Il . xxiii. 138): of Trojans ( Il . xvi. 66). Themistocles, addressing the Athenians, says of the host of Xerxes, " we have had the fortune to save both ourselves and Greece by repelling so great a cloud of men " (Hdt. viii. 109). Spenser, F . Q . i. 1, 23:

" A cloud of cumbrous gnattes doe him molest."

Milton, Par . L . i. 340:

" A pitchy cloud of locusts."

Witnesses (μαρτύρων ) does not mean spectators , but those who have born witness to the truth, as those enumerated in ch. 11. Yet the idea of spectators is implied, and is really the principal idea. The writer's picture is that of an arena in which the Christians whom he addresses are contending in a race, while the vast host of the heroes of faith who, after having born witness to the truth, have entered into their heavenly rests watches the contest from the encircling tiers of the arena, compassing and overhanging it like a cloud, filled with lively interest and sympathy, and lending heavenly aid. How striking the contrast of this conception with that of Kaulbach's familiar " Battle of the Huns," in which the slain warriors are depicted rising from the field and renewing the fight in the upper air with aggravated fury.

Vincent: Heb 12:1

Weight ( ὄγκον )

N.T.o , o lxx. Lit. bulk , mass . Often in Class. Sometimes metaphorically of a person, dignity , importance , pretension: of a writer's style, loftiness , majesty , impressiveness . Rend. " encumbrance," according to the figure of the racer who puts away everything which may hinder his running. So the readers are exhorted to lay aside every worldly hindrance or embarrassment to their Christian career.

Vincent: Heb 12:1

And the sin which doth so easily beset ( καὶ τὴν εὐπερίστατον ἁμαρτίαν )

Καὶ adds to the general encumbrance a specific encumbrance or hindrance. Ἑυπερίστατος N.T.o , o lxx, o Class. From εὐ readily , deftly , cleverly , and περιΐ̀στασθαι to place itself round . Hence, of a sin which readily or easily encircles and entangles the Christian runner, like a long, loose robe clinging to his limbs. Beset is a good rendering, meaning to surround . In earlier English especially of surrounding crowns, etc., with jewels. So Gower, Conf . Am . i. 127.

" With golde and riche stones beset."

Shakespeare, Two Gent . V . v. 3:

" The thicket is beset; he cannot 'scape."

The sin may be any evil propensity. The sin of unbelief naturally suggests itself here.

Vincent: Heb 12:1

With patience ( δἰ ὑπομονῆς )

Ὑπομονὴ includes both passive endurance and active persistence. See on 2Pe 1:6, and see on Jam 5:7. For this use of δἰ with , see on Heb 9:11.

Vincent: Heb 12:1

The race ( τὸν ἀγῶνα )

Instead of a specific word for race (δρόμος ), the general term contest is used. For προκείμενον set before , see on Heb 6:18.

Vincent: Heb 12:2

Looking ( ἀφορῶντες )

Only here and Phi 2:28. In lxx see 4 Macc. 17:10. Looking away from everything which may distract. Comp. Phi 3:13, Phi 3:14, and ἀπέβλεπεν he had respect , lit. looked away , Heb 11:26. Wetstein cites Arrian, Epictet . ii. 19, 29: εἰς τὸν Θεὸν ἀφορῶντες ἐν παντὶ μικρῷ καὶ μεγάλῳ looking away unto God in everything small and great .

Vincent: Heb 12:2

Jesus

Having presented a long catalogue of witnesses under the old covenant, he now presents Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and the supreme witness. See Rev 1:5; Rev 3:14; 1Ti 6:13.

Vincent: Heb 12:2

The author and finisher of our faith ( τὸν τῆς πίστεως ἀρχηγὸν καὶ τελειωτὴν )

The A.V. is misleading, and narrows the scope of the passage. For author , rend. leader or captain , and see on Heb 2:10. For finisher , rend. perfecter . For our faith , rend. faith or the faith . Not our Christian faith, but faith absolutely, as exhibited in the whole range of believers from Abel to Christ. Christ cannot be called the author or originator of faith, since the faith here treated existed and worked before Christ. Christ is the leader or captain of faith, in that he is the perfecter of faith. In himself he furnished the perfect development, the supreme example of faith, and in virtue of this he is the leader of the whole believing host in all time. Notice the recurrence of the favorite idea of perfecting . Comp. Heb 2:10; Heb 5:9; Heb 6:1; Heb 7:11, Heb 7:19, Heb 7:28; Heb 9:9; Heb 10:1, Heb 10:14; Heb 11:40. Τελειωτής perfecter , N.T.o , o lxx, o Class.

Vincent: Heb 12:2

For the joy that was set before him ( ἀντὶ τῆς προκειμένης αὐτῷ χαρᾶς )

Ἁντὶ in its usual sense, in exchange for . Προκειμένης lying before , present . The joy was the full, divine beatitude of his preincarnate life in the bosom of the Father; the glory which he had with God before the world was. In exchange for this he accepted the cross and the blame. The contrast is designed between the struggle which, for the present, is alone set before the readers (Heb 12:1), and the joy which was already present to Christ. The heroic character of his faith appears in his renouncing a joy already in possession in exchange for shame and death. The passage thus falls in with Phi 2:6-8.

Vincent: Heb 12:2

The cross ( σταυρὸν )

Comp. Phi 2:8. o lxx. Originally an upright stake or pale . Σταυροῦν to drive down a stake ; to crucify . Comp. the use of ξύλον wood or tree for the cross, Act 5:30; Act 10:39; 1Pe 2:24. See on Luk 23:31.

Vincent: Heb 12:2

The shame ( αἰσχύνης )

Attendant upon a malefactor's death.

Vincent: Heb 12:2

Is set down, etc.

See Heb 1:3, Heb 1:13; Heb 8:1; Heb 10:12. Notice the tenses: endured , aorist, completed: hath sat down , perfect, he remains seated and reigning.

Vincent: Heb 12:3

For consider ( ἀναλογίσασθε γὰρ )

Γὰρ for introduces the reason for the exhortation to look unto Jesus. Look unto him, for a comparison with him will show you how much more he had to endure than you have. Ἁναλογίζεσθαι N.T.o . Comp. 3 Macc. 7:7. It means to reckon up ; to consider in the way of comparison .

Vincent: Heb 12:3

Contradiction of sinners ( ὑπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν ἀντιλογίαν )

Contradiction or gainsaying . See on Heb 6:16, and comp. Heb 7:7. See on gainsaying , Jud 1:11. Of sinners, ὑπὸ by , at the hands of .

Vincent: Heb 12:3

Against himself ( εἰς ἑαυτοὺς )

According to this text we should render " against themselves." Comp. Num 16:38. The explanation will then be that Christ endured the gainsaying of sinners, who, in opposing him, were enemies of their own souls. The reading ἑαυτοὺς however, is doubtful, and both Tischendorf and Weiss read ἑαυτὸν himself , which I prefer.

Vincent: Heb 12:3

Lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds ( ἵνα μὴ κάμητε ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν ἐκλυόμενοι )

Rend. " that ye be not weary, fainting in your minds." Ἐκλύειν is to loosen , hence, to relax , exhaust . So often in lxx. See Deu 20:3; Jdg 8:15; 1Sa 14:28. Comp. Mat 15:32; Mar 8:3; Gal 6:9.

Vincent: Heb 12:4

Unto blood ( μέχρις αἵματος )

Your strife against sin has not entailed the shedding of your blood, as did that of many of the O.T. worthies, and of Jesus himself. See Heb 11:35, Heb 11:37. Of Jesus it is said, Phi 2:8, " he became obedient to the extent of death (μέχρι θανάτου ). Comp. 2 Macc. 13:14.

Vincent: Heb 12:4

Striving against sin ( πρὸς τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἀνταγωνιζόμενοι )

The verb N.T.o . lxx, 4 Macc. 17:14. Sin is personified.

Vincent: Heb 12:5

Ye have forgotten ( ἐκλέλησθε )

N.T.o . Common in Class., o lxx. The simple verb λανθάνειν means to escape notice ; to be unseen or unknown . Middle and passive, to let a thing escape ; forget . Some render interrogatively, " have ye forgotten?"

Vincent: Heb 12:5

Speaketh unto you ( ὑμῖν διαλέγεται )

The verb always in the sense of mutual converse or discussion . See Mar 9:34; Act 17:2; Act 18:19. Rend. " reasoneth with you."

Vincent: Heb 12:5

My son, etc.

From Pro 3:11, Pro 3:12. Comp. Job 5:17.

Vincent: Heb 12:5

Despise not ( μὴ ὀλιγώρει )

N.T.o . lxx only in this passage. Quite often in Class. It means to make little of (ὀλίγος ).

Vincent: Heb 12:5

Chastening ( παιδείας )

Mostly in Hebrews. See on Eph 6:4, and see on 2Ti 3:16.

Vincent: Heb 12:6

He chasteneth ( παιδεύει )

See on Luk 23:16.

Vincent: Heb 12:6

Scourgeth ( μαστιγοῖ )

Not very common, but found in all the four Gospels. Hebrews only here. Quite often in lxx.

Vincent: Heb 12:6

Receiveth ( παραδέχεται )

Admits to filial privileges: acknowledges as his own. Of receiving the word of God, Mar 4:20; of receiving delegates from a body, Act 15:4; of adopting or approving customs, Act 16:21.

Vincent: Heb 12:7

If ye endure chastening ( εἰς παιδείαν ὑπομένετε )

Rend. " it is for chastening that ye endure." A.V. follows the reading of T. R. εἰ if . Do not faint at affliction. Its purpose is disciplinary. Παιδεία is here the end or result of discipline. In Heb 12:5 it is the process .

Vincent: Heb 12:7

God dealeth with you as with sons ( ὡς υἱοῖς ὑμῖν προσφέρεται ὁ θεὸς )

The verb means to bring to: often to bring an offering to the altar, as Mat 5:23, Mat 5:24; Mat 8:4. In the passive voice with the dative, to be born toward one ; hence, to attack , assail , deal with , behave toward . See Thucyd. i. 140; Eurip. Cycl . 176; Hdt. vii. 6. The afflictive dealing of God with you is an evidence that you are sons.

Vincent: Heb 12:7

What son is he whom the father, etc. ( τίς υἰὸς )

Some interpreters render, " who is a son whom the father?" etc. That is, no one is a son who is without paternal chastening. The A.V. is better. The idea expressed by the other rendering appears in the next verse.

Vincent: Heb 12:8

Of which all are partakers ( ἧς μετοχοι γεγόνασι πάντες )

Rend. " of which all have been made partakers." For μέτοχοι partakers see on Heb 3:14. All , that is, all sons of God.

Vincent: Heb 12:8

Bastards ( νόθοι )

N.T.o . See Wisd. 4:3. They might think that they would not suffer if they were really God's sons; whereas the reverse is the case. If they did not suffer, they would not be God's sons.

Vincent: Heb 12:9

Furthermore ( εἷτα )

Everywhere else in N.T. this particle marks a succession of time or incident. See Mar 4:17; Mar 8:25; Luk 8:12; 1Co 15:5, 1Co 15:7. Here it introduces a new phase of the subject under discussion.

Vincent: Heb 12:9

Fathers of our flesh ( τοὺς μὲν τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν πατέρας )

Up to this point the suffering of Christians has been explained by God's fatherly relation to them. Now the emphatic point is that their fathers, with whom God is compared, were only earthly , human parents. The phrase πατέρας τῆς σαρκὸς N.T.o , but kindred expressions are found Rom 4:1, Rom 9:3; Gal 4:29; Heb 2:14.

Vincent: Heb 12:9

Which corrected ( παιδευτὰς )

Lit. " we have had fathers of our flesh as chasteners ." Only here and Rom 2:20. In lxx, Sir. 37:19; Hos 5:2; 4 Macc. 5:34; 9:6.

Vincent: Heb 12:9

Shall we not much rather be in subjection ( οὐ πολὺ μάλλον ὑποταγησόμεθα )

The comparison is between the respect paid to a fallible, human parent, which may grow out of the natural relation, or may be due to fear, and the complete subjection to the divine Father.

Vincent: Heb 12:9

To the Father of spirits ( τῷ πατρὶ τῶν πνευμάτων )

Contrasted with fathers of the flesh . Their relation to us is limited; his is universal. They are related to us on the fleshly side; he is the creator of our essential life. Our relation to him is on the side of our eternal being. Comp. Joh 4:23, Joh 4:24; Zec 12:1; Isa 57:16. The phrase N.T.o . Comp. lxx, Num 16:22; Num 27:16; Rev 22:6. Clement of Rome styles God the benefactor (εὐεργέτης ) of spirits , the creator and overseer (κτίστης, ἐπίσκοπος ) of every spirit, and the Lord (δεσπότης ) of spirits . Ad Corinth . lix, lxiv.

Vincent: Heb 12:9

And live ( καὶ ζήσομεν )

Have true life; not limited to the future life. Comp. Joh 5:26; Joh 6:57; 1Jo 5:11; Rev 11:11; Act 16:28; Rom 6:11; Rom 14:8; 1Jo 4:9, and see on living God , Heb 3:12.

Vincent: Heb 12:10

Much difficulty and confusion have attached to the interpretation of this verse, growing out of: (a) the relations of the several clauses; (b) the meaning of for a few days , and how much is covered by it. The difficulties have been aggravated by the determination of commentators to treat the verse by itself, confining the relation of its clauses within its own limits, attempting to throw them into pairs, in which attempt none of them have succeeded, and entirely overlooking relations to the preceding verse.

For a few days ( πρὸς ὀλίγας ἡμέρας )

This clause is directly related to be in subjection to the father of spirits and live , and points a contrast. On the one hand, subjection to the Father of spirits, the source of all life, has an eternal significance. Subjection to his fatherly discipline means, not only the everlasting life of the future, but present life, eternal in quality, developed even while the discipline is in progress. Subjection to the Father of spirits and life go together. On the other hand, the discipline of the human father is brief in duration, and its significance is confined to the present life. In other words, the offset to for a few days is in Heb 12:9. To read for a few days into the two latter clauses of the verse which describes the heavenly discipline, and to say that both the chastening of the earthly and of the heavenly father are of brief duration, is to introduce abruptly into a sharp contrast between the two disciplines a point of resemblance. The dominant idea in πρὸς is not mere duration , but duration as related to significance: that is to say, " for a few days" means, during just that space of time in which the chastisement had force and meaning. See, for instances, Luk 8:13; Joh 5:35; 1Th 2:17; 2Co 7:8. The few days can scarcely refer to the whole lifetime, since, even from the ancient point of view of the continuance of parental authority, parental discipline is not applied throughout the lifetime. It signifies rather the brief period of childhood and youth.

Vincent: Heb 12:10

After their own pleasure ( κατὰ τὸ δοκοῦν αὐτοῖς )

Better, as seemed good to them . The αὐτοῖς has a slightly emphatic force, as contrasted with a higher intelligence. The thought links itself with παιδευτὰς in Heb 12:9, and is explained by as seemed good to them , and is placed in contrast with subjection to the Father of spirits. The human parents were shortsighted, fallible, sometimes moved by passion rather than by sound judgment, and, therefore, often mistaken in their disciplinary methods. What seemed good to them was not always best for us . No such possibility of error attaches to the Father of spirits.

Vincent: Heb 12:10

But he for our profit ( ὁ δὲ ἐπὶ τὸ συμφέρον )

The contrast is with what is implied in as seemed good to them . The human parent may not have dealt with us to our profit. Συμφέρειν means to bring together: to collect or contribute in order to help: hence, to help or be profitable . Often impersonally, συμφέρει it is expedient , as Mat 5:29; Mat 18:6; Joh 11:50. The neuter participle, as here, advantage , profit , 1Co 12:7; 2Co 12:1. There is a backward reference to live , Heb 12:9, the result of subjection to the Father of spirits; and this is expanded and defined in the final clause, namely:

Vincent: Heb 12:10

That we might be partakers of his holiness ( εἰς το μεταλαβεῖν τῆς ἁγιότητος αὐτοῦ )

Lit. unto the partaking of his holiness . Ἑις marks the final purpose of chastening. Holiness is life. Shall we not be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For, in contrast with the temporary, faultful chastening of the human parent, which, at best, prepares for work and success in time and in worldly things, his chastening results in holiness and eternal life.

Vincent: Heb 12:11

No chastening for the present seemeth ( πᾶσα μὲν παιδεία πρὸς μὲν τὸ παρὸν οὐ δοκεῖ )

Lit. all chastening - doth not seem . Πᾶσα of all sorts , divine and human. The A.V., by joining οὐ not to πᾶσα all , and rendering no chastisement , weakens the emphasis on the idea every kind of chastisement . Πρὸς μὲν τὸ παρὸν for the present . For the force of πρὸς see on Heb 12:10. Not merely during the present, but for the present regarded as the time in which its application is necessary and salutary. Μὲν indicates that the suffering present is to be offset by a fruitful future - but (δὲ ) afterward .

Vincent: Heb 12:11

To be joyous but grievous ( χαρᾶς εἶναι ἀλλὰ λύπης )

Lit. to be of joy but of grief .

Vincent: Heb 12:11

It yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness ( καρπὸν εἰρηνικὸν ἀποδίδωσιν δικαιοσύνης )

Perhaps with a suggestion of recompense for the long-suffering and waiting, since ἀποδιδόναι often signifies " to give back." The phrase ἀποδιδόναι καρπὸν only here and Rev 22:2. Καρπὸν fruit with διδόναι to give , Mat 13:8; Mar 4:8 : with ποιεῖν to make or produce , often in Synoptic Gospels, as Mat 3:8, Mat 3:10; Mat 7:17; Luk 3:8; Luk 6:43, etc.: with φέρειν to bear , always and only in John, Joh 12:24; Joh 15:2, Joh 15:4, Joh 15:5, Joh 15:8, Joh 15:16 : with βλαστάνειν to bring forth , Jam 5:18. Ἑιρηνικός peaceable , in N.T. Only here and Jam 3:17, as an epithet of wisdom. Quite often in lxx of men , the heart , especially of words and sacrifices . The phrase καρπός εἰρηνικός peaceable fruit (omit the ), N.T.o , o lxx. The phrase fruit of righteousness , Phi 1:11; Jam 3:18, and lxx, Pro 3:9; Pro 11:30; Pro 13:2; Amo 6:13 : comp. Psa 1:3; Psa 57:11. The genitive of righteousness is explicative or appositional; fruit which consists in righteousness or is righteousness.

Vincent: Heb 12:11

Unto them which are exercised thereby ( τοῖς δἰ αὐτῆς γεγυμνασμένοις )

Who have been subjected to the severe discipline of suffering, and have patiently undergone it. For the verb see on 1Ti 4:7. Rend. " it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness." This preserves the Greek order, and puts righteousness in its proper, emphatic position.

Vincent: Heb 12:12

Wherefore ( διὸ )

Because chastening is thus necessary, and serves for wholesome discipline, and issues in holiness.

Vincent: Heb 12:12

Lift up ( ἀνορθώσατε )

Found in Luk 13:13; Act 15:16 (citn). Occasionally in lxx. It signifies to set up , make , erect . In O.T. to establish , as a throne (2Sa 7:13, 2Sa 7:16); a house (2Sa 7:26; 1Ch 17:24); to raise up one who is down (Psa 145:9; Sir. 11:12). In Act 15:16, to build anew . By medical writers, to straighten ; to set dislocated parts of the body. See Luk 13:13. The translation here should be more general: not lift up , which is inappropriate to paralyzed knees , but set right ; brace . As falling in with the thought of this passage, comp. the lxx of Psalm 17:35, which, for the A.V. " thy gentleness hath made me great," gives " thy discipline hath established me or set me up." See also Psa 19:8.

Vincent: Heb 12:12

The hands which hang down ( τὰς παρειμένας χεῖρας )

Rend. the slackened or weakened hands . Comp. Isa 35:3; Sir. 25:23; 2Sa 4:1. The verb παριέναι (only here and Luk 11:42) originally means to let pass , disregard , neglect ; thence to relax , loosen . See Clem. Rom. Ad Corinth . xxxiv, who associates it with νωθρὸς slothful (comp. Heb 5:11).

Vincent: Heb 12:12

And the feeble knees ( καὶ τὰ παραλελυμένα γόνατα )

For feeble rend. palsied . See on Luk 5:18.

Vincent: Heb 12:13

Make straight paths for your feet ( τροχιὰς ὀρθὰς ποιεῖτε τοῖς ποσὶν ὑμῶν )

After the lxx of Pro 4:26. The corresponding Hebrew means to tear , to cut into: hence to cut through as a path; to make firm or plain . Ὁρθός N.T. Only here and Act 14:10; commonly straight or upright , but also right , safe , happy . Comp. Pro 8:6; Pro 15:14; Pro 21:8. here, not in the sense of straight as distinguished from crooked , but more generally, right , plain , by implication even or smooth . Τροχιά N.T.o is literally a wheel-track (τροχός a wheel ). Very rare in profane Greek. Τοῖς ποσὶν ὑμῶν " for your feet," not with . That is, exert yourselves to make the course clear for yourselves and your fellow Christians, so that there be no stumbling and laming.

Vincent: Heb 12:13

That which is lame ( τὸ χωλὸν )

Χωλός lame , halting , only in Synoptic Gospels and Acts. Mostly in the literal sense. Proverbial in Isa 33:23. Metaphorically here, and partly Mat 18:8; Mar 9:45. The verb χωλαίνειν to be lame or to make lame (not in N.T.) is used metaphorically in lxx, Psa 18:45; 1Ki 18:21, where the A.V. " how long halt ye between two opinions" is ἕως πότε ὐμεῖς χωλανεῖτε ἐπ ' ἀμφοτέραις ταῖς ἰγνύαις how long do ye go lame on both your hams? Τὸ χωλὸν here signifies the lame part or limb .

Vincent: Heb 12:13

Be turned out of the way ( ἐκτραπῇ )

Rend. " be put out of joint." The A.V. is according to the more usual meaning of the verb, which, in N.T., is confined, with this exception, to the Pastoral Epistles. See 1Ti 1:6; 1Ti 5:15; 2Ti 4:4. lxx only Amo 5:8. But it is also used by medical writers in the passive, with the meaning to be wrenched or dislocated . There is nothing strange in the use of this word in a medical sense by our writer, whose work bears the stamp of Alexandria. The Greeks received their knowledge of surgery from the Egyptians, and mural paintings and documents, and even hieroglyphic symbols, prove that that people had attained remarkable proficiency in the science. Herodotus (ch. iii. 131) mentions a medical school at Cyrene in Africa, and says that the pupils of that school were regarded as the second best physicians in all Greece. At the time of Galen (163 a.d.) the medical school of Alexandria was the most famous in the world, and Galen himself studied there. Celsus (first half of the first century a.d.), in the 7th book of his treatise De Artibius , treats of surgical operations according to the views of the Alexandrian schools. The commonly accepted rendering of the A.V., besides giving a conception which is very tame, presents two incongruities: the association of going astray with lameness , and of healing with straying . The other rendering gives a lively and consistent image. Make the paths smooth and even, so that the lame limb be not dislocated by stones or pitfalls. Do everything to avoid aggravating the weakness of a fellow-Christian. Rather try to heal it. Τὸ χωλὸν may refer either to an individual or to a section of the church which is weak and vacillating.

Vincent: Heb 12:14

Follow peace ( εἰρήνην διώκετε )

Comp. lxx, Psalm 23:14, and Rom 14:19; 1Pe 3:11. The verb is used of the pursuit of moral and spiritual ends, Rom 9:30, Rom 9:31; Rom 12:13; 1Co 14:1; Phi 3:12, Phi 3:14; 1Th 5:15; 1Ti 6:11; 2Ti 2:22.

Vincent: Heb 12:14

Holiness ( ἁγιασμόν )

See on Rom 6:19.

Vincent: Heb 12:15

Looking diligently ( ἐπισκοποῦντες )

A.V. gives diligently as the force of ἐπὶ ; but ἐπὶ signifies direction rather than intensity . The idea is exercising oversight . Only here and 1Pe 5:2.

Vincent: Heb 12:15

Fail of ( ὑστερῶν ἀπὸ )

Rend. " fall back from," implying a previous attainment. The present participle marks something in progress: " lest any one be falling back."

Vincent: Heb 12:15

Root of bitterness ( ῥίζα πικρίας )

From lxx, Deu 29:18. A bad man in the church. Ῥίζα of a person , 1 Macc. 1:10.

Vincent: Heb 12:15

Springing up ( ἄνω φύουσα )

The participle pictures the springing up in progress; the root gradually revealing its pernicious character.

Vincent: Heb 12:15

Trouble ( ἐνοχλῇ )

Only here and Luk 6:18, see note.

Vincent: Heb 12:15

Many be defiled ( μιανθῶσιν οἱ πολλοί )

Rend. " the many" : the majority of the church. For the verb see on Joh 18:28.

Vincent: Heb 12:16

Fornicator ( πόρνος )

In the literal sense, as always in N.T.

Vincent: Heb 12:16

Profane person ( βέβηλος )

See on 1Ti 1:9.

Vincent: Heb 12:16

As Esau

Only the epithet profane is applied to Esau, not fornicator .

Vincent: Heb 12:16

For one morsel of meat ( ἀντὶ βρώσεως μιᾶς )

Βρῶσις , lit. the act of eating, as 1Co 8:4, Rom 14:17 : " one eating of meat." Sometimes corrosion , as Mat 6:19. Sometimes of that which is eaten , Joh 6:27, Joh 6:55.

Vincent: Heb 12:16

Sold ( ἀπέδετο )

The word occurs in the narrative of Gen 25:31, Gen 25:33, lxx. In N.T. often of discharging an obligation ; paying back . To sell , Act 5:8; Act 7:9.

Vincent: Heb 12:16

His birthright ( τὰ πρωτοτοκία )

N.T.o , o Class. In this form only in the later Greek translations of the O.T. Πρωτοτοκεῖον , a very few times, almost all in this narrative.

Vincent: Heb 12:17

He found no place of repentance ( μετανοίας γὰρ τόπον οὐχ εὗρεν )

The phrase place of repentance N.T.o . This does not mean that Esau was rendered incapable of repentance, which is clearly contradicted by what follows; nor that he was not able to persuade Isaac to change his mind and to recall the blessing already bestowed on Jacob and give it to him. This is unnatural, forced, and highly improbable. The words place of repentance mean an opportunity to repair by repenting . He found no way to reverse by repentance what he had done. The penalty could not be reversed in the nature of the case. This is clear from Isaac's words, Gen 27:33.

Vincent: Heb 12:17

Sought it carefully ( ἐκζητήσας )

See on 1Pe 1:10. Comp. Heb 11:6. See also on questionings , 1Ti 1:4.

Vincent: Heb 12:18

Following this allusion to Esau, and perhaps suggested by it, is a passage setting forth the privileges of the Christian birthright and of Christian citizenship in contrast with those under the old covenant.

The mount that might be touched and that burned with fire ( ψηλαφωμένῳ καὶ κεκαυμένῳ πυρὶ )

Ὄρει mount is omitted by the best texts, but should be understood. Ψηλαφᾶν is rare in N.T. and lxx; fairly frequent in Class. Radically, it is akin to ψᾶν , to rub , wipe ; hence feeling on the surface, as Gen 27:12, Gen 27:21, Gen 27:22, lxx: a touch which communicates only a superficial effect. It need not imply contact with an object at all, but simply the movement of the hands feeling after something. Hence often of the groping of the blind, as Deu 28:29; Isa 59:10; Job 5:14. Appropriate here as indicating mere superficial contact. The present participle that is being touched , means simply that the mountain was something material and tangible. The A.V. which might be touched , although not literally correct, conveys the true sense.

Vincent: Heb 12:18

That burned with fire ( κεκαυμένῳ πυρὶ )

See Exo 19:18; Deu 4:11; Deu 5:4; Deu 9:15. The participle is passive, set on fire ; kindled with fire: not attributive of πυρὶ , enkindled fire .

Vincent: Heb 12:18

Blackness, darkness, tempest ( γνόφῳ, ζόφῳ, θυέλλῃ )

Γνόφος (N.T.o ) and ζόφος (elsewhere only 2 Peter and Jude) belong to the same family. As distinguished from σκότος darkness that conceals , as opposed to light, these words signify half-darkness , gloom , nebulousness ; as the darkness of evening or the gathering gloom of death. It is a darkness which does not entirely conceal color. Thus δνόφος , the earlier and poetic form of γνόφος , is used by Homer of water which appears dark against the underlying rock, or is tinged by mire. Γνόφος and σκότος appear together, Exo 10:22; Exo 14:20; Deu 4:11; Deu 5:22. Γνόφος alone, Exo 20:21. Ζόφος only in the later version of Symmachus. See on Joh 1:5. Θύελλα N.T.o , from θύειν to boil or foam . It is a brief, violent, sudden, destructive blast, sometimes working upward and carrying objects into the upper air; hence found with ἀείρειν to lift and ἀναρπάζειν to snatch up (see Hom. Od . xx. 63). It may also come from above and dash down to the ground (Hom. Il . xii. 253). Sometimes it indicates the mere force of the wind, as ἀνέμοιο θύελλα (Hom. Od . xii. 409; Il . vi. 346).

Vincent: Heb 12:19

Sound of a trumpet ( σάλπιγγος ἤχῳ )

See Exo 19:16, Exo 19:19; Exo 20:18. Ηχος a noise, almost entirely in Luke and Acts. See Luk 4:37; Act 2:2; comp. lxx, 1Sa 14:19. Of the roar of the waves, Luk 21:25; comp. lxx, Psalm 64:7; 76:17. A rumor or report , see on Luk 4:37, and comp. lxx, 1Sa 4:16; Psa 9:6. It does not occur in the O.T. narrative of the giving of the law, where we have φωνή voice ; see lxx, Exo 19:13, Exo 19:16, Exo 19:19; Exo 20:18. For φωνή σάλπιγγος voice of a trumpet in N.T., see Rev 1:10; Rev 4:1; Rev 8:13. Σάλπιγξ is a war-trumpet .

Vincent: Heb 12:19

Voice of words ( φωνῇ ῥημάτων )

See Exo 19:19; Deu 4:12; Deu 5:22, Deu 5:24, Deu 5:26.

Vincent: Heb 12:19

Entreated ( παρῃτήσαντο )

See on 1Ti 4:7.

Vincent: Heb 12:19

Be spoken to them any more ( προστεθῆναι αὐτοῖς )

Lit. be added . See on Luk 3:19; see on Luk 20:11; see on Act 12:3. To them refers to the hearers, not to the things heard. Rend. " that no word more should be spoken unto them." Comp. Exo 20:19; Deu 5:25; Deu 18:16.

Vincent: Heb 12:20

That which was commanded ( τὸ διαστελλόμενον )

See on Mar 7:36; see on Act 15:24.

Vincent: Heb 12:20

Touch ( θίγῃ )

Elsewhere in N.T. only Heb 11:28 and Col 2:21. lxx only Exo 19:12. It implies a touching or grasping which affects the object (comp. Heb 12:18 on ψηλαφᾶν ). In Class. often of touching or handling some sacred object which may be desecrated by the one who lays hands on it. See Soph. Philoct . 667; Oed . Tyr . 891, 899. So here, the touch of the mountain was profanation .

Vincent: Heb 12:20

Shall be stoned ( λιθοβολήσεται )

Found in Matthew, Luke, and Acts. In lxx see Exo 19:13. Comp. ἐλιθάσθησαν , Heb 11:37. The correct text omits or thrust through with a dart .

Vincent: Heb 12:21

The sight ( τὸ φανταζόμενον )

N.T.o . lxx, Wisd. 6:16; Sir. 31:5. Rend. " the appearance" : that which was made to appear.

Vincent: Heb 12:21

I exceedingly fear and quake ( ἐκφοβός εἰμι καὶ ἔντρομος )

Lit. I am frightened away (or out ) and trembling . Ἑκφοβός only here and Mar 9:6. Comp. lxx, Deu 9:19. Ἔντρομος , only Act 7:32; Act 16:29. Rare in lxx.

Vincent: Heb 12:21

Make you perfect ( καταρτίσαι ὑμᾶς )

The verb is aptly chosen, since the readers are addressed as a body - the flock of Christ. The prayer is for the complete mutual adjustment of all the members of the flock into a perfected whole, fitted to do the perfect will of God. See on 1Pe 5:10, and comp. 2Ti 3:17, note; 1Co 1:10, note; 2Co 13:11, note. Ignatius uses the word of the church's being joined (κατηρτισμένοι ) in common subjection to the Bishops and the Presbytery ( Eph . ii), and of himself as one composed or settled into union (εἰς ἕνωσιν ), that is, avoiding division in the church ( Philad . viii); and again to the ( Smyr . i) " I have perceived that ye are settled or compacted in faith immovable, being, as it were, nailed on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ in flesh and in spirit."

Vincent: Heb 12:21

In every good work ( ἐν παντὶ ἀγαθῷ )

A.V. follows T.R. ἔργῳ work . Rend. " in every good thing."

Vincent: Heb 12:21

To do his will ( εἰς τὸ ποιῆσαι τὸ θέλημα αὐτοῦ )

To the end that you do, etc.

Vincent: Heb 12:21

Working in you ( ποιῶν ἐν ἡμῖν )

Rend. " in us ." A.V. follows T.R. ὑμῖν you. For " working" rend. " doing." The word plays on ποιῆσαι to do . " Make you perfect to do his will, he doing in us what is well-pleasing in his sight."

Vincent: Heb 12:21

That which is well-pleasing in his sight ( τὸ αὐάρεστον ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ )

Comp. Eph 5:10. The phrase N.T.o . Ἑυάρεστον usually with the simple dative, as Rom 12:1; Rom 14:8; Eph 5:10; Phi 4:18. Comp. 1Jo 3:22.

Vincent: Heb 12:22

The heavenly Jerusalem

See on Gal 4:26. The spiritual mountain and city where God dwells and reigns. Comp. Dante Inf . i. 128:

" Quivi e la sua cittade, e l'alto seggio."

Comp. Psa 2:6; Psa 48:2, Psa 48:3; Psa 50:2; Psa 78:68; Psa 110:2; Isa 18:7; Joe 2:32; Mic 4:1, Mic 4:2; Amo 1:2.

Vincent: Heb 12:22

To an innumerable company of angels ( μυριάσιν ἀγγέλων )

On this whole passage (Heb 12:22-24) it is to be observed that it is arranged in a series of clauses connected by καὶ . Accordingly μυριάσιν to myriads or tens of thousands stands by itself, and πανηγύρει festal assembly goes with ἀγγέλων angels . Μυριάς (see Luk 12:1; Act 19:19; Rev 5:11; quite often in lxx) is strictly the number ten thousand . In the plural, an innumerable multitude . So A.V. here. Rend. " to an innumerable multitude," placing a comma after μυριάσιν , and connecting of angels with the next clause. This use of μυριάσιν without a qualifying genitive is justified by numerous examples. See Gen 24:60; Deu 32:30; Deu 33:2; 1Sa 18:7, 1Sa 18:8; Psa 90:7; Son 5:10; Dan 7:10; Dan 11:12; Sir. 47:6; 2 Macc. 8:20; Jud 1:14. Χιλιάδες thousands is used in the same way. See Isaiah 70:22; Dan 7:10.

Vincent: Heb 12:23

To the general assembly ( πανηγύρει )

Const. with ἀγγέλων of angels , with comma after angels . Rend. " to a festal assembly of angels." This and the next clause show what the myriads consist of, - a host of angels and redeemed men. Πανήγυρις , N.T.o , is a gathering to celebrate a solemnity , as public games, etc.: a public, festal assembly. Frequently joined with ἑορτή feast. See Eze 47:11; Hos 2:11; Hos 9:5. The verb πανηγυρίζειν to celebrate or attend a public festival , to keep holiday , occurs occasionally in Class.: not in N.T.: lxx once, Isa 66:10. The festal assembly of angels maintains the contrast between the old and the new dispensation. The host of angels through whose ministration the law was given (see on Heb 2:2, and see on Gal 3:19) officiated at a scene of terror. Christian believers are now introduced to a festal host, surrounding the exalted Son of man, who has purged away sins, and is enthroned at God's right hand (Heb 1:3).

Vincent: Heb 12:23

And church of the first-born which are written in heaven ( καὶ ἐκκλησίᾳ πρωτοτόκων ἀπογεγραμμένων ἐν οὐρανοῖς )

This forms a distinct clause; " and to the church," etc. For ἐκκλησία assembly or church , see on Mat 16:18; see on 1Th 1:1. The " myriads" embrace not only angels, but redeemed men, enrolled as citizens of the heavenly commonwealth, and entitled to the rights and privileges of first-born sons. Πρωτότοκος first-born is applied mostly to Christ in N.T. See Rom 8:29; Col 1:15, Col 1:18; Heb 1:6; Rev 1:5. Comp. Heb 11:28, and Luk 2:7. Properly applied to Christians by virtue of their union with Christ, " the first-born of all creation," " the first-born from the dead," as sharing his sonship and heirship. See Rom 8:14-17, Rom 8:29. The word also points to Christians as the true Israel of God. The analogy is suggested with the first-born of Israel, to whom peculiar sanctity attached, and whose consecration to himself God enjoined (Exo 13:1, Exo 13:11-16); and with the further application of the term first-born to Israel as a people, Exo 4:22. The way was thus prepared for its application to the Messiah. There seems, moreover, to be a clear reference to the case of Esau (Heb 12:16). Esau was the first-born of the twin sons of Isaac (Gen 25:25). He sold his birthright (πρωτοτοκία ), and thus forfeited the privilege of the first-born. The assembly to which Christian believers are introduced is composed of those who have not thus parted with their birthright, but have retained the privileges of the first-born. The phrase " church of the first-born" includes all who have possessed and retained their heavenly birthright, living or dead, of both dispensations: the whole Israel of God, although it is quite likely that the Christian church may have been most prominent in the writer's thought.

Vincent: Heb 12:23

Which are written in heaven ( ἀπογεγραμμένων ἐν οὐρανοῖς )

Ἁπογράφειν , only here and Luk 2:1, Luk 2:3, Luk 2:5, means to write off or copy ; to enter in a register the names, property, and income of men. Hence, ἀπογραφή an enrollment . See on Luk 2:1, Luk 2:2. Here, inscribed as members of the heavenly commonwealth; citizens of heaven; Phi 4:3; Rev 3:5; Rev 13:8, etc. See for the image, Exo 32:32; Psa 69:28; Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1; Luk 10:20.

Vincent: Heb 12:23

To God the judge of all ( κριτῇ θεῷ πάντων )

Rend. " a judge who is God of all." Comp. Dan 7:9 ff. God of all his first-born, of those whom he chastens, of all who are in filial relations with him under both covenants, and who, therefore, need not fear to draw near to him as judge.

Vincent: Heb 12:23

Spirits of just men made perfect ( πνεύμασι δικαίων )

The departed spirits of the righteous of both dispensations, who have completed their course after having undergone their earthly discipline. Notice again the idea of τελείωσις , not attained under the old covenant, but only through the work of Christ, the benefits of which the disembodied saints of the O.T. share with departed Christian believers. Comp. Heb 11:40.

Vincent: Heb 12:24

The mediator of the new covenant ( διαθήκης νέας μεσίτῃ )

See Heb 7:22; Heb 8:6, Heb 8:8, Heb 8:9, Heb 8:10; Heb 9:15. For covenant , see on Heb 9:6 ff. For the new covenant, rend. a new covenant. Νέα new , only here applied to the covenant in N.T. The word elsewhere is καινή . For the distinction, see on Mat 26:29. It is better not to press the distinction, since νεός , in certain cases, clearly has the sense of quality rather than of time , as 1Co 5:7; Col 3:10, and probably here, where to confine the sense to recent would seem to limit it unduly. In the light of all that the writer has said respecting the better quality of the Christian covenant, superseding the old, outworn, insufficient covenant, he may naturally be supposed to have had in mind something besides its mere recentness. Moreover, all through the contrast from Heb 12:18, the thought of earlier and later is not once touched, but only that of inferior and better; repellency and invitation; terrors and delights; fear and confidence. Note that the privilege of approaching the Mediator in person is emphasized.

Vincent: Heb 12:24

Blood of sprinkling ( αἵματι ῥαντισμοῦ )

Ῥαντισμός sprinkling only here and 1Pe 1:2, see note. The phrase blood of sprinkling N.T.o . o lxx, where we find ὕδωρ ῥαντισμοῦ water of sprinkling , Num 19:9, Num 19:13, Num 19:20, Num 19:21. For the verb ῥαντίζειν to sprinkle , see on Heb 9:13. The mention of blood naturally follows that of a covenant, since no covenant is ratified without blood (Heb 9:16). The phrase is sufficiently explained by Heb 9:16-22.

Vincent: Heb 12:24

Speaketh better things ( κρεῖττον λαλοῦντι )

For " better things" rend. " better." The blood is personified, and its voice is contrasted with that of Abel, whose blood cried from the ground for vengeance upon his murderer (Gen 4:10). The voice of Christ's blood calls for mercy and forgiveness.

Vincent: Heb 12:24

Than that of Abel ( παρὰ τὸν Ἄβελ )

Rend. " than Abel." Comp. Heb 11:4, where Abel himself speaks.

Vincent: Heb 12:25

See - refuse ( βλέπετε - παραιτήσησθε )

For βλέπετε see see on Heb 3:12. For παραιτήσησθε refuse , see on 1Ti 4:7.

Vincent: Heb 12:25

Him that speaketh ( τὸν λαλοῦντα )

Through his blood. Rend. " that is speaking," the participle denoting something that is going on.

Vincent: Heb 12:25

They ( ἐκεῖνοι )

The people of the Exodus. See Heb 4:2. The words from for if they to the end of the verse are parenthetical.

Vincent: Heb 12:25

That spake on earth ( ἐπὶ γῆς τὸν χρηματίζοντα )

For spake rend. warned , and see on Heb 8:5. Ἑπὶ upon earth should not be construed with refused nor warned , but with the whole clause. " If on earth they escaped not, refusing him that warned."

Vincent: Heb 12:25

If we turn away ( ἀποστρεφομενοι )

Lit. turning away . The present participle, possibly with reference to the relapse into Judaism as already in progress.

Vincent: Heb 12:25

From him that speaketh from heaven ( τὸν ἀπ ' οὐρανῶν )

Lit. from him from the heavens . Supply as A.V. that speaketh Ὁ ἀπ ' οὐρανοῦ or οὐρανῶν does not occur in N.T. elsewhere. Wherever ἀπ ' οὐρ . appears, some act or thing is always named which proceeds from heaven. See Mat 24:29; Mar 8:11; Luk 9:54; Luk 17:29; Luk 21:11; Luk 22:43; Joh 6:38; 1Th 1:7. The speaker from heaven is still God, but speaking through his Son. The thought connects itself with that of Christ carrying his blood into the heavenly sanctuary, from which he exerts his power on behalf of men. See Heb 9:12, Heb 9:24. This will be the clearer if we throw out the idea of Christ presenting his blood to an angry God as a propitiation, and interceding with him to pardon sin. See note on Heb 7:26.

Vincent: Heb 12:26

Whose voice ( οὗ ἡ φωνὴ )

Connect, after the parenthesis, with speaketh better , etc., Heb 12:24.

Vincent: Heb 12:26

Shook ( ἐσάλευσεν )

See on Luk 21:26, and comp. σάλος tossing or swell of the sea, Luk 21:25. See Jdg 5:4; Psa 113:7.

Vincent: Heb 12:26

He hath promised ( ἐπήγγελται )

See Hag 2:6. The quotation is adapted from lxx, which reads: " Yet once will I shake the heaven and the earth and the sea and the dry land." The Hebrew for " yet once" reads " yet a little while." In Haggai's prophecy, he comforts the people for their sorrow that the second temple is so inferior to the first, predicting that Jehovah will move heaven and earth and sea and land, and will fill the house with his glory; and the glory of the latter house shall exceed that of the former. The discipline begun on Sinai will then have its consummation. This shaking of heaven and earth was typified by the material shaking at Sinai. The shaking predicted by the prophet is applied by our writer to the downfall of worldly powers before the kingdom of Christ, Heb 12:28; comp Heb 1:8, and see Zechariah 14.

Vincent: Heb 12:27

This word " yet once more" ( τὸ δέ Ἔτι ἅπαξ )

Attention is called to this phrase as specially significant, because it indicates that the shaking prophesied by Haggai is to be final. It is to precede the new heaven and the new earth. Isa 65:17; Isa 66:22; 2Pe 3:13; Rev 21:1.

Vincent: Heb 12:27

Signifieth ( δηλοῖ )

From δῆλος manifest , evident . To make manifest to the mind . Used of indications which lead the mind to conclusions about the origin or character of things. See Thucyd. i. 3; Aesch. Pers . 518. Comp. 1Co 3:13; Heb 9:8; 1Pe 1:11. Appropriate to prophetic revelations.

Vincent: Heb 12:27

The removing ( τὴν μετάθεσιν )

See on Heb 7:12. For the thought comp. 1Jo 2:17; 1Co 7:31.

Vincent: Heb 12:27

As of things that are made ( ὡς πεποιημένων )

Made indeed by God, who also makes the new heaven and the new earth (Isa 65:17; Isa 66:22), but made to pass away.

Vincent: Heb 12:27

That the things which cannot be shaken may remain ( ἵνα μείνῃ τὰ μὴ σαλευόμενα )

Whether we consider the things which are shaken, the old heavens and earth which pass away, or the new heaven and earth which cannot be shaken, both are πεποιημένα made by God. The writer perceives this, and therefore adds to as of things that are made a clause stating that they were made (by God himself) to pass away. Accordingly, ἵνα in order that is to be connected with πεποιημένων , after which the comma should be removed. Rend. " the removal of things made in order that they might await the things which are not shaken." Μένειν is used in this sense, await , Act 20:5, Act 20:23, and often in Class.

Vincent: Heb 12:28

Receiving a kingdom ( βασιλείαν παραλαμβάνοντες )

The participle gives no note of time, but simply indicates the fact that Christians as such receive. The compounded preposition παρὰ adds to the idea of receiving that of transmission or communication . They receive from God. See Dan 7:18. Βασιλεία in the sense of the kingdom of Christ, in this epistle only here and Heb 1:8 (citn.). See on Mat 3:2; see on Luk 6:20.

Vincent: Heb 12:28

Let us have grace ( ἔχωμεν χάριν )

For grace rend. thankfulness . See Luk 17:9; 1Ti 1:12; 2Ti 1:3. Comp. Psa 50:23.

Vincent: Heb 12:28

Acceptably ( εὐαρέστως )

N.T.o , o lxx. Ἑυαρεστεῖν to be well pleasing , Heb 11:5, Heb 11:6; Heb 13:16. For the adjective εὐάρεστος well-pleasing , see on Tit 2:9.

Vincent: Heb 12:28

With reverence ( μετὰ εὐλαβίας )

Rend. " with pious care." Reverence is translated from T. R. αἰδοῦς (see on 1Ti 2:9). See on Heb 5:7; see on Heb 11:7.

Vincent: Heb 12:28

Fear ( δέους )

N.T.o . See 2 Macc. 3:17, 30; 12:22; 13:16; 15:23. Its fundamental idea is timid apprehension of danger ; while φόβος is the terror which seizes one when the danger appears. Schmidt ( Synon . 139, 10) illustrates happily. In a primitive forest an undefined sense of possible danger possesses one, and makes his heart beat quickly at every rustle of a leaf. This is δέος . When the voice and tread of a wild beast are distinctly heard close at hand, the δέος becomes φόβος . The phrase " with pious care and fear" is not explanatory of acceptably . These are to accompany (μετὰ ) acceptable service. They do not imply a cringing or slavish feeling, but grow out of the warning in Heb 12:25, which runs through the two following verses, and implies that the catastrophe of Heb 12:27 will be final, leaving no more opportunity to retrieve the refusal of God's invitation to the privileges of the new covenant, or the relapse into the superseded economy of Judaism.

Vincent: Heb 12:29

For our God is a consuming fire ( καὶ γὰρ ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν πῦρ καταναλίσκον )

See Exo 24:17; Deu 4:24; Deu 9:3; Mal 3:2; Mal 4:1. The verb N.T.o , a few times in lxx. Often in Class., especially Xenophon. Originally to use up , spend , lavish , as property: thence to consume as with fire. The simple verb ἀναλίσκειν to expend occurs Luk 9:54; Gal 5:15; 2Th 2:8. Ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν is not our God as compared with the God of the Jews. He is the God of both covenants (see Heb 1:1, Heb 1:2, and notes); but though now revealed in Jesus Christ, and offering all the privileges of the new covenant (Heb 12:22-24), his anger burns against those who reject these privileges.

Wesley: Heb 12:1

A great multitude, tending upward with a holy swiftness.

Wesley: Heb 12:1

Of the power of faith.

Wesley: Heb 12:1

As all who run a race take care to do. Let us throw off whatever weighs us down, or damps the vigour of our Soul.

Wesley: Heb 12:1

As doth the sin of our constitution, the sin of our education, the sin of our profession.

Wesley: Heb 12:2

From all other things.

Wesley: Heb 12:2

As the wounded Israelites to the brazen serpent. Our crucified Lord was prefigured by the lifting up of this; our guilt, by the stings of the fiery serpents; and our faith, by their looking up to the miraculous remedy.

Wesley: Heb 12:2

Who begins it in us, carries it on, and perfects it.

Wesley: Heb 12:2

Patiently and willingly endured the cross, with all the pains annexed thereto.

Wesley: Heb 12:2

Where there is fulness of joy.

Wesley: Heb 12:3

Draw the comparison and think.

Wesley: Heb 12:3

Such enmity and opposition of every kind Lest ye be weary - Dull and languid, and so actually faint in your course.

Wesley: Heb 12:4

Unto wounds and death.

Wesley: Heb 12:5

Wherein God speaketh to you with the utmost tenderness.

Wesley: Heb 12:5

Do not slight or make little of it; do not impute any affliction to chance or second causes but see and revere the hand of God in it.

Wesley: Heb 12:5

But endure it patiently and fruitfully. Pro 3:11, &c.

Wesley: Heb 12:6

All springs from love; therefore neither despise nor faint.

Wesley: Heb 12:7

When he offends.

Wesley: Heb 12:8

More or less.

Wesley: Heb 12:9

We neither despised nor fainted under their correction.

Wesley: Heb 12:9

Submit with reverence and meekness To the Father of spirits - That we may live with him for ever. Perhaps these expressions, fathers of our flesh, and Father of spirits, intimate that our earthly fathers are only the parents of our bodies, our souls not being originally derived from them, but all created by the immediate power of God; perhaps, at the beginning of the world.

Wesley: Heb 12:10

How few are even all our day on earth! Chastened us as they thought good - Though frequently they erred therein, by too much either of indulgence or severity. But he always, unquestionably, for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness - That is, of himself and his glorious image.

Wesley: Heb 12:11

Whether from our earthly or heavenly Father, Is for the present grievous, yet it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness - Holiness and happiness.

Wesley: Heb 12:11

That receive this exercise as from God, and improve it according to his will.

Wesley: Heb 12:12

Whether your own or your brethren's.

Wesley: Heb 12:12

Unable to continue the combat.

Wesley: Heb 12:12

Unable to continue the race. Isa 35:3.

Wesley: Heb 12:13

Remove every hinderance, every offence.

Wesley: Heb 12:13

They who are weak, scarce able to walk.

Wesley: Heb 12:13

Of faith and holiness.

Wesley: Heb 12:14

This second branch of the exhortation concerns our neighbours; the third, God.

Wesley: Heb 12:14

The not following after all holiness, is the direct way to fall into sin of every kind.

Wesley: Heb 12:15

If he do not lift up the hands that hang down.

Wesley: Heb 12:15

Of envy, anger, suspicion.

Wesley: Heb 12:15

Destroy the sweet peace; lest any, not following after holiness, fall into fornication or profaneness. In general, any corruption, either in doctrine or practice, is a root of bitterness, and may pollute many.

Wesley: Heb 12:16

right.

Wesley: Heb 12:17

He could not obtain it.

Wesley: Heb 12:17

There was no room for any such repentance as would regain what he had lost.

Wesley: Heb 12:17

The blessing of the birth - right.

Wesley: Heb 12:17

He sought too late. Let us use the present time.

Wesley: Heb 12:18

A strong reason this why they ought the more to regard the whole exhortation drawn from the priesthood of Christ: because both salvation and vengeance are now nearer at hand.

Wesley: Heb 12:18

That was of an earthy, material nature.

Wesley: Heb 12:19

Formed, without doubt, by the ministry of angels, and preparatory to the words, that is, the Ten Commandments, which were uttered with a loud voice, Deu 5:22.

Wesley: Heb 12:20

The terror which seized them, when they heard those words proclaimed, If even a beast, &c. Exo 19:12, &c.

Wesley: Heb 12:21

Though admitted to so near an intercourse with God, who "spake to him as a man speaketh to his friend." At other times he acted as a mediator between God and the people. But while the ten words were pronounced, he stood as one of the hearers, Exo 19:25; Exo 20:19.

Wesley: Heb 12:22

Who believe in Christ.

Wesley: Heb 12:22

The apostle does not here speak of their coming to the church militant, but of that glorious privilege of New Testament believers, their communion with the church triumphant. But this is far more apparent to the eyes of celestial spirits than to ours which are yet veiled. St. Paul here shows an excellent knowledge of the heavenly economy, worthy of him who had been caught up into the third heaven.

Wesley: Heb 12:22

A spiritual mountain. To the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem - All these glorious titles belong to the New Testament church.

Wesley: Heb 12:22

Including all that are afterwards mentioned.

Wesley: Heb 12:23

The word properly signifies a stated convention on some festival occasion.

Wesley: Heb 12:23

The whole body of true believers, whether on earth or in paradise.

Wesley: Heb 12:23

born - The first-born of Israel were enrolled by Moses; but these are enrolled in heaven, as citizens there. It is observable, that in this beautiful gradation, these first-born are placed nearer to God than the angels. See Jam 1:18.

Wesley: Heb 12:23

Propitious to you, adverse to your enemies.

Wesley: Heb 12:23

The separate souls.

Wesley: Heb 12:23

It seems to mean, of New Testament believers. The number of these, being not yet large, is mentioned distinct from the innumerable company of just men whom their Judge hath acquitted. These are now made perfect in an higher sense than any who are still alive. Accordingly, St. Paul, while yet on earth, denies that he was thus made perfect, Phi 3:12.

Wesley: Heb 12:24

Through whom they had been perfected.

Wesley: Heb 12:24

To all the virtue of his precious blood shed for you, whereby ye are sprinkled from an evil conscience. This blood of sprinkling was the foundation of our Lord's mediatorial office. Here the gradation is at the highest point.

Wesley: Heb 12:24

Which cried for vengeance.

Wesley: Heb 12:25

By unbelief.

Wesley: Heb 12:25

And whose speaking even now is a prelude to the final scene. The same voice which spake both by the law and in the gospel, when heard from heaven, will shake heaven and earth.

Wesley: Heb 12:25

His vengeance.

Wesley: Heb 12:25

Those of us who turn from him that speaketh from heaven - That is, who came from heaven to speak to us.

Wesley: Heb 12:26

When he spoke from mount Sinai.

Wesley: Heb 12:26

With regard to his next speaking.

Wesley: Heb 12:26

It is a joyful promise to the saints, though dreadful to the wicked. Yet once more I will shake, not only the earth, but also the heaven - These words may refer in a lower sense to the dissolution of the Jewish church and state; but in their full sense they undoubtedly look much farther, even to the end of all things. This universal shaking began at the first coming of Christ. It will be consummated at his second coming. Hag 2:6.

Wesley: Heb 12:27

Namely, heaven and earth.

Wesley: Heb 12:27

And consequently liable to change.

Wesley: Heb 12:27

Even "the new heavens and the new earth," Rev 21:1.

Wesley: Heb 12:28

By willing and joyful faith.

Wesley: Heb 12:28

More glorious than the present heaven and earth. Hold fast the grace, whereby we may serve God - In every thought, word, and work.

Wesley: Heb 12:28

Literally, with shame. Arising from a deep consciousness of our own unworthiness.

Wesley: Heb 12:28

A tender, jealous fear of offending, arising from a sense of the gracious majesty of God.

Wesley: Heb 12:29

in the strictness of his justice, and purity of his holiness.

JFB: Heb 12:1

As well as those recounted in Heb 12:11.

JFB: Heb 12:1

Greek, "have so great a cloud (a numberless multitude above us, like a cloud, 'holy and pellucid,' [CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA]) of witnesses surrounding us." The image is from a "race," an image common even in Palestine from the time of the Greco-Macedonian empire, which introduced such Greek usages as national games. The "witnesses" answer to the spectators pressing round to see the competitors in their contest for the prize (Phi 3:14). Those "witnessed of" (Greek, Heb 11:5, Heb 11:39) become in their turn "witnesses" in a twofold way: (1) attesting by their own case the faithfulness of God to His people [ALFORD] (Heb 6:12), some of them martyrs in the modern sense; (2) witnessing our struggle of faith; however, this second sense of "witnesses," though agreeing with the image here if it is to be pressed, is not positively, unequivocally, and directly sustained by Scripture. It gives vividness to the image; as the crowd of spectators gave additional spirit to the combatants, so the cloud of witnesses who have themselves been in the same contest, ought to increase our earnestness, testifying, as they do, to God's faithfulness.

JFB: Heb 12:1

As corporeal unwieldiness was, through a disciplinary diet, laid aside by candidates for the prize in racing; so carnal and worldly lusts, and all, whether from without or within, that would impede the heavenly runner, are the spiritual weight to be laid aside. "Encumbrance," all superfluous weight; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, and even harmless and otherwise useful things which would positively retard us (Mar 10:50, the blind man casting away his garment to come to Jesus; Mar 9:42-48; compare Eph 4:22; Col 3:9-10).

JFB: Heb 12:1

Greek, "sin which easily stands around us"; so LUTHER, "which always so clings to us": "sinful propensity always surrounding us, ever present and ready" [WAHL]. It is not primarily "the sin," &c., but sin in general, with, however, special reference to "apostasy," against which he had already warned them, as one to which they might gradually be seduced; the besetting sin of the Hebrews, UNBELIEF.

JFB: Heb 12:1

Greek, "in persevering endurance" (Heb 10:36). On "run" compare 1Co 9:24-25.

JFB: Heb 12:2

Literally, "Looking from afar" (see on Heb 11:26); fixing the eyes upon Jesus seated on the throne of God.

JFB: Heb 12:2

"Prince-leader." The same Greek is translated, "Captain (of salvation)," Heb 2:10; "Prince (of life)," Act 3:15. Going before us as the Originator of our faith, and the Leader whose matchless example we are to follow always. In this He is distinguished from all those examples of faith in Heb. 11:2-40. (Compare 1Co 11:1). On His "faith" compare Heb 2:13; Heb 3:12. Believers have ever looked to Him (Heb 11:26; Heb 13:8).

JFB: Heb 12:2

Greek, "Perfecter," referring to Heb 11:40.

JFB: Heb 12:2

Rather as Greek, "of the faith," including both His faith (as exhibited in what follows) and our faith. He fulfilled the ideal of faith Himself, and so, both as a vicarious offering and an example, He is the object of our faith.

JFB: Heb 12:2

Namely, of presently after sitting down at the right hand of the throne of God; including besides His own personal joy, the joy of sitting there as a Prince and Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sins. The coming joy disarmed of its sting the present pain.

JFB: Heb 12:2

The great stumbling-block to the Hebrews. "Despised," that is, disregarded.

JFB: Heb 12:3

Justifying his exhortation, "Looking unto Jesus."

JFB: Heb 12:3

By way of comparison with yourselves, so the Greek.

JFB: Heb 12:3

Unbelief, and every kind of opposition (Act 28:19).

JFB: Heb 12:3

Sin assails us. Not sin, but sinners, contradicted Christ [BENGEL].

JFB: Heb 12:3

Greek, "lest ye weary fainting." Compare Isa 49:4-5, as a specimen of Jesus not being wearied out by the contradiction and strange unbelief of those among whom He labored, preaching as never man did, and exhibiting miracles wrought by His inherent power, as none else could do.

JFB: Heb 12:4

Image from pugilism, as he previously had the image of a race, both being taken from the great national Greek games. Ye have suffered the loss of goods, and been a gazing-stock by reproaches and afflictions; ye have not shed your blood (see on Heb 13:7). "The athlete who hath seen his own blood, and who, though cast down by his opponent, does not let his spirits be cast down, who as often as he hath fallen hath risen the more determined, goes down to the encounter with great hope" [SENECA].

JFB: Heb 12:4

Sin is personified as an adversary; sin, whether within you, leading you to spare your blood, or in our adversaries, leading them to shed it, if they cannot through your faithfulness even unto blood, induce you to apostatize.

JFB: Heb 12:5

"utterly," so the Greek. Compare Heb 12:15-17, in which he implies how utterly some of them had forgotten God's word. His exhortation ought to have more effect on you than the cheers and exhortations of the spectators have on the competitors striving in the games.

JFB: Heb 12:5

Greek, "the which," of which the following is a specimen [ALFORD].

JFB: Heb 12:5

As in a dialogue or discourse, so the Greek, implying God's loving condescension (compare Isa 1:18).

JFB: Heb 12:5

Literally, "Do not hold of little account." Betraying a contumacious spirit of unbelief (Heb 3:12), as "faint" implies a broken-down, weak, and desponding spirit. "Chastening" is to be borne with "subjection" (Heb 12:9); "rebuke" (more severe than chastening) is to be borne with endurance (Heb 12:7). "Some in adversity kick against God's will, others despond; neither is to be done by the Christian, who is peculiarly the child of God. To him such adverse things occur only by the decree of God, and that designed in kindness, namely, to remove the defilements adhering to the believer, and to exercise his patience" [GROTIUS].

JFB: Heb 12:6

(Rev 3:19.)

JFB: Heb 12:6

Greek, "yea and," "and moreover"; bringing out an additional circumstance.

JFB: Heb 12:6

Which draws forth "blood" (Heb 12:4).

JFB: Heb 12:6

Accepts. Takes to Himself as a son "in whom He delighteth" (Pro 3:12).

JFB: Heb 12:7

In Heb 12:7-8 the need of "chastening" or "discipline" is inculcated; in Heb 12:9, the duty of those to whom it is administered.

JFB: Heb 12:7

The oldest manuscripts read, "With a view to chastening (that is, since God's chastisement is with a view to your chastening, that is, disciplinary amelioration) endure patiently"; so Vulgate. ALFORD translates it as indicative, not so well, "It is for chastisement that ye are enduring."

JFB: Heb 12:7

"beareth Himself toward you" in the very act of chastening.

JFB: Heb 12:7

"What son is there" even in ordinary life? Much more God as to His sons (Isa 48:10; Act 14:22). The most eminent of God's saints were the most afflicted. God leads them by a way they know not (Isa 42:16). We too much look at each trial by itself, instead of taking it in connection with the whole plan of our salvation, as if a traveller were to complain of the steepness and roughness of one turn in the path, without considering that it led him into green pastures, on the direct road to the city of habitation. The New Testament alone uses the Greek term for education (paideia), to express "discipline" or correction, as of a child by a wise father.

JFB: Heb 12:8

Excluded from participation in chastisement, and wishing to be so.

JFB: Heb 12:8

All sons: all the worthies enumerated in the eleventh chapter: all the witnesses (Heb 12:1).

JFB: Heb 12:8

Greek, "have been made."

JFB: Heb 12:8

Of whom their fathers take no care whether they are educated or not; whereas every right-minded father is concerned for the moral well-being of his legitimate son. "Since then not to be chastised is a mark of bastardy, we ought [not to refuse, but] rejoice in chastisement, as a mark of our genuine sonship" [CHRYSOSTOM].

JFB: Heb 12:9

Rather as Greek, "We had the fathers of our flesh as correctors."

JFB: Heb 12:9

See the punishment of insubordination, Deu 21:18.

JFB: Heb 12:9

Contrasted with "the fathers of our flesh." "Generation by men is carnal, by God is spiritual" [BENGEL]. As "Father of spirits," He is both the Originator, and the Providential and Gracious Sustainer, at once of animal and spiritual life. Compare "and LIVE," namely, spiritually; also Heb 12:10, "that we might be partakers of His holiness" (2Pe 1:4). God is a spirit Himself, and the Creator of spirits like Himself, in contrast to men who are flesh, and the progenitors of flesh (Joh 3:6). Jesus our pattern "learned obedience" experimentally by suffering (Heb 5:8).

JFB: Heb 12:9

And so, thereby live spiritually and eternally.

JFB: Heb 12:10

Showing wherein the chastisement of our heavenly Father is preferable to that of earthly fathers.

JFB: Heb 12:10

That is, with a view to our well-being in the few days of our earthly life: so the Greek.

JFB: Heb 12:10

Greek, "according to what seemed fit to themselves." Their rule of chastening is what may seem fit to their own often erring judgment, temper, or caprice. The two defects of human education are: (1) the prevalence in it of a view to the interests of our short earthly term of days; (2) the absence in parents of the unerring wisdom of our heavenly Father. "They err much at one time in severity, at another in indulgence [1Sa 3:13; Eph 6:4], and do not so much chasten as THINK they chasten" [BENGEL].

JFB: Heb 12:10

Becoming holy as He is holy (Joh 15:2). To become holy like God is tantamount to being educated for passing eternity with God (Heb 12:14; 2Pe 1:4). So this "partaking of God's holiness" stands in contrast to the "few days" of this life, with a view to which earthly fathers generally educate their sons.

JFB: Heb 12:11

Greek, "matter of joy . . . matter of grief." The objection that chastening is grievous is here anticipated and answered. It only seems so to those being chastened, whose judgments are confused by the present pain. Its ultimate fruit amply compensates for any temporary pam. The real object of the fathers in chastening is not that they find pleasure in the children's pain. Gratified wishes, our Father knows, would often be our real curses.

JFB: Heb 12:11

Righteousness (in practice, springing from faith) is the fruit which chastening, the tree yields (Phi 1:11). "Peaceable" (compare Isa 32:17): in contrast to the ordeal of conflict by which it has been won. "Fruit of righteousness to be enjoyed in peace after the conflict" [THOLUCK]. As the olive garland, the emblem of peace as well as victory, was put on the victor's brow in the games.

JFB: Heb 12:11

As athletes exercised in training for a contest. Chastisement is the exercise to give experience, and make the spiritual combatant irresistibly victorious (Rom 5:3). "Oh, happy the servant for whose improvement his Lord is earnest, with whom he deigns to be angry, whom He does not deceive by dissembling admonition" (withholding admonition, and so leading the man to think he needs it not)! [TERTULLIAN, Patience, 11]. Observe the "afterwards"; that is the time often when God works.

JFB: Heb 12:12

He addresses them as runners in a race, and pugilists, and warriors [CHRYSOSTOM]. The "wherefore" is resumed from Heb 12:1.

JFB: Heb 12:12

In Isa 35:3, from which Paul here quotes, it is, "Strengthen ye the weak hands." The hand is the symbol of one's strength. ALFORD translates, "Put straight again the relaxed hands." English Version expresses the sense well.

JFB: Heb 12:12

Literally, "paralyzed"; a word used only by Luke, Paul's companion, in the New Testament. The exhortation has three parts: the first relates to ourselves, Heb 12:12-13; the second, to others, Heb 12:14, "peace with all men"; the third, to God, "holiness, without which," &c. The first is referred to in Heb 12:15, "test any man fail of the grace of God"; the second in the words, "lest any root of bitterness," &c.; the third in Heb 12:16, "Lest there be any fornicator or profane person," &c. This threefold relation often occurs in Paul's Epistles. Compare Note, see on Tit 2:12, "soberly, righteously, and godly." The Greek active verb, not the middle or reflexive, requires the sense to be, Lift up not only your own hands and knees, but also those of your brethren (compare Heb 12:15; Isa 35:4).

JFB: Heb 12:13

Quoted from Pro 4:26, Septuagint, "Make straight paths for thy feet."

JFB: Heb 12:13

That is, leading by a straight road to joy and grace (Heb 12:1-2, Heb 12:15). Cease to "halt" between Judaism and Christianity [BENGEL].

JFB: Heb 12:13

Literally, "wheel tracks." Let your walk be so firm and so unanimous in the right direction that a plain track and "highway" may be thereby established for those who accompany and follow you, to perceive and walk in (Isa 35:8) [ALFORD].

JFB: Heb 12:13

Those "weak in the faith" (Rom 14:1), having still Judaizing prejudices.

JFB: Heb 12:13

(Pro 4:27); and, so missing the way, lose the prize of "the race" (Heb 12:1).

JFB: Heb 12:13

Proper exercise of itself contributes to health; the habit of walking straight onward in the right way tends to healing.

JFB: Heb 12:14

With the brethren especially (Rom 14:19), that so the "lame" among them be not "turned out of the way" (Heb 12:13), and that no one of them "fail of the grace of God" (Heb 12:15).

JFB: Heb 12:14

A distinct Greek word from God's "holiness" (Heb 12:10). Translate here "sanctification." His is absolute holiness: our part is to put on His holiness, becoming "holy as He is holy," by sanctification. While "following peace with all men," we are not so to seek to please them, as to make God's will and our sanctification a secondary object; this latter must be our first aim. (Gal 1:10).

JFB: Heb 12:14

Greek, "apart from which."

JFB: Heb 12:14

No man as a son; in heavenly glory (Rev 22:3-4). In the East, none but the greatest favorites are admitted to the honor of seeing the king (compare 2Sa 14:24). The Lord being pure and holy, none but the pure and holy shall see Him (Mat 5:8). Without holiness in them, they could not enjoy Him who is holiness itself (Zec 14:20). The connection of purity with seeing the Lord, appears in 1Jo 3:2-3; Eph 5:5. Contrast Heb 12:16 (compare 1Th 4:3). In Mat 24:30; Rev 1:7, it is said that all shall see the Lord; but, that shall be as a Judge, not as their lasting portion and God, which is meant here. The Greek verb does not denote the mere action of seeing, but the seer's state of mind to which the object is presented: so in Mat 5:8 they shall truly comprehend God [TITTMANN]. None but the holy could appreciate the holy God, none else therefore shall abide in His presence. "The bad shall only see Him in His form as Son of man [compare Rev 1:13, with Rev 1:7; and Mat 24:30; Act 1:11; Act 17:31]; still it will be in the glory in which He shall judge, not in the lowliness in which He was judged. His form as God, wherein He is equal to the Father, without doubt the ungodly shall not see; for it is only 'the pure in heart who shall see God'" [AUGUSTINE]. "He shall come to judge, who stood before a judge. He shall come in the form in which He was judged, that they may see Him whom they pierced: He who was before hidden shall come manifested in power: He, as Judge, shall condemn the real culprits, who was Himself falsely made a culprit."

JFB: Heb 12:15

Greek, "lest any (namely, through sloth in running) failing," or "falling short of the grace of God . . . trouble you." The image is taken from a company of travellers, one of whom lags behind, and so never reaches the end of the long and laborious journey [CHRYSOSTOM].

JFB: Heb 12:15

Not merely a "bitter root," which might possibly bring forth sweet fruits; this, a root whose essence is "bitterness," never could. Paul here refers to Deu 29:18, "Lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood" (compare Act 8:23). Root of bitterness comprehends every person (compare Heb 12:16) and every principle of doctrine or practice so radically corrupt as to spread corruption all around. The only safety is in rooting out such a root of bitterness.

JFB: Heb 12:15

Rather, "the many," that is, the whole congregation. So long as it is hidden under the earth it cannot be remedied, but when it "springs up," it must be dealt with boldly. Still remember the caution (Mat 13:26-30) as to rooting out persons. No such danger can arise in rooting out bad principles.

JFB: Heb 12:16

(Heb 13:4; 1Co 10:8).

JFB: Heb 12:16

Fornication is nearly akin to gluttony, Esau's sin. He profanely cast away his spiritual privilege for the gratification of his palate. Gen 25:34 graphically portrays him. An example well fitted to strike needful horror into the Hebrews, whosoever of them, like Esau, were only sons of Isaac according to the flesh [BENGEL].

JFB: Heb 12:16

The smallness of the inducement only aggravates the guilt of casting away eternity for such a trifle, so far is it from being a claim for mercy (compare Gen 3:6). One single act has often the greatest power either for good or for evil. So in the cases of Reuben and Saul, for evil (Gen 49:4; 1Ch 5:1; 1Sa 13:12-14); and, on the other hand, for good, Abraham and Phinehas (Gen 12:1, &c.; Gen 15:5-6; Num 25:6-15).

JFB: Heb 12:16

Greek, "his own (so the oldest manuscripts read, intensifying the suicidal folly and sin of the act) rights of primogeniture," involving the high spiritual privilege of being ancestor of the promised seed, and heir of the promises in Him. The Hebrews whom Paul addressed, had, as Christians, the spiritual rights of primogeniture (compare Heb 12:23): he intimates that they must exercise holy self-control, if they wish not, like Esau, to forfeit them.

JFB: Heb 12:17

Greek, "even afterward." He despised his birthright, accordingly also he was despised and rejected when he wished to have the blessing. As in the believer's case, so in the unbeliever's, there is an "afterwards" coming, when the believer shall look on his past griefs, and the unbeliever on his past joys, in a very different light from that in which they were respectively viewed at the time. Compare "Nevertheless afterward," &c. Heb 12:11, with the "afterward" here.

JFB: Heb 12:17

When he wished to have. "He that will not when he may, when he will, shall have nay" (Pro 1:24-30; Luk 13:34-35; Luk 19:42).

JFB: Heb 12:17

Not as to every blessing, but only that which would have followed the primogeniture.

JFB: Heb 12:17

The cause is here put for the effect, "repentance" for the object which Esau aimed at in his so-called repentance, namely, the change of his father's determination to give the chief blessing to Jacob. Had he sought real repentance with tears he would have found it (Mat 7:7). But he did not find it because this was not what he sought. What proves his tears were not those of one seeking true repentance is, immediately after he was foiled in his desire, he resolved to murder Jacob! He shed tears, not for his sin, but for his suffering the penalty of his sin. His were tears of vain regret and remorse, not of repentance. "Before, he might have had the blessing without tears; afterwards, no matter how many tears he shed, he was rejected. Let us use the time" (Luk 18:27)! [BENGEL]. ALFORD explains "repentance" here, a chance, by repenting, to repair (that is, to regain the lost blessing). I agree with him that the translation, instead of "repentance," "no place for changing HIS FATHER'S mind," is forced; though doubtless this is what was the true aim of the "repentance" which he sought. The language is framed to apply to profane despisers who wilfully cast away grace and seek repentance (that is, not real; but escape from the penalty of their sin), but in vain. Compare "afterward," Mat 25:11-12. Tears are no proof of real repentance (1Sa 24:16-17; contrast Psa 56:8).

JFB: Heb 12:17

The blessing, which was the real object of Esau, though ostensibly seeking "repentance."

JFB: Heb 12:18

The fact that we are not under the law, but under a higher, and that the last dispensation, the Gospel, with its glorious privileges, is the reason why especially the Hebrew Christians should "look diligently," &c. (Heb 12:15-16).

JFB: Heb 12:18

Greek, "have not come near to." Alluding to Deu 4:11, "Ye came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire . . . with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness." "In your coming near unto God, it has not been to," &c.

JFB: Heb 12:18

The oldest manuscripts and Vulgate omit "the mount." But still, "the mount" must be supplied from Heb 12:22.

JFB: Heb 12:18

Palpable and material. Not that any save Moses was allowed to touch it (Exo 19:12-13). The Hebrews drew near to the material Mount Sinai with material bodies; we, to the spiritual mount in the spirit. The "darkness" was that formed by the clouds hanging round the mount; the "tempest" accompanied the thunder.

JFB: Heb 12:19

To rouse attention, and herald God's approach (Exo 19:16).

JFB: Heb 12:19

Literally, "that speech should not be added to them"; not that they refused to hear the word of God, but they wished that God should not Himself speak, but employ Moses as His mediating spokesman. "The voice of words" was the Decalogue, spoken by God Himself, a voice issuing forth, without any form being seen: after which "He added no more" (Deu 5:22).

JFB: Heb 12:20

"the interdict" [TITTMANN]. A stern interdictory mandate is meant.

JFB: Heb 12:20

Rather, "Even if a beast (much more a man) touch," &c.

JFB: Heb 12:20

Omitted in the oldest manuscripts. The full interdict in Exo 19:12-13 is abbreviated here; the beast alone, being put for "whether man or beast"; the stoning, which applies to the human offender, alone being specified, the beast's punishment, namely, the being thrust through with a dart, being left to be understood.

JFB: Heb 12:21

The vision of God's majesty.

JFB: Heb 12:21

Greek, "I am in trembling"; "fear" affected his mind: "trembling," his body. Moses is not recorded in Exodus to have used these words. But Paul, by inspiration, supplies (compare Act 20:35; 2Ti 3:8) this detail. We read in Deu 9:19, Septuagint, of similar words used by Moses after breaking the two tables, through fear of God's anger at the people's sin in making the golden calves. He doubtless similarly "feared" in hearing the ten commandments spoken by the voice of Jehovah.

JFB: Heb 12:22

Greek, "have come near unto" (compare Deu 4:11). Not merely, ye shall come, but, ye have already come.

JFB: Heb 12:22

Antitypical Sion, the heavenly Jerusalem, of which the spiritual invisible Church (of which the first foundation was laid in literal Zion, Joh 12:15; 1Pe 2:6) is now the earnest; and of which the restored literal Jerusalem hereafter shall be the earthly representative, to be succeeded by the everlasting and "new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven" (Rev. 21:2-27; compare Heb 11:10).

JFB: Heb 12:22-23

The city of God having been mentioned, the mention of its citizens follows. Believers being like the angels (Job 1:6; Job 38:7), "sons of God," are so their "equals" (Luk 20:36); and being reconciled through Christ, are adopted into God's great and blessed family. For the full completion of this we pray (Mat 6:10). English Version arrangement is opposed: (1) by "and" always beginning each new member of the whole sentence; (2) "general assembly and Church," form a kind of tautology; (3) "general assembly," or rather, "festal full assembly," "the jubilant full company" (such as were the Olympic games, celebrated with joyous singing, dancing, &c.), applies better to the angels above, ever hymning God's praises, than to the Church, of which a considerable part is now militant on earth. Translate therefore, "to myriads (ten thousands, compare Deu 33:2; Psa 68:17; Dan 7:10; Jud 1:14; namely), the full festal assembly of angels, and the Church of the first-born." Angels and saints together constitute the ten thousands. Compare "all angels, all nations" Mat 25:31-32. Messiah is pre-eminently "the First-born," or "First-begotten" (Heb 1:6), and all believers become so by adoption. Compare the type, Num 3:12, Num 3:45, Num 3:50; 1Pe 1:18. As the kingly and priestly succession was in the first-born, and as Israel was God's "first-born" (Exo 4:22; compare Exo 13:2), and a "kingdom of priests" to God (Exo 19:6), so believers (Rev 1:6).

JFB: Heb 12:23

Enrolled as citizens there. All those who at the coming of "God the Judge of all" (which clause therefore naturally follows), shall be found "written in heaven," that is, in the Lamb's book of life (Rev 21:27). Though still fighting the good fight on earth, still, in respect to your destiny, and present life of faith which substantiates things hoped for, ye are already members of the heavenly citizenship. "We are one citizenship with angels; to which it is said in the psalm, Glorious things are spoken of thee, thou city of God" [AUGUSTINE]. I think ALFORD wrong in restricting "the Church of the first-born written in heaven," to those militant on earth; it is rather, all those who at the Judge's coming shall be found written in heaven (the true patent of heavenly nobility; contrast "written in the earth," Jer 17:13, and Esau's profane sale of his birthright, Heb 12:16); these all, from the beginning to the end of the world, forming one Church to which every believer is already come. The first-born of Israel were "written" in a roll (Num 3:40).

JFB: Heb 12:23

At the resurrection, when the "JUDGE" shall appear, and believers' bliss shall be consummated by the union of the glorified body with the spirit; the great hope of the New Testament (Rom 8:20-23; 1Th 4:16). The place of this clause after "the JUDGE OF ALL," is my objection to BENGEL and ALFORD'S explanation, the souls of the just in their separate state perfected. Compare Notes, see on Heb 11:39-40, to which he refers here, and which I think confirms my view; those heretofore spirits, but now to be perfected by being clothed upon with the body. Still the phrase, "spirits of just men made perfect," not merely "just men made perfect," may favor the reference to the happy spirits in their separate state. The Greek is not "the perfected spirits," but "the spirits of the perfected just." In no other passage are the just said to be perfected before the resurrection, and the completion of the full number of the elect (Rev 6:11); I think, therefore, "spirits of the just," may here be used to express the just whose predominant element in their perfected state shall be spirit. So spirit and spirits are used of a man or men in the body, under the influence of the spirit, the opposite of flesh (Joh 3:6). The resurrection bodies of the saints shall be bodies in which the spirit shall altogether preponderate over the animal soul (see on 1Co 15:44).

JFB: Heb 12:24

Not the usual term (kaine) applied to the Christian covenant (Heb 9:15), which would mean new as different from, and superseding the old; but Greek, "nea," "recent," "lately established," having the "freshness of youth," as opposed to age. The mention of Jesus, the Perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2), and Himself perfected through sufferings and death, in His resurrection and ascension (Heb 2:10; Heb 5:9), is naturally suggested by the mention of "the just made perfect" at their resurrection (compare Heb 7:22). Paul uses "Jesus," dwelling here on Him as the Person realized as our loving friend, not merely in His official character as the Christ.

JFB: Heb 12:24

Here enumerated as distinct from "Jesus." BENGEL reasonably argues as follows: His blood was entirely "poured out" of His body by the various ways in which it was shed, His bloody sweat, the crown of thorns, the scourging, the nails, and after death the spear, just as the blood was entirely poured out and extravasated from the animal sacrifices of the law. It was incorruptible (1Pe 1:18-19). No Scripture states it was again put into the Lord's body. At His ascension, as our great High Priest, He entered the heavenly holiest place "BY His own blood" (not after shedding His blood, nor with the blood in His body, but), carrying it separately from his body (compare the type, Heb 9:7, Heb 9:12, Heb 9:25; Heb 13:11). Paul does not say, by the efficacy of His blood, but, "by His own proper blood" (Heb 9:12); not MATERIAL blood, but "the blood of Him who, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot unto God" (Heb 9:14). So in Heb 10:29, the Son of God and the blood of the covenant wherewith he (the professor) was sanctified, are mentioned separately. Also in Heb 13:12, Heb 13:20; also compare Heb 10:19, with Heb 10:21. So in the Lord's Supper (1Co 10:16; 1Co 11:24-26), the body and blood are separately represented. The blood itself, therefore, continues still in heaven before God, the perpetual ransom price of "the eternal covenant" (Heb 13:20). Once for all Christ sprinkled the blood peculiarly for us at His ascension (Heb 9:12). But it is called "the blood of sprinkling," on account also of its continued use in heaven, and in the consciences of the saints on earth (Heb 9:14; Heb 10:22; Isa 52:15). This sprinkling is analogous to the sprinkled blood of the Passover. Compare Rev 5:6, "In the midst of the throne, a Lamb as it had been slain." His glorified body does not require meat, nor the circulation of the blood. His blood introduced into heaven took away the dragon's right to accuse. Thus Rome's theory of concomitancy of the blood with the body, the excuse for giving only the bread to the laity, falls to the ground. The mention of "the blood of sprinkling" naturally follows the mention of the "covenant," which could not be consecrated without blood (Heb 9:18, Heb 9:22).

JFB: Heb 12:24

Namely, than the sprinkling (the best manuscripts read the article masculine, which refers to "sprinkling," not to "blood," which last is neuter) of blood by Abel in his sacrifice spake. This comparison between two things of the same kind (namely, Christ's sacrifice, and Abel's sacrifice) is more natural, than between two things different in kind and in results (namely, Christ's sacrifice, and Abel's own blood [ALFORD], which was not a sacrifice at all); compare Heb 11:4; Gen 4:4. This accords with the whole tenor of the Epistle, and of this passage in particular (Heb 12:18-22), which is to show the superiority of Christ's sacrifice and the new covenant, to the Old Testament sacrifices (of which Abel's is the first recorded; it, moreover, was testified to by God as acceptable to Him above Cain's), compare Heb. 9:1-10:39. The word "better" implies superiority to something that is good: but Abel's own blood was not at all good for the purpose for which Christ's blood was efficacious; nay, it cried for vengeance. So ARCHBISHOP MAGEE, HAMMOND, and KNATCHBULL. BENGEL takes "the blood of Abel" as put for all the blood shed on earth crying for vengeance, and greatly increasing the other cries raised by sin in the world; counteracted by the blood of Christ calmly speaking in heaven for us, and from heaven to us. I prefer MAGEE'S view. Be this as it may, to deny that Christ's atonement is truly a propitiation, overthrows Christ's priesthood, makes the sacrifices of Moses' law an unmeaning mummery, and represents Cain's sacrifice as good as that of Abel.

JFB: Heb 12:25

Through unbelief.

JFB: Heb 12:25

God in Christ. As the blood of sprinkling is represented as speaking to God for us, Heb 12:24; so here God is represented as speaking to us (Heb 1:1-2). His word now is the prelude of the last "shaking" of all things (Heb 12:27). The same word which is heard in the Gospel from heaven, will shake heaven and earth (Heb 12:26).

JFB: Heb 12:25

Greek, "refusing as they did." Their seemingly submissive entreaty that the word should not be spoken to them by God any more (Heb 12:19), covered over refractory hearts, as their subsequent deeds showed (Heb 3:16).

JFB: Heb 12:25

Revealing with oracular warnings His divine will: so the Greek.

JFB: Heb 12:25

Greek, "we who turn away." The word implies greater refractoriness than "refused," or "declined."

JFB: Heb 12:25

God, by His Son in the Gospel, speaking from His heavenly throne. Hence, in Christ's preaching frequent mention is made of "the kingdom of the heavens" (Greek, Mat 3:2). In the giving of the law God spake on earth (namely, Mount Sinai) by angels (Heb 2:2; compare Heb 1:2). In Exo 20:22, when God says, "I talked with you from heaven," this passage in Hebrews shows that not the highest heavens, but the visible heavens, the clouds and darkness, are meant, out of which God by angels proclaimed the law on Sinai.

JFB: Heb 12:26

When He gave the law on Sinai.

JFB: Heb 12:26

Under the Gospel.

JFB: Heb 12:26

The announcement of His coming to break up the present order of things, is to the ungodly a terror, to the godly a promise, the fulfilment of which they look for with joyful hope.

JFB: Heb 12:26

Compare Notes, see on Hag 2:6; Hag 2:21-22, both of which passages are condensed into one here. The shaking began at the first coming of Messiah; it will be completed at His second coming, prodigies in the world of nature accompanying the overthrow of all kingdoms that oppose Messiah. The Hebrew is literally, "it is yet one little," that is, a single brief space till the series of movements begins ending in the advent of Messiah. Not merely the earth, as at the establishment of the Sinaitic covenant, but heaven also is to be shaken. The two advents of Messiah are regarded as one, the complete shaking belonging to the second advent, of which the presage was given in the shakings at the first advent: the convulsions connected with the overthrow of Jerusalem shadowing forth those about to be at the overthrow of all the God-opposed kingdoms by the coming Messiah.

JFB: Heb 12:27

So Paul, by the Spirit, sanctions the Septuagint rendering of Hag 2:6, giving an additional feature to the prophecy in the Hebrew, as rendered in English Version, not merely that it shall be in a little while, but that it is to be "once more" as the final act. The stress of his argument is on the "ONCE." Once for all; once and for ever. "In saying 'once more,' the Spirit implies that something has already passed, and something else shall be which is to remain, and is no more to be changed to something else; for the once is exclusive, that is, not many times" [ESTIUS].

JFB: Heb 12:27

The heaven and the earth. As the shaking is to be total, so shall the removal be, making way for the better things that are unremovable. Compare the Jewish economy (the type of the whole present order of things) giving way to the new and abiding covenant: the forerunner of the everlasting state of bliss.

JFB: Heb 12:27

Namely, of this present visible creation: compare 2Co 5:1; Heb 9:11, "made with hands . . . of this creation," that is, things so made at creation that they would not remain of themselves, but be removed. The new abiding heaven and earth are also made by God, but they are of a higher nature than the material creation, being made to partake of the divine nature of Him who is not made: so in this relation, as one with the uncreated God, they are regarded as not of the same class as the things made. The things made in the former sense do not remain; the things of the new heaven and earth, like the uncreated God, "shall REMAIN before God" (Isa 66:22). The Spirit, the seed of the new and heavenly being, not only of the believer's soul, but also of the future body, is an uncreated and immortal principle.

JFB: Heb 12:28

As we do, in prospect and sure hope, also in the possession of the Spirit the first-fruits. This is our privilege as Christians.

JFB: Heb 12:28

"let us have thankfulness" [ALFORD after CHRYSOSTOM]. But (1) this translation is according to classical Greek, not Paul's phraseology for "to be thankful." (2) "To God" would have been in that case added. (3) "Whereby we may serve God," suits the English Version "grace" (that is Gospel grace, the work of the Spirit, producing faith exhibited in serving God), but does not suit "thankfulness."

JFB: Heb 12:28

Greek, "well-pleasingly."

JFB: Heb 12:28

The oldest manuscripts read, "reverent caution and fear." Reverent caution (same Greek as in Heb 5:7; see on Heb 5:7) lest we should offend God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. Fear lest we should bring destruction on ourselves.

JFB: Heb 12:29

Greek, "For even": "for also"; introducing an additional solemn incentive to diligence. Quoted from Deu 4:24.

JFB: Heb 12:29

In whom we hope, is also to be feared. He is love (1Jo 4:8, 1Jo 4:16); yet there is another side of His character; God has wrath against sin (Heb 10:27, Heb 10:31).

Clarke: Heb 12:1

Wherefore - This is an inference drawn from the examples produced in the preceding chapter, and on this account both should be read in connection

Clarke: Heb 12:1

Compassed about - Here is another allusion to the Olympic games: the agonistae, or contenders, were often greatly animated by the consideration that the eyes of the principal men of their country were fixed upon them; and by this they were induced to make the most extraordinary exertions

Clarke: Heb 12:1

Cloud of witnesses - Νεφος μαρτυρων . Both the Greeks and Latins frequently use the term cloud, to express a great number of persons or things; so in Euripides, Phoeniss. ver. 257: νεφος ασπιδων πυκνον, a dense cloud of shields; and Statius, Thebiad., lib. ix., ver. 120: jaculantum nubes , a cloud of spearmen. The same metaphor frequently occurs

Clarke: Heb 12:1

Let us lay aside every weight - As those who ran in the Olympic races would throw aside every thing that might impede them in their course; so Christians, professing to go to heaven, must throw aside every thing that might hinder them in their Christian race. Whatever weighs down our hearts or affections to earth and sense is to be carefully avoided; for no man, with the love of the world in his heart, can ever reach the kingdom of heaven

Clarke: Heb 12:1

The sin which doth so easily beset - Ευπεριστατον ἁμαρτιαν· The well circumstanced sin; that which has every thing in its favor, time, and place, and opportunity; the heart and the object; and a sin in which all these things frequently occur, and consequently the transgression is frequently committed. Ευπεριστατος is derived from ευ, well, περι, about, and ἱστημι, I stand; the sin that stands well, or is favorably situated, ever surrounding the person and soliciting his acquiescence. What we term the easily besetting sin is the sin of our constitution, the sin of our trade, that in which our worldly honor, secular profit, and sensual gratification are most frequently felt and consulted. Some understand it of original sin, as that by which we are enveloped in body, soul, and spirit. Whatever it may be, the word gives us to understand that it is what meets us at every turn; that it is always presenting itself to us; that as a pair of compasses describe a circle by the revolution of one leg, while the other is at rest in the center, so this, springing from that point of corruption within, called the carnal mind, surrounds us in every place; we are bounded by it, and often hemmed in on every side; it is a circular, well fortified wall, over which we must leap, or through which we must break. The man who is addicted to a particular species of sin (for every sinner has his way) is represented as a prisoner in this strong fortress

In laying aside the weight, there is an allusion to the long garments worn in the eastern countries, which, if not laid aside or tucked up in the girdle, would greatly incommode the traveler, and utterly prevent a man from running a race. The easily besetting sin of the Hebrews was an aptness to be drawn aside from their attachment to the Gospel, for fear of persecution

Clarke: Heb 12:1

Let us run with patience the race - Τρεχωμεν τον προκειμενον ἡμιν αγωνα· Let us start, run on, and continue running, till we get to the goal. This figure is a favourite among the Greek writers; so Euripides, Alcest., ver. 489: Ου τον δ ’ αγωνα πρωτον αν δραμοιμ ’ εγω· This is not the first race that I shall run. Id. Iphig. in Aulid., ver. 1456: Δεινους αγωνας δια σε κεινον δει δραμειν· He must run a hard race for thee. This is a race which is of infinite moment to us: the prize is ineffably great; and, if we lose it, it is not a simple loss, for the whole soul perishes.

Clarke: Heb 12:2

Looking unto Jesus - Αφορωντες· Looking off and on, or from and to; looking off or from the world and all secular concerns to Jesus and all the spiritual and heavenly things connected with him. This is still an allusion to the Grecian games: those who ran were to keep their eyes fixed on the mark of the prize; they must keep the goal in view. The exhortation implies

1.    That they should place all their hope and confidence in Christ, as their sole helper in this race of faith

2.    That they should consider him their leader in this contest and imitate his example

Clarke: Heb 12:2

The author and finisher of - faith - Αρχηγος, translated here author, signifies, in general, captain or leader, or the first inventor of a thing; see Heb 2:10. But the reference seems to be here to the βραβευς, or judge in the games, whose business it was to admit the contenders, and to give the prize to the conqueror. Jesus is here represented as this officer; every Christian is a contender in this race of life, and for eternal life. The heavenly course is begun under Jesus; and under him it is completed. He is the finisher, by awarding the prize to them that are faithful unto death. Thus he is the author or the judge under whom, and by whose permission and direction, according to the rules of the heavenly race, they are permitted to enter the lists, and commence the race, and he is the finisher, τελειωτης, the perfecter, by awarding and giving the prize which consummates the combatants at the end of the race

Clarke: Heb 12:2

Who, for the joy that was set before him - The joy of fulfilling the will of the Father, Psa 40:6-8, etc., in tasting death for every man; and having endured the cross and despised the shame of this ignominious death, He is set down at the right hand of God, ever appearing in the presence of God for us, and continuing his exhibition of himself as our Sacrifice, and his intercession as our Mediator. See the notes on Heb 10:5, etc. There are different other explanations given of this clause, but I think that here offered is the most natural. It never can, in any sense, be said of Jesus that he endured the cross, etc., in the prospect of gaining an everlasting glory; when he had the fullness of that glory with the Father before the world began; Joh 17:5.

Clarke: Heb 12:3

For consider him - Αναλογισασθε - ἱνα μη καμητε, ταις ψυχαις - εκλυμενοι· Attentively observe and analyze every part of his conduct, enter into his spirit, examine his motives and object, and remember that, as he acted, ye are called to act; he will furnish you with the same Spirit, and will support you with the same strength. He bore a continual opposition of sinners against himself; but he conquered by meekness, patience, and perseverance: he has left you an example that ye should follow his steps. If ye trust in him, ye shall receive strength; therefore, howsoever great your opposition may be, ye shall not be weary: if ye confide in and attentively look to him, ye shall have continual courage to go on, and never faint in your minds

Here is a continued allusion to the contenders in the Grecian games, who, when exhausted in bodily strength and courage, yielded the palm to their opponents, and were said καμνειν, to be weary or exhausted; εκλυεσθαι, to be dissolved, disheartened, or to have lost all bravery and courage.

Clarke: Heb 12:4

Ye have not yet resisted unto blood - Many of those already mentioned were martyrs for the truth; they persevered unto death, and lost their lives in bearing testimony to the truth. Though you have had opposition and persecution, yet you have not been called, in bearing your testimony against sin and sinners, to seal the truth with your blood

Clarke: Heb 12:4

Striving against sin - Προς την ἁμαρτιαν ανταγωνι ζομενοι· An allusion to boxing at the Grecian games. In the former passages the apostle principally refers to the foot races.

Clarke: Heb 12:5

And ye have forgotten - Or, have ye forgotten the exhortation? This quotation is made from Pro 3:11, Pro 3:12, and shows that the address there, which at first sight appears to be from Solomon to his son, or from some fatherly man to a person in affliction, is properly from God himself to any person in persecution, affliction, or distress

Clarke: Heb 12:5

Despise not thou the chastening - Μη ολιγωρει παιδειας Κυριου· Do not neglect the correction of the Lord. That man neglects correction, and profits not by it, who does not see the hand of God in it; or, in other words, does not fear the rod and him who hath appointed it, and, consequently, does not humble himself under the mighty hand of God, deplore his sin, deprecate Divine judgment, and pray for mercy

Clarke: Heb 12:5

Nor faint - Do not be discouraged nor despair, for the reasons immediately alleged.

Clarke: Heb 12:6

For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth - Here is the reason why we should neither neglect correction, nor faint under it: it is a proof of the fatherly love of God Almighty, and shows his most gracious designs towards us; from which we may be fully convinced that the affliction will prove the means of good to our souls, if we make a proper use of it

Clarke: Heb 12:6

And scourgeth every son whom he receiveth - Μαστιγοι δε παντα υἱον, ὁν παραδεχεται . This is a quotation, literatim from the Septuagint, of Pro 3:12, of which place our version is: Even as the father the son in whom he delighteth. But, howsoever near this may appear to be the Hebrew, it bears scarcely any affinity to the apostle’ s words. The Hebrew text is as follows: וכאב את־בן ירצה uchab eth -ben yirtseh . Now, וכאב may be a noun, compounded of the conjunction ו vau , "and,"the comparative particle כ ke , "as"or "like;"and אב ab , "a father:"or it may be the third person preterite kal of כאב caab , "he spoiled, wasted, marred, ulcerated,"compounded with the conjunction ו vau , "and."And in this sense the Septuagint most evidently understood it; and it is so understood by the Arabic; and both readings seem to be combined by the Syriac and Chaldee versions. And as to רצה ratsah , one of its prime meanings is to accept, to receive graciously, to take into favor; the translation, therefore, of the Septuagint and apostle is perfectly consonant to the Hebrew text, and our version of Pro 3:12 is wrong.

Clarke: Heb 12:7

If ye endure chastening - If ye submit to his authority, humble yourselves under his hand, and pray for his blessing, you will find that he deals with you as beloved children, correcting you that he may make you partakers of his holiness

Clarke: Heb 12:7

God dealeth with you as with sons - He acknowledges by this that you belong to the family, and that he, as your Father, has you under proper discipline. It is a maxim among the Jewish rabbins that "the love which is not conjoined with reproof is not genuine."

Clarke: Heb 12:8

Then are ye bastards - This proceeds on the general fact, that bastards are neglected in their manners and education; the fathers of such, feeling little affection for, or obligation to regard, their spurious issue. But all that are legitimate children are partakers of chastisement or discipline; for the original word παιδεια does not imply stripes and punishments, but the whole discipline of a child, both at home and at school.

Clarke: Heb 12:9

We have had fathers of our flesh - The fathers of our flesh, i.e. our natural parents, were correctors; and we reverenced them, notwithstanding their corrections often arose from whim or caprice: but shall we not rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits; to him from whom we have received both body and soul; who is our Creator, Preserver, and Supporter; to whom both we and our parents owe our life and our blessings; and who corrects us only for our profit; that we may live and be partakers of his holiness? The apostle in asking, Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? alludes to the punishment of the stubborn and rebellious son, Deu 21:18-21 : "If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them; then shall his father and mother lay hold on him and bring him to the elders of the city, and they shall say, This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice: and all the men of the city shall stone him with stones that he Die."Had he been subject to his earthly parents, he would have lived; because not subject, he dies. If we be subject to our heavenly Father, we shall Live, and be partakers of his holiness; if not, we shall Die, and be treated as bastards and not sons. This is the sum of the apostle’ s meaning; and the fact and the law to which he alludes.

Clarke: Heb 12:10

For - a few days - The chastisement of our earthly parents lasted only a short time; that of our heavenly Father will also be but a short time, if we submit: and as our parents ceased to correct when we learned obedience; so will our heavenly Father when the end for which he sent the chastisement is accomplished. God delights not in the rod; judgment is his strange work.

Clarke: Heb 12:11

No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous - Neither correction, wholesome restraint, domestic regulations, nor gymnastic discipline, are pleasant to them that are thus exercised; but it is by these means that obedient children, scholars, and great men are made. And it is by God’ s discipline that Christians are made. He who does not bear the yoke of Christ is good for nothing to others, and never gains rest to his own soul

Clarke: Heb 12:11

The peaceable fruit of righteousness - i.e. The joyous, prosperous fruits; those fruits by which we gain much, and through which we are made happy

Clarke: Heb 12:11

Exercised thereby - Γεγυμνασμενοις· To the trained. There is still an allusion to the Grecian games; and in the word before us to those gymnastic exercises by which the candidates for the prizes were trained to the different kinds of exercises in which they were to contend when the games were publicly opened.

Clarke: Heb 12:12

Wherefore lift up the hands - The apostle refers to Isa 35:3. The words are an address to persons almost worn out with sickness and fatigue, whose hands hang down, whose knees shake, and who are totally discouraged. These are exhorted to exert themselves, and take courage, with the assurance that they shall infallibly conquer if they persevere.

Clarke: Heb 12:13

Make straight paths for your feet - That is, Take the straight path that is before you, do not go in crooked or rough ways, where are stones, briers, and thorns, by which you will be inevitably lamed, and so totally prevented from proceeding in the way; whereas, if you go in the even, proper path, though you have been wounded by getting into a wrong way, that which was wounded will be healed by moderate, equal exercise, all impediments being removed. The application of all this to a correct, holy deportment in religious life, is both natural and easy.

Clarke: Heb 12:14

Follow peace with all men - Cultivate, as far as you possibly can, a good understanding, both with Jews and Gentiles. Ειρηνην διωκετε, pursue peace with the same care, attention, and diligence, as beasts do their game; follow it through all places; trace it through all winding circumstances; and have it with all men, if you can with a safe conscience

Clarke: Heb 12:14

And holiness - Τον ἁγιασμον· That state of continual sanctification, that life of purity and detachment from the world and all its lusts, without which detachment and sanctity no man shall see the Lord - shall never enjoy his presence in the world of blessedness. To see God, in the Hebrew phrase, is to enjoy him; and without holiness of heart and life this is impossible. No soul can be fit for heaven that has not suitable dispositions for the place.

Clarke: Heb 12:15

Looking diligently - Επισκοπουντες· Looking about, over, and upon; being constantly on your guard

Clarke: Heb 12:15

Lest any man fail of the grace of God - Μη τις ὑστερων απο της χαριτος του Θεου· Lest any person should come behind, or fall off from, this grace or Gift of God; this state of salvation, viz. the Gospel system or Christianity; for this is most evidently the meaning of the apostle. It is not the falling from a work of grace in their own souls, but from the Gospel, to apostatize from which they had now many temptations; and to guard them against this, the whole epistle was written

Clarke: Heb 12:15

Lest any root of bitterness springing up - A root of bitterness signifies a poisonous plant. The Hebrews call every species of poison a bitter, and with considerable propriety, as most plants are poisonous in proportion to the quantum of the bitter principle they possess. The root of bitterness is here used metaphorically for a bad man, or a man holding unsound doctrines, and endeavoring to spread them in the Church

Clarke: Heb 12:15

Trouble you - This alludes to the effects of poison taken into the body: the whole animal system is disturbed, sometimes violent retchings, great disturbances through the whole alimentary canal, together with the most fatal changes in the whole sanguineous system, are the consequences of poison taken into the stomach. The blood itself (the principle, under God, of life) becomes putrescent; and probably to this the intelligent apostle alludes when he says, and thereby many be defiled, μιανθωσι, corrupted or contaminated

Bad example and false teaching have corrupted thousands, and are still making desolation in the world and in the Church.

Clarke: Heb 12:16

Lest there be any fornicator - Any licentious person who would turn the Gospel of the grace of God into lasciviousness

Clarke: Heb 12:16

Or profane person, as Esau - It is not intimated that Esau was a fornicator; and the disjunctive η, or, separates the profane person from the fornicator. And Esau is here termed profane, because he so far disregarded the spiritual advantages connected with his rights of primogeniture, that he alienated the whole for a single mess of pottage. See the note on Gen 25:34. The word βεβηλος, which we translate profane, is compounded of βε, which in composition has a negative signification, and βηλος, the threshold of a temple or sacred edifice; and was applied to those who were not initiated into the sacred mysteries, or who were despisers of sacred things, and consequently were to be denied admittance to the temple, and were not permitted to assist at holy rites. Indeed, among the Greeks βεβηλος signified any thing or person which was not consecrated to the gods. Hence, in the opening of their worship, they were accustomed to proclaim

Procul, O procul, este profani !

Virg

"Hence! O hence! ye profane.

And

Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo

Hor

"I abominate the profane vulgar, and drive them from the temple.

The Latin profanus , from which we have our word, is compounded of procul a fano , "far from the temple,"properly an irreligious man

Clarke: Heb 12:16

Sold his birthright - The first-born, in patriarchal times

1.    Had a right to the priesthood, Exo 22:29

2.    And a double portion of all the father’ s possessions, Deu 21:17

3.    And was lord over his brethren, Gen 27:29, Gen 27:37; Gen 49:3

4.    And in the family of Abraham the first-born was the very source whence the Messiah as the Redeemer of the world, and the Church of God, were to spring. Farther

5.    The first-born had the right of conveying especial blessings and privileges when he came to die. See the case of Isaac and his two sons, Jacob and Esau, in the history to which the apostle alludes, Genesis 27; and that of Jacob and his twelve sons, Genesis 49

In short, the rights of primogeniture were among the most noble, honorable, and spiritual in the ancient world.

Clarke: Heb 12:17

When he would have inherited the blessing - When he wished to have the lordship over the whole family conveyed to him, and sought it earnestly with tears, he found no place for a change in his father’ s mind and counsel, who now perceived that it was the will of God that Jacob should be made lord of all

Clarke: Heb 12:17

Repentance - Here μετανοια is not to be taken in a theological sense, as implying contrition for sin, but merely change of mind or purpose; nor does the word refer here to Esau at all, but to his father, whom Esau could not, with all his tears and entreaties, persuade to reverse what he had done. I have blessed him, said he, yea, and he must be blessed; I cannot reverse it now. See the whole of this transaction largely considered and explained, See the notes on Gen 25:29, etc., and see Gen 27:1 (note), etc. Nothing spoken here by the apostle, nor in the history in Genesis to which he refers, concerns the eternal state of either of the two brothers. The use made of the transaction by the apostle is of great importance: Take heed lest, by apostatizing from the Gospel, ye forfeit all right and title to the heavenly birthright, and never again be able to retrieve it; because they who reject the Gospel reject the only means of salvation.

Clarke: Heb 12:18-21

For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched - I believe the words ψηλαφωμενῳ ορει should be translated to a palpable or material mountain; for that it was not a mountain that on this occasion might be touched, the history, Exo 19:12, Exo 19:13, shows; and the apostle himself, in Heb 12:20, confirms. It is called here a palpable or material mount, to distinguish it from that spiritual mount Sion, of which the apostle is speaking. Some contend that it should be translated tacto de caelo , thunder-struck; this sense would agree well enough with the scope of the place. The apostle’ s design is to show that the dispensation of the law engendered terror; that it was most awful and exclusive; that it belonged only to the Jewish people; and that, even to them, it was so terrible that they could not endure that which was commanded, and entreated that God would not communicate with them in his own person, but by the ministry of Moses: and even to Moses, who held the highest intimacy with Jehovah, the revealed glories, the burning fire, the blackness, the darkness, the tempest, the loud-sounding trumpet, and the voice of words, were so terrible that he said, I exceedingly fear and tremble

These were the things which were exhibited on that material mountain; but the Gospel dispensation is one grand, copious, and interesting display of the infinite love of God. It is all encouragement; breathes nothing but mercy; is not an exclusive system; embraces the whole human race; has Jesus, the sinner’ s friend, for its mediator; is ratified by his blood; and is suited, most gloriously suited, to all the wants and wishes of every soul of man.

Clarke: Heb 12:22

But ye are come unto mount Sion - In order to enter fully into the apostle’ s meaning, we must observe

1.    That the Church, which is called here the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and mount Sion, is represented under the notion of a City

2.    That the great assembly of believers in Christ is here opposed to the congregation of the Israelites assembled at Mount Sinai

3.    That the innumerable company of angels is here opposed to, those angels by whom the law was ushered in, Act 7:53; Gal 3:19

4.    That the Gospel first-born, whose names are written in heaven, are here opposed to the enrolled first-born among the Israelites, Exo 24:5, Exo 19:22

5.    That the mediator of the new covenant, the Lord Jesus, is here opposed to Moses, the mediator of the old

6.    And that the blood of sprinkling, of Christ, our High Priest, refers to the act of Moses, Exo 24:8 : "And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.

1.    The description in these verses does not refer to a heavenly state; for the terrible nature of the Mosaic dispensation is never opposed to heaven or life eternal, but to the economy of the New Testament

2.    In heaven there is no need of a mediator, or sprinkling of blood; but these are mentioned in the state which the apostle describes

Clarke: Heb 12:22

The heavenly Jerusalem - This phrase means the Church of the New Testament, as Schoettgen has amply proved in his dissertation on this subject

Clarke: Heb 12:22

To an innumerable company of angels - Μυριασιν αγγελων· To myriads, tens of thousands, of angels. These are represented as the attendants upon God, when he manifests himself in any external manner to mankind. When he gave the law at Mount Sinai, it is intimated that myriads of these holy beings attended him. "The chariots of the Lord are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels; the Lord is among them as in Sinai, in the holy place;"Psa 68:17. And when he shall come to judge the world, he will be attended with a similar company. "Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him;"Dan 7:10. In both these cases, as in several others, these seem to be, speaking after the manner of men, the body guard of the Almighty. Though angels make a part of the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem, yet they belong also to the Church below. Christ has in some sort incorporated them with his followers, for "they are all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation,"and they are all ever considered as making a part of God’ s subjects.

Clarke: Heb 12:23

To the general assembly - Πανηγυρει . This word is joined to the preceding by some of the best MSS., and is quoted in connection by several of the fathers: Ye are come - to the general assembly of innumerable angels; and this is probably the true connection

The word πανηγυρις is compounded of παν, all, and αγυρις, an assembly; and means, particularly, an assembly collected on festive occasions. It is applied to the assembly of the Grecian states at their national games, Olympic, Isthmian, etc.; and hence a speech pronounced in favor of any person at such festive assemblies was called πανηγυρικος λογος, a panegyrical discourse; and hence our word panegyric

Clarke: Heb 12:23

The first-born - Those who first received the Gospel of Christ, and who are elsewhere termed the first fruits: this is spoken in allusion to the first-born among the Israelites, who were all considered as the Lord’ s property, and were dedicated to him. The Jews gave the title בכור bechor , first-born, to those who were very eminent or excellent; what we would term the head or top of his kin. The Church of the first-born is the assembly of the most excellent

Clarke: Heb 12:23

Which are written in heaven - Who are enrolled as citizens of the New Jerusalem, and are entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of the Church here, and of heaven above. This is spoken in allusion to the custom of enrolling or writing on tables, etc., the names of all the citizens of a particular city; and all those thus registered were considered as having a right to live there, and to enjoy all its privileges. All genuine believers are denizens of heaven. That is their country, and there they have their rights, etc. And every member of Christ has a right to, and can demand, every ordinance in the Church of his Redeemer; and wo to him who attempts to prevent them

Clarke: Heb 12:23

God the Judge of all - The supreme God is ever present in this general assembly: to him they are all gathered; by him they are admitted to all those rights, etc.; under his inspection they continue to act; and it is he alone who erases from the register those who act unworthily of their citizenship. Judge here is to be taken in the Jewish use of the term, i.e. one who exercises sovereign rule and authority

Clarke: Heb 12:23

The spirits of just men made perfect - We cannot understand these terms without the assistance of Jewish phraseology. The Jews divide mankind into three classes: -

1.    The Just Perfect, צדיקים גמורים tsaddikim gemurim

2.    The wicked perfect, רשעים גמורים reshaim gemurim

3.    Those between both, בינוניים beinoniyim

1.    The just perfect are those

1.    Who have conquered all brutal appetites and gross passions

2.    Who have stood in the time of strong temptation

3.    Who give alms with a sincere heart

4.    Who worship the true God only

5.    Who are not invidious

6.    Those from whom God has taken יצר הרע yetser hara , evil concupiscence, and given יצר טוב yetser tob , the good principle

2.    The wicked perfect are those

1.    Who never repent

2.    They receive their portion in this life, because they can have none in the life to come, and are under the influence of יצר הרע yetser hara , the evil principle

3.    The intermediate are those who are influenced partly by the evil principle, and partly by the good. - See Schoettgen

In several parts of this epistle τελειος, the just man, signifies one who has a full knowledge of the Christian system, who is justified and saved by Christ Jesus; and the τετελειωνεμοι are the adult Christians, who are opposed to the νηπιοι or babes in knowledge and grace. See Heb 5:12-14; Heb 8:11; and Gal 4:1-3. The spirits of the just men made perfect, or the righteous perfect, are the full grown Christians; those who are justified by the blood and sanctified by the Spirit of Christ. Being come to such, implies that spiritual union which the disciples of Christ have with each other, and which they possess how far soever separate; for they are all joined in one spirit, Eph 2:18; they are in the unity of the spirit, Eph 4:3, Eph 4:4; and of one soul, Act 4:32. This is a unity which was never possessed even by the Jews themselves in their best state; it is peculiar to real Christianity: as to nominal Christianity, wars and desolations between man and his fellows are quite consistent with its spirit. See at the end of the chapter, (note).

Clarke: Heb 12:24

And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant - The old covenant and its mediator, Moses, are passed away. See Heb 8:13. The new covenant, i.e. the Gospel, is now in force, and will be to the end of the world; and Jesus, the Son of God, the brightness of the Father’ s glory, the Maker and Preserver of all things, the Savior and the Judge of all men, is its mediator. Both the covenant and its mediator are infinitely superior to those of the Jews, and they are very properly set down here among the superior benefits and glories of Christianity

Clarke: Heb 12:24

To the blood of sprinkling - This is an allusion, as was before observed, to the sprinkling of the blood of the covenant sacrifice upon the people, when that covenant was made upon Mount Sinai; to the sprinkling of the blood of the sin-offerings before the mercy-seat; and probably to the sprinkling of the blood of the paschal lamb on their houses, to prevent their destruction by the destroying angel. But all these sprinklings were partial and inefficacious, and had no meaning but as they referred to this: the blood of sprinkling under the new covenant is ever ready; all may have it applied; it continues through ages; and is the highest glory of Christianity, because by it we draw nigh to God, and through it get our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience; and, in a word, have an entrance unto the holiest by the blood of Jesus

Clarke: Heb 12:24

Better things than that of Abel - God accepted Abel’ s sacrifice, and, was well pleased with it; for Abel was a righteous man, and offered his sacrifice by faith in the great promise. But the blood of Christ’ s sacrifice was infinitely more precious than the blood of Abel’ s sacrifice, as Jesus is infinitely greater than Abel; and the blood of Christ avails for the sins of the whole world, whereas the blood of Abel’ s sacrifice could avail only for himself

Many have supposed that the blood of Abel means here the blood that was shed by Cain in the murder of this holy man, and that the blood of Jesus speaks better things than it does, because the blood of Abel called for vengeance, but the blood of Christ for pardon; this interpretation reflects little credit on the understanding of the apostle. To say that the blood of Christ spoke better things than that of Abel is saying little indeed; it might speak very little good to any soul of man, and yet speak better things than that blood of Abel which spoke no kind of good to any human creature, and only called for vengeance against him that shed it. The truth is, the sacrifice offered by Abel is that which is intended; that, as we have already seen, was pleasing in the sight of God, and was accepted in behalf of him who offered it: but the blood of Christ is infinitely more acceptable with God; it was shed for the whole human race, and cleanses all who believe from all unrighteousness.

Clarke: Heb 12:25

See - Βλεπετε· Take heed, that ye refuse not him - the Lord Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, who now speaketh from heaven, by his Gospel, to the Jews and to the Gentiles, having in his incarnation come down from God

Clarke: Heb 12:25

Him that spake on earth - Moses, who spoke on the part of God to the Hebrews, every transgression of whose word received a just recompense of reward, none being permitted to escape punishment; consequently, if ye turn away from Christ, who speaks to you from heaven, you may expect a much sorer punishment, the offense against God being so much the more heinous, as the privileges slighted are more important and glorious.

Clarke: Heb 12:26

Whose voice then shook the earth - Namely, at the giving of the law on Mount Sinai; and from this it seems that it was the voice of Jesus that then shook the earth, and that it was he who came down on the mount. But others refer this simply to God the Father giving the law

Clarke: Heb 12:26

Not the earth only, but also heaven - Probably referring to the approaching destruction of Jerusalem, and the total abolition of the political and ecclesiastical constitution of the Jews; the one being signified by the earth, the other by heaven; for the Jewish state and worship are frequently thus termed in the prophetic writings. And this seems to be the apostle’ s meaning, as he evidently refers to Hag 2:6, where this event is predicted. It may also remotely refer to the final dissolution of all things.

Clarke: Heb 12:27

The removing of those things that are shaken - The whole of the Jewish polity, which had been in a shaken state from the time that Judea had fallen under the power of the Romans

Clarke: Heb 12:27

As of things that are made - That is, subjects intended to last only for a time. God never designed that the Jewish religion should become general, nor be permanent

Clarke: Heb 12:27

Those things which cannot be shaken - The whole Gospel system, which cannot be moved by the power of man

Clarke: Heb 12:27

May remain - Be permanent; God designing that this shall be the last dispensation of his grace and mercy, and that it shall continue till the earth and the heavens are no more.

Clarke: Heb 12:28

We receiving a kingdom - The Gospel dispensation, frequently termed the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven, because in it God reigns among men, and he reigns in the hearts of them that believe, and his kingdom is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost

Clarke: Heb 12:28

Which cannot be moved - Which never can fail, because it is the last dispensation

Clarke: Heb 12:28

Let us have grace - Εχωμεν χαριν· Let us have, keep, or hold fast, the benefit or gift, that is, the heavenly kingdom which God has given us. This is the meaning of the word, 2Co 8:4, and is so rendered by our translators; and it is only by this heavenly gift of the Gospel that we can serve God acceptably, for he can be pleased with no service that is not performed according to the Gospel of his Son

If we prefer the common meaning of the word grace it comes to the same thing; without the grace - the especial succor and influence of Christ, we cannot serve, λατρευωμεν, pay religious worship to God; for he receives no burnt-offering that is not kindled by fire from his own altar

Clarke: Heb 12:28

Acceptably - Ευαρεστως· In such a way as to please him well. And the offering, with which he is well pleased, he will graciously accept; and if he accept our service, his Spirit will testify in our conscience that our ways please him. When Abel sacrifices, God is well pleased; where Cain offers, there is no approbation

Clarke: Heb 12:28

Reverence - Αιδους· With shamefacedness or modesty

Clarke: Heb 12:28

Godly fear - Ευλαβειας· Religious fear. We have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, but let that boldness be ever tempered with modesty and religious fear; for we should never forget that we have sinned, and that God is a consuming fire. Instead of αιδους και ευλαβειας, modesty and religious fear, ACD*, several others, with the Slavonic and Chrysostom, have ευλαβειας και δεους, and others have φοβου και τρομου, fear and trembling; but the sense is nearly the same.

Clarke: Heb 12:29

For our God is a consuming fire - The apostle quotes Deu 4:24, and by doing so he teaches us this great truth, that sin under the Gospel is as abominable in God’ s sight as it was under the law; and that the man who does not labor to serve God with the principle and in the way already prescribed, will find that fire to consume him which would otherwise have consumed his sin

Calvin: Heb 12:1

1.Wherefore, seeing we also, === etc. This conclusion is, as it were, an epilogue to the former chapter, by which he shows the end for which he gave a catalogue of the saints who excelled in faith under the Law, even that every one should be prepared to imitate them; and he calls a large multitude metaphorically a cloud, for he sets what is dense in opposition to what is thinly scattered. ²⁴² Had they been a few in number, yet they ought to have roused us by their example; but as they were a vast throng, they ought more powerfully to stimulate us.

He says that we are so surrounded by this dense throng, that wherever we turn our eyes many examples of faith immediately meet us. The word witnesses I do not take in a general sense, as though he called them the martyrs of God, and I apply it to the case before us, as though he had said that faith is sufficiently proved by their testimony, so that no doubt ought to be entertained; for the virtues of the saints are so many testimonies to confirm us, that we, relying on them as our guides and associates, ought to go onward to God with more alacrity.

===Let us lay aside every weight, or every burden, etc. As he refers to the likeness of a race, he bids us to be lightly equipped; for nothing more prevents haste than to be encumbered with burdens. Now there are various burdens which delay and impede our spiritual course, such as the love of this present life, the pleasures of the world, the lusts of the flesh, worldly cares, riches also and honors, and other things of this kind. Whosoever, then, would run in the course prescribed by Christ, must first disentangle himself from all these impediments, for we are already of ourselves more tardy than we ought to be, so no other causes of delay should be added.

We are not however bidden to cast away riches or other blessings of this life, except so far as they retard our course for Satan by these as by toils retains and impedes us.

Now, the metaphor of a race is often to be found in Scripture; but here it means not any kind of race, but a running contest, which is wont to call forth the greatest exertions. The import of what is said then is, that we are engaged in a contest, even in a race the most celebrated, that many witnesses stand around us, that the Son of God is the umpire who invites and exhorts us to secure the prize, and that therefore it would be most disgraceful for us to grow weary or inactive in the midst of our course. And at the same time the holy men whom he mentioned, are not only witnesses, but have been associates in the same race, who have beforehand shown the way to us; and yet he preferred calling them witnesses rather than runners, in order to intimate that they are not rivals, seeking to snatch from us the prize, but approves to applaud and hail our victory; and Christ also is not only the umpire, but also extends his hand to us, and supplies us with strength and energy; in short, he prepares and fits us to enter on our course, and by his power leads us on to the end of the race.

And the sin which does so easily beset us, or, stand around us, etc. This is the heaviest burden that impedes us. And he says that we are entangled, in order that we may know, that no one is fit to run except he has stripped off all toils and snares. He speaks not of outward, or, as they say, of actual sin, but of the very fountain, even concupiscence or lust, which so possesses every part of us, that we feel that we are on every side held by its snares. ²⁴³

===Let us run with patience, === etc. By this word patience, we are ever reminded of what the Apostle meant to be mainly regarded in faith, even that we are in spirit to seek the kingdom of God, which is invisible to the flesh, and exceeds all that our minds can comprehend; for they who are occupied in meditating on this kingdom can easily disregard all earthly things. He thus could not more effectually withdraw the Jews from their ceremonies, than by calling their attention to the real exercises of faith, by which they might learn that Christ’s kingdom is spiritual, and far superior to the elements of the world.

Calvin: Heb 12:2

2.=== Who for the joy that was set before him, === etc. Though the expression in Latin is somewhat ambiguous, yet according to the words in Greek the Apostle’s meaning is quite clear; for he intimates, that though it was free to Christ to exempt himself from all trouble and to lead a happy life, abounding in all good things, he yet underwent a death that was bitter, and in every way ignominious. For the expression, for joy, is the same as, instead of joy; and joy includes every kind of enjoyment. And he says, set before him, because the power of availing himself of this joy was possessed by Christ, had it so pleased him. At the same time if any one thinks that the prepositionἀντὶ denotes the final cause, I do not much object; then the meaning would be, that Christ refused not the death of the cross, because he saw its blessed issue. I still prefer the former exposition. ²⁴⁴

But he commends to us the patience of Christ on two accounts, because he endured a most bitter death, and because he despised shame. He then mentions the glorious end of his death, that the faithful might know that all the evils which they may endure will end in their salvation and glory, provided they follow Christ. So also says James, “Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and ye know the end.” (Jas 5:11.) Then the Apostle means that the end of our sufferings will be the same with those of Christ, according to what is said by Paul, “If we suffer with him, we shall also reign together.” (Rom 8:17.)

Calvin: Heb 12:3

3.=== For consider him, === etc. He enforces his exhortation by comparing Christ with us; for if the Son of God, whom it behaves all to adore, willingly underwent such severe conflicts, who of us should dare to refuse to submit with him to the same? For this one thought alone ought to be sufficient to conquer all temptations, that is, when we know that we are companions or associates of the Son of God, and that he, who was so far above us, willingly came down to our condition, in order that he might animate us by his own example; yea, it is thus that we gather courage, which would otherwise melt away, and turn as it were into despair.

Calvin: Heb 12:4

4.=== Ye have not yet, resisted unto blood, === etc. He proceeds farther, for he reminds us, that even when the ungodly persecute us for Christ’s sake, we are then contending against sin. Into this contest Christ could not enter, for he was pure and free from all sin; in this respect, however, we are unlike him, for sin always dwells in us, and afflictions serve to subdue and put it to flight.

In the first place we know that all the evils which are in the world, and especially death, proceed from sin; but this is not what the Apostle treats of; he only teaches us, that the persecutions which we endure for the Gospel’s sake, are on another account useful to us, even because they are remedies to destroy sin; for in this way God keeps us under the yoke of his discipline, lest our flesh should become wanton; he sometimes also thus checks the impetuous, and sometimes punishes our sins, that we may in future be more cautious. Whether then he applies remedies to our sins, or anticipates us before we sin, he thus exercises us in the conflict with sin, referred to by the Apostle. With this honor indeed the Son of God favors us, that he by no means regards what we suffer for his Gospel as a punishment for sin. It behooves us still to acknowledge what we hear from the Apostle in this place, that we so plead and defend the cause of Christ against the ungodly, that at the same time we are carrying on war with sin, our intestine enemy. Thus God’s grace towards us is twofold — the remedies he applies to heal our vices, he employs for the purpose of defending his gospel. ²⁴⁵

But let us bear in mind whom he is here addressing, even those who had joyfully suffered the loss of their goods and had endured many reproaches; and yet he charges them with sloth, because they were fainting half way in the contest, and were not going on strenuously to the end. There is therefore no reason for us to ask a discharge from the Lord, whatever service we may have performed; for Christ will have no discharged soldiers, but those who have conquered death itself.

Calvin: Heb 12:5

5.=== And ye have forgotten, === etc. I read the words as a question; for he asks, whether they had forgotten, intimating that it was not yet time to forget. But he enters here on the doctrine, that it is useful and needful for us to be disciplined by the cross; and he refers to the testimony of Solomon, which includes two parts; the first is, that we are not to reject the Lord’s correction; and in the second the reason is given, because the Lord loves those whom he chastises. ²⁴⁶ But as Solomon thus begins, my “Son”, the Apostle reminds us that we ought to be allured by so sweet and kind a word, as that this exhortation should wholly penetrate into our hearts. ²⁴⁷

Now Solomon’s argument is this: — If the scourges of God testify his love towards us, it is a shame that they should be regarded with dislike or hatred. For they who bear not to be chastised by God for their own salvation, yea, who reject a proof of his paternal kindness, must be extremely ungrateful.

Calvin: Heb 12:6

6.=== For whom the Lord loveth, === etc. This seems not to be a well­founded reason; for God visits the elect as well as the reprobate indiscriminately, and his scourges manifest his wrath oftener than his love; and so the Scripture speaks, and experience confirms. But yet it is no wonder that when the godly are addressed, the effect of chastisements which they feel, is alone referred to. For however severe and angry a judge God may show himself towards the reprobate, whenever he punishes them; yet he has no other end in view as to the elect, but to promote their salvation; it is a demonstration of his paternal love. Besides, the reprobate, as they know not that they are governed by God’s hand, for the most part think that afflictions come by chance. As when a perverse youth, leaving his father’s house, wanders far away and becomes exhausted with hunger, cold, and other evils, he indeed suffers a just punishment for his folly, and learns by his sufferings the benefit of being obedient and submissive to his father, but yet he does not acknowledge this as a paternal chastisement; so is the case with the ungodly, who having in a manner removed themselves from God and his family, do not understand that God’s hand reaches to them.

Let us then remember that the taste of God’s love towards us cannot be had by us under chastisements, except we be fully persuaded that they are fatherly scourges by which he chastises us for our sins. No such thing can occur to the minds of the reprobate, for they are like fugitives. It may also be added, that judgment must begin at God’s house; though, then, he may strike aliens and domestics alike, he yet so puts forth his hand as to the latter as to show that they are the objects of his peculiar care. But the previous one is the true solution, even that every one who knows and is persuaded that he is chastised by God, must immediately be led to this thought, that he is chastised because he is loved by God. For when the faithful see that God interposes in their punishment, they perceive a sure pledge of his love, for unless he loved them he would not be solicitous about their salvation. Hence the Apostle concludes that God is offered as a Father to all who endure correction. For they who kick like restive horses, or obstinately resist, do not belong to this class of men. In a word, then, he teaches us that God’s corrections are then only paternal, when we obediently submit to him. ²⁴⁸

Calvin: Heb 12:7

7.=== For what son is he, === etc. He reasons from the common practice of men, that it is by no means right or meet that God’s children should be exempt from the discipline of the cross; for if no one is to be found among us, at least no prudent man and of a sound judgment, who does not correct his children — for without discipline they cannot be led to a right conduct — how much less will God neglect so necessary a remedy, who is the best and the wisest Father?

If any one raises an objection, and says that corrections of this kind cease among men as soon as children arrive at manhood: to this I answer, that as long as we live we are with regard to God no more than children, and that this is the reason why the rod should ever be applied to our backs. Hence the Apostle justly infers, that all who seek exemption from the cross do as it were withdraw themselves from the number of his children.

It hence follows that the benefit of adoption is not valued by us as it ought to be, and that the grace of God is wholly rejected when we seek to withdraw ourselves from his scourges; and this is what all they do who bear not their afflictions with patience. But why does he call those who refuse correction bastards rather than aliens? Even because he was addressing those who were members of the Church, and were on this account the children of God. He therefore intimates that the profession of Christ would be false and deceitful if they withdrew themselves from the discipline of the Father, and that they would thus become bastards, and be no more children. ²⁴⁹

Calvin: Heb 12:9

9.=== Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, === etc. This comparison has several parts: the first is, that if we showed so much reverence to the fathers from whom we have descended according to the flesh, as to submit to their discipline, much more honor is due to God who is our spiritual Father; another is, that the discipline which fathers use as to their children is only useful for the present life, but that God looks farther, having in view to prepare us for an eternal life; and the third is, that men chastise their children as it seems good to them, but that God regulates his discipline in the best manner, and with perfect wisdom, so that there is nothing in it but what is duly ordered. He then, in the first place, makes this difference between God and men, that they are the fathers of the flesh, but he of the spirit; and on this difference he enlarges by comparing the flesh with the spirit.

But it may be asked, Is not God the Father also of our flesh? For it is not without reason that Job mentions the creation of men as one of the chief miracles of God: hence on this account also he is justly entitled to the name of Father. Were we to say that he is called the Father of spirits, because he alone creates and regenerates our souls without the aid of man, it might be said again that Paul glories in being the spiritual father of those whom he had begotten in Christ by the Gospel. To these things I reply, that God is the Father of the body as well as of the soul, and, properly speaking, he is indeed the only true Father; and that this name is only as it were by way of concession applied to men, both in regard of the body and of the soul. As, however, in creating souls, he does use the instrumentality of men, and as he renews them in a wonderful manner by the power of the Spirit, he is peculiarly called, by way of eminence, the Father of spirits. ²⁵⁰

When he says, and we gave them reverence, he refers to a feeling implanted in us by nature, so that we honor parents even when they treat us harshly. By saying, in subjection to the Father of spirits, he intimates that it is but just to concede to God the authority he has over us by the right of a Father. By saying, and live, he points out the cause or the end, for the conjunction “and” is to be rendered that, — “that we may live.” Now we are reminded by this word live, that there is nothing more ruinous to us than to refuse to surrender ourselves in obedience to God.

Calvin: Heb 12:10

10.=== For they verily for a few days, === etc. The second amplification of the subject, as I have said, is that God’s chastisements are appointed to subdue and mortify our flesh, so that we may be renewed for a celestial life. It hence appears that the fruit or benefit is to be perpetual; but such a benefit cannot be expected from men, since their discipline refers to civil life, and therefore properly belongs to the present world. It hence follows that these chastisements bring far greater benefit, as the spiritual holiness conferred by God far exceeds the advantages which belong to the body.

Were any one to object and say, that it is the duty of parents to instruct their children in the fear and worship of God, and that therefore their discipline seems not to be confined to so short a time; to this the answer is, that this is indeed true, but the Apostle speaks here of domestic life, as we are wont commonly to speak of civil government; for though it belongs to magistrates to defend religion, yet we say that their office is confined to the limits of this life, for otherwise the civil and earthly government cannot be distinguished from the spiritual kingdom of Christ.

Moreover when God’s chastisements are said to be profitable to make men partners of his holiness, this is not to be so taken as though they made us really holy, but that they are helps to sanctify us, for by them the Lord exercises us in the work of mortifying the flesh.

Calvin: Heb 12:11

11.=== Now no chastening, === etc. This he adds, lest we should measure God’s chastisements by our present feelings; for he shows that we are like children who dread the rod and shun it as much as they can, for owing to their age they cannot yet judge how useful it may be to them. The object, then, of this admonition is, that chastisements cannot be estimated aright if judged according to what the flesh feels under them, and that therefore we must fix our eyes on the end: we shall thus receive the peaceable fruit of righteousness. And by the fruit of righteousness he means the fear of the Lord and a godly and holy life, of which the cross is the teacher. He calls it peaceable, because in adversities we are alarmed and disquieted, being tempted by impatience, which is always noisy and restless; but being chastened, we acknowledge with a resigned mind how profitable did that become to us which before seemed bitter and grievous. ²⁵¹

Calvin: Heb 12:12

12.=== Wherefore, lift up, === etc. After having taught us that God regards our salvation when he chastises us, he then exhorts us to exert ourselves vigorously; for nothing will more weaken us and more fully discourage us than through the influence of a false notion to have no taste of God’s grace in adversities. There is, therefore, nothing more efficacious to raise us up than the intimation that God is present with us, even when he afflicts us, and is solicitous about our welfare. But in these words he not only exhorts us to bear afflictions with courage, but also reminds us that there is no reason for us to be supine and slothful in performing our duties; for we find more than we ought by experience how much the fear of the cross prevents us to serve God as it behooves us. Many would be willing to profess their faith, but as they fear persecution, hands and feet are wanting to that pious feeling of the mind. Many would be ready to contend for God’s glory, to defend what is good and just in private and in public, and to do their duties to God and their brethren; but as danger arises from the hatred of the wicked, as they see that troubles, and those many, are prepared for them, they rest idly with their hands as it were folded.

Were then this extreme fear of the cross removed, and were we prepared for endurance, there would be nothing in us not fitted and adapted for the work of doing God’s will. This, then, is what the Apostle means here, “You have your hands,” he says, “hanging down and your knees feeble, because ye know not what real consolation there is in adversity; hence ye are slow to do your duty: but now as I have shown how useful to you is the discipline of the cross, this doctrine ought to put new vigor in all your members, so that you may be ready and prompt, both with your hands and feet, to follow the call of God.” Moreover, he seems to allude to a passage in Isaiah, (Isa 35:3;) and there the Prophet commands godly teachers to strengthen trembling knees and weak hands by giving them the hope of favor; but the Apostle bids all the faithful to do this; for since this is the benefit of the consolation which God offers to us, then as it is the office of a teacher to strengthen the whole Church, so every one ought, by applying especially the doctrine to his own case, to strengthen and animate himself. ²⁵²

Calvin: Heb 12:13

13.=== And make straight paths, === etc. He has been hitherto teaching us to lean on God’s consolations, so that we may be bold and strenuous in doing what is right, as his help is our only support; he now adds to this another thing, even that we ought to walk prudently and to keep to a straight course; for indiscreet ardor is no less an evil than inactivity and softness. At the same time this straightness of the way which he recommends, is preserved when a man’s mind is superior to every fear, and regards only what God approves; for fear is ever very ingenious in finding out byways. As then we seek circuitous courses, when entangled by sinful fear; so on the other hand every one who has prepared himself to endure evils, goes on in a straight way wheresoever the Lord calls him, and turns not either to the right hand or to the left. In short, he prescribes to us this rule for our conduct, — that we are to guide our steps according to God’s will, so that neither fear nor the allurements of the world, nor any other things, may draw us away from it. ²⁵³

Hence be adds, Lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, or, lest halting should go astray; that is, lest by halting ye should at length depart far from the way. He calls it halting, when men’s minds fluctuate, and they devote not themselves sincerely to God. So spoke Elijah to the double­minded who blended their own superstitions with God’s worship, “How long halt ye between two opinions?” (1Kg 18:21.) And it is a befitting way of speaking, for it is a worse thing to go astray than to halt. Nor they who begin to halt do not immediately turn from the right way, but by degrees depart from it more and more, until having been led into a diverse path so they remain entangled in the midst of Satan’s labyrinth. Hence the apostle warns us to strive for the removal of this halting in due time; for if we give way to it, it will at length turn us far away from God.

The words may indeed be rendered, “Lest halting should grow worse,” or turn aside; but the meaning would remain the same; for what the Apostle intimates is, that those who keep not a straight course, but gradually though carelessly turn here and there, become eventually wholly alienated from God. ²⁵⁴

Calvin: Heb 12:14

14.=== Follow peace, === etc. Men are so born that they all seem to shun peace; for all study their own interest, seek their own ways, and care not to accommodate themselves to the ways of others. Unless then we strenuously labor to follow peace, we shall never retain it; for many things will happen daily affording occasion for discords. This is the reason why the Apostle bids us to follow peace, as though he had said, that it ought not only to be cultivated as far as it may be convenient to us, but that we ought to strive with all care to keep it among us. And this cannot be done unless we forget many offenses and exercise mutual forbearance. ²⁵⁵

As however peace cannot be maintained with the ungodly except on the condition of approving of their vices and wickedness, the Apostle immediately adds, that holiness is to be followed together with peace; as though he commended peace to us with this exception, that the friendship of the wicked is not to be allowed to defile or pollute us; for holiness has an especial regard to God. Though then the whole world were roused to a blazing war, yet holiness is not to be forsaken, for it is the bond of our union with God. In short, let us quietly cherish concord with men, but only, according to the proverb, as far as conscience allows.

He declares, that without holiness no man shall see the Lord; for with no other eyes shall we see God than those which have been renewed after his image.

Calvin: Heb 12:15

15.Looking diligently, or, taking care, or, attentively providing, etc. ²⁵⁶ By these words he intimates that it is easy to fall away from the grace of God; for it is not without reason that attention is required, because as soon as Satan sees us secure or remiss, he instantly circumvents us. We have, in short, need of striving and vigilance, if we would persevere in the grace of God.

Moreover, under the word grace, he includes our whole vocation. If any one hence infers that the grace of God is not efficacious, except we of our own selves cooperate with it, the argument is frivolous. We know how great is the slothfulness of our flesh; it therefore wants continual incentives; but when the Lord stimulates us by warning and exhortation, he at the same time moves and stirs up our hearts, that his exhortations may not be in vain, or pass away without effect. Then from precepts and exhortations we are not to infer what man can do of himself, or what is the power of freewill; for doubtless the attention or diligence which the Apostle requires here is the gift of God.

===Lest any root, === etc. I doubt not but that he refers to a passage written by Moses in Deu 29:18; for after having promulgated the Law, Moses exhorted the people to beware, lest any root germinating should bear gall and wormwood among them. He afterwards explained what he meant, that is, lest any one, felicitating himself in sin, and like the drunken who are wont to excite thirst, stimulating sinful desires, should bring on a contempt of God through the alluring of hope of impunity. The same is what the Apostle speaks of now; for he foretells what will take place, that is, if we suffer such a root to grow, it will corrupt and defile many; he not only bids every one to irradiate such a pest from their hearts, but he also forbids them to allow it to grow among them. It cannot be indeed but that these roots will ever be found in the Church, for hypocrites and the ungodly are always mixed with the good; but when they spring up they ought to be cut down, lest by growing they should choke the good seed.

He mentions bitterness for what Moses calls gall and wormwood; but both meant to express a root that is poisonous and deadly. Since then it is so fatal an evil, with more earnest effort it behooves us to check it, lest it should rise and creep farther. ²⁵⁷

Calvin: Heb 12:16

16.=== Lest there be any fornicator or profane person, === etc. As he had before exhorted them to holiness, so now, that he might reclaim them from defilements opposed to it, he mentions a particular kind of defilement, and says, “Lest there be any fornicator.” But he immediately comes to what is general, and adds, “or a profane person;” for it is the term that is strictly contrary to holiness. The Lord calls us for this end, that he may make us holy unto obedience: this is done when we renounce the world; but any one who so delights in his own filth that he continually rolls in it, profanes himself. We may at the same time regard the profane as meaning generally all those who do not value God’s grace so much as to seek it and despise the world. But as men become profane in various ways, the more earnest we ought to strive lest an opening be left for Satan to defile us with his corruptions. And as there is no true religion without holiness, we ought to make progress continually in the fear of God, in the mortifying of the flesh, and in the whole practice of piety; for as we are profane until we separate from the world so if we roll again in its filth we renounce holiness.

===As Esau, === etc. This example may be viewed as an exposition of the word profane; for when Esau set more value on one meal than on his birthright, he lost his blessing. Profane then are all they in whom the love of the world so reigns and prevails that they forget heaven: as is the case with those who are led away by ambition, or become fond of money or of wealth, or give themselves up to gluttony, or become entangled in any other pleasures; they allow in their thoughts and cares no place, or it may be the last place, to the spiritual kingdom of Christ.

Most appropriate then is this example; for when the Lord designs to set forth the power of that love which he has for his people, he calls all those whom he has called to the hope of eternal life his firstborn. Invaluable indeed is this honor with which he favors us; and all the wealth, all the conveniences, the honors and the pleasures of the world, and everything commonly deemed necessary for happiness, when compared with this honor, are of no more value than a morsel of meat. That we indeed set a high value on things which are nearly worth nothing, arises from this, — that depraved lust dazzles our eyes and thus blinds us. If therefore we would hold a place in God’s sanctuary, we must learn to despise morsels of meat of this kind, by which Satan is wont to catch the reprobate. ²⁵⁸

Calvin: Heb 12:17

17.=== When he would have inherited the blessing, === etc. He at first regarded as a sport the act by which he had sold his birthright, as though it was a child’s play; but at length, when too late, he found what a loss he had incurred, when the blessing transferred by his father to Jacob was refused to him. Thus they who are led away by the allurements of this world alienate themselves from God, and sell their own salvation that they may feed on the morsels of this world, without thinking that they lose anything, nay, they flatter and applaud themselves, as though they were extremely happy. When too late their eyes are opened, so that being warned by the sight of their own wickedness, they become sensible of the loss of which they made no account.

While Esau was hungry, he cared for nothing but how he might have his stomach well filled; when full he laughed at his brother, and judged him a fool for having voluntarily deprived himself of a meal. Nay, such is also the stupidity of the ungodly, as long as they burn with depraved lusts or intemperately plunge themselves into sinful pleasures; after a time they understand how fatal to them are all the things which they so eagerly desired. The word “rejected” means that he was repulsed, or denied his request.

===For he found no place of repentance, === etc.; that is, he profited nothing, he gained nothing by his late repentance, though he sought with tears the blessing which by his own fault he had lost. ²⁵⁹

Now as he denounces the same danger on all the despisers of God’s grace, it may be asked, whether no hope of pardon remains, when God’s grace has been treated with contempt and his kingdom less esteemed than the world? To this I answer, that pardon is not expressly denied to such, but that they are warned to take heed, lest the same thing should happen to them also. And doubtless we may see daily many examples of God’s severity, which prove that he takes vengeance on the mockings and scoffs of profane men: for when they promise themselves tomorrow, he often suddenly takes them away by death in a manner new and unexpected; when they deem fabulous what they hear of God’s judgment, he so pursues them that they are forced to acknowledge him as their judge; when they have consciences wholly dead, they afterwards feel dreadful agonies as a punishment for their stupidity. But though this happens not to all, yet as there is this danger, the Apostle justly warns all to beware.

Another question also arises, Whether the sinner, endued with repentance, gains nothing by it? For the Apostle seems to imply this when he tells us that Esau’s repentance availed him nothing. My reply is, that repentance here is not to be taken for sincere conversion to God; but it was only that terror with which the Lord smites the ungodly, after they have long indulged themselves in their iniquity. Nor is it a wonder that this terror should be said to be useless and unavailing, for they do not in the meantime repent nor hate their own vices, but are only tormented by a sense of their own punishment. The same thing is to be said of tears; whenever a sinner sighs on account of his sins, the Lord is ready to pardon him, nor is God’s mercy ever sought in vain, for to him who knocks it shall be opened, (Mat 7:8;) but as the tears of Esau were those of a man past hope, they were not shed on account of having offended God; so the ungodly, however they may deplore their lot, complain and howl, do not yet knock at God’s door for mercy, for this cannot be done but by faith. And the more grievously conscience torments them, the more they war against God and rage against him. They might indeed desire that an access should be given them to God; but as they expect nothing but his wrath, they shun his presence. Thus we often see that those who often say, as in a jest, that repentance is sufficiently in time when they are drawing towards their end, do then cry bitterly, amidst dreadful agonies, that the season of obtaining repentance is past; for that they are doomed to destruction because they did not seek God until it was too late. Sometimes, indeed, they break out into such words as these, “Oh! if — oh! if;” but presently despair cuts short their prayers and chokes their voice, so that they proceed no farther.

Calvin: Heb 12:18

18.For ye are not come, === etc. He fights now with a new argument, for he proclaims the greatness of the grace made known by the Gospel, that we may reverently receive it; and secondly, he commends to us its benign characters that he might allure us to love and desire it. He adds weight to these two things by a comparison between the Law and the Gospel; for the higher the excellency of Christ’s kingdom than the dispensation of Moses, and the more glorious our calling than that of the ancient people, the more disgraceful and the less excusable is our ingratitude, unless we embrace in a becoming manner the great favor offered to us, and humbly adore the majesty of Christ which is here made evident; and then, as God does not present himself to us clothed in terrors as he did formerly to the Jews, but lovingly and kindly invites us to himself, so the sin of ingratitude will be thus doubled, except we willingly and in earnest respond to his gracious invitation. ²⁶⁰

Then let us first remember that the Gospel is here compared with the Law; and secondly, that there are two parts in this comparison, — that God’s glory displays itself more illustriously in the Gospel than in the Law, — and that his invitation is now full of love, but that formerly there was nothing but the greatest terrors.

===Unto the mount that might be touched, ²⁶¹ etc. This sentence is variously expounded; but it seems to me that an earthly mountain is set in opposition to the spiritual; and the words which follow show the same thing, that burned with fire, blackness, darkness, tempest, etc.; for these were signs which God manifested, that he might secure authority and reverence to his Law. ²⁶² When considered in themselves they were magnificent and truly celestial; but when we come to the kingdom of Christ, the things which God exhibits to us are far above all the heavens. It hence follows, that all the dignity of the Law appears now earthly: thus mount Sinai might have been touched by hands; but mount Sion cannot be known but by the spirit. All the things recorded in the nineteenth chapter of Exo 19:1 were visible things; but those which we have in the kingdom of Christ are hid from the senses of the flesh. ²⁶³

Should any one object and say, that the meaning of all these things was spiritual, and that there are at this day external exercises of religion by which we are carried up to heaven: to this I answer, that the Apostle speaks comparatively; and no one can doubt but that the Gospel, contrasted with the Law, excels in what is spiritual, but the Law in earthly symbols.

Calvin: Heb 12:19

19.=== They that heard entreated, === etc. This is the second clause, in which he shows that the Law was very different from the Gospel; for when it was promulgated there was nothing but terrors on every side. For everything we read of in the nineteenth chapter of Exo 19:1 was of this kind, and intended to show to the people that God had ascended his tribunal and manifested himself as a strict judge. If by chance an innocent beast approached, he commanded it to be killed: how much heavier punishment awaited sinners who were conscious of their guilt, nay, who knew themselves to be condemned to eternal death by the Law? But the Gospel contains nothing but love, provided it be received by faith. What remains to be said you may read in the 2Co 3:1 of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians.

But by the words the people entreated, etc., is not to be understood that they refused to hear God, but that they prayed not to be constrained to hear God himself speaking; for by the interposition of Moses their dread was somewhat mitigated. ²⁶⁴ Yet interpreters are at a loss to know how it is that the Apostle ascribes these words to Moses, I exceedingly fear and quake; for we read nowhere that they were expressed by Moses. But the difficulty may be easily removed, if we consider that Moses spoke thus in the name of the people, whose requests as their delegate he brought to God. It was, then, the common complaint of the whole people; but Moses is included, who was, as it were, the speaker for them all. ²⁶⁵

Calvin: Heb 12:22

22.=== Unto mount Sion, === etc. He alludes to those prophecies in which God had formerly promised that his Gospel should thence go forth, as in Isa 2:1, and in other places. Then he contrasts mount Sion with mount Sinai; and he further adds, the heavenly Jerusalem, and he expressly calls it heavenly, that the Jews might not cleave to that which was earthly, and which had flourished under the Law; for when they sought perversely to continue under the slavish yoke of the Law, mount Sion was turned into mount Sinai as Paul teaches us in the Gal 4:21 of the Epistle to the Galatians. Then by the heavenly Jerusalem he understood that which was to be built throughout the whole world, even as the angel, mentioned by Zechariah, extended his line from the east even to the west.

===To an innumerable company of angels, === etc. He means that we are associated with angels, chosen into the ranks of patriarchs, and placed in heaven among all the spirits of the blessed, when Christ by the Gospel calls us to himself. But it is an incalculable honor, conferred upon us by our heavenly Father, that he should enroll us among angels and the holy fathers. The expression, myriads of angels, in taken from the book of Daniel, though I have followed Erasmus, and rendered it innumerable company of angels. ²⁶⁶

Calvin: Heb 12:23

23.=== The firstborn, === etc. He does not call the children of God indiscriminately the firstborn, for the Scripture calls many his children who are not of this number; but for the sake of honor he adorns with this distinction the patriarchs and other renowned saints of the ancient Church. He adds, which are written in heaven, because God is said to have all the elect enrolled in his book or secret catalogue, as Ezekiel speaks. ²⁶⁷

===The judge of all, === etc. This seems to have been said to inspire fear, as though he had said, that grace is in such a way altered to us, that we ought still to consider that we have to do with a judge, to whom an account must be given if we presumptuously intrude into his sanctuary polluted and profane.

===The spirits of just men, === etc. He adds this to intimate that we are joined to holy souls, which have put off their bodies, and left behind them all the filth of this world; and hence he says that they are consecrated or “made perfect”, for they are no more subject to the infirmities of the flesh, having laid aside the flesh itself. And hence we may with certainty conclude, that pious souls, separated from their bodies, still live with God, for we could not possibly be otherwise joined to them as companions.

Calvin: Heb 12:24

24.=== And to Jesus the Mediator, === etc. He adds this in the last place, because it is he alone through whom the Father is reconciled to us, and who renders his face serene and lovely to us, so that we may come to him without fear. At the same time he shows how Christ becomes our Mediator, even through his own blood, which after the Hebrew mode of speaking he calls the blood of sprinkling, which means sprinkled blood; for as it was once for all shed to make an atonement for us, so our souls must be now cleansed by it through faith. At the same time the Apostle alludes to the ancient rite of the Law, which has been before mentioned.

===That speaketh better things, === etc. There is no reason why better may not be rendered adverbially in the following manner, — “Christ’s blood cries more efficaciously, and is better heard by God than the blood of Abel.” It is, however, preferable to take the words literally: the blood of Christ is said to speak better things, because it avails to obtain pardon for our sins. The blood of Abel did not properly cry out; for it was his murder that called for vengeance before God. But the blood of Christ cries out, and the atonement made by it is heard daily. ²⁶⁸

Calvin: Heb 12:25

25.=== See that ye refuse not him that speaketh, === etc. He uses the same verb as before, when he said that the people entreated that God should not speak to them; but he means as I think, another thing, even that we ought not to reject the word destined for us. He further shows what he had in view in the last comparison, even that the severest punishment awaits the despisers of the Gospel, since the ancients under the Law did not despise it with impunity. And he pursues the argument from the less to the greater, when he says, that God or Moses spoke then on earth, but that the same God or Christ speaks now from heaven. At the same time I prefer regarding God in both instances as the speaker. And he is said to have spoken on earth, because he spoke in a lower strain. Let us ever bear in mind that he refers to the external ministration of the Law, which, as compared with the gospel, partook of what was earthly, and did not lead men’s minds above the heavens unto perfect wisdom; for though the Law contained in it the same truth, yet as it was only a training school, perfection could not belong to it. ²⁶⁹

Calvin: Heb 12:26

26.=== Whose voice then shook the earth, === etc. Though God shook the earth when he published his Law, yet he shows that he now speaks more gloriously, for he shakes both earth and heaven. He quotes on the subject the testimony of the Prophet Haggai, though he gives not the words literally; but as the Prophet foretells a future shaking of the earth and the heaven, the Apostle borrows the idea in order to teach us that the voice of the Gospel not only thunders through the earth, but also penetrates above the heavens. But that the Prophet speaks of Christ’s kingdom, is beyond any dispute, for it immediately follows in the same passage, “I will shake all nations; and come shall the desire of all nations, and I will fill this house with glory.” It is however certain that neither all nations have been gathered into one body, except under the banner of Christ, nor has there been any desire in which we ought to acquiesce but Christ alone, nor was the temple of Solomon exceeded in glory until the magnificence of Christ became known through the whole world. The Prophet then no doubt refers to the time of Christ. But if at the commencement of Christ’s kingdom, not only the lower parts of the world were shaken, but his power also reached the heaven, the Apostle justly concludes that the doctrine of the Gospel is sublimer than that of the Law, and ought to be more distinctly heard by all creatures. ²⁷⁰

Calvin: Heb 12:27

27.=== And this word, yet once more, === etc. The words of the Prophet are these, “Yet a little while;” and he means that the calamity of the people would not be perpetual, but that the Lord would succor them. But the Apostle lays no stress on this expression; he only infers from the shaking of the heaven and the earth that the state of the world was to be changed at the coming of Christ; for things created are subject to decay, but Christ’s kingdom is eternal; then all creatures must needs be brought into a better state. ²⁷¹

He makes hence a transition to another exhortation, that we are to lay hold on that kingdom which cannot be shaken; for the Lord shakes us for this end, that he may really and forever establish us in himself. At the same time I prefer a different reading, which is given by the ancient Latin version, “Receiving a kingdom, we have grace,” etc. When read affirmatively, the passage runs best, — “We, in embracing the Gospel, have the gift of the Spirit of Christ, that we may reverently and devoutly worship God.” If it be read as an exhortation, “Let us have,” it is a strained and obscure mode of speaking. The Apostle means in short, as I think, that provided we enter by faith into Christ’s kingdom, we shall enjoy constant grace, which will effectually retain us in the service of God; for as the kingdom of Christ is above the world, so is the gift of regeneration. ²⁷²

By saying that God is to be served acceptably, εὐαρέστως, with reverence and fear, he intimates that though he requires us to serve with promptitude and delight, there is yet no service approved by him except it be united with humility and due reverence. Thus he condemns froward confidence of the flesh, as well as the sloth which also proceeds from it. ²⁷³

Calvin: Heb 12:29

29.=== For our God, === etc. As he had before kindly set before us the grace of God, so he now makes known his severity; and he seems to have borrowed this sentence from the Deu 4:24 of Deuteronomy. Thus we see that God omits nothing by which he may draw us to himself; he begins indeed with love and kindness, so that we may follow him the more willingly; but when by alluring he effects but little, he terrifies us.

And doubtless it is expedient that the grace of God should never be promised to us without being accompanied with threatening; for we are so extremely prone to indulge ourselves, that without the application of these stimulants the milder doctrine would prove ineffectual. Then the Lord, as he is propitious and merciful to such as fear him unto a thousand generations; so he is a jealous God and a just avenger, when despised, unto the third and the fourth generation. ²⁷⁴

Defender: Heb 12:1

The figure here is one of a racing arena with a great cloud of witnesses in the stands surrounding the runners and their race track. The "witnesses" are not merely spectators but "martyrs" (martus is the Greek word translated "witness"), not necessarily having all been put to death, but all having been willing to suffer and die for the faith while also living and witnessing for the Lord. Now, having finished their own course, they are watching our present-day progress in the Christian race. No doubt, each one of us has some of these witnesses (our departed friends and loved-ones) who are especially watching us personally. They are not omnipresent, of course, and being in heaven with the Lord, cannot observe us directly. Nevertheless, they, like the angels, (1Pe 1:12) are keenly and anxiously interested. Perhaps our ministering angels report to them about us from time to time. (Perhaps there is something analogous to a heavenly television room where they can even see us occasionally.) In any case, the knowledge that angels, and perhaps our departed loved ones, are anxiously interested in the race we are running, should be a real incentive."

Defender: Heb 12:2

Far more important than even angels and loved ones, of course, is the fact that the Lord Jesus Himself knows and cares about our progress. In fact, He is even with us continually by His Holy Spirit, and He also has run the race before us, setting the example "that [ye] should follow his steps" (1Pe 2:21)."

Defender: Heb 12:3

No matter how great may be our trials, they can never compare to those Christ endured for us. All His life He could say: "I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up" (Psa 88:15). Forsaken even by His own disciples, He was prophesied to say in His grief: "Reproach hath broken my heart" (Psa 69:20), as He died with His heart completely collapsed on the cross. But now, "forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind" (1Pe 4:1). "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phi 2:5). May we, like Him and like Paul, one day be able to say: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith" (2Ti 4:7)."

Defender: Heb 12:5

Heb 11:5, Heb 11:6 are quoted (interpretively) from Pro 3:11, Pro 3:12. A very similar exhortation is found also in Job 5:17, Psa 94:12 and Rev 3:19."

Defender: Heb 12:12

This is quoted from Isa 35:3 in the context of anticipating future millennial glories. We as sons of the Father should learn to profit from His chastening as proof of His love and training as He prepares us for great responsibilities in the ages to come."

Defender: Heb 12:14

"Holiness" is the same as "sanctification." As far as our position and standing before God are concerned, we, as believers, have peace with God and are "sanctified in Christ Jesus" (Rom 5:1; 1Co 1:2). Without these (which means without salvation), we could never hope to see the Lord. We still need to follow diligently after peace and holiness in a practical sense, by His enabling grace, if we would see Him in faith."

Defender: Heb 12:16

It is remarkable that so many Christians are quick to defend Esau and rebuke Jacob when God has done neither. Esau was a profane fornicator with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, caring nothing about the spiritual significance and responsibilities of the patriarchal birthright, until he thought its loss might diminish his inherited wealth. "I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau"; this was God's evaluation of the two men and their descendants (Mal 1:2, Mal 1:3). See notes on Genesis 26-27."

Defender: Heb 12:18

The description in Heb 12:18-21 reminds us of the scene at the giving of the law from Mount Sinai when God made His conditional covenant with Israel (Exodus 19 and 20). Once again, those professing Christ are urged not to remain at the fearful Sinai but to go on to Zion - not to linger under the old covenant but to enter fully into the new covenant."

Defender: Heb 12:22

In contrast to the frightening scene at Sinai is the wonderful glimpse of the heavenly Zion (Heb 12:22-24). This assemblage is now gathered in heaven but will all become a glorious reality on earth when the "heavenly Jerusalem" descends out of heaven to the new earth (Rev 21:2-7).

Defender: Heb 12:22

Even though a third of God's created angels followed Satan in his rebellion (Rev 12:3, Rev 12:4), there still remains an innumerable host of heaven in the faithful angels, presumably associated with the innumerable starry hosts of heaven (Jer 33:22)."

Defender: Heb 12:23

The "church of the firstborn" will have all Christians of all times as its members. It will have its first full "assembly" in the future age but presumably does meet on occasion even now, with the "spirits of [justified] men made perfect," coming together for fellowship and testimony."

Defender: Heb 12:24

Compare Gen 4:10 and Heb 11:4 on the voice of Abel's blood."

Defender: Heb 12:26

In the context, the prophet sees a coming worldwide earthquake, probably the same as that seen by John (Rev 16:18-21), following which "the desire of all nations shall come ... and I will fill this house with glory" (Hag 2:6, Hag 2:7)."

TSK: Heb 12:1

seeing : Heb. 11:2-38

a cloud : Isa 60:8; Eze 38:9, Eze 38:16

witnesses : Luk 16:28; Joh 3:32, Joh 4:39, Joh 4:44; 1Pe 5:12; Rev 22:16

let us lay : Mat 10:37, Mat 10:38; Luk 8:14, Luk 9:59-62, Luk 12:15, Luk 14:26-33, Luk 18:22-25, Luk 21:34; Rom 13:11-14; 2Co 7:1; Eph 4:22-24; Col 3:5-8; 1Ti 6:9, 1Ti 6:10; 2Ti 2:4; 1Pe 2:1, 1Pe 4:2; 1Jo 2:15, 1Jo 2:16

and the sin : Heb 10:35-39; Psa 18:23

and let us : 1Co 9:24-27; Gal 5:7; Phi 2:16, Phi 3:10-14; 2Ti 4:7

with patience : Heb 6:15, Heb 10:36; Mat 10:22, Mat 24:13; Luk 8:15; Rom 2:7, Rom 5:3-5, Rom 8:24, Rom 8:25, Rom 12:12; Jam 1:3, Jam 5:7-11; 2Pe 1:6; Rev 1:9, Rev 3:10, Rev 13:10

TSK: Heb 12:2

Looking : Heb 12:3, Heb 9:28; Isa 8:17, Isa 31:1, Isa 45:22; Mic 7:7; Zec 12:10; Joh 1:29, Joh 6:40; Joh 8:56; Phi 3:20; 2Ti 4:8; Tit 2:13; 1Jo 1:1-3; Jud 1:21

the author : or, the beginner, Heb 2:10; Mar 9:24; Luk 17:5; Act 5:31 *Gr: Rev 1:8, Rev 1:11, Rev 1:17, Rev 2:8

finisher : Heb 7:19, Heb 10:14 *Gr: Psa 138:8; 1Co 1:7, 1Co 1:8; Phi 1:6

for : Heb 2:7-9, Heb 5:9; Psa 16:9-11; Isa 49:6, Isa 53:10-12; Luk 24:26; Joh 12:24, Joh 12:32; Joh 13:3, Joh 13:31, Joh 13:32, Joh 17:1-4; Act 2:25, Act 2:26, Act 2:36; Phi 2:8-11; 1Pe 1:11

endured : Heb 10:5-12; Mat 16:21, Mat 20:18, Mat 20:19, Mat 20:20,Mat 20:28, 27:31-50; Mar 14:36; Joh 12:27, Joh 12:28; Eph 2:16, Eph 5:2; Tit 2:14; 1Pe 2:24, 1Pe 3:18

despising : Heb 10:33, Heb 11:36; Psa 22:6-8, Psa 69:19, Psa 69:20; Isa 49:7, Isa 50:6, Isa 50:7, Isa 53:3; Mat 26:67; Mat 26:68, Mat 27:27-31, Mat 27:38-44; Mar 9:12; Luk 23:11, Luk 23:35-39; Act 5:41; 1Pe 2:23, 1Pe 4:14-16

and is : Heb 1:3, Heb 1:13, Heb 8:1; Psa 110:1; 1Pe 3:22

TSK: Heb 12:3

consider : Heb 12:2, Heb 3:1; 1Sa 12:24; 2Ti 2:7, 2Ti 2:8

contradiction : Mat 10:24, Mat 10:25, Mat 11:19, Mat 12:24, Mat 15:2, Mat 21:15, Mat 21:16, Mat 21:23, Mat 21:46, Mat 22:15; Luk 2:34 *Gr: Luk 4:28, Luk 4:29, Luk 5:21, Luk 11:15, Luk 11:16, Luk 11:53, Luk 11:54, Luk 13:13, Luk 13:14, Luk 14:1, Luk 15:2, Luk 16:14, Luk 19:39; Luk 19:40; Joh 5:16, Joh 7:12, Joh 8:13, Joh 8:48, Joh 8:49, Joh 8:52, Joh 8:59, Joh 9:40, Joh 10:20,Joh 10:31-39, Joh 12:9; Joh 12:10, Joh 15:18-24, Joh 18:22

lest : Heb 12:5; Deu 20:3; Pro 24:10; Isa 40:30,Isa 40:31, Isa 50:4; 1Co 15:58; 2Co 4:1, 2Co 4:16; Gal 6:9; 2Th 3:13

TSK: Heb 12:4

Heb 12:2, Heb 10:32-34; Mat 24:9; 1Co 10:13; 2Ti 4:6, 2Ti 4:7; Rev 2:13, Rev 6:9-11, Rev 12:11; Rev 17:6, Rev 18:24

TSK: Heb 12:5

ye have forgotten : Deu 4:9, Deu 4:10; Psa 119:16, Psa 119:83, Psa 119:109; Pro 3:1, Pro 4:5; Mat 16:9, Mat 16:10; Luk 24:6, Luk 24:8

the exhortation : Heb 12:7; Pro 3:11, Pro 3:12

despise : Job 5:17, Job 5:18, Job 34:31; Psa 94:12, Psa 118:18, Psa 119:75; Jer 31:18; 1Co 11:32; Jam 1:12; Rev 3:19

nor faint : Heb 12:3, Heb 12:4; Jos 7:7-11; 2Sa 6:7-10; 1Ch 13:9-13, 1Ch 15:12, 1Ch 15:13; Psa 6:1, Psa 6:2; 2Co 4:8, 2Co 4:9, 2Co 12:9, 2Co 12:10

TSK: Heb 12:6

whom : Deu 8:5; Psa 32:1-5, Psa 73:14, Psa 73:15, Psa 89:30-34, Psa 119:71, Psa 119:75; Pro 3:12, Pro 13:24; Isa 27:9; Jer 10:24; Jam 1:12, Jam 5:11; Rev 3:19

and scourgeth : Heb 12:7, Heb 12:8; 2Sa 7:14

TSK: Heb 12:7

endure : Job 34:31, Job 34:32; Pro 19:18, Pro 22:15, Pro 23:13, Pro 23:14, Pro 29:15, Pro 29:17; Act 14:22

for what : 1Sa 2:29, 1Sa 2:34, 1Sa 3:13; 1Ki 1:6, 1Ki 2:24, 1Ki 2:25; Pro 13:24, Pro 29:15

TSK: Heb 12:8

Heb 12:6; Psa 73:1, Psa 73:14, Psa 73:15; 1Pe 5:9, 1Pe 5:10

TSK: Heb 12:9

fathers : Joh 3:6; Act 2:30; Rom 1:3, Rom 9:3, Rom 9:5

corrected : Heb 12:7

we gave : Exo 20:12; Lev 19:3; Deu 21:18-21, Deu 27:16; Pro 30:17; Eze 22:7; Eph 6:1-4

shall we not : Mal 1:6; Jam 4:7, Jam 4:10; 1Pe 5:6

the Father : Num 16:22, Num 27:16; Job 12:10; Ecc 12:7; Isa 42:5, Isa 57:16; Zec 12:1

TSK: Heb 12:10

after their own pleasure : or, as seemed good, or meet, to them

but he : Heb 12:5, Heb 12:6

partakers : Lev 11:44, Lev 11:45, Lev 19:2; Psa 17:15; Eze 36:25-27; Eph 4:24, Eph 5:26, Eph 5:27; Col 1:22; Tit 2:14; 1Pe 1:15, 1Pe 1:16, 1Pe 2:5, 1Pe 2:9; 2Pe 1:4

TSK: Heb 12:11

no chastening : Psa 89:32, Psa 118:18; Pro 15:10, Pro 19:18

nevertheless : Heb 12:5, Heb 12:6, Heb 12:10

peaceable : Psa 119:165; Isa 32:17; Rom 5:3-5, Rom 14:17; 2Co 4:17; Gal 5:22, Gal 5:23; Jam 3:17, Jam 3:18

exercised : Heb 5:14; 1Ti 4:7, 1Ti 4:8; 2Pe 2:14 *Gr.

TSK: Heb 12:12

Heb 12:3, Heb 12:5; Job 4:3, Job 4:4; Isa 35:3; Eze 7:17, Eze 21:7; Dan 5:6; Nah 2:10; 1Th 5:14

TSK: Heb 12:13

make : Pro 4:26, Pro 4:27; Isa 35:3, Isa 35:8-10, Isa 40:3, Isa 40:4, Isa 42:16, Isa 58:12; Jer 18:15; Luk 3:5

straight : or, even

lame : Isa 35:6; Jer 31:8, Jer 31:9

but let : Gal 6:1; Jud 1:22, Jud 1:23

TSK: Heb 12:14

Follow : Gen 13:7-9; Psa 34:14, Psa 38:20, Psa 120:6, Psa 133:1; Pro 15:1, Pro 16:7, Pro 17:14; Isa 11:6-9; Mat 5:9; Mar 9:50; Rom 12:18, Rom 14:19; 1Co 1:10; Gal 5:22, Gal 5:23; Eph 4:1-8; 1Th 5:15; 1Ti 6:11; 2Ti 2:22; Jam 3:17, Jam 3:18; 1Pe 3:11

and holiness : Heb 12:10; Psa 94:15; Isa 51:1; Luk 1:75; Rom 6:22; 2Co 6:17, 2Co 7:1; Phi 3:12; 1Th 3:13, 1Th 4:7; 1Pe 1:15, 1Pe 1:16, 1Pe 3:13; 2Pe 3:11, 2Pe 3:18; 3Jo 1:11

no man : Gen 32:30; Job 19:26, Job 33:26; Mat 5:8; 1Co 13:12; 2Co 7:1; Eph 5:5; Gal 3:21; 1Jo 3:2, 1Jo 3:3; Rev 21:24-27, Rev 22:3, Rev 22:4, Rev 22:11-15

TSK: Heb 12:15

Looking : Heb 2:1, Heb 2:2, Heb 3:12, Heb 4:1, Heb 4:11, Heb 6:11, Heb 10:23-35; Deu 4:9; Pro 4:23; 1Co 9:24-27; 1Co 10:12; 2Co 6:1, 2Co 13:5; 2Pe 1:10, 2Pe 3:11, 2Pe 3:14; 2Jo 1:8; Jud 1:20,Jud 1:21

any man : Luk 22:32; 1Co 13:8; Gal 5:4

fail of : or, fall from, Gal 5:4

any root : Heb 3:12; Deu 29:18, Deu 32:32; Isa 5:4, Isa 5:7; Jer 2:21; Mat 7:16-18

trouble : Jos 6:18, Jos 7:25, Jos 7:26, Jos 22:17-20; Eph 5:3; Col 3:5

and thereby : Exo 32:21; 1Ki 14:16; Act 20:30,Act 20:31; 1Co 5:6, 1Co 15:33; Gal 2:13; 2Ti 2:16, 2Ti 2:17; 2Pe 2:1, 2Pe 2:2, 2Pe 2:18

TSK: Heb 12:16

any fornicator : Heb 13:4; Mar 7:21; Act 15:20,Act 15:29; 1Co 5:1-6, 1Co 5:9-11, 1Co 6:15-20, 1Co 10:8; 2Co 12:21; Gal 5:19-21; Eph 5:3, Eph 5:5; Col 3:5; 1Th 4:3-7; Rev 2:20-23, Rev 21:8, Rev 22:15

as Esau : Gen 25:31-34, Gen 27:36

TSK: Heb 12:17

when he : Gen 27:31-41

he was : Heb 6:8; Pro 1:24-31; Jer 6:30; Mat 7:23, Mat 25:11, Mat 25:12; Luk 13:24-27

for he : Heb 6:4-6, Heb 10:26-29, place for repentance, or, way to change his mind

TSK: Heb 12:18

Exo 19:12-19, Exo 20:18, Exo 24:17; Deu 4:11, Deu 5:22-26; Rom 6:14, Rom 8:15; 2Ti 1:7

TSK: Heb 12:19

the sound : Exo 19:16-19; 1Co 15:52; 1Th 4:16

and the voice : Exod. 20:1-17, Exo 20:22; Deu 4:12, Deu 4:33, 5:3-22

they that : Exo 20:18, Exo 20:19; Deu 5:24-27, Deu 18:16

TSK: Heb 12:20

For they : Deu 33:2; Rom 3:19, Rom 3:20; Gal 2:19, Gal 3:10

if so much : Exo 19:13, Exo 19:16

TSK: Heb 12:21

Moses : Exo 19:16, Exo 19:19; Psa 119:120; Isa 6:3-5; Dan 10:8, Dan 10:17; Rev 1:17

TSK: Heb 12:22

ye are come : Psa 2:6, Psa 48:2, Psa 132:13, Psa 132:14; Isa 12:6, Isa 14:32, Isa 28:16, Isa 51:11, Isa 51:16, Isa 59:20; Isa 60:14; Joe 2:32; Rom 11:26; Gal 4:26; Rev 14:1

the city : Heb 13:14; Psa 48:2, Psa 87:3; Mat 5:35; Phi 3:20 *marg. Rev 3:12, Rev 21:2, Rev 21:10, Rev 22:19

of the : Heb 3:12, Heb 9:14, Heb 10:31; Deu 5:26; Jos 3:10; 2Ki 19:4; Psa 42:2, Psa 84:2; Jer 10:10; Dan 6:26; Hos 1:10; Mat 16:16; Rom 9:26; 1Th 1:9; Rev 7:2

an innumerable : Deu 33:2; Psa 68:17; Dan 7:10; Jud 1:14; Rev 5:11, Rev 5:12

TSK: Heb 12:23

the general : Psa 89:7, Psa 111:1; Act 20:28; Eph 1:22, Eph 5:24-27; Col 1:24; 1Ti 3:5

the firstborn : Exo 4:22, Exo 13:2; Deu 21:17; Psa 89:27; Jer 31:9; Jam 1:18; Rev 14:4

which : Exo 32:32; Psa 69:28; Luk 10:20; Phi 4:3; Rev 13:8, Rev 20:15

written : or, enrolled

God : Heb 6:10-12, Heb 9:27; Gen 18:25; Psa 50:5, Psa 50:6, Psa 94:2, Psa 96:13, Psa 98:9; Mat 25:31-34; Joh 5:27; 2Th 1:5-7; 1Pe 2:23

the spirits : Heb 11:4, Heb 11:40; Ecc 12:7; 1Co 13:12, 1Co 15:49, 1Co 15:54; 2Co 5:8; Phi 1:21-23; Phi 3:12-21; Col 1:12; Rev 7:14-17

TSK: Heb 12:24

Jesus : Heb 7:22, Heb 8:6, Heb 8:8; 1Ti 2:5

new : Heb 13:20; Isa 55:3; Jer 31:31-33

covenant : or, testament, Heb 9:15; Mat 26:28; Mar 14:24; Luk 22:20

to the blood : Heb 9:21, Heb 10:22, Heb 11:28; Exo 24:8; 1Pe 1:2

speaketh : Heb 11:4; Gen 4:10; Mat 23:35; Luk 11:51

TSK: Heb 12:25

See : Heb 8:5; Exo 16:29; 1Ki 12:16; Isa 48:6, Isa 64:9; Mat 8:4; 1Th 5:15; 1Pe 1:22; Rev 19:10, Rev 22:9

refuse : Pro 1:24, Pro 8:33, Pro 13:18, Pro 15:32; Jer 11:10; Eze 5:6; Zec 7:11; Mat 17:5; Act 7:35

if they : Heb 2:1-3, Heb 3:17, Heb 10:28, Heb 10:29

turn away : Num 32:15; Deu 30:17; Jos 22:16; 2Ch 7:19; Pro 1:32; 2Ti 4:4

TSK: Heb 12:26

voice : Exo 19:18; Psa 114:6, Psa 114:7; Hab 3:10

Yet once : Heb 12:27; Isa 2:19, Isa 13:13; Joe 3:16; Hag 2:6, Hag 2:7, Hag 2:22

TSK: Heb 12:27

signifieth : Psa 102:26, Psa 102:27; Eze 21:27; Mat 24:35; 2Pe 3:10,2Pe 3:11; Rev 11:15, Rev 21:1

are shaken : or, may be shaken

TSK: Heb 12:28

a kingdom : Isa 9:7; Dan 2:44, Dan 7:14, Dan 7:27; Mat 25:34; Luk 1:33, Luk 17:20,Luk 17:21; 1Pe 1:4, 1Pe 1:5; Rev 1:6, Rev 5:10

have : or, hold fast, Heb 3:6, Heb 10:23

we may : Psa 19:14; Isa 56:7; Rom 12:1, Rom 12:2; Eph 1:6, Eph 5:10; Phi 4:18; 1Pe 2:5, 1Pe 2:20

with reverence : Heb 4:16, Heb 5:7, Heb 10:19, Heb 10:22; Lev 10:3; Psa 2:11, Psa 89:7; Pro 28:24; Rom 11:20; 1Pe 1:17; Rev 15:4

TSK: Heb 12:29

Heb 10:27; Exo 24:17; Num 11:1, Num 16:35; Deu 4:24, Deu 9:3; Psa 50:3, Psa 97:3; Isa 66:15; Dan 7:9; 2Th 1:8

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Heb 12:1

Wherefore - In view of what has been said in the previous chapter.

Seeing we also are encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses - The apostle represents those to whom he had referred in the previous chapter, as looking on to witness the efforts which Christians make, and the manner in which they live. There is allusion here, doubtless, to the ancient games. A great multitude of spectators usually occupied the circular seats in the amphitheater, from which they could easily behold the combatants; see the notes on 1Co 9:24-27. In like manner, the apostle represents Christians as encompassed with the multitude of worthies to whom he had referred in the previous chapter. It cannot be fairly inferred from this that he means to say that all those ancient worthies were actually looking at the conduct of Christians, and saw their conflicts. It is a figurative representation, such as is common, and means that we ought to act as if they were in sight, and cheered us on. How far the spirits of the just who are departed from this world are permitted to behold what is done on earth - if at all - is not revealed in the Scriptures. The phrase, "a cloud of witnesses,"means many witnesses, or a number so great that they seem to be a cloud. The comparison of a multitude of persons to a cloud is common in the classic writers; see Homer II. 4:274, 23:133; Statius 1:340, and other instances adduced in Wetstein, in loc.; compare notes on 1Th 4:17.

Let us lay aside every weight - The word rendered "weight"- ὄγκον ogkon - means what is crooked or hooked, and thence any thing that is attached or suspended by a hook that is, by its whole weight, and hence means weight; see "Passow."It does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. The word is often used in the classic writers in the sense of swelling, tumour, pride. Its usual meaning is that of weight or burden, and there is allusion here, doubtless, to the runners in the games who were careful not to encumber themselves with anything that was heavy. Hence, their clothes were so made as not to impede their running, and hence, they were careful in their training not to overburden themselves with food, and in every way to remove what would be an impediment or hindrance. As applied to the racers it does not mean that they began to run with anything like a burden, and then threw it away - as persons sometimes aid their jumping by taking a stone in their hands to acquire increased momentum - but that they were careful not to allow anything that would be a weight or an encumbrance.

As applied to Christians it means that they should remove all which would obstruct their progress in the Christian course. Thus, it is fair to apply it to whatever would be an impediment in our efforts to win the crown of life. It is not the same thing in all persons. In one it may be pride; in another vanity; in another worldliness; in another a violent and almost ungovernable temper; in another a corrupt imagination; in another a heavy, leaden, insensible heart; in another some improper and unholy attachment. Whatever it may be, we are exhorted to lay it aside, and this general direction may be applied to anything which prevents our making the highest possible attainment in the divine life. Some persons would make much more progress if they would throw away many of their personal ornaments; some, if they would disencumber themselves of the heavy weight of gold which they are endeavoring to carry with them. So some very light objects, in themselves considered, become material encumbrances. Even a feather or a ring - such may be the fondness for these toys - may become such a weight that they will never make much progress toward the prize.

And the sin which doth so easily beset us - The word which is here rendered "easily beset"- εὐπερίστατον euperistaton - "euperistaton"- does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. It properly means, "standing well around;"and hence, denotes what is near, or at hand, or readily occurring. So Chrysostom explains it. Passow defines it as meaning "easy to encircle."Tyndale renders it "the sin that hangeth on us."Theodoret and others explain the word as if derived from περίστασις peristasis - a word which sometimes means affliction, peril - and hence, regard it as denoting what is full of peril, or the sin which so easily subjects one to calamity. Bloomfield supposes, in accordance with the opinion of Grotius, Crellius, Kype, Kuinoel, and others, that it means "the sin which especially winds around us, and hinders our course,"with allusion to the long Oriental garments. According to this, the meaning would be, that as a runner would be careful not to encumber himself with a garment which would be apt to wind around his legs in running, and hinder him, so it should be with the Christian, who especially ought to lay aside everything which resembles this; that is, all sin, which must impede his course. The former of these interpretations, however, is most commonly adopted, and best agrees with the established sense of the word. It will then mean that we are to lay aside every encumbrance, particularly or especially - for so the word καὶ kai "and,"should be rendered here "the sins to which we are most exposed."Such sins are appropriately called "easily besetting sins."They are those to which we are particularly liable. They are such sins as the following:

(1) Those to which we are particularly exposed by our natural temperament, or disposition. In some this is pride, in others indolence, or gaiety, or levity, or avarice, or ambition, or sensuality.

\caps1 (2) t\caps0 hose in which we freely indulged before we became Christians. They will be likely to return with power, and we are far more likely from the laws of association, to fall into them than into any other. Thus, a man who has been intemperate is in special danger from that quarter; a man who has been an infidel, is in special danger of scepticism: one who has been avaricious, proud, frivolous, or ambitious, is in special danger, even after conversion, of again committing these sins.

\caps1 (3) s\caps0 ins to which we are exposed by our profession, by our relations to others, or by our situation in life. They whose condition will entitle them to associate with what are regarded as the more elevated classes of society, are in special danger of indulging in the methods of living, and of amusement that are common among them; they who are prospered in the world are in danger of losing the simplicity and spirituality of their religion; they who hold a civil office are in danger of becoming mere politicians, and of losing the very form and substance of piety.

\caps1 (4) s\caps0 ins to which we are exposed from some special weakness in our character. On some points we may be in no danger. We may be constitutionally so firm as not to be especially liable to certain forms of sin. But every man has one or more weak points in his character; and it is there that he is particularly exposed. A bow may be in the main very strong. All along its length there may be no danger of its giving way - save at one place where it has been made too thin, or where the material was defective - and if it ever breaks, it will of course be at that point. That is the point, therefore, which needs to be guarded and strengthened. So in reference to character. There is always some weak point which needs specially to be guarded, and our principal danger is there. Self-knowledge, so necessary in leading a holy life, consists much in searching out those weak points of character where we are most exposed; and our progress in the Christian course will be determined much by the fidelity with which we guard and strengthen them.

And let us run with patience the race that is set before us. - The word rendered "patience"rather means in this place, perseverance. We are to run the race without allowing ourselves to be hindered by any obstructions, and without giving out or fainting in the way. Encouraged by the example of the multitudes who have run the same race before us, and who are now looking out upon us from heaven, where they dwell, we are to persevere as they did to the end.

Barnes: Heb 12:2

Looking unto Jesus - As a further inducement to do this, the apostle exhorts us to look to the Saviour. We are to look to his holy life; to his patience and perseverance in trials; to what he endured in order to obtain the crown, and to his final success and triumph.

The author and finisher of our faith - The word "our"is not in the original here, and obscures the sense. The meaning is, he is the first and the last as an example of faith or of confidence in God - occupying in this, as in all other things, the pre-eminence, and being the most complete model that can be placed before us. The apostle had not enumerated him among those who had been distinguished for their faith, but he now refers to him as above them all; as a case that deserved to stand by itself. It is probable that there is a continuance here of the allusion to the Grecian games which the apostle had commenced in the previous verse. The word "author"- ἀρχηγὸν archēgon - (marg. beginner) - means properly the source, or cause of anything; or one who makes a beginning. It is rendered in Act 3:15; Act 5:31, "Prince"; in Heb 2:10, "Captain"; and in the place before us, "Author."

It does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. The phrase "the beginner of faith,"or the leader on of faith, would express the idea. He is at the head of all those who have furnished an example of confidence in God, for he was himself the most illustrious instance of it. The expression, then, does not mean properly that he produces faith in us, or that we believe because he causes us to believe - whatever may be the truth about that - but that he stands at the head as the most eminent example that can be referred to on the subject of faith. We are exhorted to look to him, as if at the Grecian games there was one who stood before the racer who had previously carried away every palm of victory; who had always been triumphant, and with whom there was no one who could be compared. The word "finisher"- τελειωτὴν teleiōtēn - corresponds in meaning with the word "author."It means that he is the completer as well as the beginner; the last as well as the first.

As there has been no one hitherto who could be compared with him, so there will be no one hereafter; compare Rev 1:8, Rev 1:11. "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last."The word does not mean that he was the "finisher"of faith in the sense that he makes our faith complete or perfects it - whatever may be true about that - but that he occupies this elevated position of being beyond comparison above all others. Alike in the commencement and the close, in the beginning of faith, and in its ending, he stands pre-eminent. To this illustrious model we should look - as a racer would on one who had been always so successful that he surpassed all competitors and rivals. If this be the meaning, then it is not properly explained, as it is commonly (see Bloomfield and Stuart in loc.), by saying that the word here is synonymous with "rewarder,"and refers to the βραβευτὴς brabeutēs - or the distributor of the prize; compare notes on Col 3:15, There is no instance where the word is used in this sense in the New Testament (compare Passow), nor would such an interpretation present so beautiful and appropriate a thought as the one suggested above.

Who for the joy that was set before him - That is, who in view of all the honor which he would have at the right hand of God, and the happiness which he would experience from the consciousness that he had redeemed a world, was willing to bear the sorrows connected with the atonement.

Endured the cross - Endured patiently the ignominy and pain connected with the suffering of death on the cross.

Despising the shame - Disregarding the ignominy of such a mode of death. It is difficult for us now to realize the force of the expression, "enduring the shame of the cross,"as it was understood in the time of the Saviour and the apostles. The views of the world have changed, and it is now difficult to divest the "cross"of the associations of honor and glory which the word suggests, so as to appreciate the ideas which encompassed it then. There is a degree of dishonor which we attach to the guillotine, but the ignominy of a death on the cross was greater than that; there is disgrace attached to the block, but the ignominy of the cross was greater than that; there is a much deeper infamy attached to the gallows, but the ignominy of the cross was greater than that. And that word - the cross - which when now proclaimed in the ears of the refined, the intelligent, and even the frivolous, excites an idea of honor, in the ears of the people of Athens, of Corinth, and of Rome, excited deeper disgust than the word "gallows"does with us - for it was regarded as the appropriate punishment of the most infamous of mankind.

We can now scarcely appreciate these feelings, and of course the declaration that Jesus "endured the cross, despising the shame,"does not make the impression on our minds in regard to the nature of his sufferings, and the value of his example, which it should do. When we now think of the "cross,"it is not of the multitude of slaves, and robbers, and thieves, and rebels, who have died on it, but of the one great Victim, whose death has ennobled even this instrument of torture, and encircled it with a halo of glory. We have been accustomed to read of it as an imperial standard in war in the days of Constantine, and as the banner under which armies have marched to conquest; it is intermingled with the sweetest poetry; it is a sacred thing in the most magnificent cathedrals; it adorns the altar, and is even an object of adoration; it is in the most elegant engravings; it is worn by beauty and piety as an ornament near the heart; it is associated with all that is pure in love, great in self-sacrifice, and holy in religion. To see the true force of the expression here, therefore, it is necessary to divest ourselves of these ideas of glory which encircle the "cross,"and to place ourselves in the times and lands in which, when the most infamous of mankind were stretched upon it, it was regarded for such people as an appropriate mode of punishment. That infamy Jesus was willing to bear, and the strength of his confidence in God, his love for man, and the depth of his humiliation, was shown in the readiness and firmness with which he went forward to such a death.

And is set down at the right hand of the throne of God - Exalted to the highest place of dignity and honor in the universe; Mar 16:19 note; Eph 1:20-22 notes. The sentiment here is, "Imitate the example of the great Author of our religion. He, in view of the honor and joy before him, endured the most severe sufferings to which the human frame can be subjected, and the form of death which is regarded as the most shameful. So amidst all the severe trials to which you are exposed on account of religion, patiently endure all - for the glorious rewards, the happiness and the triumph of heaven, are before you."

Barnes: Heb 12:3

For consider him - Attentively reflect on his example that you may be able to bear your trials in a proper manner.

That endured such contradiction of sinners - Such opposition. The reference is to the Jews of the time of the Saviour, who opposed his plans, perverted his sayings, and ridiculed his claims. Yet, regardless of their opposition, he persevered in the course which he had marked out, and went patiently forward in the execution of his plans. The idea is, that we are to pursue the path of duty and follow the dictates of conscience, let the world say what they will about it. In doing this we cannot find a better example than the Saviour. No opposition of sinners ever turned him from the way which he regarded as right; no ridicule ever caused him to abandon any of his plans; no argument, or expression of scorn, ever caused him for a moment to deviate from his course.

Lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds - The meaning is, that there is great danger of being disheartened and wearied out by the opposition which you meet with. But with the bright example of one who was never disheartened, and who never became weary in doing the will of God, you may persevere. The best means of leading a faithful Christian life amidst the opposition which we may encounter, is to keep the eye steadily fixed on the Saviour.

Barnes: Heb 12:4

Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin - The general sense of this passage is, "you have not yet been called in your Christian struggles to the highest kind of sufferings and sacrifices. Great as your trials may seem to have been, yet your faith has not yet been put to the severest test. And since this is so, you ought not to yield in the conflict with evil, but manfully resist it."In the language used here there is undoubtedly a continuance of the allusion to the agonistic games - the strugglings and wrestlings for mastery there. In those games, the boxers were accustomed to arm themselves for the fight with the caestus. This at first consisted of strong leathern thongs wound around the hands, and extending only to the wrist, to give greater solidity to the fist. Afterward these were made to extend to the elbow, and then to the shoulder, and finally, they sewed pieces of lead or iron in them that they might strike a heavier and more destructive blow. The consequence was, that those who were engaged in the fight were often covered with blood, and that resistance "unto blood"showed a determined courage, and a purpose not to yield. But though the language here may be taken from this custom, the fact to which the apostle alludes, it seems to me, is the struggling of the Saviour in the garden of Gethsemane, when his conflict was so severe that, great drops of blood fell down to the ground see the notes on Mat 26:36-44. It is, indeed, commonly understood to mean that they had not yet been called to shed their blood as martyrs in the cause of religion; see Stuart Bloomfield, Doddridge, Clarke, Whitby, Kuinoel, etc. Indeed, I find in none of the commentators what seems to me to be the true sense of this passage, and what gives an exquisite beauty to it, the allusion to the sufferings of the Saviour in the garden. The reasons which lead me to believe that there is such an allusion, are briefly these:

(1) The connection. The apostle is appealing to the example of the Saviour, and urging Christians to persevere amidst their trials by looking to him. Nothing would be more natural in this connection, than to refer to that dark night, when in the severest conflict with temptation which he ever encountered. he so signally showed his own firmness of purpose, and the effects of resistance on his own bleeding body, and his signal victory - in the garden of Gethsemane.

\caps1 (2) t\caps0 he expression "striving against sin"seems to demand the same interpretation. On the common interpretation, the allusion would be merely to their resisting persecution; but here the allusion is to some struggle in their minds against "committing sin."The apostle exhorts them to strive manfully and perseveringly against; sin in every form, and especially against the sin of apostasy. To encourage them he refers them to the highest instance on record where there was a "striving against sin"- the struggle of the Redeemer in the garden with the great enemy who there made his most violent assault, and where the resistance of the Redeemer was so great as to force the blood through his pores. What was the exact form of the temptation there, we are not informed. It may have been to induce him to abandon his work even then and to yield, in view of the severe sufferings of his approaching death on the cross.

If there ever was a point where temptation would be powerful, it would be there. When a man is about to be put to death, how strong is the inducement to abandon his purpose, his plans, or his principles, if he may save his life! How many, of feeble virtue, have yielded just there! If to this consideration we add the thought that the Redeemer was engaged in a work never before undertaken; that he designed to make an atonement never before made; that he was about to endure sorrows never before endured; and that on the decision of that moment depended the ascendency of sin or holiness on the earth, the triumph or the fall of Satan’ s kingdom, the success or the defeat of all the plans of the great adversary of God and man, and that, on such an occasion as this, the tempter would use all his power to crush the lonely and unprotected man of sorrows in the garden of Gethsemane, it is easy to imagine what may have been the terror of that fearful conflict, and what virtue it would require in him to resist the concentrated energy of Satan’ s might to induce him even then to abandon his work. The apostle says of those to whom he wrote, that they had not yet reached that point; compare notes on Heb 5:7.

\caps1 (3) t\caps0 his view furnishes a proper climax to the argument of the apostle for perseverance. It presents the Redeemer before the mind as the great example; directs the mind to him in various scenes of his life - as looking to the joy before him - disregarding the ignominy of his sufferings - enduring the opposition of sinners - and then in the garden as engaged in a conflict with his great foe, and so resisting sin that rather than yield he endured that fearful mental struggle which was attended with such remarkable consequences. This is the highest consideration which could be presented to the mind of a believer to keep him from yielding in the conflict with evil; and if we could keep him in the eye resisting even unto blood rather than yield in the least degree, it would do more than all other things to restrain us from sin. How different his case from ours! How readily we yield to sin! We offer a faint and feeble resistance, and then surrender. We think it will be unknown: or that others do it; or that we may repent of it; or that we have no power to resist it; or that it is of little consequence, and our resolution gives way. Not so the Redeemer, Rather than yield in any form to sin, he measured strength with the great adversary when alone with him in the darkness of the night, and gloriously triumphed! And so would we always triumph if we had the same settled purpose to resist sin in every form even unto blood.

Barnes: Heb 12:5

And ye have forgotten the exhortation - This exhortation is found in Pro 3:11-12. The object of the apostle in introducing it here is, to show that afflictions were designed on the part of God to produce some happy effects in the lives of his people, and that they ought, therefore, to bear them patiently. In the previous verses, he directs them to the example of the Saviour. In this verse and the following, for the same object he directs their attention to the design of trials, showing that they are necessary to our welfare, and that they are in fact proof of the paternal care of God. This verse might be rendered as a question. "And have ye forgotten?"etc. This mode of rendering it will agree somewhat better with the design of the apostle.

Which speaketh, unto you - Which may be regarded as addressed to you; or which involves a principle as applicable to you as to others. He does not mean that when Solomon used the words, he had reference to them particularly, but that he used them with reference to the children of God, and they might therefore be applied to them. in this way we may regard the language of the Scriptures as addressed to us.

As unto children - As if he were addressing children. The language is such as a father uses.

My son - It is possible that in these words Solomon may have intended to address a son literally, giving him paternal counsel; or he may have spoken as the Head of the Jewish people, designing to address all the pious, to whom he sustained, as it were, the relation of a father. Or, it is possible also, that it may be regarded as the language of God himself addressing his children. Whichever supposition is adopted, the sense is substantially the same.

Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord - Literally, "Do not regard it as a small matter, or as a trivial thing - ὀλιγώρει oligōrei . The Greek word used here does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. The word rendered here "chastening"- παιδεία paideia - and also in Heb 12:6-8, and in Heb 12:9, "corrected"- παιδευτὰς paideutas - does not refer to affliction in general, but that kind of affliction which is designed to correct us for our faults, or which is of the nature of discipline. The verb properly relates to the training up of a child - including instruction, counsel, discipline, and correction (see this use of the verb in Act 7:22; 2Ti 2:25; Tit 2:12), and then especially discipline or correction for faults - to "correct, chastise, chasten;"1Co 11:32; 2Co 6:9; Rev 3:19. This is the meaning here; and the idea is, not that God will afflict his people in general, but that if they wander away he will correct them for their faults. He will bring calamity upon them as a punishment for their offences, and in order to bring them back to himself. He will not suffer them to wander away unrebuked and unchecked, but will mercifully reclaim them though by great sufferings. Afflictions have many objects, or produce many happy effects. That referred to here is, that they are means of reclaiming the wandering and erring children of God, and are proofs of his paternal care and love; compare 2Sa 7:14; 2Sa 12:13-14; Psa 89:31-34; Pro 3:11-12. Afflictions, which are always sent by God, should not be regarded as small matters, for these reasons:

(1)    The fact that they are sent by God. Whatever he does is of importance, and is worthy of the profound attention of people.

(2)\caps1     t\caps0 hey are sent for some important purpose, and they should be regarded, therefore, with attentive concern.

Men "despise"them when:

(1)\caps1     t\caps0 hey treat them with affected or real unconcern;

(2)\caps1     w\caps0 hen they fail to receive them as divine admonitions, and regard them as without any intelligent design; and,

(3)\caps1     w\caps0 hen they receive them with "expressions"of contempt, and speak of them and of the government of God with scorn.

It should be a matter of deep concern when we are afflicted in any manner, not to treat the matter lightly, but to derive from our trials all the lessons which they are adapted to produce on the mind.

Nor faint ... - Bear up patiently under them. This is the second duty. We are first to study their character and design; and secondly, to bear up under them, however severe they may be, and however long they may be continued. "Avoid the extremes of proud insensibility and entire dejection"- Doddridge.

Barnes: Heb 12:6

For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth - This is also a quotation from Proverbs 3. It means that it is a universal rule that God sends trials on those whom he truly loves. It does not, of course, mean that he sends chastisement which is not deserved; or that he sends it "for the mere purpose"of inflicting pain. That cannot be. But it means that by his chastisements he shows that he has a paternal care for us. He does not treat us with neglect and unconcern, as a father often does his illegitimate child. The very fact that he corrects us shows that he has toward us a father’ s feelings, and exercises toward us a paternal care. If he did not, he would let us go on without any attention, and leave us to pursue a course of sin that would involve us in ruin. To restrain and govern a child; to correct him when he errs, shows that there is a parental solicitude for him, and that he is not an outcast. And as there is in the life of every child of God something that deserves correction, it happens that it is universally true that "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth."

And scourgeth every son whom he receiveth - Whom he receives or acknowledges as his child. This is not quoted literally from the Hebrew, but from the Septuagint. The Hebrew is, "even as a father the son in whom he delighteth."The general sense of the passage is retained, as is often the case in the quotations from the Old Testament. The meaning is the same as in the former part of the verse, that every one who becomes a child of God is treated by him with that watchful care which shows that he sustains toward him the paternal relation.

Barnes: Heb 12:7

If ye endure chastening - That is, if you undergo, or are called to experience correction. It does not mean here, "if you endure it patiently; or if you bear up under it;"but "if you are chastised or corrected by God."The affirmation does not relate to the manner of bearing it, but to the fact that we are disciplined.

God dealeth with you as with sons - He does not cast you off and regard you as if you were in no way related to him.

For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not - That is, he evinces toward his son the care which shows that he sustains the relation of a father. If he deserves correction, he corrects him; and he aims by all proper means to exhibit the appropriate care and character of a father. And as we receive such attention from an earthly parent, we ought to expect to receive similar notice from our Father in heaven.

Barnes: Heb 12:8

But if ye be without chastisement - If you never meet with anything that is adapted to correct your faults; to subdue your temper; to chide your wanderings, it would prove that you were in the condition of illegitimate children - cast off and disregarded by their father.

Whereof all are partakers - All who are the true children of God.

Then are ye bastards, and not sons - The reference here is to the neglect with which such children are treated, and to the general want of care and discipline over them:

"Lost in the world’ s wide range; enjoin’ d no aim,

Prescrib’ d no duty, and assign’ d no name."

Savage.

In the English law, a bastard is termed "nullius filius."Illegitimate children are usually abandoned by their father. The care of them is left to the mother, and the father endeavors to avoid all responsibility, and usually to be concealed and unknown. His own child he does not wish to recognize; he neither provides for him; nor instructs him; nor governs him; nor disciplines him. A father, who is worthy of the name, will do all these things. So Paul says it is with Christians. God has not cast them off. In every way he evinces toward them the character of a father. And if it should be that they passed along through life without any occurrence that would indicate the paternal care and attention designed to correct their faults, it would show that they never had been his children, but - were cast off and wholly disregarded. This is a beautiful argument; and we should receive every affliction as full proof that we are not forgotten by the High and Holy One who condescends to sustain to us the character, and to evince toward us, in our wanderings, the watchful care of a Father.

Barnes: Heb 12:9

Furthermore - As an additional consideration to induce us to receive chastisement with submission. The argument in this verse is derived from the difference in the spirit and design with which we are corrected by God and by an earthly parent. In God everything is without any intermingling of passion or any improper feeling. In an earthly parent there is often much that is the result of hasty emotion, of an irascible temper, perhaps of the mere love of power. There is much that is inflicted without due reflection, and that produces only pain in the bosom of the parent himself in the recollection. Yet with all this imperfection of parental government, we were patient and unmurmuring. How much more should we submit to one whose paternal discipline is caused by no excited feeling; by no love of power; by no want of reflection, and which never furnishes occasion for regret!

Fathers of our flesh - Earthly fathers; those from whom we have derived our being here. They are contrasted here with God, who is called "the Father of spirits,"not because the father does not sustain the paternal relation to the soul as well as the body, but to designate the nature of the dominion over us. The dominion of God is what pertains to a spiritual kingdom, having more direct reference to the discipline of the soul, and being designed to prepare us for the spiritual world; that of the earthly father pertains primarily to our condition here, and the discipline is designed to subdue our unruly passions, to teach us to restrain our appetites, to inculcate maxims of health and prosperity, and to prevent those things which would impede our happiness in the present world. See, however, many curious instances of the manner in which these phrases were used by the Jewish writers, collected by Wetstein.

We gave them reverence - We submitted to them; honored them; loved them. Painful at the time as correction may have been, yet when we have fully understood the design of it, we have loved them the more. The effect of such discipline, properly administered, is to produce real veneration for a parent - for he who in a timely and appropriate manner restrains his child is the only one who will secure ultimate reverence and respect.

Shall we not much rather be in subjection - Since God’ s government is so much more perfect; since he has so much better right to control us; and since his administration is free from all the defects which attend parental discipline on earth, there is a much higher reason for bowing with submission and reverence to him.

The Father of spirits - Thus, in Num 16:22, God is called "the God of the spirits of all flesh;"so also Num 27:16; compare Job 33:4. The idea seems to be that, as the soul is the most important part of man, this name is given to God by way of eminence, or he is eminently and supremely our Father. It was his to create the immortal part, and to that spirit which is never to die he sustains the relation of Father. The earthly father is parent to the man as mortal; God is the Father of man as immortal. God is himself a spirit. Angels and human souls, therefore, may be represented as especially his offspring. It is the highest designation which could be given to God to say that he is at the head of the universe of mind; not implying that he is not also at the head of the material universe, but designing to bring into view this high characteristic of the Almighty, that all created minds throughout the universe sustain to him the relation of children. To this Great Being we should, therefore, more cheerfully subject ourselves than to an earthly parent.

And live - Meaning that his fatherly chastisements are adapted to secure our spiritual life. He corrects us that he may promote our final happiness, and his inflictions are the means of saving us from eternal death.

Barnes: Heb 12:10

For they verily for a few days - That is, with reference to a few days ( πρὸς pros \}; or it was a chastisement that had reference mainly to this short life. The apostle seems to bring in this circumstance to contrast the dealings of earthly parents with those of God. One of the circumstances is, that the corrections of earthly parents had a much less important object than those of God. They related to this life - a life so brief that it may be said to continue but a "few days."Yet, in order to secure the benefit to be derived for so short a period from fatherly correction, we submitted without complaining. Much more cheerfully ought we to submit to that discipline from the hand of our heavenly Father which is designed to extend its benefits through eternity. This seems to me to afford a better sense than that adopted by Prof. Stuart and others, that it means "during our childhood or minority;"or than that proposed by Doddridge, that it refers both to our earthly parents and to our heavenly Father.

After their own pleasure - Margin, "as seemed good, or meet to them."Meaning that it was sometimes done arbitrarily, or from caprice, or under the influence of passion. This is an additional reason why we should submit to God. We submitted to our earthly parents, though their correction was sometimes passionate, and was designed to gratify their own pleasure rather than to promote our good. There is much of this kind of punishment in families; but there is none of it under the administration of God.

But he for our profit - Never from passion, from caprice, from the love of power or superiority, but always for our good. The exact benefit which he designs to produce we may not be able always to understand, but we may be assured that no other cause influences him than a desire to promote our real welfare, and as he can never be mistaken in regard to the proper means to secure that, we may be assured that our trials are always adapted to that end.

That we might be partakers of his holiness - Become so holy that it may be said that we are partakers of the very holiness of God; compare 2Pe 1:4. This is the elevated object at which God aims by our trials. It is not that he delights to produce pain; not that he envies us and would rob us of our little comforts; not that he needs what we prize to increase his own enjoyment, and therefore rudely takes it away; and not that he acts from caprice - now conferring a blessing and then withdrawing it without any reason: it is, that he may make us more pure and holy, and thus promote our own best interest. To be holy as God is holy; to be so holy that it may be said that we "are partakers of his holiness,"is a richer blessing than health, and property, and friends, without it; and when by the exchange of the one we acquire the other, we have secured infinitely more than we have lost. To obtain the greater good we should be willing to part with the less; to secure the everlasting friendship and favour of God we should be willing, if necessary, to surrender the last farthing of our property; the last friend that is left us; the last feeble and fluttering pulsation of life in our veins.

Barnes: Heb 12:11

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous - It does not impart pleasure, nor is this its design. All chastisement is intended to produce pain, and the Christian is as sensitive to pain as others. His religion does not blunt his sensibilities and make him a stoic, but it rather increases his susceptibility to suffering. The Lord Jesus, probably, felt pain, reproach, and contempt more keenly than any other human being ever did; and the Christian feels the loss of a child, or physical suffering, as keenly as anyone. But while religion does not render him insensible to suffering, it does two things:

(1)\caps1     i\caps0 t enables him to bear the pain without complaining; and,

(2)\caps1     i\caps0 t turns the affliction into a blessing on his soul. "Nevertheless afterward."In future life. The effect is seen in a pure life, and in a more entire devotedness to God. We are not to look for the proper fruits of affliction while we are suffering, but "afterward."

It yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness - It is a tree that bears good fruit, and we do not expect the fruit to form and ripen at once. It may be long maturing, but it will be rich and mellow when it is ripe. It frequently requires a long time before all the results of affliction appear - as it requires months to form and ripen fruit. Like fruit it may appear at first sour, crabbed, and unpalatable; but it will be at last like the ruddy peach or the golden orange. When those fruits are ripened, they are:

(1)\caps1     f\caps0 ruits of "righteousness."They make us more holy, more dead to sin and the world, and more alive to God. And they are

(2)\caps1     "p\caps0 eaceable."They produce peace, calmness, submission in the soul. They make the heart more tranquil in its confidence in God, and more disposed to promote the religion of peace.

The apostle speaks of this as if it were a universal truth in regard to Christians who are afflicted. And it is so. There is no Christian who is not ultimately benefited by trials, and who is not able at some period subsequently to say, "It was good for me that I was afflicted. Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept thy word."When a Christian comes to die, he does not feel that he has had one trial too many, or one which he did not deserve. He can then look back and see the effect of some early trial so severe that he once thought he could hardly endure it, spreading a hallowed influence over his future years, and scattering its golden fruit all along the pathway of life. I have never known a Christian who was not benefited by afflictions; I have seen none who was not able to say that his trials produced some happy effect on his religious character, and on his real happiness in life. If this be so, then no matter how severe our trials, we should submit to them without a complaint. The more severe they are, the more we shall yet be blessed - on earth or in heaven.

Barnes: Heb 12:12

Wherefore - In view of the facts which have been now stated - that afflictions are sent from God, and are evidences of his paternal watchfulness.

Lift up the hands which hang down - As if from weariness and exhaustion. Renew your courage; make a new effort to bear them. The hands fall by the side when we are exhausted with toil, or worn down by disease; see the notes on Isa 35:3, from which place this exhortation is taken.

And the feeble knees - The knees also become enfeebled by long effort, and tremble as if their strength were gone. Courage and resolution may do much, however, to make them firm, and it is to this that the apostle exhorts those to whom he wrote. They were to make every effort to bear up under their trials. The hope of victory will do much to strengthen one almost exhausted in battle; the desire to reach home invigorates the frame of the weary traveler. So it is with the Christian. In persecution, and sickness, and bereavement, he may be ready to sink under his burdens. The hands fall, and the knees tremble, and the heart sinks within us. But confidence in God, and the hope of heaven, and the assurance that all this is for our good, will reinvigorate the enfeebled frame, and enable us to bear what we once supposed would crush us to the dust. A courageous mind braces a feeble body, and hope makes it fresh for new conflicts.

Barnes: Heb 12:13

And make straight paths for your feet - Margin, "even."The word used here means properly straight, in the sense of upright, erect; Act 14:10; but it is used here in the sense of straight horizontally, that is, level, plain, smooth. The meaning is, that they were to remove all obstacles out of the way, so that they need not stumble and fail. There is probably an allusion here to Pro 4:25-27. "Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left; remove thy foot from evil."The idea is, that by every proper means they were to make the way to heaven as plain and easy as possible. They were to allow no obstructions in the path over which the lame and feeble might fall.

Lest that which is lame be turned out of the way - A lame man needs a smooth path to walk in. The idea is here, that everything which would prevent those in the church who were in any danger of falling - the feeble, the unestablished, the weak - from walking in the path to heaven, or which might be an occasion to them of falling, should be removed. Or it may mean, that in a road that was not level, those who were lame would be in danger of spraining, distorting, or wrenching a lame limb; and the counsel is, that whatever would have a tendency to this should be removed. Divested of the figure, the passage means, that everything should be removed which would hinder anyone from walking in the path to life.

But let it rather be healed - As in the case of lameness, pains should be taken to heal it rather than to suffer it to be increased by careless exposure to a new sprain or fracture, so it should be in our religious and moral character. Whatever is defective we should endeavor to restore to soundness, rather than to suffer the defect to be increased. Whatever is feeble in our faith or hope; whatever evil tendency there is in our hearts, we should endeavor to strengthen and amend, lest it should become worse, and we should entirely fall.

Barnes: Heb 12:14

Follow peace with all men - Do not give indulgence to those passions which lead to litigations, strifes, wars; see the notes on Rom 14:19. The connection here requires us to understand this mainly of persecutors. The apostle is referring to the trials which those whom he addressed were experiencing. Those trials seem to have arisen mainly from persecution, and he exhorts them to manifest a spirit of kindness toward all - even though they were engaged in persecuting them. This is the temper of the gospel. We are to make war with sin, but not with people; with bad passions and corrupt desires, but not with our fellow-worms.

And holiness - Instead of yielding to contending passions and to a spirit of war; instead of seeking revenge on your persecutors and foes, make it rather your aim to be holy. Let that be the object of your pursuit; the great purpose of your life. Men might in such cases counsel them to seek revenge; the spirit of religion would counsel them to strive to be holy. In such times they were in great danger of giving indulgence to evil passions, and hence, the special propriety of the exhortation to endeavor to be holy.

Without which no man shall see the Lord - That is, shall see him in peace; or shall so see him as to dwell with him. All will see him in the day of judgment, but to "see"one is often used in the sense of being with one; dwelling with one; enjoying one; see the notes on Mat 5:8. The principle here stated is one which is never departed from; Rev 21:27; Isa 35:8; Isa 52:1; Isa 60:21; Joe 3:17; Mat 13:41; 1Co 6:9-10. No one has ever been admitted to heaven in his sins; nor is it desirable that anyone ever should be. Desirable as it is that lost people should be happy, yet it is benevolence which excludes the profane, the impious, and the unbelieving from heaven - just as it is benevolence to a family to exclude profligates and seducers, and as it is benevolence to a community to confine thieves and robbers in prison. This great principle in the divine administration will always be adhered to; and hence, they who are expecting to be saved without holiness or religion, are destined to certain disappointment.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but God will not admit one unrepenting and unpardoned sinner to heaven. It was the importance and the certainty of this principle which made the apostle insist on it here with so much earnestness. Amidst all their trials; when exposed to persecution; and when everything might tempt them to the indulgence of feelings which were the opposite of holiness, they were to make it their great object to be like God. For this they were to seek, to strive. to labor, to pray. This with us in all our trials should also be the great aim of life. How deeply affecting then is the inquiry whether we have that holiness which is indispensable to salvation! Let us not deceive ourselves. We may have many things else - many things which are in themselves desirable, but without this one thing we shall never see the Lord in peace. We may have wealth, genius, learning, beauty, accomplishments, houses, lands, books, friends - but without religion they will be all in vain. Never can we see God in peace without a holy heart; never can we be admitted into heaven without that religion which will identify us with the angels around the throne!

Barnes: Heb 12:15

Looking diligently - This phrase implies close attention. It is implied that there are reasons why we should take special care. Those reasons are found in the propensities of our hearts to evil; in the temptations of the world; in the allurements to apostasy presented by the great adversary of our souls.

Lest any man fail - As every man is in danger, it is his personal duty to see to it that his salvation be secure.

Fail of the grace of God - Margin, "fail from."The Greek is, "lest any one be wanting or lacking"- ὑστερῶν husterōn . There is no intimation in the words used here that they already had grace and might fall away - whatever might he true about that - but that there was danger that they might be found at last to be deficient in that religion which was necessary to save them. Whether this was to be by losing the religion which they now had, or by the fact that they never had any however near they may have come to it - the apostle does not here intimate, and this passage should not be used in the discussion of the question about failing from grace. It is a proper exhortation to be addressed to any man in the church or out of it, to inquire diligently whether there is not reason to apprehend that when he comes to appear before God he will be found to be wholly destitute of religion.

Lest any root of bitterness springing up - Any bitter root. There is doubtless an allusion here to Deu 29:18. "Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood."The allusion there is to those who were idolaters, and who instead of bearing the fruits of righteousness, and promoting the piety and happiness of the nation, would bear the fruits of idolatry, and spread abroad irreligion and sin. The allusion, in both cases, is to a bitter plant springing up among those that were cultivated for ornament or use, or to a tree bearing bitter and poisonous fruit, among those that produced good fruit. The reference of the apostle is to some person who should produce a similar effect in the church - to one who should inculcate false doctrines; or who should apostatize; or who should lead an unholy life, and thus be the means of corrupting and destroying others. They were to be at especial pains that no such person should start up from among themselves, or be tolerated by them.

Trouble you - By his doctrines and example.

And thereby many be defiled - Led away from the faith and corrupted. One wicked man, and especially one hypocrite in the church, may be the means of destroying many others.

Barnes: Heb 12:16

Lest there be any fornicator - The sin here referred to is one of those which would spread corruption in the church, and against which they ought to be especially on their guard. Allusion is made to Esau as an example, who, himself a corrupt and profane man, for a trifle threw away the highest honor which as a son he could have. Many have regarded the word used here as referring to idolatry, or defection from the true religion to a false one - as the word is often used in the Old Testament - but it is more natural to understand it literally. The crime here mentioned was one which abounded everywhere in ancient times, as it does now, and it was important to guard the church against it; see the Act 15:20 note; 1Co 6:18 note.

Or profane person - The word "profane"here refers to one who by word or conduct treats religion with contempt, or has no reverence for what is sacred. This may be shown by words; by the manner; by a sneer; by neglect of religion; or by openly renouncing the privileges which might be connected with our salvation. The allusion here is to one who should openly cast off all the hopes of religion for indulgence in temporary pleasure, as Esau gave up his birthright for a trifling gratification. In a similar manner, the young, for temporary gratification, neglect or despise all the privileges and hopes resulting from their being born in the bosom of the church; from being baptized and consecrated to God; and from being trained up in the lap of piety.

As Esau - It is clearly implied here that Esau sustained the character of a fornicator and a profane person. The former appellation is probably given to him to denote his licentiousness shown by his marrying many wives, and particularly foreigners, or the daughters of Canaan: see Gen 36:2; compare Gen 26:34-35. The Jewish writers abundantly declare that that was his character; see Wetstein, in loc. In proof that the latter appellation - that of a profane person - belonged to him, see Gen 25:29-34. It is true that it is rather by inference, than by direct assertion, that it is known that he sustained this character. The birth-right, in his circumstances, was a high honor. The promise respecting the inheritance of the land of Canaan, the coming of the Messiah, and the preservation of the true religion, had been given to Abraham and Isaac, and was to be transmitted by them. As the oldest son, all the honor connected with this, and which is now associated with the name Jacob, would have properly appertained to Esau. But he undervalued it. He lived a licentious life. He followed his corrupt propensities, and gave the reins to indulgence. In a time of temporary distress, also, he showed how little he really valued all this, by bartering it away for a single meal of victuals. Rather than bear the evils of hunger for a short period, and evidently in a manner implying a great undervaluing of the honor which he held as the first-born son in a pious line, he agreed to surrender all the privileges connected with his birth. It was this which made the appellation appropriate to him; and this will make the appellation appropriate in any similar instance.

Who for one morsel of meat - The word "meat"here is used, as it is commonly in the Scriptures, in its primitive sense in English, to denote food: Gen 25:34. The phrase here, "morsel of meat,"would be better rendered by "a single meal."

Sold his birthright - The birth-right seems to have implied the first place or rank in the family; the privilege of offering sacrifice and conducting worship in the absence or death of the father; a double share of the inheritance, and in this instance the honor of being in the line of the patriarchs, and transmitting the promises made to Abraham and Isaac. What Esau parted with, we can easily understand by reflecting on the honors which have clustered around the name of Jacob.

Barnes: Heb 12:17

For ye know how that afterward ... - When he came to his father, and earnestly besought him to reverse the sentence which he had pronounced; see Gen 27:34-40. The "blessing"here referred to was not that of the birth-right, which he knew he could not regain, but that pronounced by the father Isaac on him whom he regarded as his first-born son. This Jacob obtained by fraud, when Isaac really "meant"to bestow it on Esau. Isaac appears to have been ignorant wholly of the bargain which Jacob and Esau had made in regard to the birth-right, and Jacob and his mother contrived in this way to have that confirmed which Jacob had obtained of Esau by contract. The sanction of the father, it seems, was necessary, before it could be made sure, and Rebecca and Jacob understood that the dying blessing of the aged patriarch would establish it all. It was obtained by dishonesty on the part of Jacob; but so far as Esau was concerned, it was an act of righteous retribution for the little regard he had shown for the honor of his birth.

For he found no place of repentance - Margin, "Way to change his mind,"That is, no place for repentance "in the mind of isaac,"or no way to change his mind. It does not mean that Esau earnestly sought to repent and could not, but that when once the blessing had passed the lips of his father, he found it impossible to change it. Isaac firmly declared that he had "pronounced"the blessing, and though it had been obtained by fraud, yet as it was of the nature of a divine prediction, it could not now be changed. He had not indeed intended that it should be thus. He had pronounced a blessing on another which had been designed for him. But still the benediction had been given. The prophetic words had been pronounced. By divine direction the truth had been spoken, and how could it be changed? It was impossible now to reverse the divine purposes in the case, and hence, the "blessing"must stand as it had been spoken. Isaac did, however, all that could be done. He gave a benediction to his son Esau, though of far inferior value to what he had pronounced on the fraudulent Jacob; Gen 27:39-40.

Though he sought it carefully with tears - Gen 27:34. He sought to change the purpose of his father, but could not do it. The meaning and bearing of this passage, as used by the apostle, may be easily understood:

(1) The decision of God on the human character and destiny will soon be pronounced. That decision will be according to truth, and cannot be changed.

\caps1 (2) i\caps0 f we should despise our privileges as Esau did his birth-right, and renounce our religion, it would be impossible to recover what we had lost. There would be no possibility of changing the divine decision in the case, for it would be determined forever. This passage, therefore, should not be alleged to show that a sinner. "cannot repent,"or that he cannot find "place for repentance,"or assistance to enable him to repent, or that tears and sorrow for sin would be of no avail, for it teaches none of these things; but it should be used to keep us from disregarding our privileges, from turning away from the true religion, from slighting the favors of the gospel, and from neglecting religion until death comes; because when God has once pronounced a sentence excluding us from his favor, no tears, or pleading, or effort of our own can change him. The sentence which he pronounces on the scoffer, the impenitent, the hypocrite, and the apostate, is one that will abide forever without change. This passage, therefore, is in accordance with the doctrine more than once stated before in this Epistle, that if a Christian should really apostatize it would be impossible that he should be saved; see the notes on Heb 6:1-6.

Barnes: Heb 12:18

For ye are not come - To enforce the considerations already urged, the apostle introduces this sublime comparison between the old and new dispensations; Heb 12:18-24. The object, in accordance with the principal scope of the Epistle, is, to guard them against apostasy. To do this, he shows that under the new dispensation there was much more to hind them to fidelity, and to make apostasy dangerous, than there was under the old. The main point of the comparison is, that under the Jewish dispensation, everything was adapted to awe the mind, and to restrain by the exhibition of grandeur and of power; but that under the Christian dispensation, while there was as much that was sublime, there was much more that was adapted to win and hold the affections. There were revelations of higher truths. There were more affecting motives to lead to obedience. There was that of which the former was but the type and emblem. There was the clear revelation of the glories of heaven, and of the blessed society there, all adapted to prompt to the earnest desire that they might be our own. The considerations presented in this passage constitute the climax of the argument so beautifully pursued through this Epistle, showing that the Christian system was far superior in every respect to the Jewish. In presenting this closing argument, the apostle first refers to some of the circumstances attending the former dispensation which were designed to keep the people of God from apostasy, and then the considerations of superior weight existing under the Christian economy.

The mount that might be touched - Mount Sinai. The meaning here is, that "that mountain was palpable, material, touchable"- in contradistinction from the Mount Zion to which the church had now come, which is above the reach of the external senses; Heb 12:22. The apostle does not mean that it was permitted to the Israelites to touch Mount Sinai - for this was strictly forbidden, Exo 19:12; but he evidently alludes to that prohibition, and means to say that a command forbidding them to "touch"the mountain, implied that it was a material or palpable object. The sense of the passage is, that every circumstance that occurred there was suited to fill the soul with terror. Everything accompanying the giving of the Law, the setting of bounds around the mountain which they might not pass, and the darkness and tempest on the mountain itself, was adopted to overawe the soul. The phrase "the touchable mountain"- if such a phrase is proper - would express the meaning of the apostle here. The "Mount Zion"to which the church now has come, is of a different character. It is not thus visible and palpable. It is not enveloped in smoke and flame, and the thunders of the Almighty do not roll and re-echo among its lofty peaks as at Horeb; yet it presents "stronger"motives to perseverance in the service of God.

And that burned with fire - Exo 19:18; compare Deu 4:11; Deu 33:2.

Nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest - see Exo 19:16.

Barnes: Heb 12:19

And the voice of a trumpet - Exo 19:19. The sound of the trumpet amidst the tempest was suited to increase the terror of the scene.

And the voice of words - Spoken by God; Exo 19:19. It is easy to conceive what must have been the awe produced by a voice uttered from the midst of the tempest so distinct as to be heard by the hundreds of thousands of Israel, when the speaker was invisible.

Which voice they that heard ... - Exo 20:18-19. It was so fearful and overpowering that the people earnestly prayed that if they must be addressed, it might he by the familiar voice of Moses and not by the awful voice of the Deity.

Barnes: Heb 12:20

For they could not endure that which was commanded - They could not sustain the awe produced by the fact that God uttered his commands himself. The meaning is not that the commands themselves were intolerable, but that the manner in which they were communicated inspired a terror which they could not bear. They feared that they should die; Exo 20:19.

And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned - Exo 19:13. The prohibition was, that neither beast nor man should touch it on pain of death. The punishment was to be either by stoning, or being "shot through."

Or thrust through with a dart - Exo 19:13. "Or shot through."This phrase, however, though it is found in the common editions of the New Testament, is wanting in all the more valuable manuscripts; in all the ancient versions; and it occurs in none of the Greek ecclesiastical writers, with one exception. It is omitted now by almost all editors of the New Testament. It is beyond all doubt an addition of later times, taken from the Septuagint of Exo 19:13. Its omission does not injure the sense.

Barnes: Heb 12:21

And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said ... - This is not recorded in the account of the giving of the Law in Exodus, and it has been made a question on what authority the apostle made this declaration respecting Moses. In Deu 9:19, Moses indeed says, of himself, after he had come down from the mountain, and had broken the two tables of stone that were in his hand, that he was greatly afraid of the anger of the Lord on account of the sin of the people. "I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure wherewith the Lord was wroth against you to destroy you;"and it has been supposed by many that this is the passage to which the apostle here alludes. But it is very evident that was spoken on a different occasion from the one which is referred to in the passage before us. That was after the Law was promulgated, and Moses had descended from the mount; and it was not said in view of the terrors of the scene when the Law was given, but of the apprehension of the wrath of God against the people for their sin in making the golden calf.

I know not how to explain this, except by the supposition that the apostle here refers to some tradition that the scene produced this effect on his mind. In itself it is not improbable that Moses thus trembled with alarm (compare Exo 19:16), nor that the remembrance of it should have been handed down among the numerous traditions which the Jews transmitted from age to age. There must have been many things that occurred in their journey through the wilderness which are not recorded in the Books of Moses. Many of them would be preserved naturally in the memory of the people, and transmitted to their posterity; and though those truths might become intermingled with much that was fabulous, yet it is not irrational to suppose that an inspired writer may have adduced pertinent and true examples from these traditions of what actually occurred. It was one method of preserving "the truth,"thus to select such instances of what actually took place from the mass of traditions which were destined to perish, at would be useful in future times. The circumstance here mentioned was greatly suited to increase the impression of the sublimity and fearfulness of the scene. Moses was accustomed to commune with God. He had met him at the "bush,"and had been addressed by him face to face, and yet so awful were the scenes at Horeb that even he could not bear it with composure. What may we then suppose to have been the alarm of the body of the people, when the mind of the great leader himself was thus overpowered!

Barnes: Heb 12:22

But ye are come unto Mount Sion - You who are Christians; all who are under the new dispensation. The design is to "contrast"the Christian dispensation with the Jewish. and to show that its excellencies and advantages were far superior to the religion of their fathers. It had more to win the affections; more to elevate the soul; more to inspire with hope. It had less that was terrific and alarming; it appealed less to the fears and more to the tropes of mankind; but still apostasy from this religion could not be less terrible in its consequences than apostasy from the religion of Moses. In the passage before us, the apostle evidently contrasts Sinai with Mount Zion, and means to say that there was more about the latter that was adapted to win the heart and to preserve allegiance than there was about the former. Mount Zion literally denoted the Southern hill in Jerusalem, on which a part of the city was built.

That part of the city was made by David and his successors the residence of the court, and soon the name Zion, was given familiarly to the whole city. Jerusalem was the center of religion in the land; the place where the temple stood, and where the worship of God was celebrated, and where God dwelt by a visible symbol, and it became the type and emblem of the holy abode where He dwells in heaven. It cannot be literally meant here that they had come to the Mount Zion in Jerusalem, for that was as true of the whole Jewish people as of those whom the apostle addressed, but it must mean that they had come to the Mount Zion of which the holy city was an emblem; to the glorious mount which is revealed as the dwelling-place of God, of angels, of saints. That is, they had "come"to this by the revelations and hopes of the gospel. They were not indeed literally in heaven, nor was that glorious city literally on earth, but the dispensation to which they had been brought was what conducted them directly up to the city of the living God, and to the holy mount where he dwelt above. The view was not confined to an earthly mountain enveloped in smoke and flame, but opened at once on the holy place where God abides. By the phrase, "ye are come,"the apostle means that this was the characteristic of the new dispensation that it conducted them there, and that they were already in fact inhabitants of that glorious city. They were citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem (compare note, Phi 3:20), and were entitled to its privileges.

And unto the city of the living God - The city where the living God dwells - the heavenly Jerusalem; compare notes on Heb 11:10. God dwelt by a visible symbol in the temple at Jerusalem - and to that his people came under the old dispensation. In a more literal and glorious sense his abode is in heaven, and to that his people have now come.

The heavenly Jerusalem - Heaven is not unfrequently represented as a magnificent city where God and angels dwelt; and the Christian revelation discloses this to Christians as certainly their final home. They should regard themselves already as dwellers in that city, and live and act as if they saw its splendor and partook of its joy. In regard to this representation of heaven as a city where God dwells, the following places may be consulted: Heb 11:10, Heb 11:14-16; Heb 12:28; Heb 13:14; Gal 4:26; Rev 3:12; Rev 21:2, 10-27. It is true that Christians have not yet seen that city by the physical eye, but they look to it with the eye of faith. It is revealed to them; they are permitted by anticipation to contemplate its glories, and to feel that it is to be their eternal home. They are permitted to live and act as if they saw the glorious God whose dwelling is there, and were already surrounded by the angels and the redeemed. The apostle does not represent them as if they were expecting that it would be visibly set up on the earth, but as being now actually dwellers in that city, and bound to live and act as if they were amidst its splendors.

And to an innumerable company of angels - The Greek here is, "to myriads (or ten thousands) of angels in an assembly or joyful convocation."The phrase "tens of thousands"is often used to denote a great and indefinite number. The word rendered "general assembly,"Heb 12:22 - πανήγυρις panēguris - refers properly to an "assembly, or convocation of the whole people in order to celebrate any public festival or solemnity, as the public games or sacrifices; Robinson’ s Lexicon. It occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, and refers here to the angels viewed as assembled around the throne of God and celebrating his praises. It should be regarded as connected with the word "angels,"referring to "their"convocation in heaven, and not to the church of the first-born. This construction is demanded by the Greek. Our common translation renders it as if it were to be united with the church - "to the general assembly and church of the first-born;"but the Greek will not admit of this construction.

The interpretation which unites it with the angels is adopted now by almost all critics, and in almost all the editions of the New Testament. On the convocation of angels, see the notes on Job 1:6. The writer intends, doubtless, to contrast that joyful assemblage of the angels in heaven with those who appeared in the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. God is always represented as surrounded by hosts of angels in heaven; see Deu 33:2; 1Ki 22:19; Dan 7:10; Psa 68:17; compare notes, Heb 12:1; see also Rev 5:11; Mat 26:53; Luk 2:13. The meaning is, that under the Christian dispensation Christians in their feelings and worship become united to this vast host of holy angelic beings. it is, of course, not meant that they are "visible,"but they are seen by the eye of faith. The "argument"here is, that as, in virtue of the Christian revelation, we become associated with those pure and happy spirits, we should not apostatize from such a religion, for we should regard it as honorable and glorious to be identified with them.

Barnes: Heb 12:23

To the general assembly - see the notes on Heb 12:22.

And church of the first-born - That is, you are united with the church of the first-born. They who were first-born among the Hebrews enjoyed special privileges, and especially pre-eminence of rank; see the notes on Col 1:15. The reference here is, evidently, to those saints who had been distinguished for their piety, and who may be supposed to be exalted to special honors in heaven - such as the patriarchs, prophets, martyrs. The meaning is, that by becoming Christians, we have become in fact identified with that happy and honored church, and that this is a powerful motive to induce us to persevere. It is a consideration which should make us adhere to our religion amidst all temptations and persecutions, that we are identified with the most eminently holy men who have lived, and that we are to share their honors and their joys. The Christian is united in feeling, in honor, and in destiny, with the excellent of all the earth, and of all times. He should feel it, therefore, an honor to be a Christian; he should yield to no temptation which would induce him to part from so goodly a fellowship.

Which are written in heaven - Margin, enrolled. The word here was employed by the Greeks to denote that one was enrolled as a citizen, or entitled to the privileges of citizenship. Here it means that the names of the persons referred to were registered or enrolled among the inhabitants of the heavenly world; see the notes, Luk 10:20.

And to God the Judge of all - God, who will pronounce the final sentence on all mankind. The object of the reference here to God as judge does not appear to be to contrast the condition of Christians with that of the Jews, as is the case in some of the circumstances alluded to, but to bring impressively before their minds the fact that they sustained a especially near relation to him from whom all were to receive their final allotment. As the destiny of all depended on him, they should be careful not to provoke his wrath. The design of the apostle seems to be to give a rapid glance of what there was in heaven, as disclosed by the eye of faith to the Christian, which should operate as a motive to induce him to persevere in his Christian course. The thought that seems to have struck his mind in regard to God was, that he would do right to all. They had, therefore, everything to fear if they revolted from him; they had everything to hope if they bore their trials with patience, and persevered to the end.

And to the spirits of just men made perfect - Not only to the more eminent saints - the "church of the firstborn"- but to "all"who were made perfect in heaven. They were not only united with the imperfect Christians on earth, but with those who have become completely delivered from sin, and admitted to the world of glory. This is a consideration which ought to influence the minds of all believers. They are even now united with "all"the redeemed in heaven. They should so live as not to be separated from them in the final day. Most Christians have among the redeemed already not a few of their most tenderly beloved friends. A father may be there; a mother, a sister, a smiling babe. It should be a powerful motive with us so to live as to be prepared to be reunited with them in heaven.

Barnes: Heb 12:24

And to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant - This was the crowning excellence of the new dispensation in contradistinction from the old. They had been made acquainted with the true Messiah; they were united to him by faith; they had been sprinkled with his blood; see the notes on Heb 7:22, and Heb 8:6. The highest consideration which can be urged to induce anyone to persevere in a life of piety is the fact that the Son of God has come into the world and died to save sinners; compare notes on Heb 12:2-4 of this chapter.

And to the blood of sprinkling - The blood which Jesus shed, and which is sprinkled upon us to ratify the covenant; see notes on Heb 9:18-23.

That speaketh better things than that of Abel - Greek "Than Abel;"the words "that of"being supplied by the translators. In the original there is no reference to the blood of Abel shed by Cain, as our translators seem to have supposed, but the allusion is to the faith of Abel, or to the testimony which he bore to a great and vital truth of religion. The meaning here is, that the blood of Jesus speaks better things than Abel did; that is, that the blood of Jesus is the "reality"of which the offering of Abel was a "type."Abel proclaimed by the sacrifice which he made the great truth that salvation could be only by a bloody offering - but he did this only in a typical and obscure manner; Jesus proclaimed it in a more distinct and better manner by the reality. The object here is to compare the Redeemer with Abel, not in the sense that the blood shed in either case calls for vengeance, but that salvation by blood is more clearly revealed in the Christian plan than in the ancient history; and hence illustrating, in accordance with the design of this Epistle, the superior excellency of the Christian scheme over all which had preceded it.

There were other points of resemblance between Abel and the Redeemer, but on them the apostle does not insist. Abel was a martyr, and so was Christ; Abel was cruelly murdered, and so was Christ; there was aggravated guilt in the murder of Abel by his brother, and so there was in that of Jesus by his brethren - his own countrymen; the blood of Abel called for vengeance, and was followed by a fearful penalty on Cain, and so was the death of the Redeemer on his murderers - for they said, "his blood be on us and on our children,"and are yet suffering under the fearful malediction then invoked; but the point of contrast here is, that the blood of Jesus makes a more full, distinct, and clear proclamation of the truth that salvation is by blood than the offering made by Abel did. The apostle alludes here to what he had said in Heb 11:4; see the notes on that verse. Such is the contrast between the former and the latter dispensations; and such the motives to perseverance presented by both.

In the former, the Jewish, all was imperfect, terrible, and alarming. In the latter, everything was comparatively mild, winning, alluring, animating. Terror was not the principal element, but heaven was opened to the eye of faith, and the Christian was permitted to survey the Mount Zion; the New Jerusalem; the angels; the redeemed; the blessed God; the glorious Mediator, and to feel that that blessed abode was to be his home. To that happy world he was tending; and with all these pure and glorious beings he was identified. Having stated and urged this argument, the apostle in the remainder of the chapter warns those whom he addressed in a most solemn manner against a renunciation of their Christian faith.

Barnes: Heb 12:25

See that ye refuse not - That you do not reject or disregard.

Him that speaketh - That is, in the gospel. Do not turn away from him who has addressed you in the new dispensation, and called you to obey and serve him. The meaning is, that God had addressed "them"in the gospel as really as he had done the Hebrews on Mount Sinai, and that there was as much to be dreaded in disregarding his voice now as there was then. He does not speak, indeed, amidst lightnings, and thunders, and clouds, but he speaks by every message of mercy; by every invitation; by every tender appeal. He spake by his Son Heb 1:1; he speaks by the Holy Spirit, and by all his calls and warnings in the gospel.

For if they escaped not - If they who heard God under the old dispensation, who refused to obey him, were cut off; notes, Heb 10:28.

Who refused him that spake on earth - That is, Moses. The contrast here is between Moses and the Son of God - the head of the Jewish and the head of the Christian dispensation. Moses was a mere man, and spake as such, though in the name of God. The Son of God was from above, and spake as an inhabitant of heaven. "Much more,"etc.; see the notes on Heb 2:2-3; Heb 10:29.

Barnes: Heb 12:26

Whose voice then shook the earth - When he spake at Mount Sinai. The meaning is, that the mountain and the region around quaked; Exo 19:18. The "voice"here referred to is that of God speaking from the holy mount.

But now hath he promised, saying - The words here quoted are taken from Hag 2:6, where they refer to the changes which would take place under the Messiah. The meaning is, that there would be great revolutions in his coming, "as if"the universe were shaken to its center. The apostle evidently applies this passage as it is done in Haggai, to the first advent of the Redeemer.

I shake not the earth only - This is not quoted literally from the Hebrew, but the sense is retained. In Haggai it is, "Yet once it is a little while, and I wilt shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come."The apostle lays emphasis on the fact that not only the earth was to be shaken but also heaven. The shaking of the earth here evidently refers to the commotions among the nations that would prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah.

But also heaven - This may refer either:

(1)\caps1     t\caps0 o the extraordinary phenomena in the heavens at the birth, the death, and the ascension of Christ; or.

(2)\caps1     t\caps0 o the revolutions in morals and religion which would be caused by the introduction of the gospel, as if everything were to be changed - expressed by "a shaking of the heavens and the earth;"or.

(3)\caps1     i\caps0 t may be more literally taken as denoting that there was a remarkable agitation in the heavens - in the bosoms of its inhabitants - arising from a fact so wonderful as that the Son of God should descend to earth, suffer, and die.

I see no reason to doubt that the latter idea may have been included here; and the meaning of the whole then is, that while the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai, fearful and solemn as it was, was an event that merely shook the earth in the vicinity of the holy Mount, the introduction of the gospel agitated the universe. Great changes upon the earth were to precede it; one revolution was to succeed another preparatory to it, and the whole universe would be moved at an event so extraordinary. The meaning is, that the introduction of the gospel was a much more solemn and momentous thing than the giving of the Law - and that, therefore, it was much more fearful and dangerous to apostatize from it.

Barnes: Heb 12:27

And this word, Yet once more - That is, this reference to a great agitation or commotion in some future time. This is designed as an explanation of the prophecy in Haggai, and the idea is, that there would be such agitations that everything which was not fixed on a permanent and immovable basis would be thrown down as in an earthquake. Everything which was temporary in human institutions; everything which was wrong in customs and morals; and everything in the ancient system of religion, which was merely of a preparatory and typical character, would be removed. What was of permanent value would be retained, and a kingdom would be established which nothing could move. The effect of the gospel would be to overturn everything which was of a temporary character in the previous system, and everything in morals which was not founded on a solid basis, and to set up in the place of it principles which no revolution and no time could change. The coming of the Saviour, and the influence of his religion on mankind, had this effect in such respects as the following:

(1) All that was of a sound and permanent nature in the Jewish economy was retained; all that was typical and temporary was removed. The whole mass of sacrifices and ceremonies that were designed to prefigure the Messiah of course then ceased; all that was of permanent value in the Law of God, and in the principles of religion, was incorporated in the new system, and perpetuated.

\caps1 (2) t\caps0 he same is true in regard to morals. There was much truth on the earth before the time of the Saviour; but it was intermingled with much that was false. The effect of his coming has been to distinguish what is true and what is false; to give permanency to the one, and to cause the other to vanish.

\caps1 (3) t\caps0 he same is true of religion, There are some views of religion which men have by nature which are correct; there are many which are false. The Christian religion gives permanence and stability to the one and causes the other to disappear. And in general, it may be remarked, that the effect of Christianity is to give stability to all that is founded on truth, and to drive error from the world. Christ came that he might destroy all the systems of error - that is, all that could he shaken on earth, and to confirm all that is true. The result of all will be that he will preside over a permanent kingdom, and that his people will inherit "a kingdom which cannot be moved;"Heb 12:28.

The removing of those things that are shaken - Margin, more correctly "may be."The meaning is, that those principles of religion and morals which were not founded on truth would be removed by his coming.

As of things that are made - Much perplexity has been felt by expositors in regard to this phrase, but the meaning seems to be plain. The apostle is contrasting the things which are fixed and stable with those which are temporary in their nature, or which are settled on no firm foundation. The former he speaks of as if they were uncreated and eternal principles of truth and righteousness. The latter he speaks of as if they were created, and therefore liable, like all things which are "made,"to decay, to change, to dissolution.

That those things which cannot be shaken may remain - The eternal principles of truth, and law, and righteousness. These would enter into the new kingdom which was to be set up, and of course that kingdom would be permanent. These are not changed or modified by time, circumstances, human opinions, or laws. They remain the same from age to age, in every land, and in all worlds, They have been permanent in all the fluctuations of opinion; in all the varied forms of government on earth; in all the revolutions of states and empires. To bring out these is the result of the events of divine Providence, and the object of the coming of the Redeemer; and on these principles that great kingdom is to be reared which is to endure forever and ever.

Barnes: Heb 12:28

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved - We who are Christians. We pertain to a kingdom that is permanent and unchanging. The meaning is, that the kingdom of the Redeemer is never to pass away. It is not like the Jewish dispensation, to give place to another, nor is there any power that can destroy it; see the notes on Mat 16:18. It has now endured for eighteen hundred years, amidst all the revolutions on earth, and in spite of all the attempts which have been made to destroy it; and it is now as vigorous and stable as it ever was. The past has shown that there is no power of earth or hell that can destroy it, and that in the midst of all revolutions this kingdom still survives. Its great principles and laws will endure on earth to the end of time, and will be made permanent in heaven. This is the only kingdom in which we can be certain that there will be no revolution; the only empire which is destined never to fall.

Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God - Margin, "let us hold fast."The Greek is, literally, let us have grace; the meaning is, "let us hold fast the grace or favor which we have received in being admitted to the privileges of that kingdom."The object of the apostle is, to keep them in the reverent fear and service of God. The "argument"which he presents is, that this kingdom is permanent. There is no danger of its being overthrown. It is to continue on earth to the end of time; it is to be established in heaven forever. If it were temporary, changeable, liable to be overthrown at any moment, there would be much less encouragement to perseverance. But in a kingdom like this there is every encouragement, for there is the assurance:

(1)\caps1     t\caps0 hat all our interests there are safe;

(2)\caps1     t\caps0 hat all our exertions will be crowned with ultimate success,

(3)\caps1     t\caps0 hat the efforts which we make to do good will have a permanent influence on mankind, and will bless future ages; and

(4)\caps1     t\caps0 hat the reward is certain.

A man subject to a government about whose continuance there would be the utmost uncertainty, would have little encouragement to labor with a view to any permanent interest. In a government where nothing is settled; where all policy is changing, and where there are constantly vacillating plans, there is no inducement to enter on any enterprise demanding time and risk. But where the policy is settled; where the principles and the laws are firm; where there is evidence of permanency, there is the highest encouragement. The highest possible encouragement of this kind is in the permanent and established kingdom of God. All other governments may be revolutionized; this never will be - all others may have a changeful policy; this has none - all others will be overthrown; this never will.

With reverence and godly fear - With true veneration for God, and with pious devotedness.

Barnes: Heb 12:29

For our God is a consuming fire - This is a further reason why we should serve God with profound reverence and unwavering fidelity. The quotation is made from Deu 4:24. "For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God."The object of the apostle here seems to be, to show that there was the same reason for fearing the displeasure of God under the new dispensation which there was under the old. It was the same God who was served. There had been no change in his attributes, or in the principles of his government. He was no more the friend of sin now than he was then; and the same perfections of his nature which would then lead him to punish transgression would also lead him to do it now. His anger was really as terrible, and as much to be dreaded as it was at Mount Sinai; and the destruction which he would inflict on his foes would be as terrible now as it was then.

The fearfulness with which he would come forth to destroy the wicked might be compared to a "fire"that consumed all before it; see the notes, Mar 9:44-46. The image here is a most fearful one, and is in accordance with all the representations of God in the Bible and with all that we see in the divine dealings with wicked people, that punishment; as inflicted by him is awful and overwhelming. So it was on the old world; on the cities of the plain; on the hosts of Sennacherib; and on Jerusalem - and so it has been in the calamities of pestilence, war, flood, and famine with which God has visited guilty people. By all these tender and solemn considerations, therefore, the apostle urges the friends of God to perseverance and fidelity in his service. His goodness and mercy; the gift of a Saviour to redeem us; the revelation of a glorious world; the assurance that all may soon be united in fellowship with the angels and the redeemed; the certainty that the kingdom of the Saviour is established on a permanent basis, and the apprehension of the dreadful wrath of God against the guilty, all should lead us to persevere in the duties of our Christian calling, and to avoid those things which would jeopard the eternal interests of our souls.

Poole: Heb 12:1

Heb 12:1-4 An exhortation to patience and constancy enforced by the

example of Christ.

Heb 12:5-13 The benefit of God’ s chastisements.

Heb 12:14-17 Exhortation to peace and holiness.

Heb 12:18-24 The dispensation of the law compared with the

privileges of the gospel.

Heb 12:25-29 The danger of refusing the word from heaven.

The Spirit proceeds in this chapter in his exhortation or counsel unto duties worthy of the former doctrine of Christ, and suitable to the foregoing examples, enumerated Heb 11:1-40 .

Wherefore seeing he introduceth it with an illative particle, toigaroun seeing all those worthies finished their course through faith, and received not the promise since made good to us, therefore is there something to be inferred.

We also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses we, I Paul, and you Hebrews, having enjoyed the better things provided by God for us, we are so much the more obliged; as also having such a multitude of witnesses of so vast worth and dignity, as all the Old Testament believers were, distilling, like a cloud, abundant influences, from their example, in doing and suffering for God, through faith, on our souls, to make us persevering in the faith to the end, as they did; and so compassing us about, as we cannot want either direction or encouragement to it, whenever we look into their histories for it.

Let us lay aside every weight like the Grecian and Roman racers, who laid aside their cumbersome garments, so as they might more easily and lightly run their race; in allusion to which, it is the concern of every Christian to lay aside, or put away, all his worldly cumbrances, which would clog him in his race, his corrupt self, the world, &c., Mat 16:24 Luk 21:34 1Ti 6:9-11 2Ti 2:4 .

And the sin which doth so easily beset us: the evil weight inward is the old man, the corrupt nature, which remaineth in every Christian, styled by Paul, the body of death, Rom 7:24 ; but especially each Christian’ s own personal iniquity, which sticks and cleaves nearer to him than his garments, and which made David so careful about it, in Psa 18:23 ; that which is so compassing and clasping him about, that he is so far from running, he cannot move for it, 1Co 9:27 Col 3:5 . This they are to mortify in them.

And let us run with patience the race that is set before us how distant soever the goal is, which finisheth the race of a Christian’ s life, yet the way passing to it, though it be troublesome and long, and being set to us by God himself, must be patiently, strenously, and constantly run, that they may obtain it, Psa 119:32,33 Lu 13:24 1Co 9:24-27 Gal 5:7 Phi 3:13,14 2Ti 4:7 . The cloud of witnesses have so run it before them for their direction and encouragement.

Poole: Heb 12:2

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith: as if all the former witnesses were not enough, he adds a more excellent one than them all, even our Lord Jesus Christ, who is not only a pattern to them in their race and running of it, but a help, and for which end they were looking to him: the word aforwntev is only here used in all the New Testament, and signifieth a looking off from whatever would distract us from earnestly looking on the proposed object alone; and though a word of sense, yet here noteth an act of the mind. It is borrowed from racers, the similitude of whom the apostle further improves: they fixedly eye their guides or leaders, to help them on in their course; so must a Christian in his race look off from all things else, and singly and intently look on Jesus to help him through it; archgon see Heb 2:10 ; here it denotes Jesus to be the great institutor of, and chief leader in, the Christian race, and perfecter of them in running it. The disposition, grace, ability, and success which they have for running, it is all from him; from the beginning of the work of faith unto the end of it, to the finishing of the course, he doth infuse, assist, strengthen, and accomplish the work of it to the last, Joh 6:29,30 Php 4:13 2Ti 4:7 1Jo 5:4,5 .

Who for the joy that was set before him who for that joyful and glorious state which was clearly represented and faithfully promised to him by his Father to succeed his sufferings, that he should immediately attain himself, and successively communicate to all who believe in him, Luk 24:26 Joh 17:1,5,24 1Pe 1:11 . This did so cheer and strengthen him, that with unexpressible patience he cheerfully

endured the cross with all the concomitants of it, the sorrows in his soul, the torturing pains in his body, of buffetings, smitings, piercings of thorns, tearing his flesh with scourges, boring of his hands and feet with nails, with all the evils that either the malice or rage of devils or men could inflict on him; he was neither weary of his burden, nor shrinking from nor fainting under it. With what invincible meekness and passive fortitude did he undergo all that was foretold of him! Isa 53:1-12 .

Despising the shame as the same time slighting and casting out of his thoughts all the disgrace poured on him by his enemies, both in his mind and action, contemning all the blasphemies, taunts, reproaches, and shameful carriages of sinners to him, suffering without any emotion all their indignities, even in the most shameful death itself, Phi 2:6-8 , though he were the most innocent as well as excellent person in all the world.

And is set down at the right hand of the throne of God the issue of all which was, his exaltation by God for his abasement by man; he riseth from the dead, ascendeth to heaven, sets himself down as a triumphing conqueror over sin, the prince of the powers in the air, death, and hell, at the right hand of the throne of God; and thence discovers himself in his state and glory, as the great Ruler of the world, King of kings, and Lord of lords, Phi 2:9,10 , see Heb 8:1and the glorious rewarder of those who serve him, and suffer for him.

Poole: Heb 12:3

For consider him the connection is rational, that they ought to regard this example, for that there were greater sufferings behind than any yet they had endured, which would enforce it, as Heb 12:4 : analogisasye signifieth the use of it proportionable consideration, thinking on or reasoning about this example within a man’ s self, such as may make the considerer bear a proportion to the subject considered.

That endured such contradiction of sinners against himself this Jesus spoken of before, who most patiently submitted to, and perseveringly bore up under, such opposition and contradiction by the words and works of the most wicked and vilest men against himself, who was the most innocent and best of men, always going about doing good to them, so as their sin and his patience were without parallel: none was ever so scorned, taunted, reviled, blasphemed, spit on, and ignominiously treated like him; and never any so invincibly endured it, Rom 15:3 .

Lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds the reason of this consideration is, lest faintness, languishing, or deficiency of soul, that is, of vigour, strength, and activity of heart in grace, should befall them; and so they should lie down and cease to run the Christian race, which the devil designed to oblige them to, as he would Christ, by the multitude and soreness of the contradictions they should suffer from sinners in it, so greatly as would not end but by broaching their life-blood, as they did Christ’ s, and these must expect from them.

Poole: Heb 12:4

Ye have suffered ranch for Christ already, but there is more that he requires from you, and is yet behind, Heb 10:32-34 ; the condition he fixed with you as his disciples, in Luk 14:26 , to lay down your life as well as your relations and goods for him. You may yet be called to testify to him, by suffering a violent and bloody death from his and your enemies, as other martyrs had done for him: consider him who hath suffered a worse death for you, to sweeten yours to you, that you do not faint, fail, or turn apostates from him and his truth; resisting with agonies whatsoever men or devils use to entice or force us to apostatize from Christ, since there will be neither arts nor powers wanting to it. Watch you, pray, and strive to the utmost against them, Luk 22:31,32 1Pe 5:9 .

Poole: Heb 12:5

And ye have forgotteneklelhsye , whether rendered interrogatively: have ye forgotten? Or positively: ye have forgotten; either way it carrieth a check upon their forgetfulness of what was of the greatest importance for them to remember in the time of persecutions, and implieth a direction of them to their duty, that they ought to remember the counsel or command given by God to them, how to interpret these persecutions for Christ and the gospel, and how to improve them; and so introduceth a further help to their rnnning of the race of God with patience.

The exhortationparaklhsewv notes properly consolation, and is here a consolatory exhortation to the management of a duty which would be highly such to them, and a dehortation from an evil which would greatly prejudice them; when it is said to speak, it is a metonymy of the effect for the efficient; the Lord in the exhortation speaking this to them.

Which speaketh unto you as unto children: these words were written by Solomon, from God unto his children in that time; and God speaks no less by him to these Hebrews, who were his children now, as to all others who are such, or should be such, children to him. And whereas it is spoken singularly:

My son it is to every child of God in Christ Jesus, and so collectively includeth all of them.

Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord: the dehortation is written in Pro 3:11 , that not one of these children should care little for, or set light by, denying all regardlessness, senselessness of, and incorrigibleness under, such smart correction as a parent gives to a child, either by himself, or by any other to whose care it is committed; but this chastening is from the Lord, the most gracious and tender Father, who can do them no evil, and will profit and benefit them by it. As they come from their persecutors for the sake of Christ, they are injuries; but as ordered by God their Father, they are so many favours to them, preventing sin, preserving in duty, and preparing them for blessedness.

Nor faint when thou art rebuked of him nor to nauseate his rebukes, or to faint under them; neither to let our faith or hope in our Father fail, nor to sink in our love to him, his way, or truth, or religion; nor to be weary, and give over our course, because of persecutions, but continuing faithful to him to the end, Heb 12:14,15 Mt 10:22 Luk 22:28,29 .

Poole: Heb 12:6

For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth : for showeth this to be a suasory reason against fainting under God’ s rebukes, and enforcing the foregoing duty: sheet whomsoever, son or daughter, every child, that God the Father choicely loveth, taketh into his bosom, tendereth as a parent doth a child, Eph 5:1 , he nurtureth, instructs, corrects by his word and rod in its respective measure, for their spiritual profit and advantage, 1Co 11:32 .

And scourgeth every son whom he receiveth : scourgeth noteth the highest degree of chastening, even with the sharpest and most smarting punishment, wherein God proceedeth with all and every son or child, not any excepted, whom he hath adopied and received into his bosom with complacency and delight, Heb 5:8 : compare Pro 3:12 Mat 17:5 Rev 3:19 , where, though the words do vary, yet the sense is one and the same; God correcting, as a Father, the son in whom he delighteth.

Poole: Heb 12:7

If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons: his reason he illustrateth from the convertibility of sufferring affliction and chastening from God the Father, and being his child; If ye have a child-like sense of chastening, such afflictions and sufferings from him as the Father ordereth to you, so as quietly and patiently to bear them, and by faith expecting a saving issue from them; God the Father in love chastening you, beareth, carrieth, and offereth himself to you as a father to his son, full of grace and love, Lev 26:41 Job 13:15 Psa 89:30 Mic 7:9 .

For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? No son or child of God can be instanced in, who was capable of chastening, but more or less have felt it; even God’ s only and best beloved One, Heb 5:8 , for our sakes felt it, Isa 53:5 . The interrogation is a vehement assertion, and so to be resolved.

Poole: Heb 12:8

But if God chasten you not, or if he do, and ye have not grace, or do not rightly endure it, are not managing yourselves well under it, nor are profited by it, when all and every one of his children are partakers of it, then are ye a false and spurious seed, and not God’ s genuine offspring,

bastards in his account; and indeed so the most forlorn, wretched persons of all others, left under the power and dominion of sin, hurrying them on to their utter destruction, Joh 8:41 . These visible church members have a bastardly disposition, hearts alienated from God and his law, and inclined to the will and works of the flesh, expressing it in their conversation, running into the excess of sin, having no chastening to restrain them, and are deserted by God for it, Isa 1:4-6 Hos 4:14,17 .

Poole: Heb 12:9

Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us: he enforceth the duty of not despising nor fainting under the Lord’ s chastening, from the consideration of his being our Father, and better than any earthly one, and from his goodness in that relation, and therefore we ought to submit to it: We have had our natural parents, as we are children, and who were the subordinate cause of our being as to our bodies, Heb 7:5,10 , and they were instructors and correctors of us, made use of the rod as well as the word for our nurture; they have whipped and chastised us, putting us to smart and pain, 2Sa 7:14 Pro 22:15 .

And we gave them reverenceenetrepomeya , imports a turning of bowels and spirits within them towards their fathers, covered with shame and blushing for their faults, and afraid to look them, when offended, in the face; reverencing them chastening, and submitting to the penalty, so as to reform and turn from the faults for which they were corrected.

Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits? The expostulation shows the vehemency of the argument more than a simple position. It is the highest reason, of all right we must and ought (being as much our privilege as duty) to deny ourselves, and be in in that subjection, the free and willing subordination of our spirits to God, as the rod calls for it, receiving the correction, reforming under it, and resigning our souls to him who is the Creator of them as to their natural and spiritual being, and the Sovereign, Guardian, Protector, and Disposer of them; men nor angels have any power over them, but this Father of them only, and his great work and concern is about them, Gen 2:7 Num 27:16 Ecc 12:7 Zec 12:1 .

And live by his chastening of our spirits, our immortal souls, Joh 3:6 Rom 8:5,6 , he is furnishing them with more spiritual life, whereby they are enabled to live and move wholly to God, from grace to glory. He makes them live more the life of God, which God in flesh lived on earth, Gal 2:20 Eph 4:18 Phi 1:21 1Pe 4:6 1Jo 3:9 . This chastening promotes this honourable life as an instrument and means in God’ s hand, and advanceth it daily, till it is perfected in eternal life, Act 14:22 Rom 5:3-5 8:18 2Co 4:17,18 Jas 1:12 Jud 1:22 .

Poole: Heb 12:10

For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure: as God hath his prerogative in paternity, so he hath the transcendency in the end of chastening his children; for our natural parents, fathers of our bodies, nurtured us by the word and rod for a little time, the days of childhood and youth, as they would and thought good, as they apprehended their power over them, arbitrarily, passionately, without reaching what is best for them by it; their own thoughts, whether good or bad, were the rule of their chastening, and such as their thoughts are, such is their end; how imperfect and defective must that be!

But he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness but God, the Father of our spirits, corrects us epi to sumferon , which strictly notes comportation, intimating, that in his chastening his children he brings in his help, puts as it were his shoulder to it, brings in his stock of grace, and so bears together with them unto their advantage and profit in spiritual life, and this during our whole lives. That which he bears home to them, and puts in them by his chastening, is his holiness; of which being made partakers, they thrive mightily as to their spiritual life, and increase in the Divine nature with all the increases of God, Eph 3:13,19 Col 2:19 .

Poole: Heb 12:11

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: a further argument to persuade Christians not to despise nor faint under the Lord’ s chastenings, is the good issue of them, subjoined to fortify them against the suggestions of flesh and blood, as if they could not be from love, nor for good, because they are smarting and grievous; therefore the Spirit asserts the truth as to both: All these chastenings and rebukes that the Father of spirits inflicts on his children, not one excepted, are, for all the time they are so inflicted, sensed by his children to be as they are; they feel them to have no joy in them, but a great deal of grief, pain, and smart; they are not pleasing of themselves, and God would not have them to be so, but his to feel the smart of his rod, when he corrects them with it.

Nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby yet have not his children any reason to despond or faint under them; for they are not always to continue, and there accrueth after them a benefit to them, that will make amends for them all the afterward following to eternity: this chastening rendereth and bringeth forth to all the corrected children, who labour to improve the smart, under God’ s direction and blessing, a righteous compliance with the whole will of God, and a purging out of all sin, Isa 27:9 ; filling the soul full of joy and peace, and securing to the chastened a confluence of all that good that will abundantly reward them for their sufferings, setting them above them, and making them blessed, Isa 32:17 Rom 5:1-5 Jam 1:2-4 .

Poole: Heb 12:12

This introduceth the use of the doctrine of God’ s chastening providences, stated before.

Wherefore concludes the rationality and necessity of the duty subjoined, as consequent from the truth asserted before.

Lift upanorywsate notes the making, or setting aright, that which was out of its proper place and posture, as disordered members into their right frame and composure, that there be not any let in our Christian race, nor fainting by our course in it.

The hands which hang down, and the feeble knees by hanging down hands, and palsied knees, are metaphorically represented the hearts, spirits, and souls of these children, such as droop, despond, and are ready to faint and die away under chastening, Isa 35:3-6 . The sum of the counsel is, rightly to compose our thoughts, affections, and members, under trials from notorious enemies, and unbelieving brethren, so as to perfect our Christian course in the fear and strength of God, continuing stedfast in prayer, 1Ti 2:8 , walking constantly in God’ s ways, and obeying all his commandments, Psa 119:48,100 , patiently bearing all God’ s corrections, and bringing forth the peaceful fruit of them. This is the truth of the metaphor.

Poole: Heb 12:13

Make straight, smooth ways, such as have all stones of stumbling and rocks of offence removed, so as themselves may be set right in comfort, and duty, and walking; lest being lame or halting in their minds between Judaism and Christianity, because of the violent persecution of them by their infidel brethren, they should be turned aside out of God’ s way, erring, and deviating from the truth of the gospel; but that they be restored to it, so as no sufferings upon that account, under God’ s hand, might make them suppress the truth, or expose them to apostacy, or to walk as stumbling-blocks to others, and wounding their own souls, Act 15:1 Gal 2:11-15 6:12 .

Poole: Heb 12:14

Here begins the second head of counsel in this chapter. That seeing the gospel church Officer, the great Reconciler of sinners to, and Sanctifier of them for, God, was fully revealed to them, it did now concern them to promote peace with men, and perfect holiness towards God: this is pursued to the end of the chapter.

Follow peace with all men: diwkete imports such a fierce, unwearied, unsatisfied pursuit, as persecutors make after the innocent servants of Christ, till they have their purposes on them; and so sets out the real, earnest, violent, unwearied, constant pursuit and labour after peace, i.e. concord, unanimity, and comfortable consociation in all things, good and lawful, to all sorts of persons, in thought, word, and deed, as far as it is possible for us, Psa 34:14 1Co 10:32 1Co 13:4,5,7 1Pe 3:10,11 .

And holiness: agiasmon is all that habit and frame of heart, which becometh souls to have towards God, enjoying all purity from spiritual uncleanness, and a conformity to the holiness peculiar to God, Eph 4:24 . The result and quintessence of all the graces of the Spirit, is holiness, 1Pe 1:15,16 1Jo 3:2,3 : labouring to the perfection of this within our kind, Psa 110:3 2Co 7:1 .

Without which no man shall see the Lord: a soul destitute of holiness is in no capacity, either of faith or sight, to

see the Lord they can have no union to, communion with, or fruition of, God in Christ, neither in grace nor glory; implying and assuring them, that with holiness they may see and enjoy him, Mat 5:8 1Co 6:9,10 1Co 12:13 Gal 5:21 1Jo 3:2,3 .

Poole: Heb 12:15

To further their pursuit of peace and holiness, he metaphorically proposeth a caution against what might stop them in it, which he properly specifieth and exemplifieth in Esau, Heb 12:15-17 .

Looking diligently: episkopountev notes a very strict and severe inspecting themselves; its primitive, skopein , signifieth such a looking to a thing, as those who, in shooting, aim at the mark; and the preposition adds intention to the action, signifying a most earnest care in Christians over themselves, in them over others, and in ministers over them all.

Lest any man fail of the grace of God lest any person among them should fail of grace offered in the gospel to it, and never have it, Tit 2:11,12 ; or apostatize from the profession of it, by seduction or persecution, Heb 4:1 10:38 2Co 6:1 : compare Gal 1:6 3:3 .

Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you a metaphor borrowed from plants, to which roots are proper, and which was used by Moses before, Deu 29:18 : a root bearing a poisonful herb; intending by it such persons, whose nature, words, and works, are so bitter unto God, as gall and wormwood are to men; such as apostatized from God to idols. The apostle intending hereby the hindering the springing up and growing of errors, heresies, or immoralities, as profaneness, filthiness, &c., which are apt to infect churches, and, as they spread, to molest, trouble, and disturb them, and to keep them from pursuing holiness, Heb 3:8 Hos 12:14 Gal 1:7 Jam 3:14 .

And thereby many be defiled lest by but one such poisonous root, a whole church of Christians may be infected and poisoned, their sin being as apt to spread and diffuse itself, as leaven, 1Co 5:6 , to taint the whole lump, Gal 5:9 : and how early, even in the apostles’ time, for want of obeying this caution, were the primitive churches corrupted, both in doctrine and morals, by loose, filthy heretics among them!

Poole: Heb 12:16

This properly interprets the root of bitterness before, by two special fruits of it.

Lest there be any fornicator: uncleanness, pornov , is not to be taken so strictly, as only to note fornication, uncleanness committed by unmarried persons, but all sorts of pollution and filthiness, as it is used in the general decree, Act 15:29 ; such defilements as had crept in among them already, to which many were propense and inclined, whence warned of and charged against it by James, Peter, and Jude, in their Epistles.

Or profane person: bebhlov imports one who had a bitter frame of spirit against the first table, one of an impure mind to God-ward, opposite to godliness, who neglects and spurns at holy things, rolling itself in its own pleasures, riches, honours, with a despising of God, his grace, and glory, 1Ti 1:9 4:7,16 2Ti 2:16 .

As Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birth-right: Esau, the best example to these Hebrews, he being Jacob’ s brother, who was most notoriously profane, who irreligiously undervalued and despised the blessing of the birthright, to which was entailed by God the double portion, the priesthood and dominion over the family, the blessings of the covenant, and the being a type of Christ; he basely and impiously gave it away to his younger brother, slighting it, and freely and fully making it over to him, and all for one eating, the base gratifying of his sensual appetite but once, Gen 25:32,34 . Like to whom were those, Phi 3:18 2Pe 2:10-19 Jud 1:4-19 . In these is his filthy, profane spirit improved.

Poole: Heb 12:17

For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: as Esau’ s sin was, such was his penalty; for they knew, and were well acquainted with this in Moses’ s history of him, that after he had despised his birthright, and sold it, being at man’ s estate, Gen 27:1-46 , and was desirous to inherit that blessing, he was rejected by his father, as well as by God, and could not obtain it, being unalterably settled on Jacob by both.

He found no place of repentance as to the giving it, with God, who gave it, and would not alter it, Rom 11:29 ; nor with his father, who did not repent of giving it to Jacob, but confirmed it, Gen 27:33,40 28:1,3,4 .

Though he sought it carefully with tears and this, although he sought the blessing from his father with cries and tears, Gen 27:34,38 . How therefore should these Hebrews, knowing all this, root out such a root springing up in themselves, or others, that they might not be guilty of such sin; lest having despised God’ s blessing for their own ease, honours, or profits in this world, when they may desire to seek with tears the blessing of the eternal inheritance from God, he should irreversibly reject them. See Mat 7:22,23 .

Poole: Heb 12:18

For showeth, Heb 12:18-24 , the apostle enforcing on these Hebrews, and with them on all Christians, the pursuit of holiness and peace, by subjoining the great helps they have for it, beyond what the Old Testament church had, they being freed from the legal dispensation, which was less helpful to it, and admitted to that of the gospel, most promoting it. The first he layeth down, Heb 12:18-21 ; and the other, Heb 12:22-24 . They are freed from the covenant dispensation at Mount Sinai.

Ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched you have not been called, as to your body, to journey it to Sinai, or as to your faith to close with that covenant administration, to depend on, or have any expectation from it, as delivered by Moses at Mount Sinai in Arabia; a mountain visible, tactible, sensible, on earth, signifying the covenant dispensation from this mount to be low and earthy, occasioning earthy thoughts of God and carriage to him, sticking in an earthy altar sacrifice, and carnal and sensual religion; to the law written in stones, without minding the spirituality of it, or having it in their hearts; walking wisely in this wilderness state, yet, by the charge of God, not touchable by Israel at that time, though they came near to it in the third month after their coming out of Egypt, Exo 19:1,12,13,23 .

And that burned with fire to the fire, in the which the Lord descended on the mount, Exo 19:18 ; which burnt unto the midst of heaven, Deu 4:11 5:23,24 , and would consume them that broke that law which he spake to them out of it, Deu 33:2 .

Nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest to the black, thick smoke that ascended as the smoke of a furnace, Exo 19:18 ; to darkness, occasioned by the thick clouds enveloping the mount, Deu 4:11 5:23 ; to tempest, the storm of thundering, and lightnings, and earthquake, the terrible attendants of this solemnity, Exo 19:16,18 20:18 . All these shadowing forth the fiery and terrible storms of wrath and indignation, which should pursue the breakers of this covenant to the lowest hell; giving them, in this delivery of the law, a visible type of what should be the issue of their breaking it, Exo 19:22,24 . These terrors of the Almighty did so fright them, that they ran from God, and set not themselves to the serious pursuit of holiness, Isa 33:14 .

Poole: Heb 12:19

And the sound of a trumpet which was most shrill and dreadful, it sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, giving a fearful alarm unto Israel to draw near to the Lord to hear his law to them, and covenant with them, and to see a type of their doom, if they transgressed it, in an obscure representation of the general judgment, Exo 19:16,19 20:18 ; compare 1Th 4:16 2Th 1:7-9 .

And the voice of words: after which alarm, the Angel of the covenant uttered his voice out of the fire most majestically, distinctly, and loudly, and spake to Israel in their own language the ten words, or commandments, that they might hear and understand them, so as they sensed them to be dreadful for their sound and matter, Exo 20:1-20 Deu 4:10,12,13 5:1-27 .

Which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: the people, being overwhelmed with the majesty and dreadfulness of that voice, deprecated any more such for matter or manner of manifestation to them, Exo 20:19 Deu 5:23-26 18:16 . And therefore desired Moses to speak to them God’ s law, and that God might speak no more.

Poole: Heb 12:20

The reason of the foregoing deprecation, and which adds to the terribleness of this covenant dispensation; for the voice surpassed their strength and capacity, that they must die if they heard it any more, so dreadful was the sound and matter of it; for the commandment and threatening was: That if any man or beast did but so much as touch the mountain, they should die for it, Exo 19:12,13,21,23,24 . Therefore was Moses so strictly charged to look to it, and to provide against it, showing the dreadfulness of that covenant dispensation, that if men did not keep their beasts from coming near, they should be stoned or darted to death; how much more themselves, if they should transgress the law, which, though it was designed to lead them unto Christ, yet was not generally so discerned or used by them! So that if the publication of it be so terrible, how much more the punishment for breaking it! Exo 20:20 .

Poole: Heb 12:21

It must needs be a dreadful, fearful, horrid, and astonishing apparition, and exhibition of the great Lawgiver here, that such a person as Moses, so sanctified by him, so favoured with familiarity with him, so constituted mediator between the people and God in this work for their good and comfort, so called and ordered by God to manage it, yet should cry to God to succour him, while he did quake and tremble at it; and was comforted and strengthened by God’ s voice to him again, Exo 19:19 . Christians now have no call nor access to so terrible a dispensation of the covenant, but have immunity, exemption, and freedom from it, which was not so helpful to holiness as the gospel dispensation, to which now they have actual admission, having freed them from all the terrors and curses of the Mosaical one.

Poole: Heb 12:22

The Spirit now adds the privilege of Christians in the better state to which they have access by the gospel dispensation, Heb 12:22-24 ; Ye have left those hinderances and disadvantages instanced in before, but are come to these helps for yonr furtherance in holiness; ye have an access to all those most excellent, though invisible, things, by faith, and by it attain them, and are incorporated into them, as they follow.

But ye are come unto mount Sion: this is not literally to be understood for the mount on which the city of David was built, for that was as visible and touchable as Mount Sinai, to which it is opposed; but that mount which is higher than the highest, as high as heaven itself, Heb 12:25 9:24 Joh 3:13 ; where is the most orderly government of God for holiness, Mic 4:7 ; whence all good gifts and gospel blessings are conveyed to the church, of which these believers were members, Isa 8:18 28:16 59:20 Rev 14:1 .

And unto the city of the living God of which the living God is the Builder and Maker, and wherein he dwelleth, where nothing but life is, and whence Christ’ s voice giveth life to dead souls, enabling them to live a life of holiness to God, as Psa 46:4,5 48:1,8 87:3 Isa 40:14 Joh 5:25 . To distinguish this from any earthly city or corporation, it is said to be

the heavenly Jerusalem , its original, nature, and end being all heavenly; a fruitful place, whence believers are made partakers of the most spiritual influences for holiness; where there is nothing carnal, terrible, deadly, barren, but all causal and productive of holiness issueth thence, Isa 42:1-25,65:17-19 66:10 Joh 17:24 Gal 4:26 Rev 3:12 21:2,10 .

And to an innumerable company of angels in which city are many excellent inhabitants with whom believers are incorporated, and to whom they have relation, as myriads of angels, who are ministering spirits under the gospel, as under the law, full of holiness, power, agility, and endowments, fit for their work and end; who, though for number are thousands and millions of them, Psa 68:17 103:20 104:4 Act 7:53 Gal 3:19 Rev 5:11 , yet are all fulfilling their Lord’ s pleasure in every place, as ordered by him. Their ministration of the law was terrible in flaming fire, but of the gospel, most sweet and gracious, Luk 2:13,14 . At Sinai they ministered externally and sensibly, affecting senses; but from Sion they minister spiritually, to hearts, Mat 4:11 Luk 22:43 Psa 91:11 , resisting evil spirits ministering wickedly. Their ministry little effectual under the law; but under the gospel, saving, Act 7:53 Heb 1:14 Rev 19:10 . Their former ministration temporary and ceasing, but this everlasting, till they bring all their trust into Abraham’ s bosom, Luk 16:22 . They are promoting holiness by God’ s sending things to us by them, and by their observing the goings and doings of Christians, whether holy or not, 1Co 11:10 , and giving an account of the success of their ministry towards them, as to this end, Mat 18:10 . And the neglect of this means to help our pursuing holiness, will God require, Heb 2:2 .

Poole: Heb 12:23

To the general assembly: other inhabitants of this heavenly city and polity with whom believers are incorporated, are such, into whose communion they have admittance here below, viz. to the catholic assembly of Christ, his whole body, the fulness of him who filleth all in all; all assembly gathered out of all nations, Rev 5:9 7:9 , throughout the world, extended to all times and ages, especially to that part of it which is on earth, sojourning here, fitting for heaven; the other part is triumphing in it. They are not called or incorporated only into a particular national assembly, a straitened society, as the Old Testament church was; the general assembly of saints are more helpful to holiness than a lesser, Psa 22:27,28 Ga 4:25-27 .

And church of the firstborn: this

general assembly is not a rout, but a

church such as are called out of the world with a holy calling, subjecting themselves to Christ as their Head, and are, as quickened, so ordered and ruled by him: it is not a weak or an infant church, but strong and perfect, come unto maturity, in respect of the great discoveries of the mysteries of God made by Christ to them, Heb 5:12,13 6:1 Gal 4:1,3,4 . This chosen, called, and well ordered society, were only of such persons who were the first-born of God, and partners of Christ’ s sonship and primogeniture, being regenerated by him, and dignified with his birthright privileges, Rom 8:17,29 . They are the might and excellency of Christ; whereas the church at Sinai, for the body of them, were but typically, literally, and externally so, Exo 4:22 Col 1:15,18 , and did not universally enjoy, as those do, the strength and fulness of grace from God, Joh 1:16 Gal 3:26,29 ; are joint-heirs with Christ, Rom 8:17 , and made by him kings and priests to God and his Father, 1Pe 2:5 Rev 1:6 .

Which are written in heaven: they were not, as the church at Sinai, of an earthly enrolment, registered here to know their families and descent, whether right Jews and priests or no, whose genealogy was preserved to that end, Ezr 2:43 , &c.; but had their register in heaven, were written in the Lamb’ s book of life, to be of heavenly descent, born of God, partakers of the Divine nature, and who had a right and title by faith in Christ to the heavenly inheritance, and were free denizens of it, Luk 10:20 , and have all heavenly privileges derived to them, Luk 20:12,19 21:27 . How obliging, influencing, and promoting are these privileges of every Christian’ s pursuit of holiness!

And to God the Judge of all they were as Christians privileged with an access, not as Israel had at Sinai, with fear, and terror, and trembling, so as to fly from the great Author, Lord, and Judge of the covenant, lest they died, as Exo 20:18 ; but with liberty and boldness of faith, in the strength of love and with firmness of hope, they come now in Sion, Isa 59:20 Heb 10:19 , unto God in his being and sovereignty, who ruleth all, and who giveth to all according to their works, and in a most eminent manner ruleth them; who, as he is their Judge, hath not, as at Sinai, any bars to keep them from him, Exo 19:12 Eph 2:18 , nor is terrifying and consuming, as then, Deu 5:24,25 , but justifying them; full of grace and love to all approaching him in Christ, his throne is a throne of grace to them, he comforting and encouraging them to make home to him, Joh 5:22 Act 10:22 Rom 3:6 . So as they have boldness in the day of judgment, and stand unshaken before their Judge, and are strengthened by him, Rom 8:1,33,34 1Jo 4:17 . He rewards them gloriously, 2Ti 2:8 , perfecting holiness in them beneath, and crowning them with glory above. What a help is this to pursue holiness!

And to the spirits of just men made perfect: the perfect state to which the gospel covenant leadeth is promoting holiness, for they have an access to the same lot, and are come into the same way of being perfected in holiness, which the spirits of the righteous, separated from their bodies, enjoy in heaven; and have a right unto, and shall have the certain enjoyment of, the same privilege, which carrieth through all difficulties in the pursuit of it, expecting themselves by death to be put in possession with them of the same state, Rom 8:22,23 2Co 5:1,2,8 ; compare Phi 3:12-14 .

Poole: Heb 12:24

And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant: the Mediator of the Sion covenant is better than the mediator at Sinai, and more able to promote the holiness required by it. Believers have not now access unto, or dependence on, a Moses, a mere man, and a servant, declaring God’ s will, only a sinner himself, trembling in his office, and weary of his clients, and whose ministry is vanishing, as his person dying; but unto God the Son himself incarnate, a Son-mediator, making sons, and bringing them nearer to God, satisfying the law for them, and writing it on their hearts; above all sin himself, though a sacrifice for it, who is able to save to the uttermost, for that he ever liveth to intercede for them, Heb 1:1-3 Heb 3:6 7:26 Rev 1:13 . He is the Mediator, not of a literal, dark, terrible, charging and condemning, temporary and vanishing, covenant; but of the most spiritual, lightsome, gracious, justifying, sanctifying, and everlasting testamental dispensation of God, more effectually influencing souls to holiness than the old, Heb 8:10,11 2Co 3:6 5:19 .

And to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel: the sacrifice ratifying the Sion covenant is unexpressibly better than all the typical sacrifices confirming that at Sinai, it eminently purchasing and securing holiness to those interested in it. The blood of the immaculate Lamb of God, sprinkled on penitent, believing sinners, which hath purchased pardon for them, and, as follows, the Spirit, to sanctify them throughout, and perfect holiness in them, Heb 9:12 1Pe 1:18 1Jo 1:7,9 ; and so they are freed from access to the sprinkling of the blood of sacrificed beasts, which was only typical and weak to purge the conscience, calling sin to remembrance yearly and daily, which was now forbidden and rejected as of no worth, and which, like Abel’ s, crieth for revenge and condemnation, Gen 4:10 ; since their blood now offered when Christ had split his, was accounted of God as the blood of innocents slain, as Isa 66:3 . Others render the blood of Abel, for the blood of sprinkling of the sacrifice that Abel offered unto God, Gen 4:4 , which was sprinkled upon him; and so prefer Christ’ s sacrifice, not only to the Mosaical sacrifices, but to all that have been from the beginning of the world, which though accepted by God, yet not like Christ, of which they were the types. The sum of all these comparisons, is to show the greater helps, motives, and encouragements that Christians have to pursue and perfect holiness than all the Old Testament church had before them.

Poole: Heb 12:25

Here the Spirit closely applieth his former arguments for their pursuit of holiness, especially that of Christ’ s speaking by his blood to them; by caution, Heb 12:25-27 ; by counsel, Heb 12:28,29 .

See that ye refuse not him that speaketh: he introduceth this caution with: Look ye, or take ye heed; a term expressing the things said to be great and weighty, intimating that fear, solicitude, and watchfulness about this great and important concernment of their souls, Luk 12:15 ; that they see to it there be no aversion in their spirits to, no undervaluing or despising of, no dislike or apostacy from, but a hearing, believing, and obeying Jesus speaking by his blood all the gospel covenant to us; convincing them of sin and guilt that needed his blood, calling them to repentance and faith in his blood and satisfaction, declaring his intercession with God for pardon, holiness, and glory by it, and so importunes them to follow holiness, which would evidence all this to them.

For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth: he enforceth his caution by a rational motive of the danger of their refusal, arguing from the less to the greater; that is, their ancestors escaped not the vengeance of God when they refused to hear, believe, and obey the legal covenant, which he spake on earth from Mount Sinai, and wrote on tables of stones, and delivered to Moses on the mount, and by him communicated it to them, Heb 2:2 10:28,30,31 De 33:1,4 Ac 7:51,53 1Co 10:1-10 .

Much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven much more and greater sinners are all such who turn aside scornfully from Jesus, and receive not his voice and the revelation of God’ s gospel covenant by it, who is God’ s only begotten Son, and brought it down from the Father’ s bosom in heaven, Heb 1:2 Joh 1:14,16-18 3:13 , and ratified it with his own blood on earth: and as the sin is beyond compare greater, so will the punishment be, and the certainty of its infliction both for time and eternity, Mat 11:24 2Th 1:7-9 Heb 10:26-31 ; there remaining no more sacrifice for such sin and sinners.

Poole: Heb 12:26

Whose voice then shook the earth: the sin and punishment of gospel despisers and rejecters, is aggravated by the Person concerned in both. It is that Jesus, the great Angel of the covenant, speaking now by his blood, whose voice at the delivery of the law on Mount Sinai, and selling Israel in a church state under that covenant dispensation, Exo 20:1,19 De 4:12 5:2,4,22 , did shake the mount, Exo 19:18 Psa 68:7,8 114:4,7 ; and not only the literal Sinai, but that low, earthly condition and state of Israel coming out of Egypt, and bearing its reproach as a common people of the earth, together with other nations, Jos 5:9 . This he removed away, and brought them then into a church state with himself by covenant, which church state obtained the name or title of heaven, Mat 21:43 , and is by the prophet styled the old heaven, Isa 65:17 , which was to be shaken and removed also.

But now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven : but now the same Jesus so shaking them had promised, and had at this time in part fulfilled what he spake, Hag 2:6,7 , even after the prophets little while was expired, and Christ the desire of all nations was come; that yet

once more he would shake the Israelitish church state, pitched till the time of reformation; not the earthly one only, as he did at Mount Sinai, which yet Jesus literally did at his death and resurrection, Mat 27:51,54 28:2 , and the heavens also by his star, Mat 2:2 , light to the shepherds, Luk 2:9 , his baptism, Mat 3:17 , transfiguration, Mat 17:5 ; his prayer, Joh 12:28-30 , his passion, Mat 27:51 Luk 23:44,45 , effusion of the Holy Ghost, Act 2:2-4 : but this is also a powerful, moral shaking, so as to change and remove that heavenly church frame pitched in the Jewish tabernacle; that he might pitch a tabernacle himself more heavenly and spiritual, whereof Jesus should be the Lord High Priest and Ruler, as well as Minister, Heb 3:1,2 .

Poole: Heb 12:27

The interpretation of the former matter in this verse, is introduced by reassuming:

And this, Yet once more as if he said: I told you that God promised, Yet once more, &c.; what he meaneth by it I now declare to you: this shaking of God intends not a small alteration, but a total removal and abolition of the Israelitish heaven and earth, forementioned, an alteration of their church, religion, and administration, and a total abrogating of them, because they are hand work, Heb 9:24 . Such as were at God’ s direction made by men, as tabernacle, altar, and that typical service, not reaching the spiritual design of God, and but types of far better to succeed them; and which settled, did make the others to be finished, past, and never to return again.

That those things which cannot be shaken may remain: these better things are the administration of Christ’ s kingdom unshakeable, his church state which is heavenly, settled by his own evangelical laws and ordinances, which he hath so fixed by promise, as never to be removed till the whole church of Christ be completed with him in heaven, Hag 2:7 Mat 17:5 28:18-20 .

Poole: Heb 12:28

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved: in this verse the apostle follows his doctrine with counsel to several duties; such as concern the first table, and terminate on God, in this and the following verse; such as concern the second table, Heb 13:1 , &c. In this verse he begins with the Christians’ privilege, and then directs their duty. These Hebrews having received by faith the privileges, and submitted themselves unto the laws and government, of the unmoveable kingdom of Christ, that gospel church state of which God is the author, Christ the King, his spiritual under officers ministers, penitent believing sinners the subject; the gospel laws by which the government is administered perfectly holy, just, and good; the privileges of it all grace here, and glory above; the descent of all from heaven: all which are to endure for ever unshaken, and against them the gates of hell shall not prevail, Zec 9:9 1Co 15:24-28 Eph 4:11-16 Col 1:13 2:3 .

Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear let us get and hold fast that gracious temper of soul, whereby they are made true, wise, believing, loving, humble, and obedient subjects to the laws of this kingdom, and manifest it by worshipping, and serving of, and walking with, God in this world, so as our persons and duties may be all well-pleasing to him in Christ, Eph 1:6 , and constantly conformable to his holy will, Heb 11:4,5 : and out of a sense of their own lowliness, with a self-abasing heart, and a reverential carriage, as Gen 18:27 Luk 18:13 , approaching God in all his service with a holy jealousy over itself, that it do not offend him in what it is or doth, but rightly receiving law from him for all his service, and rightly returning all conformable thereunto to him again, Joh 12:49,50 .

Poole: Heb 12:29

The motive enforcing this duty is no less terrible than that given to Israel under the law, obliging their obedience to that covenant dispensation, Deu 4:23,24 :

The Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God He that was so respecting the transgression of the legal, will much more be so as to this gospel covenant. God Almighty, the most gracious, and yet the most just Being, their own God by covenant obtestation; yet will be to them, if they break his covenant, and do not, through Christ, acceptably serve him with reverence and godly fear, as fire consuming them. His gospel law, in the contempt of it, will be as the fiery law at Sinai, adjudging such sinners unto fire unquenchable, Heb 10:27-31 ; compare Mat 3:12 25:41 2Th 1:7-9 .

PBC: Heb 12:1

"Wherefore"

The writer wants you to have no doubt that what he is about to say connects with what he has just said. There is connection. You just simply need to read the English structure -wherefore (for a reason) because of what has gone on in the prior verses you need to think about this and from the conclusion or from the reasoning of these verses go to this conclusion.

"seeing we also"

We share something in common with those Old Testament patriachs. He didn’t take people who stood out from the crowd who were extraordinary people and just anointed them and used them. He took ordinary people and by His grace and faith {Eph 2:8-9 tell us that both grace and faith are gifts of God} -faith isn’t something you fabricate in yourself, faith isn’t something you develop as a philosophical outlook or as a habit of thinking. Faith in the New Testament sense is itself a gift of God.

"seeing we also are compassed about"

Surrounded is the sense of the word (compassed).

"with so great a cloud of witnesses"

The word " cloud" here means not just one large weatherfront but it means an innumerable company or a large number of small individual clouds. What this writer is saying is that the arena where Christian activity takes place is not an isolated experience. It is not a place where you serve alone. It is a place where you serve in the presence of a very large number of people. These people are not disinterested spectators -they’re not concerned bystanders. They’re witnesses. Heb 11:1-3 says that by faith the elders obtained a good report- literally " witness." The word " witness" here comes from the Greek word that comes into the English language as " martyr." These people aren’t disinterested bystanders. Every person in the bleacher served his day in competition. Every person in the bleachers has been where you are today. 

51

Endure Like Jesus- Endure Through Jesus Heb 12:1-4

In the wake of these great champions of faith and perseverance, the writer cites one further example of faith- the example of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. In what way is the example of Jesus superior to the testimony of Abraham, Moses, and the others in Heb 11:1-40? In terms of the fact that the Lord Jesus, in contrast to the faithful patriarchs and prophets, is more than an example of faith for us to follow. He also supplies the grace, strength, and assistance to enable us to endure. The patriarchs were examples, but Jesus is more than an example. He is also a means of our present strength and encouragement now.

Endure Through Jesus {Heb 12:1-2}

The author now employs the familiar image of an athletic contest in which the runners in the arena would be surrounded by spectators in the ampitheater. Though he does not suggest by this imagery that the saints who have departed to heaven are now hovering about us watching our progress as heavenly spectators of what takes place in the earthly realm, yet figuratively, the champions of faith listed in Heb 11:1-40, are here depicted as those who have finished their race and now witness to us, by their example, to endure to the end. They are " witnesses," as Philip E. Hughes says, " in the sense of those who have proved themselves to be unflinching professors of the faith and have overcome by the word of their testimony...They have triumphantly completed their course, and we who are not contestants in the arena should be inspired by their example to give of our utmost in the struggle."

If New Testament believers will finish the race like their Old Testament forerunners, they must do two specific things. (1) They must labor to run unencumbered- " ... let us lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us..."{Heb 12:1} They must discard every impediment, including both excess body weight and all unnecessary clothing, that is, discard every excess and encumbrance that tends to impair mobility and weigh the runner down. Whatever the particular sin that entangles us, we must lay it aside. The race of faith, in other words, requires diligent self-discipline. {1Co 9:25-27}

Having cast off excess weights, the author urges the Hebrews to " run with patience." Patience is hupomone SGreek: 5281. hupomone, meaning endurance. It speaks of the determination to abide under difficulties in undaunted and steadfast endurance. The use of the word suggests that the Christian race is a marathon, a long-distance race.

(2) They must labor to remain undistracted- " Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith...."

This is the great secret of endurance. The strength and resources to persevere in the race of faith come only through a fixed gaze on Jesus Christ. He, and He alone, is the source of our strength. The writer suggests the need to look to Him without distraction by the use of the word SGreek: 872. aphorao (’ looking’). Aphorao is a looking away from everything else in order to focus exclusively on one object. Only by fixating on Jesus Christ as the sole source of strength and help can anyone endure to the finish line. Distractions cost the runner precious time and energy.

Endure Like Jesus {Heb 12:2-4}

Not only is the Lord Jesus the source of our strength, He is also the supreme example. In fact, He is the " author" [i.e. pioneer] and " finisher" [i.e. perfecter] of our faith. He, the founder of the Christian faith, has already blazed the trail of faith himself. Further, He finished His course. He completed His task. He endured!

What did He endure? He endured the cross, despising the shame. He endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself. Now He is set down at the right hand of God.

Where is He now? Not in the grandstands, but in the dignitaries box, " sat down at the right hand of God." When the Hebrews face discouragement, the author wants them to think about Jesus. Look at your Savior and imitate His example, he says. Look to your Savior and draw from His strength. Endure like Him. Endure through Him. Keep your eyes on Jesus.

" Sometimes I feel discouraged and think my life in vain;

I’m tempted then to murmur and of my lot complain;

But then I think of Jesus and all He’s done for me;

Then I cry ‘O Rock of Ages, Hide Thou me.’"

417

PBC: Heb 12:2

" Looking unto Jesus"

The strength and resources to persevere in the race of faith come only through a fixed gaze on Jesus Christ. He, and He alone, is the source of our strength. The writer suggests the need to look to Him without distraction by the use of the word (SGreek: 872. aphorao (’ looking’)  Aphorao is a looking away from everything else in order to focus exclusively on one object. Only by fixating on Jesus Christ as the sole source of strength and help can anyone endure to the finish line.

74

" set down at the right hand of the throne of God"

Where is He now? Not in the grandstands, but in the dignitaries box, " sat down at the right hand of God." When the Hebrews face discouragement, the author wants them to think about Jesus. Look at your Savior and imitate His example, he says. Look to your Savior and draw from His strength. Endure like Him. Endure through Him. Keep your eyes on Jesus.

74

PBC: Heb 12:3

" endured"

What did He endure? He endured the cross, despising the shame. He endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself. Now He is set down at the right hand of God.

74

PBC: Heb 12:5

Our Father’s Child-Training Program Heb 12:5-11

Why does the writer of Hebrews develop the subject of " Divine chastening" right on the heels of such an encouraging passage to persevere in the face of tremendous obstacles? Because he wants to give the Hebrews a new context in which to think of their trials and difficulties. The author’s point is powerful: " Learn to think of your troubles in terms of your loving Heavenly Father’s program of making you holy." That’s the motivation behind juxtaposing this passage on chastisement with the previous passage on faithfulness in times of trial.

In other words, the Hebrews needed a new grid in which to think about their problems. They needed to recover the big picture. They were thinking only in terms of their personal losses and crosses. They had " forgotten" the fact that they were God’s beloved children and that He was their Heavenly Father.

Don’t Forget Your Father (Heb 12:5)a

The Hebrews were buckling beneath the opposition because they had forgotten the Scripture that addressed them as children who must be meek under affliction’s rod. {Pr 3:11-12; Ps 94:12} As a wise and loving Father, He is committed to training His children in godliness, even though that process inevitably involves pain and hardship. Our author wants his readers to learn to view their struggles as trials that the Father has permitted in order to bring them to spiritual maturity. The next time you are reeling beneath a wave of trouble and trial, don’t forget that God is your Father. Suffering is one of His methods of training His children to " partake of His holiness" .{Heb 12:10}

Chastening simply means " child training" or discipline. It includes both the thoughts of preventative training (i.e. verbal instruction) and corrective training (i.e. the application of the rod). Heb 12:5 suggests both thoughts: " ... the chastening of the Lord" is the more general thought referring to all kinds of parental instruction to a child, and " ... when thou art rebuked of Him" is the more specific thought of correction when a child has done wrong. When the Father counsels us, we are not to " despise" his chastening. When the Father corrects us, we are not to " faint" in discouragement.

Why? Because Divine chastening is an evidence of His love for us and our status as His children. {Heb 12:6-8} As a righteous Judge, God punishes his enemies, but as a loving Father, He chastens his children. As Charles Bridges said, " The scourge of the Judge is widely different from the rod of the Father."

It is a fact that God will discipline every one of His children. In fact, the individual who never experiences the Father’s chastening is not one of His. {Heb 12:7-8} The Puritan John Trapp said, " Corrections are pledges of our adoption and badges of our sonship. One Son God hath without sin, but none without sorrow. As God corrects none but his own, so all that are his shall be sure to have it; and they shall take it for a favor too, 1Co 11:32."

Don’t Despise, But Submit {Heb 12:9}

How then, should a Christian respond when his Father allows him to experience severe testings and difficulties? He must neither despise it in rebellion, nor despair in defeat, but take it as a proof that he belongs to the Father, submitting humbly to the sovereign God who is his Father.

But how can one be submissive beneath the blow? By remembering, first, that it is " for our profit."  {Heb 12:9} God does not chasten or afflict because he is capricious or unkind. {La 3:33} His goal is to make us like Himself, " partakers of His holiness." Trials are, in a very real sense, for our own good. To those who improve the trial for their own spiritual growth, that is, " to those who are exercised thereby," discipline, though unpleasant at first, yields long-term spiritual fruit. {Heb 12:12}

418

PBC: Heb 12:6

See PBtop: PERSEVERANCE AND PRESERVATION

It is grievous to see so many influential, professing Christian teachers constantly present God as an ominous, threatening, destructive force, whose message to man is " Do or die." Fear is not the biblical motive for acceptable service to God. A Christian life lived out in fear of hell casts no honor upon God; it more likely disgraces him! True, a parent chastises his child for his mistakes, and God chastises us for our violations of his Divine parental law. But killing the child constitutes neither proper nor acceptable chastisement, not for the parent and certainly not for God! The function of parental chastisement is to correct the errant behavior of the child, not to kill him! God’s chastisement follows the same purpose. The joy of membership in the family of God is destroyed by this fear-based teaching. Faith perceives the gracious nature of God trustingly and builds lasting joy and peace in life on the foundation of that trust in such a God.

419

PBC: Heb 12:17

Esau, after he discovers the deception, goes to his father and says in tears, " father, you can reverse it; he was deceptive, he lied, you can reverse it, you can give me the blessing anyway." But the book of Hebrews identifies that Esau was a vile person {Heb 12:16} who found no place for repentance though he sought it with tears. Don’t make that, that Esau wanted to repent and God wouldn’t let him. He was trying to get dad to repent and he used long tears to get dad to repent and dad still wouldn’t repent. Dad finally recognized, despite his favorite feeling toward Esau, that God had a greater purpose and he honored God for the greater purpose God revealed. It wasn’t Esau trying to repent in tears and he couldn’t. It was Esau trying to get dad to repent to give him the blessing contrary to the divine order.

275

PBC: Heb 12:27

See Philpot: SHAKING OF THINGS MADE, AND FIRMNESS OF THINGS GIVEN

Haydock: Heb 12:1

Laying aside every weight; [1] i.e. all that may hinder us when we run in the way of virtue.--- To the fight proposed to us. In the Greek it is ore clear: let us run the proposed race. He compares the condition of Christians to those who run a race, who fight or strive for a prize in the Olympic games, who strip themselves, and make themselves as light as possible, the better to run and fight. (Witham) ---

This Christian's life is both a race and a combat. In baptism we enter the lists; therefore we must fight in running to Jesus Christ, for he is the term, the goal, and the prize. To run will, we must be as light and disengaged as possible; and the same if we hope to combat with success. We should look up to the battles fought by our captain, Jesus Christ, and contemplate the glory he now enjoys on that account; for this he means to share with us, if we imitate his virtues: let us then rejoice to suffer with our Captain ( Greek: archegon ) here, and we shall be glorified with him hereafter.

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Omne pondus, Greek: panta ogkon, omnen sarcinam.

Haydock: Heb 12:2

Who having joy [2] proposed to him, underwent the cross. The sense seems to be, who by reason of the joy he had to perform the will of his eternal Father, for which he knew he should be exalted above all creatures, underwent willingly the ignominy and death of the cross. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Curramus ad propositum nobis certamen, Greek: trechomen ton prokeimenon emin agona, without Greek: pros, ad. Certamen is not only pugnando, but contendendo cursu, &c.

Haydock: Heb 12:4

You have not yet resisted unto blood. Though you have met with some persecutions, you have not yet shed your blood for his sake who laid down his life, and shed every drop of his blood for you. (Witham)

Haydock: Heb 12:5

You have forgotten the consolation, &c. He puts them in mind, that it ought to be a subject of great comfort to them, that God calls them his children, his sons, and treats them as his true and legitimate children, when he admonished them to live under the discipline and obedience to him, when, to correct their disobedient and sinful ways, he sends the afflictions and persecutions in this world, which they ought to look upon as marks of his fatherly tenderness; for this is what a prudent kind father does to his legitimate children, of whom he takes the greatest care: and not to use these corrections, is to neglect them, as if they were [3]illegitimate children. We reverence the father of our flesh, (ver. 10.) our parents in this world, when they instruct and correct us, how much more ought we to obey the Father and Creator of spirits, (i.e. of our souls) that being truly sanctified by him, we may live and obtain life everlasting. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

adulterini, non germani filii.

Haydock: Heb 12:8

In these last four verses we may observe as many subjects of consolation under afflictions. God, our Father, is the author of them; the chastisement he inflicts is the proof of his love; it is the sign or mark of our divine adoption; it is a necessary condition of our being adopted.

Haydock: Heb 12:11

It is true all discipline, all corrections, and sufferings in this present life, are disagreeable to our nature, because they bring not joy, but trouble and grief with them; yet afterwards, they who have been exercised with them, will reap the most peaceable fruit of justice, eternal peace and happiness in heaven. (Witham) ---

We must not judge of sufferings by the smart they occasion, but by the fruits of peace, justice, and eternal glory they produce in such as submit to them with patience.

Haydock: Heb 12:12-14

Wherefore life up the [4] hands, &c. Be fervent in piety, walk firmly in the way of virtue, make straight [5] steps, without declining to one side or the other, without halting or going astray, and strive to be healed from your sins by his grace. ---

Follow and seek peace, as much as lies in you, with all men, and [6] purity of life, without which no man shall see and enjoy God. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Remissas manus, Greek: pareimenas, which signifies hands hanging down in a lazy posture.

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Gressus rectos facite, Greek: trochios orthas poiesate, which is to advance in a straight line, not turning aside, or tottering.

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Sanctimoniam, Greek: agiasmon.

Haydock: Heb 12:15

Be wanting to the grace of God, by resisting and abusing his favours, or by falling from the grace of God received. ---

Lest any root of bitterness, &c. He means scandalous wicked persons, by whom others are infected, defiled, and corrupted. (Witham)

Haydock: Heb 12:16

Or profane person, as Esau, who had so little regard for the blessing and inheritance of his father, that he sold his right of first-begotten for one mess of broth, and afterwards found no place for repentance, although with tears he had sought for it; that is, he could not make his father repent or change what he had once done, though he endeavoured with his tears and lamentable outcries. Or if any one will have repentance referred to Esau himself, still the Novatian heretics can have no advantage in favour of their error, when they deny that sinners can repent, because Esau's tears might only be for a temporal loss, not for God's sake, nor for the guilt of his sins, so that he wanted the dispositions of a true penitent and of a contrite heart. (Witham) ---

Greek: Bebelos, profane, like Esau, who for a trifling meal could forfeit his right of primogeniture [first-begotten], and the honour of priesthood thereto attached. Oh, how many give up all right to a heavenly and eternal inheritance for even a mere trifling consideration! An dhow will they one day, with Esau, regret the same inflexibility on the part of God, their Father!

Haydock: Heb 12:17

He found, &c. That is, he found no way to bring his father to repent, or change his mind, with relation to his having given the blessing to his younger brother, Jacob. (Challoner)

Haydock: Heb 12:18

For you are not come to a mountain, [7] &c. That is, to a mountain on earth that can be touched; to wit, to Mount Sinai, where the law was given to Moses, where the mountain seemed all on fire, with dreadful thunder and lightning, whirlwinds, darkness, tempests, sounding of trumpets, voices, &c. which they who heard excused themselves, begging that Moses only, and not God, might speak to them, for they could not without exceeding consternation think of what was then said; that if any man, or even beast, should touch the mountain, he should be stoned to death. (Exodus xix. 15.) Nay Moses himself, trembling, was frightened. This particular is nowhere mentioned in the Scripture, but the apostle might know it by revelation, or by some tradition among the Jews. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Ad tractabilem montem, Greek: pselaphomeno orei. palabilem.

====================

Haydock: Heb 12:22

But you are come to Mount Sion, where not a law of fear, like that of Moses, but a new law of love and mercy hath been given you, preached by our Saviour himself, and by his apostles, testified by the coming of the Holy Ghost, and by the effusion of God's spirit upon the believers. Here you are called to the city of the living God, (to the Christian Church on earth) and even to the celestial Jerusalem, there to be for ever happy in the company of may millions of Angels; to the church of the first-born, who are written in heaven, (ver. 23.) to be happy with those who have been chosen by a special mercy of God, and blessed with an endless happiness; to be there in the presence of God, the judge of all men, with all the celestial spirits and souls of the just and perfect in the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ is the mediator of this new testament, the redeemer of mankind by his death on the cross, by the sprinkling and effusion of his blood, which speaketh better than that of Abel: the blood of Abel cried to heaven for vengeance, and the blood of Christ for mercy and pardon. (Witham)

Haydock: Heb 12:25

Refuse not then to hearken to him; for if the Jews escape not God's severe judgments, for being deaf to his admonitions, given by an Angel to Moses on Mount Sinai, and by him to the people, much less shall we escape, if we turn away our minds, and harden our hearts against the instructions of our Redeemer, who came from heaven to speak to us, and teach us the way to our eternal salvation. (Witham)

Haydock: Heb 12:26

Whose voice then moved the earth, by such signs and prodigies on Mount Sinai: but now he promiseth, saying by the prophet Aggeus [Haggai]: yet once; and I will move not only the earth, but heaven also. These words of the prophet are commonly understood of Christ's first coming at his incarnation, when at his birth a star appeared, Angels were sent, and sung his praises, when the heavens opened at his baptism, when the earth trembled at his resurrection, when the sun and moon were darkened at his death, &c. Yet others expound these words of Christ's coming to redeem mankind, so as to comprehend all the time of the law of grace, and even his second coming to judge all men, at the end of the world, of which may particularly be understood those words, (ver. 27.) of the translation of the moveable things; that is, of the elements, and of the heavens changed to a more perfect state. See here St. John Chrysostom; St. Augustine, lib. 18. de civ. Dei. chap. xxxv. p. 517. Nov. Editionis. (Witham)

Haydock: Heb 12:27

Some refer these words to the tabernacle, to the ark, the altar, and other parts of the Jewish religion; which, as figures were to be altered and to be replaced by the more lasting and more perfect dispensation of the gospel. (Estius)

Gill: Heb 12:1

Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about,...., As the Israelites were encompassed with the pillar of cloud, or with the clouds of glory in the wilderness, as the Jews say; See Gill on 1Co 10:1, to which there may be an allusion, here, since it follows,

with so great a cloud of witnesses; or "martyrs", as the Old Testament saints, the instances of whose faith and patience are produced in the preceding chapter: these, some of them, were martyrs in the sense in which that word is commonly used; they suffered in the cause, and for the sake of true religion; and they all bore a noble testimony of God, and for him; and they received a testimony from him; and will be hereafter witnesses for, or against us, to whom they are examples of the above graces: and these may be compared to a "cloud", for the comfortable and reviving doctrines which they dropped; and for their refreshing examples in the heat of persecution; and for their guidance and direction in the ways of God; and more especially for their number, being like a thick cloud, and so many, that they compass about on every side, and are instructive every way. Hence the following things are inferred and urged,

let us lay aside every weight; or burden; every sin, which is a weight and burden to a sensible sinner, and is an hinderance in running the Christian race; not only indwelling sin, but every actual transgression, and therefore to be laid aside; as a burden, it should be laid on Christ; as a sin, it should be abstained from, and put off, with respect to the former conversation: also worldly cares, riches, and honours, when immoderately pursued, are a weight depressing the mind to the earth, and a great hinderance in the work and service of God, and therefore to be laid aside; not that they are to be entirely rejected, and not cared for and used, but the heart should not be set upon them, or be over anxious about them: likewise the rites and ceremonies of Moses's law were a weight and burden, a yoke of bondage, and an intolerable one, and with which many believing Jews were entangled and pressed, and which were a great hinderance in the performance of evangelical worship; wherefore the exhortation to these Hebrews, to lay them aside, was very proper and pertinent, since they were useless and incommodious, and there had been a disannulling of them by Christ, because of their weakness and unprofitableness. Some observe, that the word here used signifies a tumour or swelling; and so may design the tumour of pride and vain glory, in outward privileges, and in a man's own righteousness, to which the Hebrews were much inclined; and which appears in an unwillingness to stoop to the cross, and bear afflictions for the sake of the Gospel; all which is a great enemy to powerful godliness, and therefore should be brought down, and laid aside. The Arabic version renders it, "every weight of luxury": all luxurious living, being prejudicial to real religion:

and the sin which doth so easily beset us; the Arabic version renders it, "easy to be committed"; meaning either the corruption of nature in general, which is always present, and puts upon doing evil, and hinders all the good it can; or rather some particular sin, as what is commonly called a man's constitution sin, or what he is most inclined to, and is most easily drawn into the commission of; or it may be the sin of unbelief is intended, that being opposite to the grace of faith, the apostle had been commending, in the preceding chapter, and he here exhorts to; and is a sin which easily insinuates itself, and prevails, and that sometimes under the notion of a virtue, as if it would be immodest, or presumptuous to believe; the arguments for it are apt to be readily and quickly embraced; but as every weight, so every sin may be designed: some reference may be had to Lam 1:14 where the church says, that her transgressions were "wreathed", ישתרגו, "wreathed themselves", or wrapped themselves about her. The allusion seems to be to runners in a race, who throw off everything that encumbers, drop whatsoever is ponderous and weighty, run in light garments, and lay aside long ones, which entangle and hinder in running, as appears from the next clause, or inference.

And let us run with patience the race that is set before us. The stadium, or race plot, in which the Christian race is run, is this world; the prize run for is the heavenly glory; the mark to direct in it, is Christ; many are the runners, yet none but the overcomers have the prize; which being held by Christ, is given to them: this race is "set before" the saints; that is, by God; the way in which they are to run is marked out by him in his word; the troubles they shall meet with in it are appointed for them by him, in his counsels and purposes; the mark to direct them is set before them in the Gospel, even Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, whom they are to look unto; the length of their race is fixed for them, or how far, and how long they shall run; and the prize is determined for them, and will be given them, and which is held out for their encouragement, to have respect unto: and it becomes all the saints, and belongs to each, and everyone of them, to "run" this race; which includes both doing and suffering for Christ; it is a motion forward, a pressing towards the mark for the prize, a going from strength to strength, from one degree of grace to another; and to it swiftness and agility are necessary; and when it is performed aright, it is with readiness, willingness, and cheerfulness: it requires strength and courage, and a removal of all impediments, and should be done "with patience"; which is very necessary, because of the many exercises in the way; and because of the length of the race; and on account of the prize to be enjoyed, which is very desirable: the examples of the saints, and especially Christ, the forerunner, should move and animate unto it.

Gill: Heb 12:2

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,.... Not with bodily eyes, for at present he is not to be looked upon in this manner, but with the eye of the understanding, or with the eye of faith; for faith is a seeing of the Son; it is a spiritual sight of Christ, which is at first but glimmering, afterwards it increases, and is of a soul humbling nature; it is marvellous and surprising; it transforms into the image of Christ, and fills with joy unspeakable, and full of glory: a believer should be always looking to Christ, and off of every object, as the word here used signifies. Christ is to be looked unto as "Jesus", a Saviour, who being appointed and sent by God to be a Saviour, came, and is become the author of eternal salvation; and to him only should we look for it: he is able and willing to save; he is a suitable, complete, and only Saviour; and whoever look to him by faith shall be saved; and he is to be considered, and looked unto, as "the author and finisher of faith": he is the author or efficient cause of it; all men are by nature without it; it is not in the power of man to believe of himself; it is a work of omnipotence; it is an instance of the exceeding greatness of the power of God; and it is the operation of Christ, by his Spirit; and the increase of it is from him, Luk 17:5 and he is the finisher of it; he gives himself, and the blessings of his grace, to his people, to maintain and strengthen it; he prays for it, that it fail not; he carries on the work of faith, and will perform it with power; and brings to, and gives that which is the end of it, eternal life, or the salvation of the soul.

Who for the joy that was set before him; the word αντι, rendered "for"; sometimes signifies, in the room, or stead of, as in Mat 2:22 and is so rendered here in the Syriac and Arabic versions; and then the sense is, that Christ instead of being in the bosom of the Father, came into this world; instead of being in the form of God, he appeared in the form of a servant; instead of the glory which he had with his Father from eternity, he suffered shame and disgrace; instead of living a joyful and comfortable life on earth, he suffered a shameful and an accursed death; and instead of the temporal joy and glory the Jews proposed to him, he endured the shame and pain of the cross: sometimes it signifies the end for which a thing is, as in Eph 5:31 and may intend that, for the sake of which Christ underwent so much disgrace, and such sufferings; namely, for the sake of having a spiritual seed, a numerous offspring with him in heaven, who are his joy, and crown of rejoicing; for the sake of the salvation of all the elect, on which his heart was set; and for the glorifying of the divine perfections, which was no small delight and pleasure to him. And to this agrees the Chaldee paraphrase of Psa 21:1.

"O Lord, in thy power shall the King Messiah יחדי, "rejoice", and in thy redemption how greatly will he exult!''

And also because of his own glory as Mediator, which was to follow his sufferings, and which includes his resurrection from the dead, his exaltation at the right hand of God, and the whole honour and glory Christ has in his human nature; see Psa 16:8 and with a view to all this, he endured the cross; which is to be taken not properly for that frame of wood, on which he was crucified; but, improperly, for all his sufferings, from his cradle to his cross; and particularly the tortures of the cross, being extended on it, and nailed unto it; and especially the death of the cross, which kind of death he endured to verify the predictions of it, Psa 22:16 and to show that he was made a curse for his people; and this being a Roman punishment, shows that the sceptre was taken from Judah, and therefore the Messiah must be come; and that Christ suffered for the Gentiles, as well as Jews: and this death he endured with great courage and intrepidity, with much patience and constancy, and in obedience to the will of his Father: despising the shame; of the cross; for it was an ignominious death, as well as a painful one; and as he endured the pain of it with patience, he treated the shame of it with contempt; throughout the whole of his life, he despised the shame and reproach that was cast upon him; and so he did at the time of his apprehension, and when upon his trial, and at his death, under all the ignominious circumstances that attended it; which should teach us not to be ashamed of the reproach of Christ, but count it an honour to be worthy to suffer shame for his name.

And is set down at the right hand of the throne of God; Which is in heaven; and is expressive of the majesty and glory of God; and of the honour done to Christ in human nature, which is not granted to any of the angels: here Christ sits as God's fellow, as equal to him, as God, and as having done his work as man, and Mediator; and this may assure us, that when we have run out our race, we shall sit down too, with Christ upon his throne, and be at rest.

Gill: Heb 12:3

For consider him,.... In the greatness of his person, as God, the Son of God, the heir of all things; and in his offices of prophet, priest, and King, as the Saviour of lost sinners, the Leader and Commander of the people, as the apostle and high priest of our profession: consider him in his human nature, his conversation on earth, and what he did and suffered for men; how that in his nature he was pure and holy, in his conversation harmless and innocent, in his deportment meek and lowly; who went about doing good to the souls of men, and at last suffered and died, and is now glorified: consider the analogy between him and us, and how great is the disproportion; and therefore if he was ill treated, no wonder we should consider him under all his reproaches and sufferings:

that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself; against his person, they denying his deity, and speaking against his sonship, and against his offices; mocking him as a King, deriding him as a prophet, and treating him with the utmost contempt as a priest and Saviour; and against his actions, his works of mercy to the bodies of men, when done on the sabbath day; his conversing with sinners for the good of their souls, as if he was an encourager of them in sin, and a partner with them; his miracles, as if they were done by the help of the devil; and against the whole series of his life, as if it was criminal. Now we should analogize this contradiction, and see what proportion there is between this, and what is endured by us: we should consider the aggravations of it, that it was "against himself"; sometimes it was against his disciples, and him through them, as it is now against his members, and him in them; but here it was immediately and directly against himself: and this he endured "from sinners"; some more secret, as the Scribes, Sadducees, and Pharisees; some more open, as the common people; some of them the vilest of sinners, the most abandoned of creatures, as the Roman soldiers, and Herod's men of war: and this should be considered, that we cannot be contradicted by viler or meaner persons; and it is worthy of notice, with what courage and bravery of mind, with what patience and invincible constancy he endured it: this should be recollected for imitation and encouragement,

lest ye be wearied, and faint in your minds; contradiction is apt to make persons weary and faint, as Rebekah was, because of the daughters of Heth, and as Jeremiah was, because of the derision of the Jews, Gen 27:46 but a consideration of Jesus, and of what he has endured, tends to relieve the saints in such a condition; See Mat 10:25.

Gill: Heb 12:4

Ye have not yet resisted unto blood,.... They had resisted sin, and Satan, and the world, the men of it, and the lusts of it, and its frowns and flatteries, and also false teachers, even every adversary of Christ, and their souls; but they had not, as yet, resisted unto blood, or to the shedding of their blood, as some of the Old Testament saints had done; as some in the times of the Maccabees, and as James the apostle of Christ, and as Christ himself: wherefore the apostle suggests, that they ought to consider, that they had been indulged; and what they had been engaged in, were only some light skirmishes; and that they must expect to suffer as long as they were in the world, and had blood in them; and that their blood, when called for, should be spilled for the sake of Christ:

striving against sin; which is the principal antagonist the believer has, and is here particular pointed out: sin is here, by some, thought to be put for sinful men; or it may design the sin of those men, who solicited the saints to a defection from the truth; or the sin of apostasy itself; or that of unbelief; or rather indwelling sin, and the lusts of the flesh, which war against the soul. Now this is said, to sharpen and increase the saints resentment and indignation against it, as being their antagonist, with whom they strive and combat, and which is the cause of all the evils in the world, exposes to wrath to come, and separates from communion with God; and to encourage them to bear their sufferings patiently, since they are not without sin, as Christ was; and since their afflictions and sufferings are for the subduing of sin, and the increase of holiness.

Gill: Heb 12:5

And ye have forgotten the exhortation,.... Or consolation, the consolatory word or doctrine, in Pro 3:11. This, by their conduct, the apostle feared they had forgotten, and therefore puts them in mind of it; or it may be read by way of question, "and have ye forgotten?", &c. do not ye remember? it would be right to call it to mind:

which speaketh unto you as unto children; not as the children of Solomon, but as the children of God, or of Christ, the wisdom of God: here, by a prosopopeia, the word of exhortation is introduced as a person speaking,

my son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord; by which is meant, not vindictive punishment; this would not be speaking to them, nor dealing with them as children, and would be contrary to the love of God towards them; besides, chastisement in this sense has been upon Christ for them, and it would be unjust to lay it on them again; but a fatherly correction is designed, and which is given in love by God, as a Father, and for the instruction of his children, as the word used signifies: and it is called not the chastening of men, but of the Lord; every chastening, or afflictive providence, is appointed by God, and is looked upon by believers, when grace is in exercise, as coming from him; and it is directed, and governed, and limited by him, and is overruled by him for his own glory, and their good: and this is not to be despised, as something nauseous and loathsome, or as not useful and unprofitable, or as insignificant and unworthy of notice, but should be esteemed for the good ends, which are sometimes answered, by it:

nor faint when thou art rebuked of him; God has various ways of rebuking, reproving, and convincing, sometimes by his Spirit, sometimes by his word and ministers, and sometimes by afflictive providences; by these he rebukes his people for their sins, convinces them of them, and brings them to acknowledgment and confession; he makes them hereby sensible of their duty, in which they have been remiss, and brings them to a more constant and fervent discharge of it; he reproves them for, and convinces of their folly in trusting in the creature, or loving it too much, and of every wrong way they have been walking in; and these rebukes are not in a way of wrath, but love, and therefore saints should not faint at them: there are two extremes they are apt to run into, under such a dispensation; either to take no notice, and make light of an affliction, or else to be overwhelmed by it, and sink under it; both are guarded against in this exhortation.

Gill: Heb 12:6

For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,.... All men are not the objects of God's love, only a special people, whom he has chosen in Christ; for whom he has given his Son, when they were sinners and enemies; whom he quickens and calls by his grace, justifies, pardons, and accepts in Christ; and whom he causes to love him; these he loves with an everlasting and unchangeable love, and in a free and sovereign way, without any regard to any motive or condition in them. Now these are chastened by him, and loved while they are chastened; their chastening is in love, as appears from the nature of God's love to them, which changes not; from the nature of chastening itself; which is that of a father; from the divine supports granted under it; from the ends of it, which are, among others, that they might be more and more partakers of holiness, and not be condemned with the world; and from the issue of it, which is a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. So the Jews ^p often speak of יסורין של אהבה, "chastisements of love", in distinction from evil "chastisement", or vindictive ones:

and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth; by whom are meant, not any of the angels, nor all the sons of men, but such whom God has predestinated to the adoption of children, and in the covenant of his grace has declared himself a father to; for whom Christ has a special regard, as children, and therefore partook of human nature, and died to gather them together, and redeemed them, that they might receive the adoption of children; and who appear to be the children of God by faith in Christ; and who have the spirit of adoption, witnessing their sonship to them; this is a valuable blessing of grace, and springs from love: and such are received by God into his heart's love and affection, with complacency and delight; and into the covenant of his grace, to share all the blessings and promises of it; and into his family, to enjoy all the privileges of his house, and into communion with himself; and they will be hereafter received by him into glory: now these he scourges; he suffers them sometimes to be scourged by men, and to be buffeted by Satan; and sometimes he scourges them himself with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men, but always in love.

Gill: Heb 12:7

If ye endure chastening,.... In faith, with patience, with courage and constancy, with humility and reverence: there are many things which may encourage and animate the saints to endure it in such a manner; as that it is but a chastening, and the chastening of a father; it should be considered from whence it comes, and for what ends; that it comes from the Lord, and is for his glory, and their good; the example of Christ, and of other saints, should excite unto it. The Jews have a saying ^q, that

"the doctrine of chastisements is silence;''

that is, they are to be patiently bore, and not murmured at. The Vulgate Latin, and all the Oriental versions, read the words as an exhortation; the former of these renders it, "persevere in discipline"; the Syriac version, "endure correction"; the Arabic version, "be ye patient in chastisement"; and the Ethiopic version, "endure your chastening": but then the word, "for", should be supplied in the next clause, as it is in the Syriac and Ethiopic versions, making that to be a reason, enforcing this,

for God dealeth with you as with sons: chastening is owning of them for his children, and it discovers them to be so, and shows that they continue such; he does not chasten them but when it is necessary; and whenever he does, it is in love and mercy, and for good, and in the best time, seasonably, and in measure:

for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? no one can be named, not the Son of God himself; he had the chastisement of our peace upon him; nor the more eminent among the children of God, as Abraham, David, and others; nor any in any catalogue, or list of them, such as in the preceding chapter; not one in any age or period of time whatever, in any bodies, societies, or communities of them, either under the Old or New Testament.

Gill: Heb 12:8

But if ye be without chastisement,.... Or have no affliction:

whereof all are partakers; that is, all the children of God; they are all alike children; they are all in a state of imperfection, and prone to sin; God has an impartial respect unto them: and though they are not all alike chastened, nor chastened at all times, yet none are exempted from chastisement, but have it in some way or another, and at some time or another.

Then are ye bastards, and not sons; all are not sons that are under a profession of religion; all that are under a profession of religion are not chastised; but then those are not the children of God, but the children of the world, of Satan, and of the antichristian harlot; for though all that are chastised are not children, yet all that are children are chastised: hence we learn, that outward peace and prosperity is not a note of a true church; and that such have reason to distrust their state, who know not what it is to have the chastising rod of God upon them; and that afflictions are rather arguments for than against sonship.

Gill: Heb 12:9

Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh,.... Earthly parents; who are so called, because they are the immediate causes and instruments of the generation of their children, and of their fleshly bodies and worldly beings; and to distinguish them from the Father of spirits: and this shows, that they have not the spirit or soul from them, only the flesh or body, and which is frail and corrupt; and therefore goes by this name.

Which corrected us; early, and at proper seasons, in love, and for instruction, and to prevent ruin, and death:

and we gave them reverence; by submitting to their correction, and hearkening to it; by taking shame to themselves, and acknowledging the offence committed; by retaining the same affection for them; and, by a carefulness not to offend for the future.

Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? that is, to God, who is so called; not because he is the Creator of angels, who are spirits; but because he is the Creator of the souls of men; the soul is the more noble and excellent part of man: it bears a resemblance to God; it is, the life of man, and is immortal; it is exceeding precious, and the redemption of it; this was at first immediately created by God; and he still continues to create souls, which he preserves in their being, and has the power of saving and destroying them. Besides, God may be so called, because he is the author and donor of all spiritual gifts, and particularly of regenerating grace; it is he who renews a right spirit in them, and puts a new spirit into them: now such ought to be in "subjection" to him; not only as creatures to a Creator, and as subjects to their prince: but as children to a father, and particularly to him, as and when correcting; they should bow to his sovereignty, resign to his will, be humble under his mighty hand, be still and quiet, and bear all patiently; the advantage arising from such a subjection is life: "and live"; or "that ye may live"; or "and ye shall live": more comfortably, and more to the glory of God, in communion and fellowship with him here, and in heaven to all eternity.

Gill: Heb 12:10

For they verily for a few days chastened us,.... Which respects not the minority of children, during which time they are under the correction of parents, and which is but a few days; nor the short life of parents; but rather the end which parents have in chastening their children, which is their temporal good, and which lasts but for a few days; which sense the opposition in the latter part of the text requires: and this they do

after their own pleasure: not to please and delight themselves in the pains and cries of their children, which would be brutish and inhuman; though corrections are too often given to gratify the passions; nor merely in an arbitrary way, and when they please; but the sense is, they correct as seems good unto them; in the best way and manner; to the best of their judgments, which are fallible:

but he for our profit; saints are no losers by afflictions; they lose nothing but their dross and tin; they do not lose the love of God; nor their interest in the covenant of grace; nor the presence of God; nor grace in their own hearts; nor spiritual peace and comfort: on the contrary, they are real gainers by them; their graces gain by them fresh lustre and glory; they obtain a greater degree of spiritual knowledge; and a larger stock of experience; and are hereby restored to their former state, duty, and zeal; and become more conformable to Christ; yea, their afflictions conduce to their future glory; many are the profits arising from them. The Alexandrian copy reads in the plural number, "profits": particularly God's end in chastening of his children is,

that we might be partakers of his holiness; not the essential holiness of God, which is incommunicable; but a communicative holiness of his, which it is his determining will his people should have: it comes from him, from whom every good and perfect gift does; it is in Christ for them, and is received out of his fulness; and is wrought in them by the Spirit; and it bears a resemblance to the divine nature: now men are naturally destitute of this holiness; they have it not by nature, but by participation; as God's gift; and they first partake of it in regeneration; and here an increase of it is designed, a gradual participation of it; and it may include perfect holiness in heaven: afflictions are designed as means to bring persons to this end; to bring them to a sense of sin, an acknowledgment of it, an aversion to it, and to a view of pardon of it; to purge it away; to wean the saints from this world; to increase their grace, and lead them on to a perfect state of glory, where there will be no more sin, and no more sorrow.

Gill: Heb 12:11

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous,.... These words anticipate an objection, taken from the grief and sorrow that comes by afflictions; and therefore how should they be for profit and advantage? The apostle answers, by granting that no affliction "seemeth" to be joyous, in outward appearance to flesh and blood, and according to the judgment of carnal sense and reason; in this view of afflictions, it must be owned, they do not appear to be matter, cause, or occasion of joy; though they really are, when viewed by faith, and judged of by sanctified reason; for they are tokens of the love of God and Christ; are evidences of sonship; and work together either for the temporal, or spiritual, or eternal good of the saints: and so likewise indeed "for the present time", either while under them, or in the present state of things, they seem so; but hereafter, either now when they are over; or however in the world to come, when the grace, goodness, wisdom, and power of God in them, in supporting under them, bringing out of them, and the blessed effects, and fruits of them, will be discerned, they will be looked upon with pleasure: but for the present, and when carnal sense and reason prevail, it must be allowed, that they are not matter of joy,

but grievous; or matter, cause, and occasion of grief; they cause pain and grief to the afflicted, and to their friends and relations about them; and especially, they are very grieving, and occasion heaviness, and are grievous to be borne, when soul troubles attend them; when God hides his face, and the soul is filled with a sense of wrath, looking upon the chastening, as being in wrath and hot displeasure; when Satan is let loose, and casts his fiery darts thick and fast; and when the soul has lost its views of interest in the love of God, and in the grace of Christ, and in eternal glory and happiness.

Nevertheless, afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby: who are used unto afflictions; "trained" up and instructed in the school of afflictions, as the word may signify; in which many useful lessons of faith and hope, patience and experience, humility, self-denial; and resignation of will, are learned: and to such afflictions yield "the fruit of peace"; external peace and prosperity sometimes follow upon them; and oftentimes internal peace is enjoyed in them; and they always issue to such in eternal peace and everlasting happiness; and this peace arises from the "righteousness" of Christ, laid hold upon by faith, which produces a true conscience peace, and entitles to that everlasting joy and rest which remains for the people of God. Moreover, the fruit of holiness may be designed, which saints by afflictions are made partakers of, and the peace enjoyed in that; for there is a peace, which though it does not spring from, yet is found in the ways of righteousness; and though this peace may not be had for the present, or while the affliction lasts, yet it is experienced "afterwards"; either after the affliction is over in the present life, or however in eternity, when the saints enter into peace; for the end of such dispensations, and of the persons exercised by them, is peace,

Gill: Heb 12:12

These words may be considered as spoken to the Hebrews, with respect to themselves; accordingly, the Syriac version reads, "your hands", and "your knees"; who were sluggish, and inactive in prayer, in hearing the word, in attendance on ordinances, in holding fast their profession, and in the performance of those things which adorn it; they were weary and fatigued with weights and burdens of sins and afflictions; and were faint, fearful, and timorous, through distrust of the promised good, because of their persecutions, being in present distress, and in a view of approaching danger, with which they might be surprised, as well as affected with their present afflictions: and then the exhortation to "lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees", is to be active in every duty; to be courageous against every enemy: to bear patiently every burden; to take heart, and be of good cheer under every afflictive providence: or else they may be considered as an exhortation to them with respect to others, which seems to be most agreeable to Isa 35:3 from whence they are taken; and then what is signified in them is done by sympathizing with persons in distress; by speaking comfortably to them, and by bearing their burdens.

Gill: Heb 12:13

And make straight paths for your feet,.... By "feet" are meant the walk and conversation of the saints, both in the church, and in the world, Son 7:1 and there are paths made ready for these feet to walk in; as the good old paths of truth, of the word and worship of God, of faith and holiness: and to make these paths "straight", is to make the word of God the rule of walking; to avoid carefully joining anything with it as a rule; to attend constantly on the ordinances of Christ; to go on evenly in a way of believing on him; to walk in some measure worthy of the calling wherewith we are called, and by way of example to others.

Lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; a lame member, as the Syriac version, a lame member of the body of Christ, the church; or a lame person, as the Arabic version, a weak believer; one that is ready to halt, either through the corruption of nature, or through the weakness of grace, or through want of light and judgment, and through instability and inconstancy; lest such an one should, through the irregular walk and conversation of others, be stumbled and offended, and go out of the way, and leave the paths of righteousness and truth. God takes care of, and has a regard to such, and he would have others also, Mic 4:6. The Ethiopic version reads, "that your halting may be healed, and not offended": that you yourselves may not halt and stumble.

But let it rather be healed; the fallen believer be restored, the weak brother be confirmed, the halting professor be strengthened, and everyone be built up and established upon the most holy faith, and in the pure ways of the Gospel.

Gill: Heb 12:14

Follow peace with all men,.... That are in a natural and domestic relation to one another, being of the same family; and that are in a civil and political one, being of the same nation, city, or society; and that are in a spiritual one, being members of the same church; or, if not, yet being saints, and though in some things different in judgment; yea, even peace is to be followed with enemies, as much as in us lies: and perhaps by "all men", the Gentiles may be more especially designed, whose peace the Hebrews thought they were not to seek, Deu 23:6 mistaking the sense of the text, by applying it to the Gentiles in general: to "follow peace", signifies an eager pursuit after it, in the use of proper means; exerting the utmost of a man's power to attain it, in all things possible: many things serve to enforce this upon the saints; this is most agreeable to all the three divine Persons; to God, who is the God of peace; to Christ, the Prince of peace; and to the Spirit, one of whose fruits is peace; and to the characters of the saints, who are sons of peace, and who are called to peace, and who make a profession of the Gospel of peace; and to the privileges they enjoy, being interested in the covenant of peace, partaking of spiritual peace now, and being entitled to eternal peace hereafter: and this agrees with the sayings and counsels of the ancient Jews. It was a saying of Hillell ^r, who lived about the times of Christ;

"be thou one of the disciples of Aaron, who loved peace, ורודף שלום, "and followed peace".''

This is said of Aaron in the Talmud ^s, that

"he loved peace, and followed peace, and made peace between a man and his neighbour, as is said, Mal 2:6.''

They recommend peace on many accounts, and say, great is peace, and among the rest, because it is one of the names of God ^t:

and holiness: this being added to peace, shows that peace is no further to be followed than is consistent with holiness; and holiness here does not design any particular branch of holiness, as chastity of the body and mind, but the whole of holiness, inward and outward; and intends true holiness, in opposition to ceremonial holiness, which the Hebrews were fond of, and pursued after: it means even perfect holiness; for though holiness is not perfect in this life, yet it will be in heaven; and there is a perfection of it in Christ; and it is to be followed after, by going to Christ for more grace, and exercising faith upon him, as our sanctification; and by eager desires that the Spirit of God would sanctify us more and more, and enable us, by his grace and strength, to walk in the way of holiness, till we get safe to heaven:

without which no man shall see the Lord; or "God", as the Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions read; that is, with the beatific vision in heaven: or the Lord Jesus Christ, "our Lord", as the Syriac version reads; even in this life, so as to have communion with him; and hereafter, so as to behold his glory, both intellectually and corporeally: to such a sight holiness is necessary; for God is holy, and Christ is holy, and so is heaven, and so are the angels, and the souls of men in it.

Gill: Heb 12:15

Looking diligently,.... Acting the part of bishops, or overseers, as the word signifies; and so this exhortation either respects officers of the church of the Hebrews, whose business it was more especially to inspect into the principles and practices of the members of it, and take care that they did not imbibe false doctrines, or live immoral lives; or rather the several members of the church, whose business it is to watch over one another, since this epistle seems to be written to the whole church.

Lest any man fail of the grace of God; not the free favour and love of God in Christ, which is everlasting, unchangeable, and from whence there is no separation; nor the grace of God implanted in the heart in regeneration, which is incorruptible, never failing, but always remains, as do faith, hope, and love; but either the whole doctrine of the Gospel, which is a declaration of the grace of God; or particularly the doctrine of free justification by the righteousness of Christ, which men may receive in vain, and fall from, 2Co 6:1 to which these Hebrews might be prone: and such "fail" of it, who either come short of it, do not come up to it, receive and embrace it; or who having professed it, drop it and deny it: now such should be looked after, and such a case should be diligently looked into; because the glory of God, the honour of Christ, the good of souls, and the well being, and even the continuance of the church state are concerned:

lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; the Alexandrian copy reads οι πολλοι, "the many", the common people, the private members of the church; though it may intend either things or persons: it may design things; and these either the corruption of nature in general, which is a root that lies hidden in a man's heart; and is a root or gall of bitterness; and is apt to spring up, and bring forth bitter fruit, and gives trouble both to a man's self and others; and is of a defiling nature, in particular sins; such as malice, strife, and contention, covetousness, lust, pride, oppression, idleness, &c. which make bitter work, and occasion great trouble in churches, oftentimes: or errors and heresies, which sometimes, like roots, lie under ground, secret and undiscovered; and are bitter ones in their effects, bringing ruin and swift destruction on the souls of men; and these sometimes spring up in churches, while ministers and members are asleep, or not so diligent and watchful as they should be; and occasion great trouble, and are very infectious, and defiling: moreover, persons may be designed; which agrees well with Deu 29:18 from whence this phrase is taken; and with the instance in the following verse, such as all immoral persons, and false teachers, particularly self-justiciaries, that preach the doctrine of justification by the works of the law: this was the capital mistake, and rooted error of the Jewish nation; and a bitter one it was; it produced many bitter fruits of pride and vain glory; and this sprung up in the church, and troubled and defiled many there and elsewhere, being spread by the abettors of it; see Act 15:24. Now, care should be taken, that no such person be in churches, holding such an error; because of the glory of God, Father, Son, and Spirit; the comfort of souls; the peace of the church, and the growth and increase of it, which must be hurt by such men and doctrines; so ριζα αμαρτωλος, "a sinful root", is used for a "wicked man", in the Apocrypha:

"In those days went there out of Israel wicked men, who persuaded many, saying, Let us go and make a covenant with the heathen that are round about us: for since we departed from them we have had much sorrow.'' (1 Maccabees 1:11)

and שורש המרי, "a root of bitterness", signifies, in Jewish writings ^u, an error, or heresy, in opposition to a root of faith, or a fundamental doctrine.

Gill: Heb 12:16

Lest there be any fornicator or profane person,.... The first of these is guilty of a sin against the second table of the law, as well as against his own body; and which is opposed to the holiness the apostle had before exhorted to; such who are guilty of it, are not to be continued in the communion of the church; and it is a sin, which, lived in not repented of, excludes from the kingdom of heaven: the latter is one who is a transgressor of the first table of the law; who is an idolater, a swearer, a despiser of public worship and ordinances, and who behaves irreverently in divine service, and mocks at the future state, as Esau; to whom both these characters seem to belong: and this agrees with what the Jews say concerning him: they have a tradition ^w, that he committed five transgressions on the day he came out of the field weary.

"He committed idolatry: he shed innocent blood; and lay with a virgin betrothed; and denied the life of the world to come (or a future state); and despised his birthright.''

It is elsewhere ^x a little differently expressed.

"Esau, the wicked, committed five transgressions on that day: he lay with a virgin betrothed; and killed a person; and denied the resurrection of the dead; and denied the root, or foundation, (i.e. that there is a God,) and despised his birthright; and besides, he desired his father's death, and sought to slay his brother.''

It is common for them to say of him, that he was an ungodly man; and particularly, that he was a murderer, a robber, ונואף, "and an adulterer" ^y; and that he has no part in the world to come ^z: who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright; the account of which is in Gen 25:29 this includes all the privileges which he had a right unto by being the firstborn; as a peculiar blessing from his father; a double portion of goods; and dominion over his brethren: and it is commonly said by the Jews, that the priesthood belonged to the firstborn, before the Levitical dispensation; and that for this reason, Jacob coveted the birthright ^a, Esau being a wicked man, and unfit for it. The birthright was reckoned sacred; it was typical of the primogeniture of Christ; of the adoption of saints, and of the heavenly inheritance belonging thereunto; all which were despised by Esau: and so the Jewish paraphrases ^b interpret the contempt of his birthright, a despising of his part in the world to come, and a denial of the resurrection of the dead: and his contempt of it was shown in his selling it; and this was aggravated by his selling it for "one morsel of meat"; which was bread, and pottage of lentiles, Gen 25:34. The Jewish writers speak of this bargain and sale much in the same language as the apostle here does; they say ^c of him, this is the man that sold his birthright בעד ככר להם, "for a morsel of bread"; and apply to him the passage in Pro 28:21 "for a piece of bread that man will transgress".

Gill: Heb 12:17

For ye know how that afterwards,.... After he had had his pottage; after he had sold his birthright for it, and the blessing with it; after his father had blessed Jacob: this the apostle relates to the Hebrews, as a thing well known to them; they having read the books of Moses, and being conversant with them, in which the whole history of this affair is recorded:

how that when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; by his father, who refused to give him the blessing, but confirmed what he had given to Jacob; and also by God, he being the object of his hatred; concerning whom he had said, even before his birth, the elder shall serve the younger, Rom 9:11,

for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears, Gen 27:34 though he was very solicitous for the blessing, and shed many tears to obtain it, yet he had no true repentance for his sin in soiling the birthright. Tears are not an infallible sign of repentance: men may be more concerned for the loss and mischief that come by sin, than for the evil that is in it; and such repentance is not sincere; it does not spring from love to God, or a concern for his glory; nor does it bring forth proper fruits: or rather, the sense of the words is, that notwithstanding all his solicitude, importunity, and tears, he found no place of repentance in his father Isaac; he could not prevail upon him to change his mind; to revoke the blessing he had bestowed on Jacob, and confer it on him, Gen 27:33 for he plainly saw it was the mind of God, that the blessing should be where it was; whose counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure. This latter seems to be the better interpretation of the words, though the former agrees with the Targum on Job 15:20

"all the days of Esau the ungodly, they expected that he would have repented, but he repented not.''

Gill: Heb 12:18

For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched,.... The design of the apostle in the following words is, in general, to engage the Hebrews to adhere closely to the Gospel, from the consideration of the superior excellency of it to the law; and in particular, to enforce his former exhortations to cheerfulness under afflictions; to an upright walk in the ways of God; to follow peace with all men, even with the Gentiles, and holiness both of heart and life; and to value the doctrine of the Gospel; and to take heed that none fail of it, or act unbecoming it: and here the apostle observes, what the believing Hebrews were not come to, being delivered from it, namely, the legal dispensation, which was their privilege; the happiness of which as expressed by a detail of particular circumstances, which attended the giving of the law to the Jews: it was given on a "mount which might be touched"; that is, by God, who descended on it, and by, touching it caused it to smoke, quake, and move, Exo 19:18. Compare with, Psa 68:8 for it was not to be touched by the Israelites, nor by their cattle, Exo 19:12, that is, at the time that the law was given, and Jehovah was upon it, otherwise it might be touched; and the meaning is, that it was an earthly mountain, that might be approached to, and be seen and felt, and not of a spiritual nature, as Sion, or the church of God; and so may be expressive of the carnality of the law, and also of the movableness of it:

and that burned with fire; as Mount Sinai did, Exo 19:18 Deu 4:11 which set forth the majesty of God, when upon it, at whose feet went forth burning coals; and also the wrath of God, as an avenging lawgiver and Judge; and the terror of that law, which strikes the minds of the transgressors of it with an expectation of fiery indignation; and so points out the end of such transgressors, which is, to be burnt:

nor unto blackness and darkness; which covered the mount when God was upon it, Exo 19:16 and which also may express the majesty of God, round about whom are clouds and darkness; and also the horror of the legal dispensation, and the obscurity of it; little being known by the Jews of the spirituality of the law, of the strict justice of God, and of the righteousness which the law requires, and of the end and use of it; and especially of the way of salvation by Christ; and so dark were they at last, as to prefer their own traditions before this law: it is added,

and tempest; there being thunderings and lightnings, which were very terrible, Exo 19:16 and though there is no express mention made of a tempest by Moses, yet Josephus ^d speaks not only of very terrible thunderings and lightnings, but of violent storms of wind, which produced exceeding great rains: and the Septuagint on Deu 4:11 use the same words as the apostle does here, "blackness, darkness, and tempest". This also may denote the majesty of God, who was then present; the terror of that dispensation; the horrible curses of the law; and the great confusion and disquietude raised by it in the conscience of a sinner.

Gill: Heb 12:19

And the sound of a trumpet,.... Exo 19:16, which made it still more awful, as the sound of the trumpet will at the last day:

and the voice of words; of the ten words, or decalogue; which was as an articulate voice, formed by angels; and, therefore, the law is called the word spoken by angels, Heb 2:2 and is represented, as the voice of God himself, Exo 20:1 who made use of the ministry of angels to deliver the law to Moses; "which" voice is called קול דברים, "the voice of words", in Deu 4:12, and this voice,

they that heard, entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: fearing that they should die; wherefore they desired Moses to be their mediator, and draw nigh to God, and hear his words, and speak them to them, from him, Exo 20:19.

Gill: Heb 12:20

For they could not endure that which was commanded,.... In the law; not that they disliked and despised the law, as unregenerate men do; but they could not endure it, or bear it, as a yoke, it being a yoke of bondage; nor as a covenant of works, it requiring perfect obedience, but giving no strength to perform; and as it showed them their sins, but did not direct them to a Saviour; as it was an accusing, cursing, and condemning law; and, as a fiery one, revealing wrath, and filling the conscience with it; unless this should have any respect to the following edict, more particularly:

and if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart; and, if a beast, much more a man: and, how easily, through inadvertence, might this be done? and how terrible was the punishment? nothing less than death, by stoning, or being shot: and this they could not bear to hear, or think of: the last clause, "or thrust through with a dart", is wanting in the Alexandrian and Beza's Claromontane copies, in the Vulgate Latin, and all the Oriental versions; and yet is necessary to be retained, being in the original text, in Exo 19:12.

Gill: Heb 12:21

And so terrible was the sight,.... Of the smoke, fire, and lightnings; or of God himself, who descended on the mount; with which agrees the Arabic version, which renders the words, "and so terrible was he who vouchsafed himself to be seen"; not in the bush burning with fire; at which time Moses was afraid to look upon God, Exo 3:6 but on Mount Sinai, when the law was given:

that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake: perhaps he might say this, when he spake, and God answered him, Exo 19:19. These words are nowhere recorded in Scripture; wherefore the apostle had them either by divine revelation, or from tradition, confirmed by the former: for the Jews have a notion that Moses did quake and tremble, and when upon the mount; and that he expressed his fear and dread. They have such a tradition as this ^e;

"when Moses ascended on high, the ministering angels said before the holy blessed God, Lord of the world, what has this man, born of a woman, to do among us? he said unto them, to receive the law he is come; they replied before him, that desirable treasure, which is treasured up with thee, nine hundred, and seventy, and four generations, before the world was created, dost thou seek to give to flesh and blood? "What is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that thou visitest him? who hast set thy glory above the heavens!" The holy blessed God said to Moses, return them an answer; he said, before him, Lord of the world, מתיירא ענא, "I am afraid", lest they should burn, (or consume) me, with the breath of their mouth.''

Compare this last clause with 2Th 2:8 and elsewhere ^f those words being cited, he called unto Moses, Exo 25:16 it is observed:

"this Scripture comes not, but לאיים עליו "to terrify him"; that so the law might be given with fear, fervour, and trembling; as it is said, Psa 2:11''

Once more ^g,

"at the time that the holy blessed God said to Moses, "go, get thee down, for thy people have corrupted themselves", Exo 32:7 אזדעזע משה, "Moses trembled"; and he could not speak, &c.''

And again, it is said ^h, that when Moses was on Mount Sinai, supplicating for the people of Israel, five destroying angels appeared, and immediately נתיירא משה, "Moses was afraid". Now this circumstance is mentioned by the apostle, to aggravate the terror of that dispensation; that Moses, a great and good man; and who had much familiarity with God; the general of the people of Israel; their leader and commander; a man of great courage and presence of mind; and was their mediator between God and them; and yet feared, and quaked: the best of men are not without sin; and the most holy man on earth cannot stand before a holy God, and his holy law, upon the foot of his own righteousness, without trembling: it is an awful thing to draw nigh to God; and there is no such thing as doing it without a Mediator; and that Mediator must be more than a creature: and it is our happiness that we have such a Mediator, who never feared, nor quaked; who failed not, nor was he discouraged.

Gill: Heb 12:22

But ye are come unto Mount Sion,.... The Alexandrian copy reads, as in Heb 12:18 "for ye are not come"; which may seem to favour that interpretation of this passage, which refers it to the heavenly state; to which saints, in this present life, are not, as yet, come: but, by "Mount Sion", and the other names here given, is meant the church of God, under the Gospel dispensation, to which the believing Hebrews were come; in distinction from the legal dispensation, signified by Mount Sinai, from which they were delivered: and this is called Mount Sion, because, like that, it is beloved of God; chosen by him; and is the place of his habitation; here his worship is, and his word and ordinances are administered; here he communes with his people, and distributes his blessings and this, as Mount Sion, is a perfection of beauty the joy of the whole earth; is strongly fortified by divine power, and is immovable; and is comparable to that mountain, for its height and holiness: and to come to Sion is to become a member of a Gospel church, and partake of the ordinances, enjoy the privileges, and perform the duties belonging to it:

and unto the city of the living God; the Gospel church is a city, built on Christ, the foundation; and is full of habitants, true believers, at least it will be, in the latter day; it is pleasantly situated by the river of God's love, and by the still waters of Gospel ordinances; it is governed by wholesome laws, of Christ's enacting, and is under proper officers, of his appointing; and is well guarded by watchmen, which he has set upon the walls of it; and it is endowed with many privileges, as access to God, freedom from the arrests of justice, and from condemnation, adoption, and a right to the heavenly inheritance: and this may be called "the city of God", because it is of his building, and here he dwells, and protects, and defends it; and who is styled "the living God", to distinguish him from the idols of the Gentiles, which are lifeless and inanimate, no other than sticks and stones.

The heavenly Jerusalem: the church of God goes by the name of Jerusalem often, both in the Old and in the New Testament; with which it agrees in its name, which signifies the vision of peace, or they shall see peace: Christ, the King of it, is the Prince of peace; the members of it are sons of peace, who enjoy a spiritual peace now, and an everlasting one hereafter: like that, it is compact together, consisting of saints, cemented together in love, in the order and fellowship of the Gospel; and is well fortified, God himself, and his power, being all around it, and having salvation, for walls and bulwarks, and being encamped about by angels; and it is a free city, being made so by Christ, and, through him, enjoying the liberty of grace now, and having a title to the liberty of glory in the world to come; as Jerusalem was, it is the object of God's choice, the palace of the great King, and the place of divine worship: it is called "heavenly", to distinguish it from the earthly Jerusalem; and to express the excellency of it, as well as to point out its original: the members of it are from heaven, being born from above; their conversation is now in heaven; and they are designed for that place; and its doctrines and ordinances are all from thence.

And to an innumerable company of angels; which are created spirits, immaterial and immortal; very knowing, and very powerful; and swift to do the will of God; they are holy, and immutably so, being the elect of God, and confirmed by Christ: and saints now are brought into a state of friendship with them; and into the same family; and are social worshippers with them; and they have access into heaven, where angels are; and with whom they shall dwell for ever: and, in the present state of things, they share the benefit and advantages of their kind offices; who have, sometimes, provided food for their bodies; healed their diseases; directed and preserved them on journeys; prevented outward calamities; delivered them out of them, when in danger; restrained things hurtful, and cut off their enemies: and, with regard to things spiritual they have, sometimes, made known the mind and will of God unto the saints; have comforted them under their distresses; helped them against Satan's temptations; are present at their death, and carry their souls to glory; and will gather the saints together, at the last day: and, as to the number of them, they are innumerable; they are the armies of heaven; and there is a multitude of the heavenly host; there are more than twelve legions of angels; their number is ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands: and this makes both for the glory and majesty of God, whose attendants they are; and for the comfort and safety of saints, to whom they minister, and about whom they encamp: a like phrase is used in the Apocrypha:

"Before the fair flowers were seen, or ever the moveable powers were established, before the innumerable multitude of angels were gathered together,'' (2 Esdras 6:3)

Gill: Heb 12:23

To the general assembly,.... A "panegyris", the word here used, was a public and solemn assembly of the Greeks, either at their games, or feasts, or fairs, or on religious accounts; and signifies a large collection and convention of men; and sometimes the place where they met togethers ⁱ; and is here used, by the apostle, for the church of God, consisting of all his elect, both Jews and Gentiles, and the meeting of them together: they met together, in the infinite mind of God, from all eternity; and in Christ, their head and representative, both then and in time; and at the last day, when they are all gathered in, they will meet together personally; and a joyful meeting it will be; and a very general one, more so than the assembly of the Jews, at any of their solemn feasts, to which the apostle may have some respect; since this will consist of some of all nations, that have lived in all places, and in all ages of time:

and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven; by the "church", is not meant any particular, or congregational church, nor any national one; but the church catholic, or universal, which consists only of God's elect, and of all of them, in all times and places; and reaches even to the saints in heaven: this church is invisible at present, and will never fail; of which Christ is the head, and for which he has given himself: now the persons, that belong to this church, are styled the "firstborn"; who are not the apostles only, who received the first fruits of the Spirit; nor the first converts among the Jews, who first trusted in Christ; but also the chosen of God, who are equally the sons of God, and born of him; are equally loved by him, and equally united to Christ, and interested in him: they have the same privileges, honours, and dignity, and shall enjoy the same inheritance; they are all firstborn, and are so called, with respect to the angels, the sons of God, as Christ is with respect to the saints, the many brethren of his: and these are said to be "written in heaven"; not in the earth, Jer 17:13, such writing abides not; nor in the book of the Scriptures, for the names of all are not written there; nor in the general book of God's decrees, which relate to all mankind; but in the Lamb's book of life, kept in heaven; and is no other than their election of God: and this way of speaking, concerning it, shows it to be personal and particular; that it is firm, sure, and constant; that it is out of the reach of men and devils to erase it; it denotes the exact knowledge God has of them, and expresses their right to heaven, and the certainty of their coming there: now all such, who are truly come to Sion, are openly come to this assembly and church, and appear to be a part thereof, and are among the firstborn, and have their names written in heaven:

and to God the Judge of all: the Ethiopic version reads, "the Judge of righteousness", or the righteous Judge: some think that Christ is here meant; who is truly and properly God, and is the Judge: all judgment is committed to him; he is Judge of all; he is ordained Judge of quick and dead; for which he would not have been fit, had he not been God: true believers come to him by faith, and that, as their Judge, King, and Governor; and it is their privilege, that Christ is and will be the Judge of all at the last day and hence is his coming to judgment desirable to them. But since Christ is spoken of in the next verse, as a distinct person, to whom the saints come, God the Father seems rather to be designed here: and it is one of the privileges of the saints, in the present life, that they have access to God: all men are at a distance from him, in a state of nature; and they naturally run further and further from him, and have no desire after him; and, when they are made sensible of sin, they are afraid and ashamed to come to him; nor is there any coming to God, but through Christ; and this is a fruit of God's everlasting love, what follows upon electing grace, is an effect of Christ's death, and owing to the quickening grace of the Spirit; it is performed in a spiritual way, and is by faith; it is a coming to the throne of God, even to his seat, to communion with him, and to a participation of his grace: and it is their privilege that they have access to him as the Judge of all; not only as a Father, and as the God of all grace, but as a Judge, and a righteous one, to whom they can come without terror; for though he is just, yet he is a Saviour, and the justifier of his people, on account of the righteousness of his Son; whose sins he pardons in a way of justice, through the blood of Christ; and is their patron, protector, and defender, who will right their wrongs, and avenge their cause:

and to the spirits of just men made perfect; which may be understood of the saints on earth, who are "just men"; not naturally, for so no man is, but the reverse; nor in opinion only, or merely externally, as the Scribes and Pharisees were; nor by the deeds of the law; nor by obedience to the Gospel; nor by faith, either as wrought in them, or done by them, though by the object of it; nor by an infusion of righteousness into them; but by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ unto them: and these are "made perfect"; not as to sanctification, unless in Christ, or in a comparative sense, and with respect to the parts of the new man, but not as to degrees; for no man is without sin, and the best stand in need of fresh supplies of grace; but as to justification, Christ has perfectly fulfilled the law for them, and has perfectly expiated their sins, and perfectly redeemed them from all sin, and has procured a full pardon of them; and they are completely righteous through his righteousness; and the "spirits", or souls of these are only mentioned, because the communion of saints in a Gospel church state lies chiefly in the souls and spirits of each other, or in spiritual things relating to their souls; and their souls are greatly affected, and knit to each other: though the saints in heaven may be here intended, at least included; whose spirits or soul's are separate from their bodies; and they are the souls of just men, for none but such enter into the kingdom of heaven; where they are made perfect in knowledge and holiness, in peace and joy; though they have not their bodies, nor as yet all the saints with them. Now, believers, in the present state of things, may be said to be come to them, being come to the Church below, which is a part of that above; as also in hope, expectation, and desire. The apostle seems to have respect to some distinctions among the Jews: they divide mankind into three sorts; some are perfectly wicked; and some are perfectly righteous; and there are others that are between both ^k: they often speak of צדיקים גמורים, "just men perfect" ^l; and distinguish between a just man perfect, and a just man that is not perfect ^m; as they do also between penitents and just men perfect; See Gill on Luk 15:7.

Gill: Heb 12:24

And to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant,.... Of the new covenant, and, of Christ's being the Mediator of it, See Gill on Heb 8:6. See Gill on Heb 8:8. Coming to Christ is by faith; and is different from a corporeal coming to him in the days of his flesh; and from an outward attendance on ordinances; it is a coming to him under a sense of want, and upon a sight of fulness; and is the produce of God's efficacious grace; and souls must come to Christ as naked sinners; and without a Mediator, without anything of their own to ingratiate them; and it is free to all sensible sinners to come to him, and is the great privilege of saints: it is the blessing of blessings; such are safe, and settled, and at peace, who are come to Jesus; they can want no good thing, for all are theirs; they have free access to God through him, and a right to all privileges:

and to the blood of sprinkling: that is, the blood of Christ; so called, either in allusion to the blood of the passover, which was received in a basin, and with a bunch of hyssop was sprinkled upon the lintel and two side posts of the doors of the houses, in which the Israelites were; which being looked upon by Jehovah, he passed over them, and all were safe within, so that the destroyer did not touch them, when the firstborn in Egypt were destroyed, Exo 12:1 which is the case of all such as are sprinkled with the blood of Jesus: or else to the blood of the covenant, sprinkled by Moses on the book, and on all the people, Exo 24:8 or to the several sprinklings of blood in the legal sacrifices: and the phrase may denote the application of Christ's blood to his people, for justification, pardon, and cleansing, which is their great mercy and privilege:

that speaketh better things than that of Abel; either "than Abel", as the Vulgate Latin, and Syriac versions render it, who being dead, yet speaks; and who was a type of Christ in his death, and the punishment of it; for as he was slain by his own brother, who was punished for it, so Christ was put to death by his own nation and people, the Jews, for which wrath is come upon them to the uttermost: but the efficacy of Christ's blood for the procuring pardon, peace, reconciliation, and the redemption and purchase of his church and people, shows him to be greater than Abel; and it speaks better things than he did, or does: or else, "than the blood of Abel", as the Arabic version renders it; Abel's blood cried for vengeance; Christ's blood cries for peace and pardon, both in the court of heaven, where it is pleaded by Christ, and in the court of conscience, where it is sprinkled by his spirit: or than the sprinkling of the blood of Abel's sacrifice, or than Abel's sacrifice; which was the first blood that was sprinkled in that way, and the first sacrifice mentioned that was offered up by faith, and was typical of Christ's; but then Christ's sacrifice itself is better than that; and the sprinkling of his blood, to which believers may continually apply for their justification, remission, and purgation, and by which they have entrance into the holiest of all, is of greater efficacy than the sprinkling of blood in Abel's sacrifice; and calls for and procures better things than that did; which sense may the rather be chosen, since the apostle's view, in this epistle, is to show the superior excellency of Christ's sacrifice to all others, even to the more excellent of them, as Abel's was, Heb 11:4.

Gill: Heb 12:25

See that ye refuse not him that speaketh,.... Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, whose blood speaks better things than Abel, or than his blood and sacrifice: he was the speaker in the council and covenant of grace, that spoke for the elect; in the creation of all things out of nothing, that said, and it was done; in giving the law to the Israelites, in the wilderness, for he is the angel which spake to Moses in Mount Sinai, he spoke to God for the Old Testament saints, and was the angel of God's presence to them; he spoke in his own person, as the prophet of the church, in the days of his flesh; and he now speaks in heaven, by appearing in the presence of God for his people, and by presenting his blood, righteousness, and sacrifice; he speaks by his Spirit, in and to the hearts of his saints; and by his ministers in the Gospel, and the ordinances of it: nor should he be refused, as he is, when his Gospel is made light of, and neglected; when men excuse themselves from an attendance on it; when they will not hear it; or, when they do, and contradict and blaspheme, despise and reproach it, or leave off hearing it. Care should be taken that Christ is not refused in the ministry of the word; which may be enforced from the greatness and excellency of the person speaking, who is God, and not a mere man; from the excellency of the matter spoken, the great salvation: and the rather diligent heed should be had unto him, since there is a backwardness to everything that is spiritual and heavenly; and since Satan is vigilant and industrious to put off persons from hearing the Gospel, or to steal the word from them:

for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth: the Ethiopic version renders it, "who appeared to them on the mount"; that is, on Mount Sinai; meaning either God himself, who descended on the mount, and spoke the ten commandments to the children of Israel; or Christ, the Angel that spoke to Moses in it; or rather Moses himself, who was on the earth, and of the earth, earthly; who spake from God to the people, being their mediator; him the Jews refused, would not obey him, but thrust him away, Act 7:39, though they promised to hear and do all that was said to them; wherefore they did not escape divine vengeance and punishment; their carcasses fell in the wilderness at several times, in great numbers, and were not suffered to enter into Canaan's land: much more

shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven; that is, Christ, who came from heaven originally; is the Lord from heaven; whose doctrine is from heaven; and who, having done his work, is gone to heaven; where he now is, and from whence he speaks; and from hence he will come a second time, as Judge of all. There have been, and are some, that turn away from him; from a profession of him, and his Gospel and ordinances, and draw back unto perdition; such shall not escape divine wrath and vengeance; the sorest punishment shall be inflicted on them; see Heb 10:29.

Gill: Heb 12:26

Whose voice then shook the earth,.... That is, at the giving of the law on Mount Sinai: Christ was then present; his voice was then heard; which was either the voice of thunder, or the voice of the trumpet, or rather the voice of words: this shook the earth, Sinai, and the land about it, and the people on it; which made them quake and tremble, even Moses himself; see Exo 19:18

but now he hath promised, saying in Hag 2:6

yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven; not only the land of Judea, and particularly Jerusalem, and the inhabitants of it, who were all shaken, and moved, and troubled at the news of the birth of the Messiah, the desire of all nations, the prophet Haggai speaks of, Mat 2:2 but the heaven also; by prodigies in it, as the appearance of a wonderful star, which guided the wise men from the east; and by the motions of the heavenly inhabitants, the angels, who descended in great numbers, and made the heavens resound with their songs of praise, on account of Christ's incarnation, Mat 2:2. How the apostle explains and applies this, may be seen in the next verse.

Gill: Heb 12:27

And this word yet once more,.... Or as it is in Hag 2:6 "yet once it is a little while"; which suggests, that as something had been done already, so in a very little time, and at once, something very marvellous and surprising would be effected: and it

signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made; which some understand of what will be done at Christ's coming to judgment; as the passing away of the heavens and the earth, which are things that are made, or created, by the power of God; when there will be a shaking of them, so as that they shall be removed, and pass away with a great noise; and so they interpret the next clause, of the permanency of the new heavens and the new earth, and of the immovable kingdom of glory, and the never fading inheritance of the saints; and of their fixed, unalterable, and unshaken state: but rather this is to be understood of Christ's coming to the destruction of Jerusalem; when there was an entire removal of the Jewish state, both political and ecclesiastical; and of the whole Mosaic economy; and of things appertaining to divine worship, which were made with hands, as the temple, and the things in it; and which were made to be removed; for they were to continue no longer than the time of reformation: and this removing of them designs the abolition of them, and entire putting an end to them; at which time, not only their civil government was wholly put down, but their ecclesiastic state also; for the place of their worship was destroyed, the daily sacrifice ceased, and the old covenant, and the manner of administering it, vanished away; and all the legal institutions and ordinances, which were abolished by the death of Christ, were no more performed in Jerusalem; the temple and temple service perishing together:

that those things which cannot be shaken may remain: the kingdom and priesthood of Christ, which are everlasting; and the good things which come by him, as remission of sins, justification, adoption, sanctification, and the heavenly inheritance; as also the Gospel, and the doctrines and ordinances of it, baptism, and the Lord's supper, and the mode of Gospel worship; all which are to continue until Christ's second coming.

Gill: Heb 12:28

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved,.... Not the kingdom of glory; eternal glory is a kingdom, and it is an immovable one; and is a free gift of God, and may be said to be now received; God's people are called unto it, and are made meet for it, and have a right unto it, and have it in faith and hope, and in Christ their head and representative: but the kingdom of grace, under the Gospel dispensation, is meant: there are several things in this dispensation which are called a kingdom; as a Gospel church, the Gospel itself, and the privileges and blessings of grace bestowed, especially spiritual and internal ones, Mat 25:1 and the whole dispensation is called the kingdom of heaven, Mat 3:2. Christ he is King, believers are his subjects, the Gospel is his sceptre, and the ordinances are his laws and appointments, and all are immovable; and a man may be said to receive this kingdom, when he is delivered from the power of darkness, is regenerated, and has the blessings of grace actually bestowed on him, and is brought to Zion:

let us have grace; by which is meant, not thankfulness for so great a blessing, though this is highly requisite and necessary; nor the favour of God, though, as the reception of the kingdom springs from hence, a sense of it ought to abide; nor the habit or principle of grace in the heart, unless particularly the grace of faith, and the exercise of it, should be designed; but rather the doctrine of grace, the Gospel, is intended; and the sense is, εχωμεν, "let us hold it", as the Ethiopic version renders it; let us hold the Gospel fast, and a profession of it: the Vulgate Latin and Arabic versions read, "we have grace"; this goes along with the immovable kingdom; all that have truly received the one, have the other:

whereby we may serve God; God is to be served, and not a creature, nor the elements of this world, the ceremonial law, and its rites: nor is he to be served in any form, only in a spiritual way; and without holding to the Gospel, there is no serving him in an evangelic manner; the true and right way of serving him is as follows:

acceptably; in Christ, in the Gospel of his Son, and by faith in him, without which it is impossible to please God:

with reverence; of the majesty of God, with shame for sin, and with a sense of unworthiness:

and godly fear; which has God for its author and object, and which springs from his grace, and is increased by discoveries of his goodness; and which is consistent with faith, and spiritual joy; see Psa 2:11.

Gill: Heb 12:29

For our God is a consuming fire. Either God personally considered, God in the person of Christ; so the Shechinah, with the Jews, is called a consuming fire ⁿ. Christ is truly God, and he is our God and Lord; and though he is full of grace and mercy, yet he will appear in great wrath to his enemies, who will not have him to reign over them: or rather God essentially considered; whose God he is, and in what sense, and how he comes to be so; see Gill on Heb 8:10, what is here said of him, that he is a consuming fire, may be understood of his jealousy in matters of worship, Deu 4:23, and so carries in it a reason why he is to be served acceptably, with reverence and godly fear. God, and he only, is to be worshipped; and he is to be worshipped in a way suitable to himself; and he has the sole right of fixing the manner of worship, both as to the external and internal parts of it: under the legal dispensation, he was worshipped in a way he then pitched upon, and suitable to it; and under the Gospel dispensation he is to be worshipped in an evangelical way; and he is to have all the glory in every part of worship; and the ordinances of Gospel worship are immovable; nor are they to be altered, or others put in their room, without recurring his displeasure. Moreover, this phrase may be expressive of the preservation of his people, and of the destruction of their enemies, Deu 9:1. We commonly say, that God out of Christ is a consuming fire; meaning, that God, as an absolute God, is full of wrath and vengeance; and it is a truth, but not the truth of this text; for here it is our God, our covenant God, our God in Christ; not that he is so to the saints, or to them that are in Christ: he is indeed as a wall of fire in his providences, to protect and defend them, and as fire in his word to enlighten and warm them, to guide and direct them, but not a consuming fire to them; this he is to their enemies, who are as thorns, and briers, and stubble before him: and so the Jews interpret Deu 4:24 of a fire consuming fire ^o; and observe, that Moses says, thy God, and not our God ^p; but the apostle here uses the latter phrase.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Heb 12:1

¹ tn Grk “having such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us.”

NET Notes: Heb 12:2

¹ sn An allusion to Ps 110:1.

NET Notes: Heb 12:4

¹ tn Grk “until blood.”

NET Notes: Heb 12:5

¹ tn Or “disregard,” “think little of.”

² tn Or “reproves,” “rebukes.” The Greek verb ἐλέγχω (elencw) implies exposing someone’s sin in order to bring correction.

NET Notes: Heb 12:6

¹ sn A quotation from Prov 3:11-12.

NET Notes: Heb 12:7

¹ tn Grk “endure,” with the object (“your suffering”) understood from the context.

² tn Or “in order to become disciplined.”

NET Notes: Heb 12:8

¹ tn Grk “you are without discipline.”

² tn Grk “all”; “sons” is implied by the context.

NET Notes: Heb 12:9

¹ tn Grk “we had our earthly fathers as discipliners.”

² tn Grk “the fathers of our flesh.” In Hebrews, “flesh” is a characteristic way of speaking about outward, physical, earthly life (cf. Heb 5:7; 9:10, 13), as opposed to the inward or spiritual dimensions of life.

³ tn Grk “and live.”

sn Submit ourselves…to the Father of spirits and receive life. This idea is drawn from Proverbs, where the Lord’s discipline brings life, while resistance to it leads to death (cf. Prov 4:13; 6:23; 10:17; 16:17).

NET Notes: Heb 12:11

¹ tn Grk “all discipline at the time does not seem to be of joy, but of sorrow.”

² tn Grk “the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

NET Notes: Heb 12:12

¹ tn Or “straighten.”

² sn A quotation from Isa 35:3. Strengthen your listless hands and your weak knees refers to the readers’ need for renewed resolve and fresh strength in their struggles (cf. Heb 10:36-39; 12:1-3).

NET Notes: Heb 12:13

¹ sn A quotation from Prov 4:26. The phrase make straight paths for your feet is figurative for “stay on God’s paths.”

NET Notes: Heb 12:14

¹ sn The references to peace and holiness show the close connection between this paragraph and the previous one. The pathway toward “holiness” and the need for it is cited in Heb 12:10 and 14. More importantly Prov 4:26-27 sets up the transition from one paragraph to the next: It urges people to stay on godly paths (Prov 4:26, quoted here in v. 13) and promises that God will lead them in peace if they do so (Prov 4:27 [LXX], quoted in v. 14).

NET Notes: Heb 12:15

¹ tn Grk “that there not be any root of bitterness,” but referring figuratively to a person who causes trouble (as in Deut 29:17 [LXX] from which this is quoted).

sn An allusion to Deut 29:18.

NET Notes: Heb 12:16

¹ tn Grk “that there not be any,” continuing from v. 15.

² sn An allusion to Gen 27:34-41.

NET Notes: Heb 12:17

¹ tn Or a command: “for understand that.”

² tn Grk “it,” referring either to the repentance or the blessing. But the account in Gen 27:34-41 (which the author appeals to here) makes it clear that the blessing is what Esau sought. Thus in the translation the referent (the blessing) is specified for clarity.

NET Notes: Heb 12:18

¹ tn This describes the nation of Israel approaching God on Mt. Sinai (Exod 19). There is a clear contrast with the reference to Mount Zion in v. 22, so this could be translated “a mountain that can be touched.” But the word “mountain” does not occur here and the more vague description seems to be deliberate.

NET Notes: Heb 12:19

¹ tn Grk “a voice of words.”

² tn Grk “a voice…from which those who heard begged that a word not be added to them.”

NET Notes: Heb 12:20

¹ sn A quotation from Exod 19:12-13.

NET Notes: Heb 12:21

¹ tn Grk “that which appeared.”

² tn Grk “I am terrified and trembling.”

sn A quotation from Deut 9:19.

NET Notes: Heb 12:22

¹ tn Grk “and the city”; the conjunction is omitted in translation since it seems to be functioning epexegetically – that is, explaining further what is meant by “Mount Zion.”

NET Notes: Heb 12:24

¹ tn The Greek word μεσίτης (mesith", “mediator”) in this context does not imply that Jesus was a mediator in the contemporary sense of the word, i.e., he worked for compromise between opposing parties. Here the term describes his function as the one who was used by God to enact a new covenant which established a new relationship between God and his people, but entirely on God’s terms.

² sn Abel’s shed blood cried out to the Lord for justice and judgment, but Jesus’ blood speaks of redemption and forgiveness, something better than Abel’s does (Gen 4:10; Heb 9:11-14; 11:4).

NET Notes: Heb 12:26

¹ sn A quotation from Hag 2:6.

NET Notes: Heb 12:29

¹ sn A quotation from Deut 4:24; 9:3.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:1

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, ^{( 1 )} let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which ^{( a )} doth so easily beset [us], and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

^{( 1 )} An applying of the former examples, by which we ought to be stirred up to run the whole race, casting away all hindrances and impediments.

^{( a )} For sin besieges us on all sides, so that we cannot escape.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:2

^{( 2 ) ( b )} Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the ^{( c )} joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

^{( 2 )} He sets before us, as the mark of this race, Jesus himself our captain, who willingly overcame all the roughness of the same way.

^{( b )} As it were upon the mark of our faith.

^{( c )} While he had every type of blessedness in his hand and power, yet suffered willingly the shame of the cross.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:3

^{( 3 )} For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

^{( 3 )} An amplification, taken from the circumstance of the person and the things themselves, which he compares between themselves: for how great is Jesus in comparison of us, and how far more grievous things did he suffer than we?

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:4

^{( 4 )} Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

^{( 4 )} He takes an argument from the profit which comes to us by God's chastisements, unless we are at fault. First of all because sin, or that rebellious wickedness of our flesh, is by this means tamed.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:5

^{( 5 )} And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:

^{( 5 )} Secondly, because they are testimonies of his fatherly good will towards us, in that they show themselves to be illegitimate, if they cannot abide to be chastened by God.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:9

^{( 6 )} Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected [us], and we gave [them] reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

^{( 6 )} Thirdly, if all men yield this right to fathers, to whom next after God we owe this life, that they may rightfully correct their children, shall we not be much more subject to our Father, who is the author of spiritual and everlasting life?

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:10

^{( 7 )} For they verily for a few days chastened [us] after their own pleasure; but he for [our] profit, that [we] might be partakers of his holiness.

^{( 7 )} An amplification of the same argument: Those fathers have corrected us after their fancy, for some frail and temporary good: but God chastens and instructs us for our singular good to make us partakers of his holiness: which although our senses do not presently perceive it, yet the end of the matter proves it.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:12

^{( 8 )} Wherefore lift up the hands which ^{( d )} hang down, and the feeble knees;

^{( 8 )} The conclusion: we must go forward courageously and keep always a right course and (as far forth as we may) without any staggering or stumbling.

^{( d )} The description of a man that is out of heart and completely discouraged.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:13

And make ^{( e )} straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

^{( e )} Keep a right course, and so, that you show examples of good life for others to follow.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:14

^{( 9 )} Follow peace with all [men], and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

^{( 9 )} We must live in peace and holiness with all men.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:15

^{( 10 )} Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any ^{( f )} root of bitterness springing up trouble [you], and thereby many be defiled;

^{( 10 )} We must study to edify one another both in doctrine and example of life.

^{( f )} That no heresy, or backsliding be an offence.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:16

^{( 11 )} Lest there [be] any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.

^{( 11 )} We must shun immorality, and a profane mind, that is, such a mind as does not give God his due honour, which wickedness, how severely God will at length punish, the horrible example of Esau teaches us.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:17

For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no ^{( g )} place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

^{( g )} There was no room left for his repentance: and it appears by the effects, what his repentance really was, for when he left his father's presence, he threatened to kill his brother.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:18

^{( 12 )} For ye are not come unto the mount that might be ^{( h )} touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,

^{( 12 )} Now he applies the same exhortation to the prophetic and kingly office of Christ compared with Moses, after this sort. If the majesty of the law was so great, how great do you think the glory of Christ and the gospel is? This comparison he declares also particularly.

^{( h )} Which might be touched with hands, which was of a gross and earthly matter.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:21

And so terrible was the ^{( i )} sight, [that] Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)

^{( i )} The shape and form which he saw, which was no counterfeit and forged shape, but a true one.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:23

To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made ^{( k )} perfect,

^{( k )} So he calls them that are taken up to heaven, although one part of them sleeps in the earth.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:25

^{( 13 )} See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more [shall not] we [escape], if we turn away from him that [speaketh] from heaven:

^{( 13 )} The applying of the former comparison: If it were not lawful to condemn his word which was spoken on the earth, how much less his voice which is from heaven?

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:26

^{( 14 )} Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, ^{( l )} Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.

^{( 14 )} He compares the steadfast majesty of the gospel, with which the whole world was shaken, and even the very frame of heaven was astonished, with the small and vanishing sound of the governance by the law.

^{( l )} It appears evidently in this that the prophet speaks of the calling of the Gentiles, that these words must refer to the kingdom of Christ.

Geneva Bible: Heb 12:28

^{( 15 )} Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with ^{( m )} reverence and godly ^{( n )} fear:

^{( 15 )} A general exhortation to live reverently and religiously under the most happy subjection of so mighty a King, who as he blesses his most mightily, so does he most severely revenge the rebellious. This is the sum of a Christian life, respecting the first table of the law.

^{( m )} By reverence is meant that honest modesty which keeps them in their duties.

^{( n )} Religious and godly fear.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Heb 12:1-29

1 An exhortation to constant faith, patience, and godliness.

22 A commendation of the new testament above the old.

Combined Bible: Heb 12:1

Demands of Faith   

(Hebrews 12:1)   

Our present verse is a call to constancy in the Christian profession; it is an exhortation unto steadfastness in the Christian life; it is a pressing appeal for making personal holiness our supreme business and quest. In substance our text is parallel with such verses as Matthew 16:24, Romans 6:13, 2 Corinthians 7:1, Philippians 3:12-14, Titus 2:12, 1 Peter 2:9-12. This summarization of the Christian’ s twofold duty is given again and again in the Scriptures: the duty of mortification and of vivification, the putting off of the "old man" and the putting on of the "new man" (Eph. 4:22-24). Analyzing the particular terms of our text, we find there is, first, the duty enjoined: to "run the race that is set before us." Second, the obstacles to be overcome: "lay aside every weight" etc. Third, the essential grace which is requisite thereto: "patience." Fourth, the encouragement given: the "great cloud of witnesses."  

The opening "Wherefore" in our text looks back to Hebrews 10:35, 36, where the apostle had urged, "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise." That exhortation had been followed by a lengthy proof of the efficacy of persevering faith to enable its possessors to do whatever God commands, however difficult; to endure whatever God appoints, however severe; to obtain what He promises, however seemingly unattainable. All of this had been copiously illustrated in chapter 11, by a review of the history of God’ s people in the past, who had exemplified so strikingly and so blessedly the nature, the trails, and the triumphs of a spiritual faith. Having affirmed the unity of the family of God, the oneness of the O. T. and N. T. saints, assuring the latter that God has provided some better thing for us, the apostle now repeats the exhortation unto steadfast perseverance in the path of faith and obedience.  

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us." Here the apostle applies the various illustrations given in the preceding chapter, making use of them as a grand motive to perseverance in the Christian faith and state. "If all the saints of God lived, suffered, endured, and conquered by faith, shall not we also? If the saints who lived before the Incarnation, before the redemption was accomplished, before the High Priest entered the heavenly sanctuary, trusted in the midst of discouragements and trials, how much more aught we who know the name of Jesus, who have received the beginning, the installment of the great Messianic promise?" (Adolph Saphir). Herein we are shown that only then do we read the O. T. narratives unto profit when we draw from them incentives to practical godliness.  

In Hebrews 11 we have had described at length many aspects and characteristics of the life of faith. There we saw that a life of faith is an intensely practical thing, consisting of very much more than day-dreaming, or being regaled with joyous emotions, or even resting in orthodox views of the truth. By faith Noah built an ark, Abraham separated from his idolatrous neighbors and gained a rich inheritance, Moses forsook Egypt and became leader of Israel’ s hosts. By faith the Red Sea was crossed, Jericho captured, Goliath slain, the mouths of lions were closed, the violence of fire was quenched. A spiritual faith, then, is not a passive thing, but an active, energetic, vigorous, and fruitful one. The same line of thought is continued in the passage which is now before us, the same branch of truth is there in view again, only under a figure— a figure very emphatic and graphic.  

"Let us run with patience the race that is set before us." Here the Christian is likened unto an athlete, and his life unto the running of a race. This is one of a number of figures used in the N.T. to describe the Christian life. Believers are likened to shining lights, branches of the vine, soldiers, strangers and pilgrims: the last-mentioned more closely resembling the figure employed in our text, but with this difference: travelers may rest for awhile, and refresh themselves, but the racer must continue running or he ceases to be a "racer." The figure of the race occurs frequently, both in the O. T. and N. T.: Psalm 119:32, Song of Solomon 1:4, 1 Corinthians 9:24, Philippians 3:14, 2 Timothy 4:7. Very solemn is that word in Galatians 5:7, "ye did run well": the Lord, in His mercy, grant that that may never be said of writer or reader.  

The principal thoughts suggested by the figure of the "race" are rigorous self-denial and discipline, vigorous exertion, persevering endurance. The Christian life is not a thing of passive luxuriation, but of active "fighting the good fight of faith!" The Christian is not called to lie down on flowery beds of ease, but to run a race, and athletics are strenuous, demanding self-sacrifice, hard training, the putting forth of every ounce of energy possessed. I am afraid that in this work-hating and pleasure-loving age, we do not keep this aspect of the truth sufficiently before us: we take things too placidly and lazily. The charge which God brought against Israel of old applies very largely to Christendom today: "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion" (Amos 6:1): to be "at ease" is the very opposite of "running the race."  

The "race" is that life of faith and obedience, that pursuit of personal holiness, to which the Christian is called by God. Turning from sin and the world in penitence and trust to Christ is not the finishing-post, but only the starting-point. The Christian race begins at the new birth, and ends not till we are summoned to leave this world. The prize to be run for is heavenly glory. The ground to be covered is our journey through this life. The track itself is "set before us": marked out in the Word. The rules to be observed, the path which is to be traversed, the difficulties to be overcome, the dangers to be avoided, the source and secret of the needed strength, are all plainly revealed in the holy Scriptures. If we lose, the blame is entirely ours; if we succeed, the glory belongs to God alone.  

The prime thought suggested in the figure of running the race set before us is not that of speed, but of self-discipline, whole-hearted endeavor, the calling into action of every spiritual faculty possessed by the new man. In his helpful commentary, J. Brown pointed out that a race is vigorous exercise. Christianity consists not in abstract speculations, enthusiastic feelings, or specious talk, but in directing all our energies into holy actions. It is a laborious exertion: the flesh, the world, the devil are like a fierce gale blowing against us, and only intense effort can overcome them. It is a regulated exertion: to run around in a circle is strenuous activity, but it will not bring us to the goal; we must follow strictly the prescribed course. It is progressive exertion: there is to be a growth in grace, an adding to faith of virtue, etc. (2 Pet. 1:5-7), a reaching forth unto those things which are before.  

"Let us run with patience the race that is set before us." We only "run" when we are very anxious to get to a certain place, when there is some attraction stimulating us. That word "run" then presupposes the heart eagerly set upon the goal. That "goal" is complete deliverance from the power of indwelling sin, perfect conformity to the lovely image of Christ, entrance into the promised rest and bliss on High. It is only as that is kept steadily in view, only as faith and hope are in real and daily exercise, that we shall progress along the path of obedience. To look back will cause us to halt or stumble; to look down at the roughness and difficulties of the way will discourage and produce slackening, but to keep the prize in view will nerve to steady endeavor. It was thus our great Exemplar ran: "Who for the JOY that was set before Him" (verse 2).  

But let us now consider, secondly, the means prescribed: "let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us." That might be tersely expressed in several different forms: let us relinquish those things which would impede our spiritual progress; let us endeavor with might and main to overcome every hindering obstacle; let us attend diligently unto the way or method which will enable us to make the best speed. While sitting at our ease we are hardly conscious of the weight of our clothes, the articles held in our hands, or the cumbersome objects we may have in our pockets. But let us be aroused by the howlings of fierce animals, let us be pursued by hungry wolves, and methinks that none of us would have much difficulty in understanding the meaning of those words "let us lay aside every weight!"  

"Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us." While no doubt each of these expressions has a definite and separate force, yet we are satisfied that a certain school of writers err in drawing too sharp and broad a line of distinction between them, for a careful examination of their contentions will show that the very things they consider to be merely "weights," are, in reality, sins. The fact is that in most quarters there has been, for many years past, a deplorable lowering of the standard of Divine holiness, and numerous infractions of God’ s righteous law have been wrongly termed "failures," "mistakes," and "minor blemishes," etc. Anything which minimizes the reality and enormity of sin is to be steadfastly resisted; anything which tends to excuse human "weaknesses" is to be rejected; anything which reduces that standard of absolute perfection which God requires us to constantly aim at— every missing of which is a sin— is to be shunned.  

"Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us" is parallel with, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross" (Matthew 16:24), and "let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit" (2 Cor. 7:1). In other words, this dehortation is a calling upon the Christian to "mortify the deeds of the body" (Rom. 8:13), to "abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul" (1 Pet. 2:11). There are two things which racers discard: all unnecessary burdens, and long flowing garments which would entangle them. Probably there is a reference to both of these in our text: the former being considered under "weights," or those things we voluntarily encumber ourselves with, but which should be dropped; the latter, "the sin which doth so easily beset us" referring to inward depravity.  

"Let us lay aside every weight" is a call to the sedulous and daily mortification of our hearts to all that would mar communion with Christ: it is parallel with "denying ungodliness and worldly lusts" (Titus 2:12). Everything which requires us to take time and strength away from God-appointed duties, everything which tends to bind the mind to earthly things and hinders our affections from being set upon things above, is to be cheerfully relinquished for Christ’ s sake. Everything which impedes my progress in running the race which God has set before me is to be dropped. But let it be carefully recognized that our text makes no reference to the dropping of duties which we have no right to lay aside. The performing of real and legitimate duty is never a hindrance to the spiritual life, though from a wrong attitude of mind and the allowance of the spirit of discontent, they often become so.  

Many make a great mistake in entertaining the thought that their spiritual life is being much hindered by the very things which should, by Divine grace, be a real help to them. Opposition in the home from ungodly relatives, trials in connection with their daily work, the immediate presence of the wicked in the shop or office, are a real trial (and God intends they should be— to remind us we are still in a world which lieth in the Wicked one, to exercise our graces, to prove the sufficiency of His strength), but they need not be hindrances or "weights." Many erroneously suppose they would make much more progress spiritually if only their "circumstances" were altered. This is a serious mistake, and a murmuring against God’ s providential dealings with us. He shapes our "circumstances" as a helpful discipline to the soul, and only as we learn to rise above "circumstances," and walk with God in them, are we "running the race that is set before us." The person is the same no matter what "circumstances" he may be in!  

While the "weights" in our text have no reference to those duties which God requires us to discharge— for He never calls us to any thing which would draw us away from communion with Himself; yet they do apply in a very real sense unto a multitude of cares which many of God’ s people impose upon themselves— cares which are a grievous drag upon the soul. The artificial state in which many people now live, which custom, society, the world, imposes, does indeed bind many heavy burdens on the backs of their silly victims. If we accept that scale of "duties" which the fashion of this world imposes, we shall find them "weights" which seriously impede our spiritual progress: spending valuable time in reading newspapers and other secular literature in order to "keep up with the times," exchanging "social calls" with worldlings, spending money on all sorts of unnecessary things so as to be abreast of our neighbors, are "weights" burdening many, and those "weights" are sins.  

By "weights," then, may be understood every form of intemperance or the immoderate and hurtful use made of any of those things which God has given us "richly to enjoy" (1 Tim. 6:17). Yes, to "enjoy" be it noted, and not only to use. The Creator has placed many things in this world— like the beautiful flowers and the singing birds— for our pleasure, as well as for the bare supply of our bodily needs. This should be borne in mind, for there is a danger here, as every where, of lopsidedness. We are well aware that in this age of fleshly indulgence the majority are greatly in danger of erring on the side of laxity, yet in avoiding this sin, others are in danger of swinging to the other extreme and being "righteous over much" (Ecclesiastes 7:16), adopting a form of monastic austerity, totally abstaining from things which Scripture in nowise prohibits.  

Each Christian has to decide for himself, by an honest searching of Scripture and an earnest seeking of wisdom from God, what are "weights" which hinder him. While on the one hand it is wrong to assume an haughty and independent attitude, refusing to weigh in the balances of the sanctuary the conscientious scruples and prejudices of fellow-Christians; on the other hand it is equally wrong to suffer any to lord it over our consciences, and deprive us of our Christian liberty. "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." It is not the lawful use of God’ s creatures, but the intemperate abuse of them which Scripture condemns. More die from over eating than over drinking. Some constitutions are injured as much by coffee as by whiskey. Some are undermining their health by a constant round of exertions; others enervate themselves by spending too much time in bed.  

The Greek word for "weights" is "tumor or swelling," so that an excresence, a superfluity, is what is in view. A "weight" is something which we are at liberty to cast aside, but which instead we choose to retain. It is anything which retards our progress, anything which unfits us for the discharge of our God-assigned duties, anything which dulls the conscience, blunts the edge of our spiritual appetite, or chokes the spirit of prayer. The "cares of this world" weigh down the soul just as effectually as does a greedy grasping after the things of earth. The allowance of the spirit of envy will be as injurious spiritually as would an attendance at the movies. Fellowshipping at a Christ-dishonoring "church" quenches that Spirit as quickly as would seeking diversion at the dance hall. The habit of gossiping may do more damage to the Spiritual life than the excessive smoking of tobacco.  

One of the best indications that I have entered the race is the discovery that certain things, which previously never exercised my conscience, are a hindrance to me; and the further I "run," the more conscious shall I be of the "weights"; and the more determined I am, by God’ s grace, to reach the winning post, the more readily shall I drop them. So many professing Christians never seem to have any "weights," and we never see them drop anything. Ah, the fact is, they have never entered the race. O to be able to say with Paul, "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord" (Phil. 3:8). When this is true of us, we shall not find it difficult, but rather easy to obey that injunction, "Go from the presence of a foolish man (or woman) when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge" (Prov. 14:7); and so with many other scriptural exhortations.  

"And the sin which doth so easily beset (Greek "encompass") us." As we have already pointed out, the writer regards the "weights" as external temptations which have to be resisted, evil habits which are to be dropped; and "the sin" as referring to indwelling corruption, with a special reference (as the whole context suggests) to the workings of unbelief: compare Hebrews 3:13. It is true that each of us has some special form of sin to which we are most prone, and that he is more sorely tempted from one direction than another; but we think it is very clear from all which precedes our text that what the apostle has particularly in mind here is that which most seeks to hinder the exercise of faith. Let the reader ponder John 16:8, 9.  

"This is confirmed by the experience of all who have been exercised in this case, who have met with great difficulties in, and have been called to suffer for, the profession of the Gospel. Ask of them what they have found in such cases to be their most dangerous enemy; what hath had the most easy and frequent access unto their minds, to disturb and dishearten them, of the power thereof they have been most afraid; they will all answer with one voice, it is the evil of their own unbelieving hearts. This hath continually attempted to entangle them, to betray them, in taking part with all outward temptations. When this is conquered, all things are plain and easy unto them. It may be some of them have had their particular temptations which they may reflect upon; but any other evil by sin, which is common unto them all, as this is, they can fix on none" (John Owen).  

But how is the Christian to "lay aside" indwelling sin and its particular workings of unbelief? This injunction is parallel with Ephesians 4:22, "That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts." And how is that to be done? By heeding the exhortation of Romans 6:11, 12, "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof." In other words, by faith’ s recognition of my legal oneness with Christ, and by drawing from His fullness. Indwelling sin is to be "laid aside" by daily mortification (Rom. 8:13), by seeking grace to resist its solicitations (Titus 2:11, 12), by repenting, confessing, and forsaking the effects of its activities (Prov. 28:13), by diligently using the means which God has provided for holy living (Gal. 5:16).  

"Run with patience the race that is set before us." Perseverance or endurance is the prime prerequisite for the discharge of this duty. The good-ground hearer brought forth fruit "with patience" (Luke 8:15). We are bidden to be "followers of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises" (Heb. 6:12). The "race" appointed is a lengthy one, for it extends throughout the whole of our earthly pilgrimage. The course is narrow, and to the flesh, rough. The racer often becomes disheartened by the difficulties encountered. But "Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not" (Gal. 6:9).  

But how is this needed "patience" to be acquired? A twofold answer is given, the second part of which will be before us in the next article. First, by heeding the encouragement which is here set before us: "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside... let us run." The reference is to the heroes of faith mentioned in the previous chapter: they compose a testimony for God, and speak unto future generations to be constant as they were. They witness to how noble a thing life may be when it is lived by faith. They witness to the faithfulness of God who sustained them, and enabled them to triumph over their foes, and overcome their difficulties. In likening these numerous witnesses unto a "cloud" there is no doubt a reference unto the Cloud which guided Israel in the wilderness: they followed it all the way to Canaan! So must we follow the noble example of the O.T. saints in their faith, obedience, and perseverance.  

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us." This is mentioned as an incentive, to console and assure us we are not alone. As we look around at the empty profession on every side, and behold the looseness and laxity of so many who bear the name of Christ, Satan seeks to make us believe that we are wrong, too "strict," and rebukes us for our "singularity." No doubt he employed the same tactics with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses; but they heeded him not. Nor should we. We are not "singular": if faithful to Christ we are following "the footsteps of the flock" (Song 1:8). Others before us have trod the same path, met with the same hindrances, fought the same fight. They persevered, conquered, and won the crown: then "let us run." That is the thought and force of the opening words of our text.  

"We who have still to walk in the narrow path which alone leads to glory are encouraged and instructed by the cloud of witnesses, the innumerable company of saints, who testified amid the most varied circumstances of suffering and temptation, that the just live by faith, and that faith is the victory which overcometh the world. The memory of those children of God, whose lives are recorded for our learning and consolation, animates us, and we feel upheld as it were by their sympathy and by the consciousness, that although few and weak, strangers and pilgrims on earth, we belong to a great and mighty, nay, a victorious army, part of which has already entered into the land of peace" (Adolph Saphir).  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:2

Object of Faith   

(Hebrews 12:2)   

The verse which is now to engage our attention continues and completes the important exhortation found in the one which was before us in the last article. The two verses are so closely related that only the requirements of space obliged us to separate them. The latter supplies such a blessed sequel to the former that it will be necessary to present a summary of our comments thereon. We saw that the Christian life, the life of faith and obedience, is presented under the figure of a "race," which denotes that so far from its being a thing of dreamy contemplation or abstract speculation, it is one of activity, exertion, and progressive motion, for faith without works is dead. But the "race" speaks not only of activity, but of regulated activity, following the course which is "set before us." Many professing Christians are engaged in multitudinous efforts which God has never bidden them undertake: that is like running round and round in a circle. To follow the appointed track means that our energies be directed by the precepts of Holy Writ.  

The order presented in Hebrews 12:1 is the negative before the positive: there must be the "laying aside" of hindering weights, before we can "run" the race set before us. This order is fundamental, and is emphasized all through Scripture. There must be a turning from the world, before there can be a real turning unto the Lord (Isa. 55:7); self must be denied before Christ can be followed (Matthew 16:24). There must be a putting off the old man, before there can be any true putting on of the new man (Eph. 4:22-24). There has to be a "denying ungodliness and worldly lusts," before we can "live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world" (Titus 3:12). There has to be a "cleansing of ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit," before there can be any "perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Cor. 7:1). We must "be not conformed to this world," before we can be "transformed by the renewing of our mind," so that we may "prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Rom. 12:2, 3).  

Before the plants and flowers will flourish in the garden weeds must be rooted up, otherwise all the labors of the gardener will come to naught. As the Lord Jesus taught so plainly in the Parable of the Sower, where the "thorns" are permitted to thrive, the good Seed, the Word, is "choked" (Matthew 13:22); and it is very searching and solemn to note, by a careful comparison of the three records of it, that Christ interpreted this figure of the "thorns" more fully than any other single detail. He defined those choking "thorns" as "the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches," "the lust of other things and pleasures of this life." If those things fill and rule our hearts, our relish for spiritual things will be quenched, our strength to perform Christian duties will be sapped, our lives will be fruitless, and we shall be merely cumberers of the ground— the garden of our souls being filled with briars and weeds.  

Hence it is that the first call in Hebrews 12:1 is "let us lay aside every weight." "Inordinate care for the present life, and fondness for it, is a dead weight for the soul, that pulls it down when it should ascend upwards and pulls it back when it should press forwards" (Matthew Henry). It is the practical duty of mortification which is here inculcated, the abstaining from those fleshly lusts "which war against the soul" (1 Pet. 2:11). The racer must be as lightly clad as possible if he is to run swiftly: all that would cumber and impede him must be relinquished. Undue concern over temporal affairs, inordinate affection for the things of this life, the intemperate use of any material blessings, undue familiarity with the ungodly, are "weights" which prevent progress in godliness. A bag of gold would be as great a handicap to a runner as a bag of lead!  

It is to be carefully noted that the laying aside of "every weight" precedes "and the sin which does so easily beset us", which has reference to indwelling corruption. Each Christian imagines that he is very anxious to be completely delivered from the power of indwelling sin: ah, but our hearts are very deceitful, and ever causing us to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. A criterion is given in this passage by which we may gauge the sincerity of our desires: our longing to be delivered from indwelling evil is to be measured by our willingness and readiness to lay aside the "weights." I may think I am earnestly desirous of having a beautiful garden, and may go to much expense and trouble in purchasing and planting some lovely flowers; but if I am too careless and lazy to diligently fight the weeds, what is my desire worth? So, if I disregard that word "make not provision for the flesh unto the lusts thereof" (Rom. 13:14), how sincere is my desire to be delivered from "the flesh!"  

"And let us run with patience the race that is set before us." For this two things are needed: speed and strength— "rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race" (Ps. 19:5): the one being opposed to sloth and negligence, the other to weakness. These are the prime requisites: strength in grace, diligence in exercise. Speed is included in the word "run", but how is the strength to be obtained? This "race" calls for both the doing and suffering for Christ, the pressing forward toward the mark set before us, the progressing from one degree of strength to another, the putting forth of our utmost efforts, the enduring unto the end. Ah, who is sufficient for such a task? First, we are reminded of those who have preceded us, many, a "great cloud": and their faith is recorded for our instruction, their victory for our encouragement. Yet that is not sufficient: their cases afford us a motive, but they do not supply the needed power. Hence, we are next told:  

"Looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God" (verse 2). "The cloud of witnesses is not the object on which our heart is fixed. They testify of faith, and we cherish their memory with gratitude, and walk with a firmer step because of the music of their lives. Our eye, however, is fixed, not on many, but on One; not on the army, but the Leader; not on the servants, but the Lord. We see Jesus only, and from Him we derive our true strength, even as He is our light of life" (Adolph Saphir). In all things Christ has the pre-eminence: He is placed here not among the other "racers," but as One who, instead of exemplifying certain characteristics of faith, as they did, is the "Author and Finisher" of faith in His own person.  

Our text presents the Lord as the supreme Example for racers, as well as the great Object of their faith, though this is somewhat obscured by the rendering of the A.V. Our text is not referring to Christ begetting faith in His people and sustaining it to the end, though that is a truth plainly enough taught elsewhere. Instead, He is here viewed as the One, who Himself began and completed the whole course of faith, so as to be Himself the one perfect example and witness of what faith is. It was because of "the joy set before Him"— steadily and trustfully held in view— that He ran His race. His "enduring of the cross" was the completest trial and most perfect exemplification of faith. In consequence, He is now seated at the right hand of God, as both the Pattern and Object of faith, and His promise is "to him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne" (Rev. 3:21).  

It is to be duly noted that the little word "our" is a supplement, being supplied by the translators: it may without detriment, and with some advantage, be omitted. The Greek word for "Author" does not mean so much one who "causes" or "originates," as one who "takes the lead." The same word is rendered "Captain of our salvation" in Hebrews 2:10, and in Acts 3:15, the "Prince of life." There its obvious meaning is Leader or Chief, one going in advance of those who follow. The Savior is here represented as the Leader of all the long procession of those who had lived by faith, as the great Pattern for us to imitate. Confirmation of this is found in the Spirit’ s use of the personal name "Jesus" here, rather than His title of office— "Christ." Stress is thereby laid upon His humanity. The Man Jesus was so truly made like unto His brethren in all things that the life which He lived was the life of faith.  

Yes, the life which Jesus lived here upon earth was a life of faith. This has not been given sufficient prominence. In this, as in all things, He is our perfect Model. "By faith He walked, looking always unto the Father, speaking and acting in filial dependence on the Father, and in filial reception out of the Father’ s fullness. By faith He looked away from all discouragements, difficulties, and oppositions, committing His cause to the Lord, who had sent Him, to the Father, whose will He had come to fulfill. By faith He resisted and overcame all temptation, whether it came from Satan, or from the false Messianic expectations of Israel, or from His own disciples. By faith He performed the signs and wonders, in which the power and love of God’ s salvation were symbolized. Before He raised Lazarus from the grave, He, in the energy of faith, thanked God, who heard Him alway. And here we are taught the nature of all His miracles: He trusted in God. He gave the command, ‘ Have faith in God’ , out of the fullness of His own experience" (Adolph Saphir).  

But let us enter into some detail. What is a life of faith? First, it is a life lived in complete dependence upon God. "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding... in all thy ways acknowledge Him" (Prov. 3:5, 6.) Never did any so entirely, so unreservedly, so perfectly cast himself upon God as did the Man Christ Jesus; never was another so completely yielded to God’ s will. "I live by the Father" (John 6:57) was His own avowal. When tempted to turn stones into bread to satisfy His hunger, He replied "man shall not live by bread alone." So sure was He of God’ s love and care for Him that He held fast to His trust and waited for Him. So patent to all was His absolute dependence upon God, that the very scorners around the cross turned it into a bitter taunt.— "He trusted in the Lord that He would deliver Him, let Him deliver Him, seeing He delighted in Him" (Ps. 22:8).  

Second, a life of faith is a life lived in communion with God. And never did another live in such a deep and constant realization of the Divine presence as did the Man Christ Jesus. "I have set the Lord always before Me" (Ps. 16:8) was His own avowal. "He that sent Me is with Me" (John 8:29) was ever a present fact to His consciousness. He could say, "I was cast upon Thee from the womb: Thou art My God from My mother’ s belly" (Ps. 22:10). "And in the morning, rising a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed" (Mark 1:35). From Bethlehem to Calvary He enjoyed unbroken and unclouded fellowship with the Father; and after the three hours of awful darkness was over, He cried "Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit."  

Third, a life of faith is a life lived in obedience to God. Faith worketh by love (Gal. 5:6), and love delights to please its object. Faith has respect not only to the promises of God, but to His precepts as well. Faith not only trusts God for the future, but it also produces present subjection to His will. Supremely was this fact exemplified by the Man Christ Jesus. "I do always those things which please Him" (John 8:29) He declared. "I must be about My Father’ s business" (Luke 2:49) characterized the whole of His earthly course. Ever and anon we find Him conducting Himself. "that the Scriptures might be fulfilled." He lived by every word of God. At the close He said, "I have kept My Father’ s commandments, and abide in His love" (John 15:10).  

Fourth, a life of faith is a life of assured confidence in the unseen future. It is a looking away from the things of time and sense, a rising above the shows and delusions of this world, and having the affections set upon things above. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1), enabling its possessor to live now in the power and enjoyment of that which is to come. That which enthralls and enchains the ungodly had no power over the perfect Man: "I have overcome the world" (John 16:31), He declared. When the Devil offered Him all its kingdoms, He promptly answered, "Get thee hence, Satan." So vivid was Jesus’ realization of the unseen, that, in the midst of earth’ s engagements, He called Himself "the Son of man which is in heaven" (John 3:13).  

"And so, dear brethren, this Jesus, in the absoluteness of His dependence upon the Father, in the completeness of His trust in Him, in the submission of His will to that Supreme command, in the unbroken communion which He held with God, in the vividness with which the Unseen ever burned before Him, and dwarfed and extinguished all the lights of the present, and in the respect which He had ‘ unto the recompense of the reward’ ; nerving Him for all pain and shame, has set before us all the example of a life of faith, and is our Pattern as in everything, in this too.  

"How blessed it is to feel, when we reach out our hands and grope in the darkness for the unseen hand, when we try to bow our wills to that Divine will; when we seek to look beyond the mists of ‘ that dim spot which men call earth,’ and to discern the land that is very far off; and when we endeavor to nerve ourselves for duty and sacrifice by bright visions of a future hope, that on this path of faith too, when He ‘ putteth forth His sheep, He goeth before them,’ and has bade us do nothing which He Himself has not done! ‘ I will put My trust in Him,’ He says first, and then He turns to us and commands, ‘ Believe in God, believe also in Me’ " (A. Maclaren, to whom we are indebted for much in this article).  

Alas, how very little real Christianity there is in the world today! Christianity consists in being conformed unto the image of God’ s Son. "Looking unto Jesus" constantly, trustfully, submissively, lovingly; the heart occupied with, the mind stayed upon Him— that is the whole secret of practical Christianity. Just in proportion as I am occupied with the example which Christ has left me, just in proportion as I am living upon Him and drawing from His fullness, am I realizing the ideal He has set before me. In Him is the power, from Him must be received the strength for running "with patience" or steadfast perseverance, the race. Genuine Christianity is a life lived in communion with Christ: a life lived by faith, as His was. "For to me to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:21); "Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God" (Gal. 2:20)— Christ living in me and through me.  

There are four things said in our text about the Savior’ s life, each of which we need to ponder carefully. First, the motive or reason which prompted Jesus to do and suffer, wherein He is presented as our example and encouragement: "who for the joy that was set before Him." Here is made known to us what was the final moving cause in His mind which sustained the Savior to a persevering performance of duty, and of the endurance of all sufferings that duty entailed. Various definitions have been given of that "joy," and probably all of them are included within its scope. The glory of God was what the Redeemer preferred above all things: Hebrews 10:5-9, but that glory was inseparably bound up with the personal exaltation of the Redeemer and the salvation of His Church following the accomplishment of the work given Him to do. This was "set before Him" in the everlasting covenant.  

Thus the "joy" that was set before Jesus was the doing of God’ s will, and His anticipation of the glorious reward which should be given Him in return. Hebrews 12:2 sustains the figure used in the previous verse: it is as the model Racer our Savior is here viewed. At the winning-post hung a crown, in full view of the racers, and this was ever before the eye of the Captain of our salvation, as He pursued the course appointed Him by the Father. He steadily kept before Him the cheering and blissful reward: His heart laid hold of the Messianic promises and prophecies recorded in Holy Writ: He had in steady prospect that satisfaction with which the travail of His soul would be fully compensated. By faith Abraham looked forward to a "City" (11:10); by faith Isaac anticipated "things to come" (11:20); by faith Moses "had respect unto the recompense of the reward" (11:26); and by faith, Jesus lived and died in the enjoyment of that which was "set before Him."  

Second, He "endured the cross." Therein we have the Commander’ s example to His soldiers of heroic fortitude. Those words signify far more than that He experienced the shame and pain of crucifixion: they tell us that He stood steadfast under it all. He endured the cross not sullenly or even stoically, but in the highest and noblest sense of the term:— with holy composure of soul. He never wavered or faltered, murmured or complained: "The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it" (John 18:11)! And He has left us an example that we should "follow His steps" (1 Pet. 2:21), and therefore does He declare, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross" (Matthew 16:24). Strength for this task is to be found by "looking unto Jesus," by keeping steadily before faith’ s eye the crown, the joy awaiting us.  

Third, "despising the shame." Therein we see the Captain’ s contempt of whatever sought to bar His progress. We scarcely think of associating this word "despising" with the meek and lowly Jesus. It is an ugly term, yet there are things which deserve it. The Savior viewed things in their true perspective; He estimated them at their proper worth: in the light of the joy set before Him, He regarded hardship, ignominy, persecution, sufferings from men, as trifles. Here, too, He has left us "an example." But alas, instead of scorning it, we magnify and are intimidated by "the shame." How many are ashamed to be scripturally baptized and wear His uniform. How many are ashamed to openly confess Christ before the world. Meditate more upon the reward, the crown, the eternal joy— that outweighs all the little sacrifices we are now called upon to make.  

Fourth, "and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." Here we witness the Captain’ s triumph, His actual entrance into the joy anticipated, His being crowned with glory and honor. His "sitting down" denoted three things. First, rest after finished work, the race run. Second, being invested with dominion: He now occupies the place of supreme sovereignty: Matthew 28:18, Philippians 2:10. Third, being intrusted with the prerogative of judgment: John 17: 2, Acts 17:30. And what have these three things to do with us, His unworthy followers? Much indeed: eternal rest is assured the successful racer: Revelation 13:14. A place on Christ’ s throne is promised the overcomer: Revelation 3:21. Dominion too is the future portion of him who vanquishes this world: Revelation 2:26, 27. Finally, it is written "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? "Do ye not know we shall judge angels?" (1 Cor. 6:2, 3). "Joint heirs with Christ: if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together" (Rom. 8:17).  

One other word in our text yet remains to be considered: "looking unto Jesus the Author (Captain) and Finisher (Perfecter) of our faith." We have already seen from the other occurrences of this term (in its various forms) in our Epistle, that it is a very full one. Here, we believe, it has at least a twofold force. First, Completer: Jesus is the first and the last as an example of confidence in and submission unto God: He is the most complete model of faith and obedience that can be brought before us. Instead of including Him with the heroes of faith in chapter 11, He is here distinguished from them, as being above them. He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending: as there was none hitherto who could be compared with Him, so there will be none hereafter. "Author and Finisher" or "Captain and Completer" means Jesus is beyond all comparison.  

The fact that we are bidden to be looking unto Jesus as "the Leader and Finisher of faith" also denotes that He perfects our faith. How? First, by His grace flowing into us. We need something more than a flawless Model set before us: who can in his own strength imitate the perfect Man? But Christ has not only gone before His own, He also dwells in their hearts by faith, and as they yield themselves to His control (and only so) does He live through them. Second, by leading us (Ps. 23:3) along the path of discipline and trial, drawing our hearts away from the things of earth, and fixing them upon Himself. He often makes us lonesome here that we may seek His companionship. Finally, by actually conducting us to glory: He will "come again" (John 14:2) and conform us to His image.  

"Looking unto Jesus." The person of the Savior is to be the "mark" on which the eyes of those who are pressing forward for the prize of the high calling of God, are to be fixed. Be constantly "looking" to Him, trustfully, submissively, hopefully, expectantly. He is the Fountain of all grace (John 1:16): our every need is supplied by God "according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:19). Then seek the help of the Holy Spirit that the eye of faith be steadfastly fixed on Christ. He has declared "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee," then let us add, "The Lord is my Helper, I will not fear what man shall do unto me" (Heb. 13:5, 6). Salvation is by grace, through faith: it is through "faith" we are saved, not only from Hell, but also from this world (1 John 5:4), from temptation, from the power of indwelling sin— by coming to Christ, trusting in Him, drawing from Him.  

What are the things which hinder us running? An active Devil, an evil world, indwelling sin, mysterious trials, fierce opposition, afflictions which almost make us doubt the love of the Father. Then call to mind the "great cloud of witnesses": they were men of like passions with us, they encountered the same difficulties and discouragements, they met with the same hindrances and obstacles. But they ran "with patience," they overcame, they won the victor’ s crown. How? By "looking unto Jesus": see Hebrews 11:26. But more: look away from difficulties (Rom. 4:19), from self, from fellow-racers, unto Him who has left us an example to follow, in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, so that He is able to succor the tempted, strengthen the weak, guide the perplexed, supply our every need. Let the heart be centered in and the mind stayed upon HIM.  

The more we are "looking unto Jesus" the easier will it be to "lay aside every weight." It is at this point so many fail. If the Christian denies self of different things without an adequate motive (for Christ’ s sake), he will still secretly hanker after the things relinquished, or ere long return to them, or become proud of his little sacrifices and become self-righteous. The most effective way of getting a child to drop any dirty or injurious object, is to proffer him something better. The best way to make a tired horse move more quickly, is not to use the whip, but to turn his head toward home! So, if our hearts be occupied with the sacrificial love of Christ for us, we shall be "constrained" thereby to drop all that which displeases Him; and the more we dwell upon the Joy set before us, the more strength shall we have to run "with patience the race that is set before us."  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:3-4

Call to Steadfastness   

(Hebrews 12:3, 4)   

At first sight it is not easy to trace the thread which unites the passage that was last before us and the verses which are now to engage our attention: there appears to be no direct connection between the opening verses of Hebrews 12 and those which follow. But a closer examination of them shows they are intimately related: in verses 3, 4 the apostle completes the exhortation with which the chapter opens. In verse 1 the apostle borrowed a figure from the Grecian Games, namely, the marathon race, and now in verse 4 he refers to another part of those games— the contest between the gladiators in the arena. Second, he had specified the principal grace required for the Christian race, namely, "Patience" or perseverance; so now in verse 3 he is urging them against faintness of mind or impatience. Third, he had enforced his exhortation by bidding the saints to "look unto Jesus" their great Exemplar; so here he calls on them to "consider Him" and emulate His steadfastness.  

Yet, the verses which are now before us are not a mere repetition of those immediately preceding: rather do they present another, though closely related aspect of the Christian life or "race." In verse 1 the racers are bidden to "lay aside every weight," and in verse 3 it is the "contradiction of sinners" which has to be endured: the former, are hindrances which proceed more from within; the latter, are obstacles which are encountered from without. In the former case, it is the evil solicitations of the flesh which would have to be resisted; in the other, it is the persecutions of the world which have to be endured. In verse 1 it is "the sin which doth so easily beset" or "encircle us"— inward depravity— which must be "laid aside"; in verse 4 it is martyrdom which must be prepared for, lest we yield to the "sin" of apostasy.  

Now the secret of success, the way to victory, is the same in either case. To enable us to "lay aside" all that hinders from within, there has to be a trustful "looking unto Jesus," and to enable us to "endure" the oppositions encountered from without and to "strive" against inconstancy and wavering in our profession, we must thoughtfully "consider Him" who was hounded and persecuted as none other ever was. As the incentive to self-denial we are to be occupied with our great Leader, and remember how much He "laid aside" for us— He who was rich for our sakes became poor; He who was "in the form of God" divested Himself of His robes of glory and took upon Him "the form of a servant." We are not called on to do something which He did not He vacated the throne and took up His cross! Likewise, the chief source of comfort and encouragement when we are called upon to suffer for His sake, is to call to mind the infinitely greater sufferings which He endured for our sakes.  

The more we endeavor to emulate the example which the Lord Jesus has left us, the more shall we be opposed from without; the more closely we follow Him, the greater will be the enmity of our fellow-men against us. Our lives will condemn theirs, our ways will be a perpetual rebuke to them, and they will do all they can to discourage and hinder, provoke and oppose. And the tendency of such persecution is to dishearten us, to tempt us to compromise, to ask "What is the use?" Because of this, the blessed Spirit bids us, "Consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." Let the experiences through which Christ passed be the subject of daily contemplation. The record of His unparalleled temptations and trials, His endurance, and His victory, is to be the grand source of our instruction, comfort and encouragement. If we have grown "faint and weary" in our minds, it is because we have failed to properly and profitably "consider Him."  

Supremely important is a knowledge of the Scriptures concerning the Lord Jesus: there can be no experimental holiness, no growth in grace apart from the same. Vital godliness consists in a practical conformity to the image of God’ s Son: it is to follow the example which He has left us, to take His yoke upon us and learn of Him. For this, there must needs be an intimate knowledge of His ways, a prayerful and believing study of the record of His life, a daily reading of and meditating thereon. That is why the four Gospels are placed at the beginning of the N.T.— they are of first importance. What we have in the Epistles is principally an interpretation and application of the four Gospels to the details of our walk. O that we may say with ever-deepening purpose of heart, "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord" (Phil. 3:8). O that we may "follow on to know the Lord" (Hos. 6:3)  

"For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin" (Heb. 12:3, 4). The whole of this is a dehortation or caution against an evil, which if yielded to will prevent our discharge of the duty inculcated in verses 1, 2. That which is dehorted against is "be not wearied"— give not up the race, abandon not your Christian profession. The way whereby we may fall into that evil is by becoming "faint" in our minds. The means to prevent this is the diligent contemplation of our great Exemplar.  

In verses 1, 2 the apostle had exhorted unto a patient or persevering pressing forward in the path of faith and obedience. In verses 3-11 he presents a number of considerations or motives to hearten us in our course, seeking particularly to counteract the enervating influence which difficulties are apt to exert upon the minds of God’ s tried people. The tendency of strong and lasting opposition and persecution is to discourage, which if yielded unto leads to despair. To strengthen the hearts of those tried Hebrews, the apostle bade them consider the case of Christ Himself: He encountered far worse sufferings than we do, yet He patiently "endured" them (verse 3). Then they were reminded that their case was by no means desperate and extreme— they had not yet been called to suffer a death of martyrdom. Finally, their very difficulties were the loving chastisement of their Father, designed for their profit (verses 5-11). By what a variety of means does the blessed Spirit strengthen, stablish, and comfort tried believers!  

Are you, dear reader, disheartened by the hard usage you are receiving from men, yea, from the religions world; are you fearful as you anticipate the persecutions which may yet attend your Christian profession; or, are you too ready to show resentment against those who oppose you? Then "consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself." The connecting "For" has the force here of "moreover:" in addition to "looking unto Jesus" as your Leader and Perfecter, consider Him in His steadfastness under relentless persecution. Faith has many actings or forms of exercise: it is to reflect, contemplate, call to mind— God’ s past ways with us, His dealings with His people of old, and particularly the recorded history of His beloved and incarnate Son. We are greatly the losers if we fail to cultivate the habit of devout consideration and holy meditation. The Greek word for "consider" is not the same as the one used in Hebrews 3:1 and Hebrews 10:24; in fact it is a term which occurs, in this form, nowhere else in the N.T.  

The Greek word for "consider" in our text is derived from the one rendered "proportion" in Romans 12:6. It is a mathematical term, signifying to compute by comparing things together in their due proportions. It means: form a just and accurate estimate. "For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself:" draw an analogy between His sufferings and yours, and what proportion is there between them! Weigh well who He was, the place He took, the infinite perfection of His character and deeds; and then the base ingratitude, the gross injustice, the cruel persecution He met with. Calculate and estimate the constancy of the opposition He encountered, the type of men who maligned Him, the variety and intensity of His sore trials, and the spirit of meekness and patience with which He bore them. And what are our trifling trials when compared with His agonies, or even to our deserts! O my soul blush with shame because of thy murmurings.  

"Consider Him" in the ineffable excellency of His person. He was none other than the Lord of glory, the Beloved of the Father, the second person in the sacred Trinity, the Creator of heaven and earth. Now, since He suffered here on earth, why should you, having enlisted under His banner, think it strange that you should be called on to endure a little hardness in His service! Consider his relationship to you: He is your Redeemer and Proprietor: is it not sufficient for the disciple to be as his Master, the servant as his Lord? If the Head was spared not trial and shame, shall the members of His body complain if they be called on to have some fellowship with Him in this? When you are tempted to throw down your colors and capitulate to the Enemy, or even to murmur at your hard lot, "Consider Him" who when here "had not where to lay His head."  

The particular sufferings of Christ which are here singled out for our consideration are, the "contradiction of sinners" which He encountered. He was opposed constantly, by word and action; He was opposed by His own people according to the flesh; He was opposed by the very ones to whom He ministered in infinite grace and loving-kindness. That opposition began at His birth, when there was no room in the inn— He was not wanted. It was seen again in His infancy, when Herod sought to slay Him, and His parents were forced to flee with Him into Egypt. Little else is told us in the N.T., about His early years, but there is a Messianic prophecy in Psalm 88:15 where we hear Him pathetically saying, "I am afflicted and ready to die from My youth up!" As soon as His public ministry commenced, and during the whole of its three years’ course, He endured one unbroken, relentless, "contradiction of sinners against Himself."  

The Lord Jesus was derided as the Prophet, mocked as the King, and treated with the utmost contempt as the Priest and Savior. He was accused of deceiving (John 7:12) and perverting the people (Luke 23:14). His teaching was opposed, and His person was insulted. Because He conversed with and befriended publicans and sinners, He was "murmured" at (Luke 15:2). Because He performed works of mercy on the sabbath day, He was charged with breaking the law (Mark 3:2). The gracious miracles which He wrought upon the sick and demon-possessed, were attributed to His being in league with the Devil (Matthew 12:24). He was regarded as a low-born fanatic. He was branded as a "glutton and winebibber." He was accused of speaking against Caesar (John 19:12), whereas He had expressly bidden men to render unto Caesar what rightly belonged to him (Matthew 22:21). Though He was the Holy One of God, there was scarcely anything about Him that was not opposed.  

"For consider Him who endured such contradiction" Here is emphasized the greatness of Christ’ s sufferings: "such contradiction"— so bitter, so severe, so malicious, so protracted; everything which the evil wits of men and Satan could invent. That word "such" is also added to awaken our wonderment and worship. Though the incarnate Son of God, He was spat upon, contemptuously arrayed in a purple robe and His enemies bowed the knee before Him in mockery. They buffeted Him and smote Him on the face. They tore His back with scourgings, as was foretold by the Psalmist (Ps. 129:3). They condemned Him to a criminal’ s death, and nailed Him to the Cross, and that, between two thieves, to add to His shame. And this, at the hands of men who, though they made a great show of sanctity, were "sinners."  

Christ felt keenly that "contradiction," for He was the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. At the end, He exclaimed "reproach hath broken My heart" (Ps. 69:20). Nevertheless, He turned not aside from the path of duty, still less did He abandon His mission. He fled not from His enemies, and fainted not under their merciless persecution: instead, He "endured" it. As we pointed out in our exposition of the previous verse, that word is used of Christ in its highest and noblest sense. He bore patiently every ignominy that was heaped upon Him. He never retaliated or reviled His traducers. He remained steadfast unto the end, and finished the work which had been given Him to do. When the supreme crises arrived, He faltered not, but "set His face as a flint to go up to Jerusalem" (Isa. 50:7, Luke 9:51).  

Do you, tried reader, feel that your cup of opposition is a little fuller than that of some of your fellow Christians? Then look away to the cup which Christ drank! Here is the Divine antidote against weariness: Christ meekly and triumphantly "endured" far, far worse than anything you are called on to suffer for His sake; yet He fainted not. When you are weary in your mind because of trials and injuries from the enemies of God, "consider" Christ, and this will quieten and suppress thy corrupt propensities to murmuring and impatience. Set Him before thy heart as the grand example and encouragement— example in patience, encouragement in the blessed issue: "If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him" (2 Tim. 2:12). Faith’ s consideration of Him will work a conformity unto Him in our souls which will preserve from fainting.  

"Lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." There is no connecting "and" in the Greek: two distinct thoughts are presented: "lest ye be wearied," that is, so discouraged as to quit; "faint in your mind," states the cause thereof. The word for "weary" here is a strong one: it signifies exhausted, being so despondent as to break one’ s resolution. In its ultimate meaning, it refers to such a state of despondency as an utter sinking of spirit, through the difficulties, trials, opposition and persecution encountered as to "look back" (Luke 9:62), and either partially or wholly abandon one’ s profession of the Gospel. In other words, it is another warning against apostasy. What we are cautioned against here is the opposite of that which the Lord commended in the Ephesian Church, "And for My name’ s sake hast labored, and hast not fainted" (Rev. 2:3)— here there is perseverance in the Christian profession despite all opposition.  

At different periods of history God has permitted fierce opposition to break out against His people, to test the reality and strength of their attachment to Christ. This was the case with those to whom our Epistle was first addressed: they were being exposed to great trials and sufferings, temptations and privations; hence the timeliness of this exhortation, and its accompanying warning. Reproaches, losses, imprisonments, scourgings, being threatened with death, have a strong tendency to produce dejection and despair; they present a powerful temptation to give up the fight. And naught but the vigorous activity of faith will fortify the mind under religious persecution. Only as the heart is encouragingly occupied with Christ’ s endurance of the "contradiction of sinners against Himself," will our resolution be strong to endure unto the end: "In the world ye shall have tribulations: but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).  

"Faint in your minds." This it is which, if not resisted and corrected, leads to the "weariness" or utter exhaustion of the previous clause. This faintness of mind is the reverse of vigor and cheerfulness. If, under the strong opposition and fierce persecution, we are to "endure unto the end," then we must watch diligently against the allowance of such faintness of mind. There is a spiritual vigor required in order to perseverence in the Christian profession during times of persecution. Hence it is that we are exhorted, "Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind" (1 Pet. 4:1); "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in the heavenlies. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand" (Eph. 6:12, 13); "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong" (1 Cor. 16:13).  

Any degree of faintness of mind in the Christian results from and consists in a remitting of the cheerful actions of faith in the various duties which God has called us to discharge. Nothing but the regular exercise of faith keeps the soul calm and restful, patient and prayerful. If faith ceases to be operative, and our mind be left to cope with difficulties and trials in our own natural strength, then we shall soon grow weary of a persecuted Christian profession. Herein lies the beginning of all spiritual declension— a lack of the due exercise of faith, and that in turn, is the result of the heart growing cold toward Christ! If faith be in healthy exercise, we shall say, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Rom. 8:18), realizing that "our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4:17); ah, but that consciousness is only "while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen" (verse 18).  

"Consider Him:" there is the remedy against faintness of mind; there is the preservative from such "weariness" of dejection of spirits that we are ready to throw down our weapons and throw up our hands in utter despair. It is the diligent consideration of the person of Christ, the Object of faith, the Food of faith, the Supporter of faith. It is by drawing an analogy between His infinitely sorer sufferings and our present hardships. It is by making application unto ourselves of what is to be found in Him suitable to our own case. Are we called on to suffer a little for Him, then let our eye be turned on Him who went before us in the same path of trial. Make a comparison between what He "endured" and what you are called to struggle with, and surely you will be ashamed to complain! "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5). Admire and imitate His meekness— weeping over His enemies, and praying for His murderers!  

"Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin" (verse 4). The persons here immediately addressed— the "ye"— were the Hebrews themselves. Because of their profession of Christianity, because of their loyalty to Christ, they had suffered severely in various ways. Plain reference to something of what they had already been called on to endure is made in 10:32-34, "But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; partly whilst ye were made a gazing-stock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods." Thus, the Hebrew saints had been sorely oppressed by their unbelieving brethren among the Jews; it is that which gave such point to the exhortation and warning in the previous verse.  

"Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." Here is the second consideration which the apostle pressed upon his afflicted brethren: not only to ponder the far greater opposition which their Savior encountered, but also to bear in mind that their own sufferings were not so severe as they might have been, or as possibly they would yet be. It is an argument made by reasoning from the greater to the less, and from comparing their present state with that which might await them: what could be expected to sustain their hearts and deliver from apostasy when under the supreme test of death by violence, if they fainted beneath lesser afflictions? We, too, should honestly face the same alternative: if unkind words and sneers make us waver now, how would we acquit ourselves if called on to face a martyr’ s death!  

The present state of the oppressed Hebrews is here expressed negatively: "ye have not yet resisted unto blood." True, they had already met with various forms of suffering, but not yet had they been called upon to lay down their lives. As Hebrews 10:32-34 clearly intimates, they had well acquitted themselves during the first stages of their trials, but their warfare was not yet ended. They had need to bear in mind that word of Christ, "Men ought always to pray, and not to faint" (Luke 18:1); and that exhortation of the Holy Spirit, "let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not" (Gal. 6:9).  

"Ye have not yet resisted unto blood." The apostle here hinted to the Hebrews what might yet have to be endured by them, namely a bloody and violent death— by stoning, or the sword, or fire. That is the utmost which fiendish persecutors can afflict. Men may kill the body, but when they have done that, they can do no more. God has set bounds to their rage: none will hound or harm His people in the next world! Those who engage in the Christian profession, who serve under the banner of Christ, have no guarantee that they may not be called unto the utmost suffering of blood on account of their allegiance to him; for that is what His adversaries have always desired. Hence, Christ bids us to "sit down and count the cost" (Luke 14:28), of being His disciples. God has decreed that many, in different ages should be martyred for His own praise, the glory of Christ and the honor of the Gospel.  

"Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." "Sin" is here personified, regarded as a combatant which has to be overcome. The various persecutions, hardships, afflictions, difficulties of the way, in consequence of our attachment to Christ, become so many occasions and means which sin seeks to employ in order to hinder and oppose us. The Christian is called to a contest with sin. The apostle continues his allusion to the Grecian Games, changing from the racer to the combatant. The great contest is in the believer’ s heart between grace and sin, the flesh and the spirit (Gal. 5:17). Sin seeks to quench faith and kill obedience: therefore sin is to be "striven against" for our very souls are at stake. There is no place for sloth in this deadly contest; no furloughs are granted!  

"Striving against sin." That which the Hebrews were striving against was apostasy, going to the full lengths of sin— abandoning their Christian profession. Persecution was the means which indwelling depravity sought to use, to employ in slaying faith and fidelity to Christ. That terrible wickedness was to be steadfastly resisted, by fighting against weariness in the conflict. O to say with the apostle, "I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 21:13): but in order to reach that state of soul, there has to be a close walking with Him day by day, and a patient bearing of the minor trials. "If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?" (Jer. 12:5).  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:5

Chastisement   

(Hebrews 12:5)   

The grand truth of Divine Chastisement is inexpressibly blessed, and one which we can neglect only to our great loss. It is of deep importance, for when Scripturally apprehended it preserves from some serious errors by which Satan has succeeded (as "an angel of light") in deceiving and destroying not a few. For example, it sounds the death-knell to that wide-spread delusion of "sinless perfectionism." The passage which is to be before us unmistakably exposes the wild fanaticism of those who imagine that, as the result of some "second work of grace," the carnal nature has been eradicated from their beings, so that, while perhaps not so wise, they are as pure as the angels which never sinned, and lead lives which are blameless in the sight of the thrice holy God. Poor blinded souls: such have not even experienced a first "work of Divine grace" in their souls: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1:8).  

"My son despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him; for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth" (Heb. 12:5, 6). How plain and emphatic is that! God does find something to "rebuke" in us, and uses the rod upon every one of His children. Chastisement for sin is a family mark, a sign of sonship, a proof of God's love, a token of His Fatherly kindness and care; it is an inestimable mercy, a choice new-covenant blessing. Woe to the man whom God chastens not, whom He suffers to go recklessly on in the boastful and presumptuous security which so many now mistake for faith. There is a reckoning to come of which he little dreams. Were he a son, he would be chastened for his sin; he would be brought to repentance and godly sorrow, he would with grief of heart confess his backslidings, and then be blest with pardon and peace.  

The truth of Divine chastisement corrects another serious error, which has become quite common in certain quarters, namely, that God views His people so completely in Christ that He sees no sin in them. It is true, blessedly true, that of His elect it is stated, "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel" (Num. 23:21) and that Christ declares of His spouse "Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in thee" (Song 4:7). The testimony of Scripture is most express that in regard to the justification or acceptance of the persons of the elect, they are "complete in Him"-Christ (Col. 2:10); "accepted in the Beloved" (Eph. 1:6)-washed in Christ's blood, clothed with His righteousness. In that sense, God sees no sin in them; none to punish. But we must not use that precious truth to set aside another, revealed with equal clearness, and thus fall into serious error.  

God does see sin in His children and chastises them for it. Even though the non-imputation of sin to the believer (Rom. 4:8) and the chastisement of sin in believers (1 Cor. 11:30-32) were irreconcilable to human reason, we are bound to receive both on the authority of Holy Writ. Let us beware lest we fall under the solemn charge of Malachi 2:9, "Ye have not kept My ways, but have been partial in the law." What could be plainer than this, "I will make Him my Firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for Him for evermore, and My covenant shall stand fast with Him. His seed also will I make to endure forever and His throne as the days of heaven. If His children forsake My law, and walk not in My judgments; if they break My statutes, and keep not My commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless My loving kindness will I not utterly take from Him, nor suffer My faithfulness to fail" (Ps. 89:27-33). Five things are clearly revealed there. First Christ Himself is addressed under the name of "David." Second, His children break God's statutes. Third, in them there is "iniquity" and "transgression." Fourth, God will "visit" their transgression "with the rod!" Fifth, yet will He not cast them off.  

What could express more clearly the fact that God does see sin in believers, and that He does chastise them for it? For, be it noted, the whole of the above passage speaks of believers. It is the language, not of the Law, but of the Gospel. Blessed promises are there made to believers in Christ: the unchanging loving-kindness of God, His covenant-faithfulness toward them, His spiritual blessing of them. But "stripes" and the "rod" are there promised too! Then let us not dare to separate what God has joined together. How do we know anything concerning the acceptance of the elect in Christ? The answer must be, Only on the testimony of Holy Writ. Very well; from the same unerring Testimony we also know that God chastises His people for their sins. It is at our imminent peril that we reject either of these complementary truths.  

The same fact is plainly presented again in Hebrews 12:7-10, "If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons: for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily, for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness." The apostle there draws an analogy from the natural relationship of father and child. Why do earthly parents chastise their children? Is it not for their faults? Can we justify a parent for chastening a child where there was no fault, nothing in him which called for the rod? In that case, it would be positive tyranny, actual cruelty. If the same be not true spiritually, then the comparison must fall to the ground. Hebrews 12 proves conclusively that, if God does not chastise me then I am an unbeliever, and I sign my own condemnation as a bastard.  

Yet it is very necessary for us to point out, at this stage, that all the sufferings of believers in this world are not Divine rebukes for personal transgressions. Here too we need to be on our guard against lopsidedness. After we have apprehended the fact that God does take notice of the iniquities of His people and use the rod upon them, it is so easy to jump to the conclusion that when we see an afflicted Christian, God must be visiting His displeasure upon him. That is a sad and serious error. Some of the very choicest of God's saints have been called on to endure the most painful and protracted sufferings; some of the most faithful and eminent servants of Christ have encountered the most relentless and extreme persecution. Not only is this a fact of observation, but it is plainly revealed in Holy Writ.  

As we turn to God's Word for light on the subject of suffering among the saints, we find it affirmed, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all" (Ps. 34:19). Those "afflictions" are sent by God upon different ones for various reasons. Sometimes for the prevention of sin: the experience of the beloved apostle was a case in point, "And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure" (2 Cor. 12:7). Sometimes sore trials are sent for the testing and strengthening of our graces: "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience" (James 1:2, 3). Sometimes God's servants and people axe called on to endure fierce persecution for a confirmatory testimony to the Truth "And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name" (Acts 5:41).  

Yet here again we need to be much on our guard, for the flesh is ever ready to pervert even the holy things of God, and make an evil use of that which is good. When God is chastising a Christian for his sins, it is so easy for him to suppose such is not the case, and falsely comfort himself with the thought that God is only developing his graces, or permitting him to have closer fellowship with the sufferings of Christ. Where we are visited with afflictions personally, it is always the safest policy to assume that God has a controversy with us; humble ourselves beneath His mighty hand, and say with Job, "Show me wherefore Thou contendest with me" (10:2); and when He has convicted me of my fault, to penitently confess and forsake it. But where others are concerned, it is not for us to judge-though sometimes God reveals the cause to His servants (Amos 3:7).  

In the passage which is to be before us, the apostle presents a third consideration why heed should be given unto the exhortation at the beginning of Hebrews 12, which calls to patient perseverance in the path of faith and obedience, notwithstanding all the obstacles, difficulties, and dangers which may be encountered therein. He now draws a motive from the nature of those sufferings considered in the light of God's end in them: all the trials and persecutions which He may call on His people to endure are necessary, not only as testimonies to the truth, to the reality of His grace in them, but also as chastisements which are required by us, wherein God has a blessed design toward us. This argument is enforced by several considerations to the end of verse 13. How we should admire and adore the consummate wisdom of God which has so marvelously ordered all, that the very things which manifest the hatred of men against us, are evidences of His love toward us! How the realization of this should strengthen patience!  

O how many of God's dear children have found, in every age, that the afflictions which have come upon them from a hostile world, were soul-purging medicines from the Lord. By them they have been bestirred, revived, and mortified to things down here; and made partakers of God's holiness, to their own unspeakable advantage and comfort. Truly wondrous are the ways of our great God. Hereby doth He defeat the counsels and expectations of the wicked, having a design to accomplish by their agency something which they know not of. These very reproaches, imprisonments, stripes, with the loss of goods and danger of their lives, with which the world opposed them for their ruin; God makes use of for their refining, consolation and joy. Truly He "maketh the wrath of man to praise Him" (Ps. 76:10). O that our hearts and minds may be duly impressed with the wisdom, power and grace of Him who bringeth a clean thing out of an unclean.  

"In all these things is the wisdom and goodness of God, in contriving and effecting these things, to the glory of His grace, and the salvation of His Church, to be admired" (John Owen). But herein we may see, once more, the imperative need for faith-a God-given, God-sustained, spiritual, supernatural FAITH. Carnal reason can see no more in our persecutions than the malice and rage of evil men. Our senses perceive nothing beyond material losses and painful physical discomforts. But faith discovers the Father's hand directing all things: faith is assured that all proceeds from His boundless love: faith realizes that He has in view the good of our souls. The more this is apprehended by the exercise of faith, not only the better for our peace of mind, but the readier shall we be to diligently apply ourselves in seeking to learn God's lessons for us in every chastisement He lays upon us.  

The opening "And" of verse 5 shows the apostle is continuing to present motives to stir unto a perseverance in the faith, notwithstanding sufferings for the same. The first motive was taken from the example of the O.T. worthies (verse 1). The second, from the illustrious pattern of Jesus (verses 2-4). This is the third: the Author of these sufferings-our Father-and His loving design in them. There is also a more immediate connection with 5:4 pointed by the "And:" it presents a tacit rebuke for being ready to faint under the lesser trials, wherewith they were exercised. Here He gives a reason how and why it was they were thus making that reason the means of introducing a new argument. The reason why they were ready to faint was their inattention to the direction and encouragement which God has supplied for them-our failure to appropriate God's gracious provisions for us is the rise of all our spiritual miscarriages.  

The Hebrew Christians to whom this epistle was first addressed were passing through a great fight of afflictions, and miserably were they acquitting themselves. They were the little remnant out of the Jewish nation who had believed on their Messiah during the days of His public ministry, plus those Jews who had been converted under the preaching of the apostles. It is highly probable that they had expected the Messianic kingdom would at once be set up on earth, and that they would be allotted the chief places of honor in it. But the millennium had not begun, and their own lot became increasingly bitter. They were not only hated by the Gentiles, but ostracized by their unbelieving brethren, and it became a hard matter for them to make even a bare living. Providence held a frowning face. Many who had made a profession of Christianity had gone back to Judaism and were prospering temporally. As the afflictions of the believing Jews increased they too were sorely tempted to turn their back upon the new Faith. Had they been wrong in embracing Christianity? Was high heaven displeased because they had identified themselves with Jesus of Nazareth? Did not their sufferings go to show that God no longer regarded them with favor?  

Now it is most blessed and instructive to see how the apostle met the unbelieving reasoning of their hearts. He appealed to their own scriptures, reminding them of an exhortation found in Proverbs 3:11, 12: "And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastenings of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him" (Heb. 12:5). As we pointed out so often in our exposition of the earlier chapters of this Epistle, at every critical point in his argument the apostle's appeal was to the written Word of God-an example which is binding on every servant of Christ to follow. That Word is the final court of appeal for every controversial matter, and the more its authority is respected, the more is its Author honored. Not only so, but the more God's children are brought to turn to its instruction, the more will they be built up and established in the true faith. Moreover, "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope" (Rom. 15:4): it is to them alone we must turn for solid comfort. Great will be our loss if we fail to do so.  

"And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you." Note well the words we have placed in italics. The exhortation to which the apostle referred was uttered over a thousand years previously, under the Mosaic dispensation; nevertheless the apostle insists that it was addressed equally unto the New T. saints! How this exposes the cardinal error of modern "dispensationalists," who seek to rob Christians of the greater part of God's precious Word. Under the pretense of "rightly dividing" the Word, they would filch from them all that God gave to His people prior to the beginning of the present era. Such a devilish device is to be steadfastly resisted by us. All that is found in the book of Proverbs is as much God the Father's instruction to us as are the contents of the Pauline epistles! Throughout that book God addresses us individually as "My son:" see Hebrews 1:8, 3:1, 4:1, 5:1, etc. Surely that is quite sufficient for every spiritual mind-no labored argument is needed.  

The appositeness of Proverbs 3:11, 12 to the case of the afflicted Hebrews gave great force to the apostle's citing of it here. That passage would enable them to perceive that their case was by no means unprecedented or peculiar, that it was in fact no otherwise with them than it had been with others of God's children in former ages and that long before the Lord had graciously laid in provision for their encouragement: "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of His correction: For whom the Lord loveth He correcteth, even as a Father the son in whom He delighteth" (Prov. 3:11, 12). It has ever been God's way to correct those in whom He delights, to chastise His children; but so far from that salutary discipline causing us to faint, it should strengthen and comfort our hearts, being assured that such chastening proceeds from His love, and that the exhortation to perseverance in the path of duty is issued by Him. It is the height of pride and ingratitude not to comply with His tender entreaties.  

But the apostle had to say to the suffering Hebrews, "Ye have forgotten the exhortation." To forget God's gracious instruction is at least an infirmity, and with it they are here taxed. To forget the encouragements which the Father has given us is a serious fault: it is expressly forbidden: "Beware lest thou forget the Lord" (Deut. 6:12). It was taxed upon the Jews of old, "They soon forgat His works... They forgat God their Savior, which had done great things in Egypt" (Ps. 106:13, 21). Forgetfulness is a part of that corruption which has seized man by his fall: all the faculties of his soul have been seriously injured-the memory, which was placed in man to be a treasury, in which to lay up the directions and consolations of God's Word, has not escaped the universal wreckage. But that by no means excuses us: it is a fault, to be striven and prayed against. As ministers see occasion, they are to stir up God's people to use means for the strengthening of the memory-especially by the formation of the habit of holy meditation in Divine things.  

Thus it was with the Hebrews, in some measure at least: they had "forgotten" that which should have stood in good stead in the hour of their need. Under their trials and persecution, they ought, in an especial manner, to have called to mind that Divine exhortation of Proverbs 3:11, 12 for their encouragement: had they believingly appropriated it, they had been kept from fainting. Alas, how often we are like them! "The want of a diligent consideration of the provision that God hath made in the Scripture for our encouragement to duty and comfort under difficulties, is a sinful forgetfulness, and is of dangerous consequence to our souls" (John Owen).  

"Which speaketh unto you as unto children." It is very striking indeed to observe the tense of the verb here: the apostle was quoting a sentence of Scripture which had been written a thousand years previously, yet he does not say "which hath spoken," but "which speaketh unto you!" The same may be seen again in that sevenfold exhortation of Revelation 2 and 3, "He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith (not "said") unto the churches." The Holy Scriptures are a living Word, in which God speaks to men in every generation. Holy Writ is not a dumb or dead letter: it has a voice in it, ever speaking of God Himself. "The Holy Spirit is always present in the Word, and speaks in it equally and alike to the church in all ages. He doth in it speak as immediately to us, as if we were the first and only persons to whom He spake. And this should teach us, with what reverence we ought to attend to the Scriptures, namely, as to the way and means whereby God Himself speaks directly to us" (John Owen.)  

"Which speaketh unto you as unto children." The apostle emphasizes the fact that God addresses an exhortation in Proverbs 3:11 to "My son," which shows plainly that His relation to the O.T. saints was that of a Father to His children. This at once refutes a glaring error made by some who pose as being ultra-orthodox, more deeply taught in the Word than others. They have insisted that the Fatherhood of God was never revealed until the Son became incarnate; but every verse in the Proverbs where God says "My son" reveals their mistake. That the O.T. saints were instructed in this blessed relationship is clear from other passages: "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him" (Ps. 103:13). This relation unto God is by virtue of their (and our) union with Christ: He is "the Son," and being one with Him, members of His body, they were "sons" too.  

This precious relationship is the ground of the soul's confidence in God. "If God speaks to them as to children, they have good ground to fly to God as to a Father. and in all time of need to ask and seek of Him all needful blessings (Matthew 7:11), yea, and in faith to depend on Him for the same (Matthew 6:31, 32). What useful things shall they want? What hurtful thing need such to fear? If God deal with us as with children, He will provide for them every good thing, He will protect them from every hurtful thing, He will hear their prayers, He will accept their services, He will bear with their infirmities, He will support them under all their burdens, and assist them against all their assaults; though through their own weakness, or the violence of some temptation, they should be drawn from Him, yet will He be ready to meet them in the mid-way, turning to Him-instance the mind of the father of the prodigal towards him" (W. Gouge).  

Pink Archive spider   

An Exposition of Hebrews   

CHAPTER 87   

Divine Chastisement   

(Hebrews 12:5)   

It is of first importance that we learn to draw a sharp distinction between Divine punishment and Divine chastisement-important for maintaining the honor and glory of God, and for the peace of mind of the Christian. The distinction is very simple, yet is it often lost sight of. God's people can never by any possibility be punished for their sins, for God has already punished them at the Cross. The Lord Jesus, our blessed Substitute, suffered the full penalty of all our guilt, hence it is written, "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin"  

(1 John 1:7). Neither the justice nor the love of God will permit Him to again exact payment of what Christ discharged to the full. The difference between punishment and chastisement lies not in the nature of the sufferings of the afflicted: it is most important to bear this in mind. There is a threefold distinction between the two.  

First, the character in which God acts. In the former God acts as Judge, in the latter as Father. Sentence of punishment is the act of a judge, a penal sentence passed on those who are charged with guilt. Punishment can never fall upon a child of God in this judicial sense, because his guilt was all transferred to Christ: "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree." But while the believer's sins cannot be punished, while the Christian cannot be condemned (Rom. 8:33), yet he may be chastised. The Christian occupies an entirely different position from the non-Christian: he is a member of the family of God. The relationship which now exists between him and God is that of Parent and child; and as a son he must be disciplined for wrong-doing. Folly is bound up in the hearts of all God's children, and the rod is necessary to rebuke, to subdue, to humble.  

The second distinction between Divine punishment and Divine chastisement lies in the recipients of each. The objects of the former are His enemies; the subjects of the latter, His children. As the Judge of all the earth God will yet take vengeance on all His foes; as the Father of His family God maintains discipline over all His children. The one is judicial, the other parental. A third distinction is seen in the design of each: the one is retributive, the other remedial. The one flows from His anger, the other from His love. Divine punishment is never sent for the good of sinners, but for the honoring of God's law and the maintenance of His government. Divine chastisement is sent for the well-being of His children: "We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness" (Heb. 12:9, 10).  

The above distinctions should at once rebuke the thoughts which are so generally entertained among Christians. When the believer is smarting under the rod, let him not say, God is now punishing me for my sins. That can never be; that is most dishonoring to the blood of Christ. God is correcting thee in love, not smiting in wrath. Nor should the Christian regard the chastening of the Lord as a sort of necessary evil to which he must bow as submissively as possible. No, it proceeds from God's goodness and faithfulness and is one of the greatest blessings for which we have to thank Him. Chastisement evidences our Divine sonship; the father of a family does not concern himself with those on the outside: but those within he guides and disciplines to make them conform to his will. Chastisement is designed for our good, to promote our highest interests. Look beyond the rod to the All-wise hand that wields it!  

Unhappily there is no word in the English language which is capable of doing justice to the Greek term here. "Paideia" which is rendered "chastening" is only another form of "paidion" which signifies "young children, being the tender word that was employed by the Savior in John 21:5 and Hebrews 2:13. One can see at a glance the direct connection which exists between the words "disciple" and "discipline:" equally close in the Greek is the relation between "children" and "chastening"-son training would be better. It has reference to God's education, nurture and discipline of His children. It is the Father's wise and loving correction which is in view.  

It is true that much chastisement is the rod in the hand of the Father correcting His erring child, but it is a serious mistake to confine our thoughts to this one aspect of the subject. Chastisement is by no means always God's scourging of His refractory sons. Some of the saintliest of God's people, some of the most obedient of His children, have been and are the greatest sufferers. Oft times God's chastenings instead of being retributive are corrective. They are sent to empty us of self-sufficiency and self-righteousness; they are given to discover to us hidden transgressions, to teach us the plague of our own hearts. Or again; chastisements are sent to strengthen our faith, to raise us to higher levels of experience, to bring us into a condition of greater usefulness. Still again; Divine chastisement is sent as a preventative, to keep under pride, to save us from being unduly elated over success in God's service. Let us consider, briefly, four entirely different examples.  

David. In his case the rod was laid upon him for grievous sins, for open wickedness. His fall was occasioned by self-confidence and self-righteousness. If the reader will diligently compare the two songs of David recorded in 2 Samuel 22 and 23, the one written near the beginning of his life, the other near the end, he will be struck by the great difference of spirit manifested by the writer in each. Read 2 Samuel 22:22-25, and you will not be surprised that God suffered him to have a fall. Then turn to chapter 23, and mark the blessed change. At the beginning of 5:5 there is a heart-broken confession of failure. In verses 10-12, there is a God-glorifying profession, attributing victory unto the Lord. The severe scourging of David was not in vain.  

Job. Probably he tasted of every kind of suffering which falls to man's lot: family bereavements, loss of property, grievous bodily afflictions, came fast, one on top of another. But God's end in them all was that Job should benefit therefrom and be a greater partaker of His holiness. There was not a little of self-satisfaction and self-righteousness in Job at the beginning; but at the end, when he was brought face to face with the thrice Holy One, he "abhorred himself" (Heb. 42:6). In David's case the chastisement was retributive; in Job's corrective.  

Abraham. In him we see an illustration of an entirely different aspect of chastening. Most of the trials to which he was subject were neither because of open sins nor for the correction of inward faults. Rather were they sent for the development of spiritual graces. Abraham was sorely tried in various ways, but it was in order that faith might be strengthened, and that patience might have its perfect work in him. Abraham was weaned from the things of this world, that he might enjoy closer fellowship with Jehovah and become "the friend" of God.  

Paul. "And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure" (2 Cor. 12:7). This "thorn" was sent not because of failure and sin, but as a preventative against pride. Note the "lest" both at the beginning and end of the verse. The result of this "thorn" was that the beloved apostle was made more conscious of his weakness. Thus chastisement has for one of its main objects the breaking down of self-sufficiency, the bringing us to the end of ourselves.  

Now in view of these widely different aspects-chastisements which are retributive, corrective, educative, and preventative-how incompetent are we to diagnose, and how great is the folly of pronouncing a judgment concerning others! Let us not conclude when we see a fellow-Christian under the rod of God that he is necessarily being taken to task for his sins. Let us now consider the spirit in which Divine chastisements are to be received. "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him" (verse 5).  

Not all chastisement is sanctified to the recipient of it. Some are hardened thereby; others are crushed beneath it. Much depends on the spirit in which afflictions are received. There is no virtue in trials and troubles in themselves: it is only as they are blest by God that the Christian is profited thereby. As Hebrews 12:11 informs us, it is those who are "exercised" under God's rod that bring forth "the peaceable fruit of righteousness." A sensitive conscience and a tender heart are the needed adjuncts.  

In our text the Christian is warned against two entirely different dangers: despise not, despair not. These are two extremes against which it is ever necessary to keep a sharp look-out. Just as every truth of Scripture has its balancing counterpart, so has every evil its opposite. On the one hand there is a haughty spirit which laughs at the rod, a stubborn will which refuses to be humbled thereby. On the other hand there is a fainting which utterly sinks beneath it and gives way to despondency. Spurgeon said, "The way of righteousness is a difficult pass between two mountains of error, and the great secret of the Christian's life is to wend his way along the narrow valley." Let us then ponder separately the two things which the Christian is here warned against: "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou are rebuked of Him."  

"The Greek word for 'despise' is nowhere used in the Scripture, but in this place. It signifies to 'set lightly by,' to have little esteem of, not to value any thing according to its worth and use. The Hebrew word means 'to reprobate, to reject, to despise.' We render the apostle's word by 'despise,' which yet doth not intend a despising that is so formally, but only interpretatively. Directly to despise and condemn or reject the chastisements of the Lord is a sin that perhaps none of His sons or children do fall into. But not to esteem of them as we ought, not to improve them unto their proper end, not to comply with the will of God in them, is interpretatively to despise them" (John Owen). As the point now before us is one which is of great practical importance to afflicted Christians, we will describe a number of ways in which God's chastisement may be "despised."  

First, by callousness. There is a general lack of regard unto God's admonitions and instructions when troubles and sufferings come upon Christians. Too often they view them as the common and inevitable ills which man is heir unto, and perceive not that their Father hath any special hand or design in them. Hence they are stoically accepted in a fatalistic attitude. To be stoical under adversity is the policy of carnal wisdom: make the best of a bad job is the sum of its philosophy. The man of the world knows no better than to grit his teeth and brave things out: having no Divine Comforter, Counselor, or Physician, he has to fall back upon his own poor resources. But it is inexpressibly sad when we find the child of God conducting himself as does a child of the Devil.  

This is what is dehorted against in our present text: "despise not thou the chastening of the Lord." Observe well the personal emphasis-"thou:" no matter how thy fellow-creatures act when the clouds of providence frown upon them, see well to it that thou comportest thyself as becometh a son of God. Take to heart the caution here given. Stout-heartedness and stiff-neckedness is to be expected from a rebel, but one who has found grace in the eyes of the Lord should humble himself beneath His mighty hand the moment He gives any intimation of His displeasure. Scorn not the least trials: each has instruction wrapped up in it. Many a child would be spared the rod if he heeded the parent's frown! So it is spiritually. Instead of hardening ourselves to endure stoically, there should be a melting of heart.  

Second, by complaining. This is what the Hebrews did in the wilderness; and there are still many murmurers in Israel's camp today. A little sickness, and we become so cross that our friends are afraid to come near us. A few days in bed, and we fret and fume like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. We peevishly ask, Why this affliction? what have I done to deserve it? We look around with envious eyes, and are discontented because others are carrying a lighter load. Beware, my reader: it goes hard with murmurers. God always chastises twice if we are not humbled by the first. Remind yourself of how much dross there yet is among the gold. View the corruptions of your own heart, and marvel that God has not smitten you far more severely.  

This is what is dehorted against here: "despise not thou the chastening of the Lord." Instead of complaining, there should be a holy submitting unto the good will of God. There is a dreadful amount of complaining among Christians today, due to failure to nip this evil weed in the bud. Grumbling at the weather, being cross when things are lost or mislaid, murmuring because some one has failed to show us the respect which we consider ourselves entitled unto. God's hand in these things-for nothing happens by chance under His government: everything has a meaning and message if our hearts are open to receive it-is lost sight of. That is to "despise" His rod when it is laid but gently upon us, and this it is which necessitates heavier blows. Form the habit of heeding His taps, and you will be less likely to receive His raps.  

Third, by criticisms. How often we question the usefulness of chastisement. As Christians we seem to have little more spiritual good sense than we had natural wisdom as children. As boys we thought that the rod was the least necessary thing in the home. It is so with the children of God. When things go as we like them, when some unexpected temporal blessing is bestowed, we have no difficulty in ascribing all to a kind Providence; but when our plans are thwarted, when losses are ours, it is very different. Yet, is it not written, "I form the light and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things" (Isa. 45:7).  

How often is the thing formed ready to complain "Why hast Thou made me thus?" We say, I cannot see how this can possibly profit my soul: if I had better health, I could attend the house of prayer more frequently; if I had been spared those losses in business, I would have more money for the Lord's work! What good can possibly come out of this calamity? Like Jacob we exclaim, "All these things are against me." What is this but to "despise" the rod? Shall thy ignorance challenge God's wisdom? Shall thy shortsightedness arraign omniscience? O for grace to be as a "weaned child" (Ps. 131:2).  

Fourth, by carelessness. So many fail to mend their ways. The exhortation of our text is much needed by all of us. There are many who have "despised" the rod, and in consequence they have not profited thereby. Many a Christian has been corrected by God, but in vain. Sickness, reverses, bereavements have come, but they have not been sanctified by prayerful self-examination. O brethren and sisters, take heed. If God be chastening "consider your ways" (Hag. 1:5), "ponder the path of thy feet" (Prov. 4:26). Be assured that there is some reason for the chastening. Many a Christian would not have been chastised half so severely had he diligently inquired as to the cause of it.  

"Cause me to understand wherein I have erred" (Job 6:24); "show me wherefore Thou contendest with me" (Heb. 10:2), expresses the attitude we should take whenever God's hand is laid upon us. We are bidden "hear ye the rod" (Mic. 6:9), that is, to pay a due regard to God's voice in our trials and afflictions, and to correct that in our lives with which He is displeased. In chastisement God is to be viewed not only as a Father but also as a Teacher: valuable lessons are to be learned therefrom if we cultivate a teachable spirit. Not so to do, failure to improve them unto their proper design and to comply with the will of God in them, is to "despise" His loving reproofs. But we must turn now to the second half of our verse.  

"Nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him." This word presupposes that we have not "despised" God's chastening, but have heeded it-inquired as to the cause and reason of it, and have discovered He is evidencing that He is displeased with us. The learned tell us that the word for "rebuked," both in the Hebrew and in the Greek, signifies "a reproof by rational conviction:" the conscience has been pricked, and God has discovered unto the heart that there is something in our ways-which before we took no notice of-which has convinced us of the needs-be for our present afflictions. He makes us to understand what it is that is wrong in our lives: we are "rebuked" in our conscience. Our response should be to humble ourselves before Him, confess the fault, and seek grace to right it; and in order to this we are cautioned against "fainting" in our minds. Let us mention several forms of this particular evil of "fainting."  

First, when we give up all exertion. This is done when we sink down in despondency. The smitten one concludes that it is more than he can possibly endure. His heart fails him; darkness swallows him up; the sun of hope is eclipsed, and the voice of thanksgiving is silent. To "faint" means rendering ourselves unfit for the discharge of our duties. When a person faints, he is rendered motionless. How many Christians are ready to completely give up the fight when adversity enters their lives. How many are rendered quite inert when trouble comes their way. How many by their attitude say, God's hand is heavy upon me: I can do nothing. Ah, beloved, "sorrow not, even as others which have no hope" (1 Thess. 4:13). "Faint not when thou art rebuked of Him:" go to the Lord about it; recognize His hand in it. Remember thine afflictions are among the "all things" which work together for good.  

Second, when we question our sonship. There are not a few Christians who, when the rod descends upon them, conclude that they are not sons of God after all. They forget that it is written "Many are the afflictions of the righteous (Ps. 34:19), and that we must "through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). One says, "But if I were His child, I should not be in this poverty, misery, shame." Listen to verse 8. "But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons." Learn, then, to look upon trials as proofs of God's love-purging, pruning, purifying thee. The father of a family does not concern himself much about those on the outside of his household: it is they who are within whom he guards and guides, nurtures and conforms to his will. So it is with God.  

Third, when we give way to unbelief. This is occasioned by our failure to seek God's support under trials, and lay hold of His promises-"weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning" (Ps. 30:5). Sure are we to "faint" if we lose sight of the Lord, and cherish not His words of consolation. David was encouraging himself against unbelief when he took himself to task and said, "Why art thou cast down O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance" (Ps. 42:5): if only that attitude be maintained by us, we shall be preserved from sinking when troubles come upon us.  

Fourth, when we despair. When unbelief dominates the heart, despondency soon becomes our portion. Some indulge the gloomy fancy that they will never again get from under the rod in this life; ah, it is a long lane that has no turning! Perhaps a reader says, "But I have prayed and prayed, and yet the dark clouds have not lifted." Then comfort yourself with the reflection: it is always the darkest hour which precedes the dawn. Perhaps another says, "I have pleaded His promises, but things are no better with me: I thought God delivered those who called upon Him; I have called, but He has not delivered, and I fear He never will." What! child of God, speak of thy Father thus? You say, He will never leave off smiting because He has smitten so long; rather conclude, He has now smitten so long, I must soon be delivered. Fight hard, my brother, against this attitude of despair, lest your complaining cause others to stumble. Despise not; faint not. May Divine Mace preserve both writer and reader from either of these sinful extremes.  

N.B. For several of the leading thoughts in the above article, we are indebted to a sermon by the late C.H. Spurgeon.  

  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:6

Chastisement   

(Hebrews 12:6)   

The problem of suffering is a very real one in this world, and to not a few of our readers a personal and acute one. While some of us are freely supplied with comforts, others are constantly exercised over procuring the bare necessities of life. While some of us have long been favored with good health, others know not what it is to go through a day without sickness and pain. While some homes have not been visited by death for many years, others are called upon again and again to pass through the deep waters of family bereavement. Yes, dear friend; the problem of suffering, the encountering of severe trials, is a very personal thing for not a few of the members of the household of faith. Nor is it the external afflictions which occasion the most anguish: it is the questionings they raise, the doubts they stimulate, the dark clouds of unbelief which they so often bring over the heart.  

Very often it is in seasons of trial and trouble that Satan is most successful in getting in his evil work. When he perceives the uselessness of attempting to bring believers under the bondage in which he keeps unbelievers, he bides his time for the shooting at them of other arrows which he has in his quiver. Though he is unable to drag them down to the commission of the grosser outward forms of sin, he waits his opportunity for tempting them to be guilty of inward sins. Though he cannot infect them with the poison of evolutionism and higher criticism, he despairs not of seducing them with questions of God’ s goodness. It is when adversity comes the Christian’ s way, when sore trials multiply, when the soul is oppressed and the mind distressed, that the Devil seeks to instill and strengthen doubtings of God’ s love, and to call into question the faithfulness of His promises.  

Moreover, there come seasons in the lives of many saints when to sight and sense it seems as though God Himself had ceased to care for His needy and afflicted child. Earnest prayer is made for the mitigation of the sufferings, but relief is not granted. Grace is sought to meekly bear the burden which has been laid upon the suffering one; yet, so far from any sensible answer being received, self-will, impatience, unbelief, are more active than ever. Instead of the peace of God ruling the heart, unrest and enmity occupy its throne. Instead of quietness within, there is turmoil and resentment. Instead of "giving thanks always for all things unto God" (Eph. 5:20), the soul is filled with unkind thoughts and feelings against Him. This is cause for anguish unto the renewed heart; yet, at times, struggle against the evil as the Christian may, he is overcome by it.  

Then it is that the afflicted one cries out, "Why standest Thou afar off, O Lord, why hidest Thou Thyself in times of trouble?" (Ps. 10:1). To the distressed saint, the Lord seems to stand still, as if He coldly looked on from a distance, and did not sympathize with the afflicted one. Nay, worse, the Lord appears to be afar off, and no longer "a very present help in trouble," but rather an inaccessible mountain, which it is impossible to reach. The felt presence of the Lord is the stay, the strength, the consolation of the believer; the lifting up of the light of His countenance upon us, is what sustains and cheers us in this dark world. But when that is withheld, when we no longer have the joy of His presence with us, drab indeed is the prospect, sad the heart. It is the hiding of our Father’ s face which cuts to the quick. When trouble and desertion come together, it is unbearable.  

Then it is that the word comes to us, "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him" (Heb. 12:5). Ah, it is easy for us to perceive the meetness of such an admonition as this while things are going smoothly and pleasantly for us. While our lot is congenial, or at least bearable, we have little difficulty in discerning what a sin it is for any Christian to either "despise" God’ s chastenings or to "faint" beneath them. But when tribulation comes upon us, when distress and anguish fill our hearts, it is quite another matter. Not only do we become guilty of one of the very evils here dehorted from, but we are very apt to excuse and extenuate our peevishness or faintness. There is a tendency in all of us to pity ourselves, to take sides with ourselves against God, and even to justify the uprisings of our hearts against Him.  

Have we never, in self-vindication, said, "Well, after all we are human; it is natural that we should chafe against the rod or give way to despondency when we are afflicted. It is all very well to tell us that we should not, but how can we help ourselves? we cannot change our natures; we are frail men and women, and not angels." And what has been the issue from the fruit of this self-pity and self-vindication? Review the past, dear friend, and recall how you felt and acted inwardly when God was tearing up your cozy nest, overturning your cherished plans, dashing to pieces your fondest hopes, afflicting you painfully in your affairs, your body, or your family circle. Did it not issue in calling into question the wisdom of God’ s ways, the justice of His dealings with you, His kindness towards you? Did it not result in your having still stronger doubts of His very goodness?  

In Hebrews 12:5 the Christian is cautioned against either despising the Lord’ s chastenings or fainting beneath them. Yet, notwithstanding this plain warning, there remains a tendency in all of us not only to disregard the same, but to act contrary thereto. The apostle anticipates this evil, and points out the remedy. The mind of the Christian must be fortified against it. But how? By calling to remembrance the source from which all his testings, trials, tribulations and troubles proceed, namely, the blessed, wondrous, unchanging love of God. "My son, despise not thou the chastenings of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him. FOR whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth." Here a reason is advanced why we should not despise God’ s chastening nor faint beneath it— all proceeds from His love. Yes, even the bitter disappointments, the sore trials, the things which occasion an aching heart, are not only appointed by unerring wisdom, but are sent by infinite Love! It is the apprehension and appropriation of this glorious fact, and that alone, which will preserve us from both the evils forbidden in 5:5.  

The way to victory over suffering is to keep sorrow from filling the soul: "Let not your heart be troubled" (John 14:1). So long as the waves wash only the deck of the ship, there is no danger of its foundering; but when the tempest breaks through the hatches and submerges the hold, then disaster is nigh. No matter what floods of tribulation break over us, it is our duty and our privilege to have peace within: "keep thy heart with all diligence" (Prov. 4:23): suffer no doubtings of God’ s wisdom, faithfulness, goodness, to take root there. But how am I to prevent their so doing? "Keep yourselves in the love of God" (Jude 21), is the inspired answer, the sure remedy, the way to victory. There, in one word, we have made known to us the secret of how to overcome all questionings of God’ s providential ways, all murmurings against His dealings with us.  

"Keep yourselves in the love of God." It is as though a parent said to his child, "Keep yourself in the sunshine:" the sun shines whether he enjoys it or not, but he is responsible not to walk in the shade and thus lose its genial glow. So God’ s love for His people abides unchanging, but how few of them keep themselves in the warmth of it. The saint is to be "rooted and grounded in love" (Eph. 3:17); "rooted" like a tree in rich and fertile soil; "grounded" like a house built upon a rock. Observe that both of these figures speak of hidden processes: the root-life of a tree is concealed from human eyes, and the foundations of a house are laid deep in the ground. Thus it should be with each child of God: the heart is to be fixed, nourished by the love of God.  

It is one thing to believe intellectually that "God is love" and that He loves His people, but it is quite another to enjoy and live in that love in the soul. To be "rooted and grounded in love" means to have a settled assurance of God’ s love for us, such an assurance as nothing can shake. This is the deep need of every Christian, and no pains are to be spared in the obtaining thereof. Those passages in Scripture which speak of the wondrous love of God, should be read frequently and meditated upon daily. There should be a diligent striving to apprehend God’ s love more fully and richly. Dwell upon the many unmistakable proofs which God has made of His love to you: the gift of His Word, the gift of His Son, the gift of His Spirit. What greater, what clearer proofs do we require! Steadfastly resist every temptation to question His love: "keep yourselves in the love of God." Let that be the realm in which you live, the atmosphere you breathe, the warmth in which you thrive.  

This life is but a schooling. In saying this we are uttering a platitude, yet it is a truth of which all Christians need to be constantly reminded. This is the period of our childhood and minority. Now in childhood everything has, or should have, the character of education and discipline. Dear parents and teachers are constantly directing, warning, rebuking; the whole of the child-life is under rule, restraint and guidance. But the only object is the child him-self— his good, his character, his future; and the only motive is love. Now as childhood is to the rest of our life, so is the whole of our earthly sojourn to our future and heavenly life. Therefore let us seek to cultivate the spirit of childhood. Let us regard it as natural that we should be daily rebuked and corrected. Let us behave with the docility and meekness of children, with their trustful and sweet assurance that love is behind all our chastenings, that we are in the tender hands of our Father.  

But if this attitude is to be maintained, faith must be kept in steady exercise: only thus shall we judge aright of afflictions. Sense is ever ready to slander and belie the Divine perfections. Sense beclouds the understanding and causes us to wrongly interpret God’ s dispensations with us. Why so? Because sense estimates things from their outside and by their present feeling. "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous" (Heb. 12:11), and therefore if when under the rod we judge of God’ s love and care for us by our sense of His present dealings, we are likely to conclude that He has but little regard for us. Herein lies the urgent need for the putting forth of faith, for "faith is the evidence of things not seen." Faith is the only remedy for this double evil. Faith interprets things not according to the outside or visible, but according to the promise. Faith looks upon providences not as a present disconnected piece, but in its entirety to the end of things.  

Sense perceives in our trials naught but expressions of God’ s disregard or anger, but faith can discern Divine wisdom and love in the sorest troubles. Faith is able to unfold the fiddles and solve the mysteries of providence. Faith can extract honey and sweetness out of gall and wormwood. Faith discerns that God’ s heart is filled with love toward us, even when His hand is heavy and smarts upon us. The bucket goes down into the well the deeper, that it may come up the fuller. Faith perceives God’ s design in the chastening is our good. It is through faith "that He would show thee the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is" (Job 11:6). By the "secrets of wisdom" is meant the hidden ways of God’ s providence. Divine providence has two faces: the one of rigor, the other of clemency; sense looks upon the former only, faith enjoys the latter.  

Faith not only looks beneath the surface of things and sees the sweet orange beneath the bitter rind, but it looks beyond the present and anticipates the blessed sequel. Of the Psalmist it is recorded, "I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Thine eyes" (Ps. 31:22). The fumes of passion dim our vision when we look only at what is present. Asaph declared, "My feet were almost gone, my steps had well-nigh slipped; for I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked" (Ps. 73:2, 3); but when he went into the sanctuary of God he said, "Then understood I their end" (verse 17), and that quieted him. Faith is occupied not with the scaffolding, but with the completed building; not with the medicine, but with the healthful effects it produces; not with the painful rod, but with the peaceable fruit of righteousness in which it issues.  

Suffering, then, is a test of the heart; chastisement is a challenge to faith— our faith in His wisdom, His faithfulness, His love. As we have sought to show above the great need of the Christian is to keep himself in the love of God, for the soul to have an unshaken assurance of His tender care for us: "casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you" (1 Pet. 5:7). But the knowledge of that "care" can only be experimentally maintained by the exercise of faith— especially is this the case in times of trouble. A preacher once asked a despondent friend, "Why is that cow looking over the wall?" And the answer was, "Because she cannot look through it." The illustration may be crude, yet it gives point to an important truth. Discouraged reader, look over the things which so much distress you, and behold the Father’ s smiling face; look above the frowning clouds of His providence, and see the sunshine of His never changing love.  

"For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth" (verse 6). There is something very striking and unusual about this verse, for it is found, in slightly varied form, in no less than five different books of the Bible:— "Happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty" (Job 5:17); "Blessed is the man whom Thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of Thy law" (Ps. 94:12); "Whom the Lord loveth He correcteth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth" (Prov. 3:12); "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten" (Rev. 3:19). Probably there is a twofold reason for this reiteration. First, it hints at the importance and blessedness of this truth. God repeats it so frequently lest we should forget, and thus lose the comfort and cheer of realizing that Divine chastisement proceeds from love. This must be a precious word if God thought it well to say it five times over! Second, such repetition also implies our slowness to believe it; by nature our evil hearts are inclined in the opposite direction. Though our text affirms so emphatically that the Christian’ s chastisements proceed from God’ s love, we are ever ready to attribute them to His harshness. It is really very humbling that the Holy Spirit should deem it necessary to repeat this statement so often.  

"For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." Four things are to be noted. First, the best of God’ s children need chastisement— "every son." There is no Christian but what has faults and follies which require correcting: "in many things we all offend" (James 3:2). Second, God will correct all whom He adopts into His family. However He may now let the reprobate alone in their sins, He will not ignore the failings of His people— to be suffered to go on unrebuked in wickedness is a sure sign of alienation from God. Third, in this God acts as a Father: no wise and good parent will wink at the faults of his own children: his very relation and affection to them oblige him to take notice of the same. Fourth, God’ s disciplinary dealings with His sons proceed from and make manifest His love to them: it is this fact we would now particularly concentrate upon.  

1. The Christian’ s chastisements flow from God’ s love. Not from His anger or hardness, nor from arbitrary dealings, but from God’ s heart do our afflictions proceed. It is love which regulates all the ways of God in dealing with His own. It was love which elected them. The heart is not warmed when our election is traced back merely to God’ s sovereign will, but our affections are stirred when we read "in love having predestinated us" (Eph. 1:4, 5). It was love which redeemed us. We do not reach the center of the atonement when we see nothing more in the Cross than a vindication of the law and a satisfaction of justice: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" (John 3:16). It is love which regenerates or effectually calls us: "with loving kindness have I drawn thee" (Jer. 31:3). The new birth is not only a marvel of Divine wisdom and a miracle of Divine power, but it is also and superlatively a product of God’ s affection.  

In like manner it is love which ordained our trials and orders our chastisements. O Christian, never doubt the love of God. A quaint old Quaker, who was a farmer, had a weather-vane on the roof of his barn, from which stood out in clear-cut letters "God is love." One day a preacher was being driven to the Quaker’ s home; his host called attention to the vane and its text. The preacher turned and said, "I don’ t like that at all: it misrepresents the Divine character— God’ s love is not variable like the weather." Said the Quaker, "Friend you have misinterpreted its significance; that text on the weather-vane is to remind me that, no matter which way the wind is blowing, no matter from which direction the storm may come, still, "God is love."  

2. The Christian’ s chastisements express God’ s love. Oftentimes we do not think so. As God’ s children we think and act very much as we did when children naturally. When we were little and our parents insisted that we should perform a certain duty we failed to appreciate the love which had respect unto our future well-being. Or, when our parents denied us something on which we had set our hearts, we felt we were very hardly dealt with. Yet was it love which said "No" to us. So it is spiritually. The love of God not only gives, but also withholds. No doubt this is the explanation for some of our unanswered prayers: God loves us too much to give what would not really be for our profit. The duties insisted upon, the rebukes given, the things withheld, are all expressions of His faithful love.  

Chastisements manifest God’ s care of us. He does not regard us with unconcern and neglect, as men usually do their illegitimate children, but He has a true parent’ s solicitation for us: "Like as a father pitieth his children so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him" (Ps. 103:13). "And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live" (Deut. 8:3). There are several important sermons wrapped up in that verse, but we have not the space here to even outline them. God brings into the wilderness that we may be drawn nearer Himself. He dries up cisterns that we may seek and enjoy the Fountain. He destroys our nest down here that our affection may be set upon things above.  

3. The Christian’ s chastisements magnify God’ s love. Our very trials make manifest the fullness and reveal the perfections of God’ s love. What a word is that in Lamentations 3:33; "He doth not afflict willingly"! If God consulted only His own pleasure, He would not afflict us at all: it is for our profit that He "scourges." Ever remember that the great High Priest Himself is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities"; yet, notwithstanding, He employs the rod! God is love, and nothing is so sensitive as love. Concerning the trials and tribulations of Israel of old, it is written, "In all their affliction He was afflicted" (Isa. 63:9); yet out of love He chastens. How this manifests and magnifies the unselfishness of God’ s love!  

Here, then is the Christian supplied with an effectual shield to turn aside the fiery darts of the wicked one. As we said at the beginning, Satan ever seeks to take advantage of our trials: like the fiend that he is, he makes his fiercest assaults when we are most cast down. Thus it was that he attacked Job— "Curse God and die." And thus some of us have found it. Did he not, in the hour of suffering and sorrow, seek to remind you that when you had become increasingly diligent in seeking to please and glorify God, the darkest clouds of adversity followed; and say, How unjust God is; what a miserable reward for your devotion and zeal! Here is your recourse, fellow-Christian: say to the Devil, "It is written, ‘ Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.’ "  

Again; if Satan cannot succeed in traducing the character of God and cause us to doubt His goodness and question His love, then he will assail our assurance. The Devil is most persevering: if a frontal attack falls, then he will make one from the rear. He will assault your assurance of sonship: he will whisper "You are no child of His: look at your condition, consider your circumstances, contrast those of other Christians. You cannot be an object of God’ s favor; you are deceiving yourself; your profession is an empty one. If you were God’ s child, He would treat you very differently. Such privations, such losses, such pains, show that you cannot be one of His." But say to him, "It is written, ‘ Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.’ "  

Let our final thought be upon the last word of our text: "For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." The one whom God scourges is not rejected, but "received"— received up into glory, welcomed in His House above. First the cross, then the crown, is God’ s unchanging order. This was vividly illustrated in the history of the children of Israel: God "chose them in the furnace of affliction," and many and bitter were their trials ere they reached the promised land. So it is with us. First the wilderness, then Canaan; first the scourging, and then the "receiving." May we keep ourselves more and more in the love of God.  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:7-8

Chastisement   

(Hebrews 12:7, 8)   

The all-important matter in connection with Divine chastenings, so far as the Christian is concerned, is the spirit in which he receives them. Whether or not we "profit" from them, turns entirely on the exercises of our minds and hearts under them. The advantages or disadvantages which outward things bring to us, is to be measured by the effects they produce in us. Material blessings become curses if our souls are not the gainers thereby, while material losses prove benedictions if our spiritual graces are enriched therefrom. The difference between our spiritual impoverishment or our spiritual enrichment from the varied experiences of this life, will very largely be determined by our heart-attitude toward them, the spirit in which they are encountered, and our subsequent conduct under them. It is all summed up in that word "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Prov. 23:7).  

As the careful reader passes from verse to verse of Hebrews 12:3-11, he will observe how the Holy Spirit has repeatedly stressed this particular point, namely, the spirit in which God’ s chastisements are to be received. First, the tried and troubled saint is bidden to consider Him who was called upon to pass through a far rougher and deeper sea of suffering than any which His followers encounter, and this contemplation of Him is urged "lest we be wearied and faint in our minds" (verse 3.). Second, we are bidden to "despise not" the chastenings of the Lord, "nor faint" when we are rebuked of Him (verse 5). Third, our Christian duty is to "endure" chastening as becometh the sons of God (verse 7). Fourth, it is pointed out that since we gave reverence to our earthly fathers when they corrected us, much more should we "rather be in subjection" unto our heavenly Father (verse 9). Finally, we learn there will only be the "peaceable fruit of righteousness" issuing from our afflictions, if we are duly "exercised thereby" (verse 11).  

In the previous articles we have sought to point out some of the principal considerations which should help the believer to receive God’ s chastisements in a meet and becoming spirit. We have considered the blessed example left us by our Captain: may we who have enlisted under His banner diligently follow the same. We have seen that, however severe may be our trials, they are by no means extreme: we have not yet "resisted unto blood"— martyrdom has not overtaken us, as it did many who preceded us: shall we succumb to the showers, when they defied the fiercest storms! We have dwelt upon the needs-be for Divine reproof and correction. We have pointed out the blessed distinction there is between Divine punishment and Divine chastisement. We have contemplated the source from which all proceeds, namely, the love of our Father. We have shown the imperative necessity for the exercise of faith, if the heart is to be kept in peace while the rod is upon us.  

"If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons" (verses 7, 8). In these verses another consideration is presented for the comfort of those whom God is chastening. That of which we are here reminded is, that, when the Christian comports himself properly under Divine correction, he gives proof of his Divine sonship. If he endure them in a manner becoming to his profession, he supplies evidence of his Divine adoption. Blessed indeed is this, an unanswerable reply to Satan’ s evil insinuation: so far from the disciplinary afflictions which the believer encounters showing that God loves him not, they afford a golden opportunity for him to exercise and display his unquestioning love of the Father. If we undergo chastisements with patience and perseverance, then do we make manifest, both to ourselves and to others, the genuineness of our profession.  

In the verses which are now before us the apostle draws an inference from and makes a particular application of what had been previously affirmed, thereby confirming the exhortation. There are three things therein to be particularly noted. First, the duty which has been enjoined: Divine chastisements are to be "endured" by us: that which is included and involved by that term we shall seek to show in what follows. Second, the great benefit which is gained by a proper endurance of those chastisements: evidence is thereby obtained that God is dealing with us as "sons:" not as enemies whom He hates, but as dear children whom He loves. Third, a solemn contrast is then drawn, calculated to unmask hypocrites and expose empty professors: those who are without Divine chastisement are not sons at all, but "bastards"— claiming the Church for their mother, yet having not God for their Father: what is signified thereby will appear in the sequel.  

"If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons." This statement supplements what was before us in verse 5. Both of them speak of the spirit in which chastisements are to be received by the Christian, only with this difference: verse 5 gives the negative side, verse 7 the positive. On the one hand, we are not to "despise" or "faint" under them; on the other hand, they are to be "endured." It has become an English proverb that "what cannot be cured must be endured," which is but another way of saying that we must grit our teeth and make the best of a bad job. It scarcely needs pointing out that the Holy Spirit has not used the term here in its lowest and carnal sense, but rather in its noblest and spiritual signification.  

In order to ascertain the force and scope of any word which is used in Holy Scripture neither its acceptation in ordinary speech nor its dictionary etymology is to be consulted; instead, a concordance must be used, so as to find out how it is actually employed on the sacred page. In the case now before us, we do not have far to seek, for in the immediate context it is found in a connection where it cannot be misunderstood. In verse 2 we read that the Savior "endured the cross," and in verse 3 that He "endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself." It was in the highest and noblest sense that Christ "endured" His sufferings: He remained steadfast under the sorest trials, forsaking not the path of duty. He meekly and heroically bore the acutest afflictions without murmuring against or fainting under them. How, then, is the Christian to conduct himself in the fires? We subjoin a sevenfold answer.  

First, the Christian is to "endure" chastisement inquiringly. While it be true that all chastisement is not the consequence of personal disobedience or sinful conduct, yet much of it is so, and therefore it is always the part of wisdom for us to seek for the why of it. There is a cause for every effect, and a reason for all God’ s dealings. The Lord does not act capriciously, nor does He afflict willingly (Lam. 3:33). Every time the Father’ s rod fails upon us it is a call to self-examination, for pondering the path of our feet, for heeding that repeated word in Haggai "Consider your ways." It is our bounden duty to search ourselves and seek to discover the reason of God’ s displeasure. This may not be a pleasant exercise, and if we are honest with ourselves it is likely to occasion us much concern and sorrow; nevertheless, a broken and contrite heart is never despised by the One with whom we have to do.  

Alas, only too often this self-examination and inquiring into the cause of our affliction is quite neglected, relief therefrom being the uppermost thought in the sufferer’ s mind. There is a most solemn warning upon this point in 2 Chronicles 16:12, 13, "And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great; yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but the physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers." How many professing Christians do likewise today. As soon as sickness strikes them, their first thought and desire is not that the affliction may be sanctified unto their souls, but how quickly their bodies may be relieved. We do not fully agree with some brethren who affirm that the Christian ought never to call in a doctor, and that the whole medical fraternity is of the Devil— in such case the Holy Spirit had never denominated Luke "the beloved physician," nor had Christ said the sick "need" a physician. On the other hand, it is unmistakably evident that physical healing is not the first need of an ailing saint.  

Second, the Christian is to "endure" chastisement prayerfully. If our inquiry is to be prosecuted successfully, then we are in urgent need of Divine assistance. Those who rely upon their own judgment are certain to err. As our hearts are exercised as to the cause of the chastening, we need to seek earnestly unto God, for it is only in His light that we "see light" (Ps. 36:9). It is not sufficient to examine ourselves: we must request the Divine physician to diagnose our case, saying "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Ps. 139:23, 24). Nevertheless, let it be pointed out that such a request cannot be presented sincerely unless we have personally endeavored to thoroughly search ourselves and purpose to continue so doing.  

Prayer was never designed to be a substitute for the personal discharge of duty: rather is it appointed as a means for procuring help therein. While it remains our duty to honestly scrutinize our hearts and inspect our ways, measuring them by the holy requirements of Scripture, yet only the immediate assistance of the Spirit will enable us to prosecute our quest with any real profit and success. Therefore we need to enter the secret place and inquire of the Lord "show me wherefore Thou contendest with me" (Job 10:2). If we sincerely ask Him to make known unto us what it is in our ways He is displeased with, and for which He is now rebuking us, He will not mock us. Request of Him the hearing ear, and He will tell what is wrong. Let there be no reserve, but an honest desire to know what needs correcting, and He will show you.  

Third, the Christian is to "endure" chastisement humbly. When the Lord has responded to your request and has made known the cause of His chastening, see to it that you quarrel not with Him. If there be any feeling that the scourging is heavier than you deserve, the thought must be promptly rejected. "Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment (or chastisement) of his sins?" (Lam. 3:39). If we take issue with the Most High, we shall only be made to smart the more for our pains. Rather must we seek grace to heed that word, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God" (1 Pet. 5:6). Ask Him to quicken conscience, shine into your heart, and bring to light the hidden things of darkness, so that you may perceive your inward sins as well as your outward. And then will you exclaim, "I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me" (Ps. 119:75).  

Fourth, the Christian is to "endure" chastisement patiently. Probably that is the prime thought in our text: steadfastness, a resolute continuance in the path of duty, an abiding service of God with all our hearts, notwithstanding the present trial, is what we are called unto. But Satan whispers, "What is the use? you have endeavored, earnestly, to please the Lord, and how is He rewarding you? You cannot satisfy Him: the more you give, the more He demands; He is a hard and tyrannical Master." Such vile suggestions must be put from us as the malicious lies of him who hates God and seeks to encompass our destruction. God has only your good in view when the rod is laid upon you. Just as the grass needs to be mown to preserve its freshness, as the vine has to be pruned to ensure its fruitfulness, as friction is necessary to produce electric power, as fire alone will consume the dross, even so the discipline of trial is indispensable for the education of the Christian.  

"Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not" (Gal. 6:9). Keep before you the example of Christ: He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, yet before His shearers He was "dumb." He never fretted or murmured, and we are to "follow His steps." "Let patience have her perfect work" (James 1:4). For this we have to be much in prayer; for this we need the strengthening help of the Holy Spirit. God tells us that chastisement is not "joyous" but "grievous": if it were not, it would not be "chastening." But He also assures us that "afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (Heb. 12:11). Lay hold of that word "afterward": anticipate the happy sequel, and in the comfort thereof continue pressing forward along the path of duty. "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit" (Ecclesiastes 7:8).  

Fifth, the Christian is to "endure" chastisement believingly. This was how Job endured his: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Heb. 1:21). Ah, he looked behind all secondary causes, and perceived that above the Sabeans and Chaldeans was Jehovah Himself. But is it not at this point we most often fail? Only too frequently we see only the injustice of men, the malice of the world, the enmity of Satan, in our trials: that is walking by sight. Faith brings God into the scene. "I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living" (Ps. 27:13). It is an adage of the world that "Seeing is believing:" but in the spiritual realm, the order is reversed: there we must "believe" in order to "see." And what is it which the saint most desires to "see"? Why, "the goodness of the Lord," for unless he sees that, he "faints." And how does faith see "the goodness of the Lord" in chastisements? By viewing them as proceeding from God’ s love, as ordered by His wisdom, and as designed for our profit.  

As the bee sucks honey out of the bitter herb, so faith may extract much good from afflictions. Faith can turn water into wine, and make bread out of stones. Unbelief gives up in the hour of trial and sinks in despair; but faith keeps the head above water and hopefully looks for deliverance. Human reason may not be able to understand the mysterious ways of God, but faith knows that the sorest disappointments and the heaviest losses are among the "all things" which work together for our good. Carnal friends may tell us that it is useless to strive any longer; but faith says, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him" (Job 13:15). What a wonderful promise is that in Psalm 91:15, "I will be with him in trouble: I will deliver him." Ah, but faith alone can feel that Presence, and faith alone can enjoy now the assured deliverance. It was because of the joy set before Him (by the exercise of faith) that Christ "endured the cross," and only as we view God’ s precious promises will we patiently endure our cross.  

Sixth, the Christian is to "endure" chastisement hopefully. Though quite distinct, the line of demarcation between faith and hope is not a very broad one, and in some of the things said above we have rather anticipated what belongs to this particular point. "For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it" (Rom. 8:24, 25). This passage clearly intimates that "hope" relates to the future. "Hope" in Scripture is far more than a warrantless wish: it is a firm conviction and a comforting expectation of a future good. Now inasmuch as chastisement, patiently and believingly endured, is certain to issue in blessing, hope is to be exercised. "When He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold" (Job 23:10): that is the language of confident expectation.  

While it be true that faith supports the heart under trial, it is equally a fact— though less recognized— that hope buoys it up. When the wings of hope are spread, the soul is able to soar above the present distress, and inhale the invigorating air of future bliss. "For our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory: while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen" (2 Cor. 4:17, 18): that also is the language of joyous anticipation. No matter how dark may the clouds which now cover thy horizon, ere long the Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings. Then seek to walk in the steps of our father Abraham, "who against hope, believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations" (Rom. 4:18).  

Seventh, the Christian is to "endure" chastisement thankfully. Be grateful, my despondent brother, that the great God cares so much for a worm of the earth as to be at such pains in your spiritual education. O what a marvel that the Maker of heaven and earth should go to so much trouble in His son-training of us! Fail not, then, to thank Him for His goodness, His faithfulness, His patience, toward thee. "We are chastened of the Lord (now) that we should not be condemned with the world" in the day to come (1 Cor. 11:32): what cause for praise is this! If the Lord Jesus, on the awful night of His betrayal, "sang a hymn" (Matthew 26:30), how much more should we, under our infinitely lighter sorrows, sound forth the praises of our God. May Divine grace enable both writer and reader to "endure chastening" in this sevenfold spirit, and then will God be glorified and we advantaged.  

"If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons." This does not mean that upon our discharge of the duty enjoined God will act toward us "as with sons"; for this He does in the chastisements themselves, as the apostle has clearly shown. No, rather, the force of these words is, If ye endure chastening, then you have the evidence in yourselves that God deals with you as sons. In other words, the more I am enabled to conduct myself under troubles as becometh a child of God, the clearer is the proof of my Divine adoption. The new birth is known by its fruits, and the more my spiritual graces are exercised under testing, the more do I make manifest my regeneration. Furthermore, the clearer the evidence of my regeneration, the clearer do I perceive the dealings of a Father toward me in His discipline.  

The patient endurance of chastenings is not only of great price in the sight of God, but is of inestimable value unto the souls of them that believe. While it be true that the sevenfold description we have given above depicts not the spirit in which all Christians do receive chastening, but rather the spirit in which they ought to receive it, and that all coming short thereof is to be mourned and confessed before God; nevertheless, it remains that no truly born-again person continues to either utterly "despise" the rod or completely "faint" beneath it. No, herein lies a fundamental difference between the good-ground hearer and the stony-ground one: of the former it is written, "The righteous also shall hold on his way" (Job. 17:9); of the latter, it is recorded, "Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the Word, immediately he is offended" (Matthew 13:21).  

A mere suffering of things calamitous is not, in itself, any evidence of our acceptance with God. Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upwards, so that afflictions or chastisements are no pledges of our adoption; but if we "endure" them with any measure of real faith, submission and perseverance, so that we "faint not" under them— abandon not the Faith or entirely cease seeking to serve the Lord— then do we demonstrate our Divine sonship. So too it is the proper frame of our minds and the due exercise of our hearts which lets in a sense of God’ s gracious design toward us in His chastenings. The Greek word for "dealeth with us as with sons" is very blessed: literally it signifies "he offereth Himself unto us:" He proposeth Himself not as an enemy, but as a Friend; not as toward strangers, but as toward His own beloved children.  

"But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons" (verse 8). These words present the reverse side of the argument established in the preceding verse: since it be true, both in the natural and in the spiritual realm, that disciplinary dealing is inseparable from the relation between fathers and sons, so that an evidence of adoption is to be clearly inferred therefrom, it necessarily follows that those who are "without chastisement" are not children at all. What we have here is a testing and discriminative rule, which it behoves each of us to measure himself by. That we may not err therein, let us attend to its several terms.  

When the apostle says, "But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers," it is obvious that his words are not to be taken in their widest latitude: the word "all" refers not to all men, but to the "sons" of whom he is speaking. In like manner, "chastisement" is not here to be taken for everything that is grievous and afflictive, for none entirely escape trouble in this life. But comparatively speaking, there are those who are largely exempt: such the Psalmist referred to when he said, "For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men" (Ps. 73:4, 5). No, it is God’ s disciplinary dealings which the apostle is speaking of, corrective instruction which promotes holiness. There are many professors who, whatever trials they may experience, are without any Divine chastisement for their good.  

Those who are "without chastisement" are but "bastards." It is common knowledge that bastards are despised and neglected— though unjustly so— by those who illegitimately begot them: they are not the objects of that love and care as those begotten in wedlock. This solemn fact has its counterpart in the religious realm. There is a large class who are destitute of Divine chastisements, for they give no evidence that they receive them, endure them, or improve them. There is a yet more solemn meaning in this word: under the law "bastards" had no right of inheritance: "A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord" (Deut. 23:2): No cross, no crown: to be without God’ s disciplinary chastenings now, means that we must be excluded from His presence hereafter. Here, then, is a further reason why the Christian should be contented with his present lot: the Father’ s rod upon him now evidences his title unto the Inheritance in the day to come.  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:9

Chastisement   

(Hebrews 12:9)   

The apostle Paul did not, like so many of our moderns, hurry through a subject and dismiss an unpleasant theme with a brief sentence or two. No, he could say truthfully, "I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you." His chief concern was not to please, but to help his hearers and readers. Well did he know the tendency of the heart to turn away quickly from what is searching and humbling, unto that which is more attractive and consoling. But so far from acceding to this spirit, he devoted as much attention unto exhortation as instruction, unto reproving as comforting, unto duties as expounding promises; while the latter was given its due place the former was not neglected. It behooves each servant of God to study the methods of the apostles, and seek wisdom and grace to emulate their practice; only thus will they preserve the balance of Truth, and be delivered from "handling the Word deceitfully" (2 Cor. 4:2).  

Some years ago, when the editor was preaching a series of sermons on Hebrews 12:3-11, several members of the congregation intimated they were growing weary of hearing so much upon the subject of Divine chastisement. Alas, the very ones who chafed so much at hearing about God’ s rod, have since been smitten the most severely by it. Should any of our present readers feel the same way about the writer’ s treatment of this same passage, he would lovingly warn them that, though these articles may seem gloomy and irksome while prosperity be smiling upon them, nevertheless they will be well advised to "hearken and hear for the time to come" (Isa. 42:23). The sun will not always be shining upon you, dear reader, and if you now store these thoughts up in your memory, they may stand you in good stead when your sky becomes overcast.  

Sooner or later, this portion of Holy Writ will apply very pertinently unto each of our cases. God "scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." None of the followers of "The Man of sorrows" are exempted from sorrow. It has been truly said that "God had one Son without sin, but none without suffering." So much depends upon how we "endure" suffering: the spirit in which it be received, the graces which are exercised by it, and the improvement which we make of it. Our attitude toward God, and the response which we make unto His disciplinary dealings with us, means that we shall either honor or dishonor Him, and suffer loss or reap gain therefrom. Manifold are our obligations to comport ourselves becomingly when God is pleased to scourge us, and many and varied are the motives and arguments which the Spirit, through the apostle, here presents to us for this end.  

In the verse which is now to be before us a further reason is given showing the need of the Christian’ s duty to meekly bear God’ s chastenings. First, the apostle had reminded the saints of the teaching of Scripture, verse 5: how significant that he began with that! Second, he had comforted them with the assurance that the rod is wielded not by wrath, but in tender solicitude, verse 6. Third, he affirmed that God chastens all His children without exception, bastards only escaping, verses 7, 8. Now he reminds us that we had natural parents who corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Our earthly fathers had the right, because of their relationship, to discipline us, and we acquiesced. If, then, it was right and meet for us to submit to their corrections, how much more ought we to be in subjection unto our heavenly Father when He reproves us.  

"Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" (verse 9). The opening "Furthermore" is really humbling and searching. One would think sufficient had been said in the previous verses to make us be submissive under and thankful for the tender discipline of our God. Is it not enough to be told that the Scriptures teach us to expect chastisements, and exhort us not to despise them? Is it not sufficient to be assured that these chastisements proceed from the very heart of our Father, being appointed and regulated by His love? No, a "furthermore" is needed by us! The Holy Spirit deigns to supply further reasons for bringing our unruly hearts into subjection. This should indeed humble us, for the implication is clear that we are slow to heed and bow beneath the rod. Yea, is it not sadly true that the older we become, the more need there is for our being chastened?  

The writer has been impressed by the fact, both in his study of the Word and his observation of fellow-Christians, that, as a general rule, God uses the rod very little and very lightly upon the babes and younger members of His family, but that He employs it more frequently and severely on mature Christians. We have often heard older saints warning younger brethren and sisters of their great danger, yet it is striking to observe that Scripture records not a single instance of a young saint disgracing his profession. Recall the histories of young Joseph, the Hebrew maid in Naaman’ s household, David as a stripling engaging Goliath, Daniel’ s early days, and his three youthful companions in the furnace; and it will be found that all of them quitted themselves nobly. On the other hand, there are numerous examples where men in middle life and of grey hairs grievously dishonored their Lord.  

It is true that young Christians are feeblest, and with rare exceptions, they know it; and therefore does God manifest His grace and power by upholding them: it is the "lambs" which He carries in His arms! But some older Christians seem far less conscious of their danger, and so God often suffers them to have a fall, that He may stain the pride of their self-glory, and that others may see it is nothing in the flesh— standing, rank, age, or attainments— which insures our safety; but that He upholds the humble and casts down the proud. David did not fall into his great sin till he had reached the prime of life. Lot did not transgress most grossly till he was an old man. Isaac seems to have become a glutton in his old age, and was as a vessel no longer "meet for the Master’ s use," which rusted out rather than wore out. It was after a life of walking with God, and building the ark, that Noah disgraced himself. The worst sin of Moses was committed not at the beginning but at the end of the wilderness journey. Hezekiah became puffed up with pride near the sunset of his life. What warnings are these!  

God thus shows us there is no protection in years. Yea, added years seem to call for increased chastenings. Often there is more grumbling and complaining among the aged pilgrims than the younger ones: it is true their nerves can stand less, but God’ s grace is sufficient for worn-out nerves. Often there is more occupation with self and circumstances among the fathers and mothers in Israel, and less talking of Christ and His wondrous love, than there is among the babes. Yes, there is, much need for all of us to heed the opening "furthermore" of our text. Every physician will tell us there are some diseases which become more troublesome in middle life, and others which are incident to old age. The same is true of different forms of sinning. If we are more liable to certain sins in our youth, we are in greater danger of others in advanced years. Undoubtedly it is the case that the older we get, the more need there is to heed this "furthermore" which prefaces the call of our being in subjection to the Father of spirits. If we do not need more grace, certain it is that we need as much grace, when we are grown old as while we are growing up.  

The aged meet with as many temptations as do young Christians. They are tempted to live in the past, rather than in the future. They are tempted to take things easier, spiritually as well as temporally, so that it has to be said of some "ye did run well." O to be like Paul "the aged," who was in full harness to the end. They are tempted to be unduly occupied with their increasing infirmities; but is it not written "the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities"! Yet, because this is affirmed, we must not think there is no longer need to earnestly seek His help. This comforting word is given in order that we should frequently and confidently pray for this very thing. If it were not recorded, we might doubt His readiness to do so, and wonder if we were asking "according to His will." Because it is recorded, when feeling our "infirmities" press most heavily upon us, let us cry, "O Holy Spirit of God, do as Thou hast said, and help us."  

In this connection let us remind ourselves of that verse, "Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things: so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’ s" (Ps. 103:5) The eagle is a bird renowned for its longevity, often living to be more than a hundred years old. The eagle is also the high-soaring bird, building its nest on the mountain summit. But how is the eagle’ s youth renewed? By a new crop of feathers, by the rejuvenation of its wings. And that is precisely what some middle-aged and elderly Christians need: the rejuvenation of their spiritual wings— the wings of faith, of hope, of zeal, of love for souls, of devotedness to Christ. So many leave their first love, lose the joy of their espousals, and instead of setting before younger Christians a bright example of trustfulness and cheerfulness, they often discourage by gloominess and slothfulness. Thus God’ s chastenings increase in severity and frequency!  

Dear friend, instead of saying, "The days of my usefulness are over," rather reason, The night cometh when no man can work; therefore I must make the most of my opportunities while it is yet called day. For your encouragement let it be stated that the most active worker in a church of which the editor was pastor was seventy-seven years old when he went there, and during his stay of three and a half years she did more for the Lord, and was a greater stimulus to him, than any other member of that church. She lived another eight years, and they were, to the very end, filled with devoted service to Christ. We believe that the Lord will yet say of her, as of another woman, "She hath done what she could." O brethren and sisters, especially you who are feeling the weight of years, heed that word, "Be not weary in well doing, for in due season, we shall reap, if we faint not" (Gal. 6:9).  

"Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence." It is the duty of children to give the reverence of obedience unto the just commands of their parents, and the reverence of submission to their correction when disobedient. As parents have a charge from God to minister correction to their children when it is due— and not spoil them unto their ruin— so children have a command from God to receive parental reproof in a proper spirit, and not to be discontented, stubborn, or rebellious. For a child to be insubordinate under correction, evidences a double fault; the very correction shows a fault has been committed, and insubordination under correction is only adding wrong to wrong. "We gave them reverence," records the attitude of dutiful children toward their sires: they neither ran away from home in a huff, nor became so discouraged as to quit the path of duty.  

From this law of the human home, the apostle points out the humble and submissive conduct which is due unto God when He disciplines His children: "Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits?" The "much rather" points a contrast suggested by the analogy: that contrast is at least fourfold. First, the former chastening proceeded from those who were our fathers according to the flesh; the other is given by Him who is our heavenly Father. Second, the one was sometimes administered in imperfect knowledge and irritable temper; the other comes from unerring wisdom and untiring love. Third, the one was during but a brief period, when we were children; the other continues throughout the whole of our Christian life. Fourth, the one was designed for our temporal good; the other has in view our spiritual and eternal welfare. Then how much more should we readily submit unto the latter.  

"Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits?" By nature we are not in subjection. We are born into this world filled with the spirit of insubordination: as the descendants of our rebellious first parents, we inherit their evil nature. "Man is born like a wild ass’ s colt" (Job 11:12). This is very unpalatable and humbling, but nevertheless it is true. As Isaiah 53:6 tells us, "we have turned every one to his own way," and that is one of opposition to the revealed will of God. Even at conversion this wild and rebellious nature is not eradicated. A new nature is given, but the old one lusts against it. It is because of this that discipline and chastisement are needed by us, and the great design of these is to bring us into subjection unto the Father of spirits. To be "in subjection unto the father" is a phrase of extensive import, and it is well that we should understand its various significations.  

1. It denotes an acquiescence in God’ s sovereign right to do with us as He pleases. "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth: because thou didst it" (Ps. 39:9). It is the duty of saints to be mute under the rod and silent beneath the sharpest afflictions. But this is only possible as we see the hand of God in them. If His hand be not seen in the trial, the heart will do nothing but fret and fume. "And the king said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah? so let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David. Who shall then say, Wherefore hast thou done so? And David said to Abishai, and to all his servants, Behold, my son, which came forth of my bowels, seeketh my life: How much more now may this Benjamite do it? let him alone, and let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him" (2 Sam. 16:10, 11). What an example of complete submission to the sovereign will of the Most High was this! David knew that Shimei could not curse him without God’ s permission.  

"This will set my heart at rest,  

What my God appoints is best."  

But with rare exceptions many chastenings are needed to bring us to this place, and to keep us there.  

2. It implies a renunciation of self-will. To be in subjection unto the Father presupposes a surrendering and resigning of ourselves to Him. A blessed illustration of this is found in Leviticus 10:1-3, "And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He commanded them not. And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the Lord spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh Me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace." Consider the circumstances. Aaron’ s two sons, most probably intoxicated at the time, were suddenly cut off by Divine judgment. Their father had no warning to prepare him for this trial; yet he "held his peace!" O quarrel not against Jehovah: be clay in the hands of the Potter: take Christ’ s yoke upon you, and learn of Him who was "meek and lowly in heart."  

3. It signifies an acknowledgment of God’ s righteousness and wisdom in all His dealings with us. We must vindicate God. This is what the Psalmist did: "I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me" (Ps. 119:75). Let us see to it that Wisdom is ever justified by her children: let our confession of her be, "Righteous art Thou, O Lord, and upright are Thy judgments" (Ps. 119:137). Whatever be sent, we must vindicate the Sender of all things: the Judge of all the earth cannot do wrong. Stifle, then, the rebellious murmur, What have I done to deserve such treatment by God? and say with the Psalmist, "He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities" (Ps. 103:10). Why, my reader, if God dealt with us only according to the strict rule of His justice, we had been in Hell long ago: "If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark ("impute") iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" (Ps. 130:3).  

The Babylonian captivity was the severest affliction which God ever brought upon His earthly people during O.T. times, yet even then a renewed heart acknowledged God’ s righteousness in it: "Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before Thee, that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all Thy people, since the time of the kings of Assyria unto this day. Howbeit Thou art just in all that is brought upon us: for Thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly" (Nehemiah 9:32, 33). God’ s enemies may talk of His injustice; but let His children proclaim His righteousness. Because God is good, He can do nothing but what is right and good.  

4. It includes a recognition of His care and a sense of His love. There is a sulking submission, and there is a cheerful submission. There is a fatalistic submission which takes this attitude— this is inevitable, so I must bow to it; and there is a thankful submission, receiving with gratitude whatever God may be pleased to send us. "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn Thy statutes" (Ps. 119:71). The Psalmist viewed his chastisements with the eye of faith, and doing so he perceived the love behind them. Remember that when God brings His people into the wilderness it is that they may learn more of His sufficiency, and that when He casts them into the furnace, it is that they may enjoy more of His presence.  

5. It involves an active performance of His will. True submission unto the "Father of spirits" is something more than a passive thing. The other meanings of this expression which we have considered above are more or less of a negative character, but there is a positive and active side to it as well, and it is important that this should be recognized by us. To be "in subjection" to God also means that we are to walk in His precepts and run in the way of His commandments. Negatively, we are not to be murmuring rebels; positively, we are to be obedient children. We are required to be submissive unto God’ s Word, so that our thoughts are formed and our ways regulated by it. There is not only a suffering of God’ s will, but a doing of it— an actual performance of duty. When we utter that petition in the prayer which the Savior has given us, "Thy will be done," something more is meant than a pious acquiescence unto the pleasure of the Almighty: it also signifies, may Thy will be performed by me. Subjection "unto the Father of spirits," then, is the practical owning of His Lordship.  

Two reasons for such subjection are suggested in our text. First, because the One with whom we have to do is our Father. O how profoundly thankful we should be that the Lord God stands revealed to us as the "Father"— our Father, because the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and He rendered perfect obedience unto Him. It is but right and meet that children should honor their parents by being in complete subjection to them: not to do so is to ignore their relationship, despise their authority, and slight their love. How much more ought we to be in subjection unto our heavenly Father: there is nothing tyrannical about Him: His commandments are not grievous: He has only our good at heart. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God" (1 John 3:1), then let us earnestly endeavor to express our gratitude by dutifully walking before Him as obedient children, and no matter how mysterious may be His dealings with us, say with the Savior, "The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?" (John 18:11).  

The particular title of God found in our text calls for a brief comment. It is placed in antithesis from "fathers of our flesh," which has reference to their begetting of our bodies. True, our bodies also are a real creation on the part of God, yet in connection therewith He is pleased to use human instrumentalities. But in connection with the immaterial part of our beings, God is the immediate and alone Creator of them. As the renowned Owen said, "The soul is immediately created and infused; having no other father but God Himself," and rightly did that eminent theologian add, "This is the fundamental reason of our perfect subjection unto God in all afflictions, namely, that our very souls are His, the immediate product of His Divine power, and under his rule alone. May He not do as He wills with His own?" The expression "Father of spirits," refutes, then, the error of traducianists, who suppose that the soul, equally with the body, is transmitted by our parents. In Numbers 16:22 He is called "the God of the spirits of all flesh" which refers to all men naturally; while the "Father of spirits" in our text includes the new nature in the regenerate.  

The second reason for our subjection to the Father is, because this is the secret of true happiness, which is pointed out in the final words of our text "and live." The first meaning of those words is, "and be happy." This is clear from Deuteronomy 5:33, "Ye shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess:" observe the words "prolong your days" are added to "that ye may live," which obviously signifies "that ye may be happy"— compare Exodus 10:17, where Pharaoh called the miseries of the plagues "this death." Life ceases to be life when we are wretched. It is the making of God’ s will our haven, which secures the true resting-place for the heart. The rebellious are fretful and miserable, but "great peace have they which love Thy law and nothing shall offend them" (Ps. 119:165). "Take My yoke upon you," said Christ, "and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Alas, the majority of professing Christians are so little in subjection to God, they have just enough religion to make them miserable.  

"Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits and live?" No doubt words of this verse point these to a designed contrast from Deuteronomy 21:18-21, "If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place . . . And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die." "The increase of spiritual life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come, is that whereunto they (the words "and live") tend" (John Owen).  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:10

Chastisement   

(Hebrews 12:10)   

Would any Christian in his right mind dare to pray, Let me not be afflicted, no matter what good it should do me? And if he were unwilling and afraid to pray thus, why should he murmur when it so falls out? Alas, what a wide breach there is, usually, between our praying and the rest of our conduct. Again; if our rescuer dislocated our shoulder when pulling us out of the water in which we were drowning, would we be angry with him? Of course not. Then why fret against the Lord when He afflicts the body in order to better the soul? If God takes away outward comforts and fills us with inward peace, if he removes our worldly wealth but imparts to us more of the true riches, then, instead of having ground for complaint, we have an abundant cause for thanksgiving and praise. Then why should I fear to enter the dark shaft of tribulation if persuaded that it leads to the gold mines of spiritual experience.  

In Scripture, afflictions are compared to fire that purges away the dross (1 Pet. 1:7), to the fan which drives away the chaff (Matthew 3:12), to a pruning-hook which cuts off superfluous branches and makes more fruitful the others that remain (John 15:2), to physic that purges away poisonous matter (Isa. 27:9), to plowing and harrowing the ground that it may be prepared to receive good seed (Jer. 4:3). Then why should we be so upset when God is pleased to use the fire upon us in order to remove our dross, to employ the fan so as to winnow away the chaff, to take the pruning-hook to lop off the superfluities of our souls, to give us physic to purge out our corruptions and filth, to drive the plow into us so as to break up our fallow ground and to destroy the weeds which grow in our souls? Should we not rather rejoice that He will not leave us alone in our carnality, but rather fit us to become partakers of His holiness?  

A little child requires much coaxing (at times, something more!) in order to make him take his medicine. He may be very ill, and mother may earnestly assure him that the unpleasant potion will bring sure relief; but the little one cries out, "I cannot take it, it is so nasty." But adults, generally, need not have the doctor argue and plead with them: they will swallow the bitterest remedy if convinced that it will do them good. The application of this to spiritual matters is obvious. Those Christians who are but spiritual babes, fret and fume when called upon to endure Divine chastisement, knowing not the gains they will receive if it be accepted in the right spirit. But those who have grown in grace, and become men in Christ, who know that all things work together for good to them that love God, and who have learned by experience the precious fruits which issue from sanctified afflictions, accept from God the bitterest cup, and thank Him for it.  

But alas, many of God’ s people are but infants experimentally, and need much coaxing to reconcile them to the cup of trial. Therefore is it needful to present to our consideration one argument after another. Such is the case here in Hebrews 12: if one line of reasoning does not suffice, perhaps another will. The Christian is very skeptical and takes much convincing. We have heard a person say to one who claims he has done, or can do, some remarkable thing, "You must show me before I will believe you." Most of us are very much like that in connection with spiritual things. Though the Scriptures assure us, again and again, that chastisement proceeds from our Father’ s love, and is designed for our good, yet we are slow, very slow, to really believe it. Therefore does the apostle here proceed from one consideration to another so as to assure the hearts and establish the faith of his afflicted brethren upon this important subject.  

O that our hearts might be so taught by the Spirit, our understandings so enlightened, our faith so strengthened by Him, that we would be more grateful and increasingly thankful for the merciful discipline of our Father. What a proof of His love is this, that in His chastening of us, His object is to bring us nearer Himself and make us more like His blessed Son. The more highly we prize health, the more willing are we to take that which would cure our sickness; and the more we value holiness (which is the health of our souls) the gladder shall we be for that which is a means to increase the same in us. We are on a low plane of spiritual experience, if we do nothing more than simply "bow" to God’ s hand. Scripture says, "Giving thanks always, for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 5:20); and again it exhorts us "Rejoice in the Lord alway" (Phil. 4:4). We are to "glory in tribulation" (Rom. 5:3), and we shall when we perceive more clearly and fully what blessed fruits are brought forth under the pruning knife.  

"For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness" (v. 10). This is a continuation of what was before us in the previous verse. A further reason is given why Christians should be "in subjection unto" their heavenly Father, when His correcting rod is laid upon them. Not only is it becoming for them so to do, because of the relationship which exists between them: but it is also meet they should act thus, because of the gains they receive thereby. The consideration which the apostle now presents to the attention of the afflicted saints is really a double one. First, the chastisement we received from our earthly parents had reference mainly to our good in this life, whereas the disciplinary dealings of our heavenly Father looks forward to the life to come (2 Cor. 4:17). Second, the chastisement of our earthly parents was often a matter of their caprice and sometimes issued from irritability of temper, but the rod of our heavenly Father is wielded by infinite goodness and wisdom, and has in view our well being.  

We regard the words "for they verily for a few days chastened us" as referring not so much to the brief season of our childhood, but more to the fact that our parents had only our temporal interests in view: whereas God has our eternal welfare before Him. "The apostle seems to bring in this circumstance to contrast the dealings of earthly parents with those of God. One of the circumstances is, that the corrections of earthly parents had a much less important object than those of God. They related to this life— a life so brief that it may be said to continue but a "few days." Yet, in order to secure the benefit to be derived for so short a period from fatherly correction, we submitted without murmuring. Much more cheerfully ought we to submit to that discipline from the hand of our heavenly Father which is designed to extend its benefits through eternity" (A. Barnes).  

The added words "after their own pleasure" or "as seemed good" to them, points another contrast between the disciplinary dealings of our earthly parents and those of our heavenly Father. In their infirmity, sometimes the rod was used upon us in a fit of anger, rather than from a loving desire to reform our manners. "Meaning that it was sometimes clone arbitrarily, or under the influence of passion. This is an additional reason why we should submit to God. We submitted to our earthly parents, though their correction was sometimes passionate, and was designed to gratify their own pleasure rather than to promote our good. There is much of this kind of punishment in families; but there in none of it under the administration of God. ‘ But He for our profit:’ never from passion, from caprice, from the love of power or superiority, but always for our good" (A. Barnes).  

Now the particular contribution which our present verse makes to the subject of chastisement is, the apostle here makes known the general end or design of God in the same, namely "our profit." And let it be pointed out that whatsoever He purposes must surely come to pass, for He will make the means He employs effectual unto the accomplishment of His end. Many are the blessings comprehended and various are the fruits produced through and by means of Divine chastisement. This word "for our profit" is a very embracing one, including the development of our characters, the enrichment of our spiritual lives, a closer conformity to the image of Christ. The same truth is found again in the "that we might be partakers of His holiness:" that our lusts might be mortified, our graces vivified, our souls sanctified. Whatever be the form, degree, or duration of our afflictions, all is ordered by infinite wisdom so as to secure this object. But to particularize: the benefits of Divine chastisement—   

1. It weans us from the world. One of the greatest surprises of the writer’ s Christian life in connection with his fellow-saints has been, not their ignorance, nor even their inconsistencies, but their earthliness, their reluctance to leave this world. As "strangers and pilgrims" we should be longing and yearning for our Heavenly Home; as those who are away from Him whom they love best, we should desire to "depart and be with Him" (Phil. 1:23). Paul did. Christ has promised to return for His people, yet how few of them are daily crying, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." How rarely we hear them saying, in the language of the mother of Sisera, "Why is His chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of His chariot?’’   

"And all the trials here we see  

Should make us long to be with Thee."  

Scripture speaks of this world as a "dry and thirsty land, where no water is" (Ps. 63:1), and God intends for us to prove this in our experiences. His Word also affirms that this world is a "dark place" (2 Pet. 1:19), and He means for us to discover that this is so.  

One would think that after the soul had once seen the King in His beauty, it would henceforth discover no attractions elsewhere. one would suppose that once we had quenched our thirst at the Fountain of living waters, we would no more want to drink from the unsatisfying and polluted cisterns of this world. Surely now that we have experienced a taste and foretaste of Heaven itself, we shall be repelled and nauseated by the poor husks this world has to offer. But alas! the "old man" is still in us, unchanged; and though Divine grace subdues his activities, still he is very much alive. It is because of this that we are called on to "crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts." And this is not only an unpalatable, but a very hard task. Therefore does God in His mercy help us: help us by chastenings, which serve to loosen the roots of our souls downward and tighten the anchor-hold of our hearts Heavenward.  

This God does in various ways. Sometimes He causes us to lose our confidence in and draw us away from fellowship with worldings by receiving cruel treatment at their hands. "Come out from among them, and be ye separate" is the Lord’ s word to His people. But they are slow to heed; oftentimes they must be driven out. So with worldly pleasures: God often makes the grapes of earthly joys bitter to our taste, so that we should no longer seek after them. It is earthly disappointments and worldly disillusionments which make us sigh for our Heavenly Home. While the Hebrews enjoyed the land of Goshen they were content: hard and cruel bondage was needed to make them ready to leave for the promised land. We were once familiar with a Christian who had formed a habit of meeting each worldly difficulty or trial to the flesh by saying, "This is only another nail in my coffin." But that is a very gloomy way of viewing things: rather should the children of God say after each trial or affliction, "That severs another strand in the rope which binds me to this world, and makes me long all the more for Heaven.  

2. It casts us back the more upon God. By nature we are filled with a spirit of independency. The fallen sons of Adam are like wild asses’ colts. Chastisement is designed to empty us of our self-sufficiency, to make us feel weakness and helplessness. If "in their affliction they will seek Me early" (Hos. 5:15), then surely afflictions are for our "profit." Trials and troubles often drive us to our knees; sickness and sorrow make us seek unto the Lord. It is very noticeable in the four Gospels how rarely men and women that were in health and strength sought out Christ; it was trouble and illness which brought them to the great Physician. A nobleman came to Christ— why? Because his son was at the point of death. Jairus sought out the Master— why? Because his little daughter was so low. The Canaanitish woman interviewed the Lord Jesus— why? On behalf of her tormented daughter. The sisters of Lazarus sent a message to the absent Savior— why? Because their brother was sick.  

Afflictions may be very bitter, but they are a fine tonic for the soul, and are a medicine which God often uses on us. Most vividly is this illustrated in Psalm 107— read carefully verses 11 to 28. Note that it is when men are "brought down," when they are "afflicted," when they are "at their wits’ end" that they "cry unto the Lord in their trouble." Yes, it is "trouble" which makes us turn unto the Lord, not in a mechanical and formal way, but in deep earnestness. Remember that it is the "effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man that availeth much." When you observe that the fire in your room is getting dull, you do not always put on more coal, but simply stir with the poker; so God often uses the black poker of adversity in order that the flames of devotion may burn more brightly.  

Ah, my brethren, all of us delight in being made to lie down in the "green pastures" and being led beside the "still waters;" yet it would not be for God’ s glory nor for our own highest good to luxuriate spiritually at all times. And why not? Because our hearts would soon be more occupied with the blessings rather than with the Blesser Himself. Oftentimes the sheep have to be brought into the dry and desolate wilderness, that they may be made more conscious of their dependency upon the Shepherd. May we not discern here one reason why some saints so quickly lose their assurance: they are occupied more with their graces or comfortable feelings than they are with the Giver of them. God is a jealous God, and will not tolerate idols in the hearts of His people. A sense of our acceptance in Christ is indeed a blessed thing, yet it becomes a hindrance if it be treasured more highly than the Savior Himself.  

3. It makes the promises of God more precious to us. Trouble often acts on us like a sharp knife which opens the truth of God to us and our hearts unto the truth. Experience unlocks passages which were otherwise closed. There is many a text in the Bible which no commentator can helpfully expound to a child of God: it must be interpreted by experience. Paul wrote his profoundest epistles while in prison; John was "in tribulation" on Patmos when he received the Revelation. If you go down into a deep well or mine in the daytime, you will then see the shining of stars which were not visible from the earth’ s surface; so God often brings us low in order that we may perceive the shining beauty of some of His comforting assurances. Note how Jacob, in Genesis 32, pleaded God’ s promises when he heard that Esau was approaching with four hundred men! The promises of resurrection mean far more unto Christians when some of their loved ones have been removed by death.  

"When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned" (Isa. 43:2) means far more to afflicted souls than it can to those who are not under the rod. So, too, the many "fear not" promises are most valued when our strength fails us and we are ready to sink under despair. As the late C.H. Spurgeon was wont to say, "There are some verses written, as it were, in a secret ink, which must be held before the fire of adversity before they become visible." There are many passages in Job, the Psalms, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah which do not appeal to one while the sun is shining; but which, in times of adversity, are like the welcome beams of the moon on a dark night. It was his painful thorn in the flesh which taught Paul the blessedness of that text, "My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perefct in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9).  

4. It qualifies us to sympathize with others. If we have never trod the vale of sorrow and affliction we are really unable to "weep with those that weep." There are some surgeons who would be more tender if they had suffered from broken bones themselves. If we have never known much trouble, we can be but poor comforters to others. Even of our Savior it is written, "For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted He is able to succor them that are tempted" (Heb. 2:18). Bunyan could never have written the book which he did, unless God had permitted the Devil to tempt and buffet him severely for so many years. How clearly is all this brought out in 2 Corinthians 1:4: "Who comforteth us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." Luther frequently said, "Three things make a good preacher: prayer, meditation, and temptation."  

5. It demonstrates to us the blessedness and sufficiency of Divine grace. "My grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is make perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9). But in order to prove this, we have to be brought into the place of severe testing and trial, and made to feel our own incompetency and nothingness. Brethren, if you have prospered in business all your lives, and have always had an easy time financially, then it is probable you know very little about God’ s strength being perfected in your weakness. If you have been healthy all your lives and have never suffered much weakness and pain, then you are not likely to know much about the strength of God. If you have never been visited with trying situations which bring you to your wits’ end, or by heartrending bereavements, you may not have discovered much of the sufficiency of Divine grace. You have read about it in books, or heard others speak of it, but this is a very different thing from having an experimental acquaintance of it for yourself. It is much tribulation which brings out the sufficiency of God’ s strength to support under the severest trials, and demonstrates that His grace can sustain the heart under the heaviest losses.  

It is in the stormiest weather that a captain gives most heed to the steering of his ship; so it is in seasons of stress and grief that Christians pay most attention to, "Let us therefore come boldly unto the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb. 4:16). If Israel had journeyed directly to Canaan, they would have missed the tender care of Jehovah in the wilderness. If Lazarus had not died, Martha and Mary would not have received such a demonstration of Christ as the Resurrection and the Life. And if you, my brother, my sister, had not been cast into the furnace of affliction, you would not have known the nearness and preciousness of His presence with you there. Yes, God intends us to prove the reality and sufficiency of His grace.  

6. It develops our spiritual graces. This is clearly set forth in that familiar passage Romans 5:3-5: "We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed." This "rejoicing" is not in tribulations considered in themselves, but because the Christian knows they are appointed by his Father, and because of their beneficial effects. Three of these effects or spiritual graces thus developed are here mentioned. First, tribulation worketh "patience." Patience never thrives except under buffetings and disappointments: it is not even called into exercise while things are going smoothly and pleasantly. Sanctified tribulations call into activity that strength and fortitude which is evidenced by a submissive endurance of suffering. The patience here referred to signifies deliverance from murmuring, refusing to take things into our own hands (which only causes additional trouble), a contented waiting for God’ s time of deliverance, and a persevering continuance in the path of duty.  

Second, patience worketh experience, that is a vital experience of the reality of what we profess; a personal acquaintance with that which before we knew only theoretically; an experience of the sufficiency of Divine grace to support and sustain; an experience of God’ s faithfulness, that He is "a very present help in trouble"; an experience of the preciousness of Christ, such as the three Hebrews had in the furnace. The Greek word for "experience" also means "the obtaining of proof." The patient submission which tribulation works in the saint proves both to him and to his brethren the reality of his trust in God: it makes manifest the fact that the faith which he professes is genuine. Instead of his faith being overcome, it triumphs. The test of a ship is to weather the storm; so it is with faith. Real faith ever says, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Third, experience worketh hope. This is a grace which anticipates the future. While circumstances are as we like them, our outlook is mainly confined to the present: but sorrows and trials make us long for the future bliss. "As an eagle stirreth up her nest... so the Lord led Israel" (Deut. 32:11, 12). God removes us from our comfortable resting places for the purpose of teaching us to use the wings of hope.  

7. It brings us into fellowship with the sufferings of Christ. The cross is the symbol of Christian discipleship. Like the scars which the wounded soldier prizes above all other distinctions, so our sufferings are the proof of our oneness with Christ (Rom. 8:17). Not only so, they make us appreciate the more what He endured for us. While we have plenty, we cannot properly estimate or appreciate the poverty which our Savior endured. While we enjoy a comfortable bed we cannot truly sympathize with Him who "had not where to lay His head." It is not till some familiar friend, on whom we counted, has basely betrayed our trust, that we can enter into something of what the Savior suffered through the perfidy of Judas. It is only when some brother has denied you, that you begin to understand what Christ felt, when Peter denied Him. As we, in some small measure, obtain an experimental acquaintance with such trials, it makes Christ increasingly precious to us, and enables us to appreciate the more all that He went through on our behalf. In a coming day we are going to share His throne; now we are privileged to taste His cross.  

If, then, trials and tribulations, under God, produce such delightful fruits, then welcome chastisements that are for "our profit." Let the rains of disappointment come if they water the plants of spiritual graces. Let the winds of adversity blow if they serve to root more securely in grace the trees of the Lord’ s planting. Let the sun of prosperity be eclipsed if this brings us into closer communion with the Light of life. Oh, brethren and sisters, however distasteful they are to the flesh, chastisements are not to be dreaded, but welcomed, for they are designed to make us "partakers of God’ s holiness."  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:11

Chastisement   

(Hebrews 12:11)   

One reason, perhaps, why so little is written to-day upon Divine chastisement, and why it so rarely forms the theme of the pulpit, is because it suits not the false temper and sentiments of this superficial age. The great majority of the preachers are men-pleasers, and carefully do they trim their sails to the breezes of popular opinion. They are paid to speak "smooth things" and not those which will disturb, to soothe consciences rather than search them. That which is unpalatable, mournful, solemn, dread-inspiring, is sedulously avoided, and attractive, cheerful, and comforting subjects are substituted in their stead. Hence, not only is it now rare for the preacher to dwell upon the eternal punishment of the wicked and bid the unsaved flee from the wrath to come, but Christians hear very little about the Father’ s rod, and the groans it occasions, or the fruits it afterwards produces. Fifty years ago a faithful servant of God wrote:  

"One of the platitudes of the present day is, that religion is not a gloomy, but a cheerful thing. Although it is easy to see what was meant by him who first opposed this assertion, either to morbid and self-assumed gloom, or to the ignorant representation of the world; yet as it is generally understood, nothing can be less true. Blessed are they that mourn. Woe unto you that laugh. Narrow is the way. If any man will serve Me, let him take up his cross, and follow Me. He that seeketh his life shall lose it. Although the Christian anoints his head and washes his face, he is always fasting; the will has been broken by God, by wounding or bereaving us in our most tender point; the flesh is being constantly crucified. We are not born to be happy either in this world or in our present condition, but the reverse to be unhappy; nay, to try constantly to be dead to self and the world, that the spirit may possess God, and rejoice in Him.  

"As there is a false and morbid asceticism, so there is also a false and pernicious tendency to cover a worldly and shallow method of life under the phrase of ‘ religion being joyous, and no enemy to cheerfulness.’ To take a very simple and obvious instance. What is meant by a ‘ cheerful, pleasant Sunday?’ No doubt men have erred on the side of strictness and legalism; but is a ‘ cheerful Sunday’ one in which there is much communion with God in prayer and meditation on God’ s Word, much anticipation of the joys of Heaven in praise and fellowship with the brethren? Alas! too many understand by a cheerful Sunday a day in which the spiritual element is reduced to a minimum" (Adolph Saphir).  

Alas, that conditions have become so much worse since then. The attractions of the world, and everything which is pleasing to the flesh, have been brought into thousands of "churches" (?) under the plea of being "necessary if the young people are to be held." Even in those places where the bars have not thus been let down, where the grosser forms of worldliness are not yet tolerated, the preaching is generally of such a character that few are likely to be made uneasy by it. He who dwells on the exceeding sinfulness of sin, who insists that God will not tolerate unjudged sin even in His own people, but will surely visit it with heavy stripes, is a "kill joy," a "troubler of Israel," a "Job’ s comforter"; and if he persists in enforcing the precepts, admonitions, warnings, and judgments of Holy Writ, is likely to soon find all doors dosed against him. But better this, than be a compromiser; better be deprived of all preaching engagements, than miss the Master’ s "Well done" in the Day to come.  

"Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (verse 11). In this verse the apostle concludes his discussion of that theme which is now so unwelcome to the majority of professing Christians. Therein he brings to a close all that he had said concerning those disciplinary afflictions which an all-wise God brings upon His people in this life, His gracious design in the same, and the duty incumbent upon them to receive these in a right spirit. He sums up his argument by balancing the good over against the evil, the future over against the present, the judgment of faith over against the feelings of the flesh.  

Our present text is added to what has been said in the previous verses for the purpose of anticipating and removing an objection. After all the comforting and encouraging statements made, namely, that chastisements proceed not from enemies but from our Father, that they are sent not in anger but in love, that they are designed not to crush but "for our profit"; carnal sense and natural reason interposes an objection: "But we find no joy under our afflictions, instead much sorrow. We do not feel that they are for our profit; we cannot see how they can be so; therefore we are much inclined to doubt what you have said." The apostle grants the force of the objection: that for the present, chastening does "seem to be grievous and not joyous." But he brings in a double limitation or qualification: in reference to outward sense, it only "seems" so; in reference to time, this is only for "the present." Having made this concession, the apostle turns to the objector and says, "Nevertheless.’’ He reminds him that, first, there is an "afterward" beyond the present moment, to be borne in mind; second, he presses on him the need of being "exercised thereby"; third, he assures him that if he is so exercised "peaceable fruit" will be the happy issue. There are four things told us in the text about chastisement as it is viewed by human reason.  

1. All that carnal reason can perceive in our chastenings is But Seeming. All that flesh and blood can discover about the nature and quality of Divine afflictions is but their outward and superficial appearance. The eye of reason is utterly incapable of discovering the virtue and value of sanctified trials. How often we are deceived by mere "seeming"! This is true in the natural sphere: appearances are proverbially deceptive. There are many optical illusions. Have you not noticed some nights when the sun is sinking in the west, that it is much bigger than at its zenith? Yet it is not so in reality; it only "seems" to be so. Have you stood on the deck of a ship in mid-ocean and, while gazing at the horizon, suddenly been startled by the sight of land?— the outline of the coast, with the rising hills in the background, there deafly defined? Yet after all, it was but "seeming"; it was nothing but clouds. In like manner, you have read of a mirage seen by travelers in the desert: away over the sands, they see in the distance green trees and a shining pool of water; but this is only an optical delusion, effected in some way by the atmosphere.  

Now if this be so in connection with natural things, the "seeming" not being the actual, the apparent not being the reality, how much more is it true in connection with the things of God! Afflictions are not what they "seem" to be. They appear to work for our ill, and not for our good; so that we are inclined to say, "An enemy hath done this." They seem to be for our injury, rather than our "profit," and we murmur and are cast down. So often fear distorts our vision; so often unbelief brings scales over our eyes, and we exaggerate the dimensions of trials in the dark and dim light. So often we are selfish, fond of our fleshly ease; and therefore spiritual discernment falls to a low ebb. No, chastenings for the present do not seem to be joyous, but "grievous"; but that is because we view them through our natural senses and in the light of carnal reason.  

2. Carnal reason judges afflictions in the light of the PRESENT. The tendency with all of us is to estimate things in the light of the now. The ungodly are ever ready to sacrifice their future interests for present gratification. One of their favorite mottos is, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush:" it may be to the slothful, but the enterprising and diligent would rather be put to a little trouble and secure the two. Man is a very shortsighted creature, and even the Christian is often dominated by the same sentiments that regulate the wicked. The light of the now is generally the worst in which to form a true estimate of things. We are too close to them to obtain a right perspective, and see things in their proper proportions. To view an oil painting to the best advantage, we need to step back a few feet from it. The same principle applies to our lives. Proof of this is found as we now look back upon that which is past. Today the Christian discovers a meaning, a needs-be, a preciousness, in many a past experience, and even disappointment, which he could not discern at the time.  

The case of Jacob is much to the point, and should guard us against following his foolish example. After Joseph had been removed from his doting father, and when he thought he had lost Simeon too, viewing things in the light of "the present," he petulantly said, "All these things are against me" (Gen. 42:36). Such is often the mournful plaint which issues from our short-sighted unbelief. But later, Jacob discovered his mistake, and found that all those things had been working together for good to himself and his loved ones. Alas, we are so impatient and impetuous, so occupied with the present, that we fail to look forward and by faith anticipate the happy sequel. Then, too, the effects which afflictions have upon the old man, disqualify us to estimate them aright. If my heart is palpitating, if my mind is agitated, and my soul is cast down, then I am in no fit state to judge the quality and blessedness of Divine afflictions. No, chastenings for the present do not "seem to be joyous, but grievous;" that is because we take such a shortsighted view of them and fail to look forward with the eyes of faith and hope.  

3. To carnal reason afflictions never seem "joyous." This logically follows from what has been before us under the first two points. Because carnal reason sees only the "seeming" of things, and because it estimates them only in the light of "the present," afflictions are not joyous. Nor does God intend that, in themselves, they should be. If afflictions did "seem" to be joyous, would they be chastisements at all? It would be of little use for an earthly parent to whip his child in such a way as to produce only smiles. Such would be merely a make-belief; no smart, no benefit. Solomon said, "It is the blueness of the wound which maketh the heart better;" so if Divine chastisements are not painful to the flesh and extort a groan and cry, what good end would they serve? If God sent us trials such as we wished, they would not be chastenings at all. No, afflictions do not "seem" to be joyous.  

They are not joyous in the form they assume. When the Lord smites, He does so in a tender place, that we may feel the smart of it. They are not joyous in the force of them. Oftentimes we are inclined to say, If the trial had not been quite so severe, or the disappointment had not been so great, I could have endured it. God puts just so much bitter herbs into our cup as to make the draught unpleasant. They are not joyous in the time of them. We always think they come at the wrong season. If it were left to our choosing, they would never come; but if we must have them, we would choose the time when they are the least grievous; and thus miss their blessing. Nor are they joyous in the instruments used: "If it were an enemy, then I could have borne it," said David. That is what we all think. O if my trial were not just that! Poverty I could endure, but not reproach and slander. To have lost my own health would have been a hard blow, but I could have borne it; but the removal of that dear child, the light of my eyes, how can I ever rejoice again? Have you not heard brethren speak thus?  

4. To carnal reason afflictions ever seem to be "grievous." Probably the most grievous part to the Christian is that he cannot see how much a loss or trial can possibly benefit him. If he could thus see, he would rejoice. Even here we must walk by faith and not by sight. But this is easier said than done; yea, it can only be done by God’ s enabling. Usually, the Christian altogether fails to see why such a trouble is sent upon him; it seems to work harm and not good. Why this financial loss, when he was giving more to the Lord’ s work? Why this breakdown in health, when he was being most used in His service? Why this removal of a Sabbath school teacher, just when he was most needed? why was my husband called away, when the children most required him? Yes, such afflictions are indeed grievous to the flesh.  

But let it be pointed out that these reasonings are only "seeming." The Christian, by grace, eventually triumphs. Faith looks up at the cloud (though it is often very late in doing so) and says, The chastisement was not as severe as it might have been, certainly it was not as severe as I deserved, and truly it was nothing in comparison to what the Savior suffered for me. O let faith expel carnal reason, and say, "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." But note carefully that this is only while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen" (2 Cor. 4:17, 18). For much in the above four points the writer acknowledges his indebtedness to a sermon by C.H. Spurgeon on the same verse.  

"Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." This is what the apostle sets over against the estimate of carnal reason and the feelings of our natural senses. Medicine may not be a pleasant thing to take, but if it be blest by God, the renewed health it gives is good compensation. The pruned vine at the end of the winter presents a sorry appearance to the eye, but its heavily-laden branches in the autumn vindicate the gardener’ s efforts. Did not the "afterward" prove to Jacob that his doleful reasonings were quite unwarranted? Job squirmed under the rod, as well he might, but was not his end more prosperous than his beginning? Thank God for this "Nevertheless afterward."  

Yet this "afterward" is also a very searching word: it is one which should pierce and test each of us. Have we not all passed through sorrow? Can any of us look back on the past without recalling seasons of deep and heavy affliction? Has no sword pierced our souls? no painful sacrifice been demanded of us? But, my reader, do these experiences belong to the past in every sense? Have they gone, disappeared, without leaving any effects behind them? No, that is impossible: we are either the better or the worse because of them. Then ask yourself, What fruits have they produced? Have your past experiences hardened, soured, frozen you? Or have they softened, sweetened, mellowed you? Has pride been subdued, self-pleasing been mortified, patience developed? How have afflictions, chastisements, left us? What does the "afterward" reveal?  

Not all men are the gainers by afflictions; nor are Christians so always. Many seek to flee from trials and troubles, instead of being "exercised" thereby. Others are callous and do not yield: as Hebrews 12:5 intimates, they "despised" the chastenings of the Lord. There are some who imagine that, when visited with affliction, it is a display of courage if they refuse to be affected. They count it weakness to mourn over losses and weep over sorrows. But such an attitude is altogether un-Christian. Christ wept and again and again we are told that He "groaned." Such an attitude is also foolish to the last degree, for it is calculated to counteract the very design of afflictions, and only calls for severer ones to break our proud spirits. It is no mark of weakness to acknowledge that we feel the strokes of an Almighty arm.  

It is the truest wisdom to humble ourselves beneath "the mighty hand of God." If we are among His people, He will mercifully compel us to acknowledge that His chastenings are not to be despised and made light of. He will— and O how easily He can do it— continue or increase our afflictions until He tames our wild spirits, and brings us like obedient children into subjection to Himself. What a warning is found in Isaiah 9:9-11. "And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of heart, The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. Therefore the Lord shall set up the Adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together." This means that, because the people had hardened themselves under the chastening hand of God, instead of being "exercised" thereby, that He sent sorer afflictions upon them.  

The ones benefited by the Father’ s chastenings are they who are "exercised thereby." The Greek word for "exercised" was borrowed from the gymnastic games. It had reference to the athlete stripping himself of his outer clothing. Thus, this word in our text is almost parallel with the "laying aside of every weight" in 5:1. If afflictions cause us to be stripped of pride, sloth, selfishness, a revengeful spirit, then "fruit" will be produced. It is only as we improve our chastenings, that we are gainers. The natural effect of affliction on an unsanctified soul is either to irritate or depress, which produces rebellion or sinking in despair. This is the result of hardness of heart and unbelief. Even with regard to the Christian it is true that, only as he views them as proceeding from his Father in order to bring him into subjection, and as he is "exercised thereby," he is truly profited.  

1. The conscience needs to be "exercised." There must be a turning unto the Sender of our trials, and a seeking from Him of the meaning and message of them. "There was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David inquired of the Lord" (2 Sam. 21:1)! So should we when the providences of God frown upon us. There must be an honest self-examination, a diligent scrutiny of our ways, to discover what it is God is displeased with. Careful investigation will often show that much of our supposed godly zeal in service is but the result of habit, or the imitating of some eminent saint, instead of proceeding from the heart, and being rendered "unto the Lord."  

2. Prayer has to be "exercised" or engaged in. It is true that painful afflictions have a tendency to stifle the voice of supplication, that one who is smarting under the rod feels little inclination to approach the Throne of Grace, but this carnal disposition must be steadily resisted, and the help of the Holy Spirit definitely sought. The heavier our load, the more depressed our heart, the sorer our anguish, the greater our need to pray. God requires to be sought unto for grace to submit to His dealings, for help to improve the same, for Him to sanctify unto our good all that perplexes and distresses us.  

3. The grace of meekness must be "exercised," for "a meek and quiet spirit" is of "great price" in the sight of Him with whom we have to do (1 Pet. 3:4). Meekness is the opposite of self-will and hardness of heart. It is a pliability of soul, which is ready to be fashioned after the Divine image. It is a holy submission, willing to be molded as the Heavenly Potter determines. There can be no "peaceable fruit of righteousness" until our wills are broken, and we have no mind of our own. How much we need to heed that word of Christ’ s, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek" (Matthew 11:29).  

4. Patience must be "exercised." Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him" (Ps. 37:7): "wait" for His time of deliverance, for if we attempt to deliver ourselves, we are very likely to plunge into deeper trials. Fruit is not ripened in a day; nor do the benefits of chastisements appear immediately. Patience must have her perfect work if the soul is to be enriched by afflictions. In the interval of waiting, allow nothing to deter your plodding perseveringly along the path of duty.  

5. Faith must be "exercised." God’ s hand must be seen in every trial and affliction if it is to be borne with meekness and patience. While we look no further than the malice of Satan, or the jealousy, enmity, injustice of men, the heart will be fretful and rebellious. But if we receive the cup from the Father’ s hand, our passions will be calmed and the inward tumult stilled. Only by the exercise of faith will the soul be brought into a disposition to quietly submit, and digest the lessons we are intended to learn.  

6. Hope must be "exercised." As faith looks upward and sees God’ s hand in the trial, hope is to look forward and anticipate the gains thereof. Hope is a confident expectation of future good. It is the opposite of despair. Hope lays hold of the promised "Afterward," and thus it sustains and cheers in the present. Hope assures the cast-down soul "I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance" (Ps. 42:5). "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you" (1 Pet. 5:10).  

7. Love must be "exercised." It is the Father’ s love which chastens us (verse 5); then ought not we to love Him in return for His care and patient training of us? Instead of doubting His wisdom or questioning His goodness, there should be an affectionate gratitude flowing out to the One who is seeking naught but our welfare. "We can never find any benefit in chastenings, unless we are exercised by them, that is, unless all our graces are stirred up by them to a holy, constant exercise" (John Owen)— how different that, from the fatalistic inertia of many hyper-Calvinists!  

What we have sought to bring out above is the fact that spiritual "fruit" is not the natural or spontaneous effect of affliction. Nay, have we not observed that few of those who suffer severe financial reverses, heavy domestic bereavements, or personal bodily pain, are, spiritually, the gainers thereby. Yea, do we need to look any further than ourselves, to perceive how little we have learned by and profited from past trials? And the cause is plain: we were not duly exercised thereby. May this word abide with each of us for the future.  

What is meant by "the peaceable fruit of righteousness"? If we took this expression by itself, it would signify the effects of righteousness, the fruit which righteousness itself brings forth. But in our text it is chastenings or afflictions which are specifically mentioned as producing this fruit. It is the Spirit tranquilizing and purifying the heart. "Righteousness" in our text is parallel with "His holiness" in verse 10. It may be summed up in the mortification of sin and the vivification of vital godliness. It is called the "peaceable fruit" because it issues in the taming of our wild spirits, the quieting of our restless hearts, the more firm anchoring of our souls. But this only comes when we truly realize that it is the Father’ s love which has afflicted us. May the Spirit of God grant us all "exercised" hearts, so that we shall daily search ourselves, examine our ways, and be stripped of all that is displeasing to Him.  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:12-13

Call to Steadfastness   

(Hebrews 12:12, 13)   

The didactic (teaching) portions of Scripture are very much more than abstract statements of truth: they are designed not only for the instructing of the mind, but also for the influencing of the heart. This is far too little recognized in our day, when the craving for information is so often divorced from any serious concern as to the use to be made of the same. This, no doubt, is one of the evil fruits borne by the modern school-methods, where instead of seeking to draw out (the meaning of the word "educate") and develop the mind of the pupil, he is made to "cram" or fill his head with a mass of facts and figures, most of which are of no service to him in the later life. Not such is God’ s method. His method of instruction is to set before us moral and spiritual principles, and then show us how to apply them in a practical way; inculcate a motive, and thereby call into exercise our inward faculties. Hence, the test of Christian knowledge is not how much we understand, but how far our knowledge is affecting our lives.  

It is one thing to possess a clear intellectual grasp of the doctrines of grace, it is quite another to experience the grace of the doctrines in a spiritual way. It is one thing to believe the Scriptures are the inspired and inerrant Word of God, it is another for the soul to live under the awe of their Divine authority, realizing that one day we shall be judged by them. It is one thing to be convinced that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the King of kings and Lord of lords, it is another to surrender to His scepter and live in personal subjection to Him. What does it profit me to be convinced that God is omnipotent, unless I am learning to lean upon His mighty arm? What avail is it to me that I am assured of God’ s omniscience unless the knowledge that His eye is ever upon me acts as a salutary restraint to my actions? What does it advantage me to know that without holiness no man shall see the Lord, unless I am making the acquirement of holiness my chief concern and aim!  

That which has been pointed out above has to do with no obscure and intricate subject which lies far above the reach of the rank and file of the common people, but is plain, self-evident, simple. Alas, that our hearts are so little impressed by it and our consciences so rarely exercised over it. When we measure ourselves by that standard, have we not all of us much cause to hang our heads in shame? Our intellects are stored with Scripture truth, but how little are our lives moulded thereby. Our doctrinal views are sound and orthodox, but how little we know experimentally of "the truth which is after godliness" (Titus 1:1). Has not the Savior much ground for saying to both writer and reader, "Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46). O that we may be duly humbled over our sad failures.  

The above reflections have been suggested by the use which the apostle makes in our text of the subject he had been discussing in the previous verses. His opening "Wherefore" denotes that he was now going to make a practical application unto those whom he was writing to of the exposition just given of the truth of Divine chastisement. In this we may see him following out the course he pursued in all his epistles, and which the servants of God are required to emulate today. No matter what was the doctrine under consideration, the apostle always turned it to a practical end, as his oft-repeated "Therefore" and "Wherefore" intimate. Was he contending for the Christian’ s emancipation from the ceremonial law, then he adds, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free" (Gal. 5:1). Was he opening up the glorious truth of resurrection, then he concludes with "therefore... be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord" (1 Cor. 15:58). Was he setting forth the blessed hope of Christ’ s return, then he finishes with "Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (1 Thess. 4:18).  

It is this which urgently needs to be laid to heart— the use we make of the precious truths which the Most High has so graciously revealed to us. That is (partly, at least) what the Savior had in mind when He said, "Take heed therefore how ye hear" (Luke 8:18)— see to it that your hearts are duly affected, so that the truth will regulate all your conduct. It is not sufficient that I assume a reverent demeanor when attending the means of grace, that I pay close attention to what I hear: it is the assimilation of the same, so that I go forth and live under the power thereof, which is the all-important matter. The same is true of our reading; it is not the book which adds to my store of information, or which entertains and thrills, but the one which stirs me up to godly living, which proves the most helpful. So it is with our response to the Scriptures, it is not how many difficult passages do I have light upon, nor how many verses have I memorized, but how many of its commands and percepts am I honestly endeavoring to obey.  

This is the keynote struck by the apostle in the verses which are now to engage our attention. He had thrown not a little light on the distressing circumstances in which the Hebrews then found themselves, namely, the bitter persecution they were encountering at the hands of their unbelieving countrymen. He had pointed out that so far from their afflictions being exceptional, and a warrantable ground for consternation, they were, in some form or other, the common portion of all God’ s people, while they are left in this scene. He had set before them some most blessed truths, which were well calculated to strengthen their faith, comfort their hearts, and raise their drooping spirits. He had given an exposition of the subjection of Divine chastisement, such as must bring peace and consolation to all who mix faith therewith. He had silenced every objection which could well be made against the duty to which he had called them. And now he presses upon them the practical profit to which they must turn the doctrine inculcated.  

"Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed" (verses 12, 13). Here we have, First, the conclusion drawn from the preceding premises. Second, the several duties enjoined. Third, the reason by which they are enforced. The duties are expressed in figurative language, yet in such terms as the meaning is not difficult to perceive. The enforcing reason or motive for compliance is taken from the evil effects which a non-compliance of one’ s duty would have upon others, which plainly inculcates the importance and value of personal example, and the influence which it exerts upon our fellows.  

"Wherefore" means, in view of what has been said: because of the preceding considerations a certain course of conduct ought to follow. There is, we believe, a double reference in this opening "wherefore," namely, an immediate and a remote one. Immediately, it connects with the preceding verse, the most important word of which is "exercised." The apostle was alluding again to the well-known Grecian "Games." In the gymnasium, the instructor would challenge the youth to combat. He was an experienced man, and knew how to strike, guard, wrestle. Many severe blows would the combatants receive from him, but it was part of their training, preparing them for their future appearance in the public contests. The youth whose athletic frame was prepared for the coming great venture, would boldly step forward, willing to be "exercised" by his trainer; but he who shirked the trial and refused to encounter the master, received no help at his hands; but the fault was entirely his own.  

This, it seems to us, is the figure carried forward in our text; "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down." The Christian who gives way before trial, who sinks under affliction, who sulks or repines beneath persecution, will bring forth none of the "peaceable fruit of righteousness." If he "faints" under chastisement, if his hands become idle and his legs no longer capable of supporting him, a profitable use cannot be made of the tribulation through which he is called upon to pass. Then let him pull himself together, gird up the loins of his mind and "endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ" (2 Tim. 2:3). Let his attitude be, Now is the time of my training, so I will seek to play the man; I will seek grace from God to muster all my faith and courage and valiantly wrestle with whatever opposes and oppresses me.  

More remotely, our opening "Wherefore" looks back unto all that has been said in the previous verses. Hebrews 12 opens with a stirring call for God’ s people to persevere in the course of Christian duty, to go forward in the spiritual life, no matter what impediments might stand in their way; to "run with patience (or perseverance) the race which is set before us," drawing strength from the Christ for enablement (verses 1, 2). Then he anticipated an objection: We are being sorely oppressed, tempted to renounce our profession, hounded by our unbelieving brethren. To this he replies, Consider your Master, who went before you in the same path of suffering (verse 3). Bear in mind that your lot has not become extreme: ye have not yet been called upon to experience a martyr’ s death (verse 4). Furthermore, you are losing sight of that scriptural exhortation, "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord" (verse 5). This led the apostle to open to them, in a most precious manner, the whole subject of Divine chastisement. Let us present a brief summary of the same.  

The trials through which the children of God are called upon to pass are not Divine punishments, but gracious discipline designed for their good. We are expressly bidden "not to faint" beneath them (verse 5). The rod is wielded not in wrath, but in tender solicitude, and is a manifestation not of God’ s anger but of His love (verse 6). Our duty then is to "endure" chastening as becometh the children of God (verse 7). To be without chastisement, so far from being an evidence of our spiritual sonship, would demonstrate we were not sons at all (verse 8). Inasmuch as we gave reverence to our earthly parents when they corrected us, how much more ought we to be in subjection to our heavenly Father (verse 9). God’ s design in our afflictions is our "profit," that by them we might become increasingly "partakers of His holiness" in an experimental way. Though these chastenings are unpleasant to flesh and blood, nevertheless "the peaceable fruit of righteousness" issues therefrom when we are suitably "exercised thereby" (verse 11).  

Now from these considerations a very obvious conclusion is drawn, and by them a bounden duty is enforced. In view of the "great cloud of witnesses" by which we are encompassed (verse 1), seeing that the saints of other days— in themselves as weak, as sinful, as much oppressed by the world as we are— fought a good fight, kept the faith, and finished their course, let us gird ourselves for the contest and strain every effort to persevere in the path of duty. In view of the fact that our Leader, the Captain of our salvation, has left us such an example of heroic endurance (verse 3), let us earnestly seek to follow His steps and acquit ourselves like men. Finally, because God Himself is the Author and Regulator of our trials— the severest of our chastenings proceed from a loving Father, seeking our good— then let us not be cast down by the difficulties of the way nor discouraged by the roughness of the path; but let us nerve ourselves to steadfastness in the faith and fidelity to our Redeemer.  

Thus the coherence of our opening "Wherefore" is perfectly obvious and the duty it presses so plain that there cannot be misunderstanding. In view of all the above-mentioned considerations, and particularly in view of the fact that the most precious fruits issue from afflictions when we are duly "exercised" by them, then let us not be dejected in our minds nor faint in our spirits by reason thereof. As the champions in the public "Games" used their hands and arms to the very best of their ability, and as the runners in the races used their legs and knees to the best possible effect— and in case their hands and knees began to fail and flag, exerted their wills to the utmost to rouse up their members to renewed effort— so should we be very courageous, zealous and active, and in case our hearts begin to fail us through multiplied discouragements, we must marshal all our resolution and strive prayerfully and manfully against giving way to despair.  

"Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down." The duty here enjoined is set forth in figurative language, but the meaning is nonetheless obvious because of the graphic metaphors used. The apostle transferred unto members of our physical body the condition in which the faculties of our souls are liable to fall under certain trials. For the hands to hang down and the knees to become feeble are figurative expressions, denoting the tendency to abandon the discharge of our Christian duty because of the opposition encountered. For the hands of a boxer or fencer to hang down means that his arms are become weary to the point of exhaustion; for the knees to be feeble signifies that through the protracted exertions of the runner his legs have been debilitated by their nervous energy being spent. The spiritual reference is to a decay in the Christian’ s courage and resolution. Two evils produce this: despondency as to success— when hope is gone effort ceases; weariness in the performance of duty.  

This same figure is employed in other passages of Scripture. In Ezekiel 7:16, 17 we read, "But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity. All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be as weak as water:" here the reference is to that inertia which is produced by poignant conviction of sin after a season of backsliding. Again, in Ezekiel 21:7 we are told, "When they shall say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt answer, For the tidings, because it cometh: and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall fail, and all knees shall be as weak as water:" where we behold the paralyzing effects of consternation in view of the tidings of sore judgment. But in our text the reference is to the disheartenment caused by fierce opposition and persecution. Despair and becoming weary of well doing are the two evils in all our afflictions which we most need to guard against. It is failure at this point which has led to so many scandalous backslidings and cursed apostasies. Such an exhortation as the one before us intimates that the Hebrews had either already given way to an enervating spirit of gloom or were in great danger of so doing.  

Now "It is the duty of all faithful ministers of the Gospel to consider diligently what failures or temptations their flocks are liable or exposed to, so as to apply suitable means for their preservation" (John Owen). This is what the apostle is seen doing here. In view of the lethargy of the Hebrews he exhorts them to "lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees." The word "lift up" signifies not simply to elevate, but to "rectify" or set right again, restoring them to their proper state, so as to apply them to duty. It was a call to steadfastness and resolute perseverance: be not dejected in your minds nor faint in your spirits by reason of the present distress, nor be so terrified of the threatening danger as to give up hope and be completely overwhelmed. Under sore trial and affliction, persecution and the prospect of yet sorer opposition, the temptation is for the heart to sink within us and the path of duty to be forsaken.  

"Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees:" literally, "hands which are loose" or slack, dangling inert; "feeble knees" is still stronger in the Greek, being almost the equivalent of palsied knees— enervated knees which need bandages to brace them. In view of which he calls them to arouse themselves, to stir up all their graces unto exercise, to refuse taking the line of least resistance, to renew their courage and bear up under their trials. Resolution will accomplish much to stimulate jaded nerves and flagging energies. The Christian life, from start to finish is a struggle, a fight, an unceasing warfare against foes within and without, and only be who endures to the end shall receive the crown of life. To give way to dejection is harmful, to sink into despair is dangerous, to quit the discharge of our duties is the fore-runner of apostasy.  

But the question arises how are we to set about this particular task? To say that we are helpless in ourselves affords no encouragement; in fact to affirm that the Christian is utterly impotent is to deny that there is any vital difference between himself and those who are dead in sins. Christians in their greatest weakness have some strength, some grace, some spiritual life; and where there is some life, there is some ability to stir and move. And God is pleased to assist where there is sincere endeavor. The believer is responsible to arm his mind against discouragements by considering God’ s design in them, and the blessed fruits which issue from trials and afflictions when we are duly exercised by them. Of what value is a clear intellectual grasp of the nature and end of Divine chastisements unless it produces a practical effect upon the heart and life? Let the distressed saint ponder anew the blessed considerations set before him in Hebrews 12:1-11 and find in them motives and incentives unto renewed courage, fidelity and perseverance.  

Let the hope of ultimate victory nerve you. Look forward to the goal: the determination to reach home is a powerful stimulus to a weary traveler. Earnestly endeavor to counteract every disposition to faintness and despondency by viewing your trials and persecutions as a part of God’ s discipline for your soul: then submit to them as such, and seek to get them sanctified to your spiritual profit. Remember that you cannot fight with hands hanging down, nor run the race set before us if your knees give way; so summon all your resolution to remain steadfast in the discharge of every duty God has appointed and assigned you. Rest in the love of your heavenly Father, assured that all of the present distress is designed for your ultimate good, and this will reinvigorate the soul. Finally, seek grace to lay hold of and plead the promise, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength" (Isa. 40:31).  

It is to be noted that this exhortation is couched abstractly. It is not "lift up your hands," which would restrict it individually; nor is it "lift up the hands of those who are dejected," which would limit the exhortation to a ministry unto others. Worded as it is there is a double reference: it is a call to the individual Christian to persevering activity, and it is an exhortation for him to seek the well being of his fellow-Christians. That our text has a reference to our seeking to encourage and strengthen fellow-pilgrims is clear from a comparison of Job 4:3, 4 and Isaiah 35:3, 4, with which 1 Thessalonians 5:14 may be compared. The best way for the individual Christian to strengthen the hands of his feeble fellows is by setting before them a worthy example of faith, courage, and steadfastness. In addition, he is to pray for them, speak words of encouragement, remind them of God’ s promises, relate to them His gracious dealings and powerful deliverances in his own life.  

"And make straight paths for your feet." The previous verse concerns the inward frame and spirit of the believer’ s mind; this one has respect to his outward conduct. As Barnes has well pointed out, the term used here signifies "straight" horizontally, that is level and plain, all obstacles are to be removed so that we do not stumble and fall— cf. Proverbs 4:25-27. The word for "paths" is derived from one meaning "a wheel" and signifies here "the marks made by a wheel"— it is paths marked out for others, leaving the tracks which may be followed by them. The reference, then, is to the believer so manifesting his course that his fellows may see and follow it. The Christian course is exemplary, that is, it is one which impresses and influences others. How very careful should we be then as to our conduct!  

Here, then, is an exhortation unto the Christian to see well to his walk, which means the regulating of all his actions by the revealed will of God, to be obedient unto the Divine precepts, to follow not the ways and fashions of an evil world, but to cleave to the narrow way, and turn not aside from the Highway of Holiness. "It is our duty not only to be found in the ways of God in general but to take care that we walk carefully, circumspectly, uprightly and diligently in them. Hereon depends our own peace, and all our usefulness toward others. It is a sad thing when some men’ s walk in the ways of God shall deter others from them or turn them out of them" (John Owen).  

"And make straight paths for your feet." A most timely word for us today when iniquity abounds and the love of many waxes cold, when the poor and afflicted in Zion stand in need of all the godly encouragement they can obtain. We are surrounded by a "crooked generation," both of professing and profane, whose evil ways we are but too apt to learn; we are beset on every hand by temptations to turn aside into what Bunyan termed "By-path Meadow," to enter paths which God has prohibited, to feed on pride and indulge our lusts. How the heart of the mature Christian aches for the lambs of Christ’ s flock, and how it behooves him to walk softly and carefully lest he put some stumbling-block in their way. Solemn indeed is "As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity" (Ps. 125:5), and also "They have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace" (Isa. 59:8).  

"Lest that which is lame be turned out of the way." The word "lest" is a translation of two Greek words, "that not." It is a word of caution and prevention, warning each of us that carelessness as to our own walk is likely to have an ill effect upon weaker Christians. The word "lame" is transferred from the body to some defect of our graces which unfits the soul for the discharge of Christian duty: one who is lame is ill-capacitated to run in a race, and one who is lacking in courage, zeal, and perseverance is ill-fitted to fight the good fight of faith. Walk carefully then, my brother, if for no reason than for the sake of the feebler saints. Backslidden Christians are the plague of the church: inconsistencies in God’ s people spread discouragements among weak believers.  

There are always some "lame" sheep in God’ s earthly flock. While there are some Christians with strong and vigorous faith, so that they "mount up with wings as eagles, run and are not weary," and make steady progress in practical holiness, all are not so highly favored. In most families of any size there is one frail and sickly member; so it is in the various branches of the Household of Faith. Some are constitutionally gloomy, temperamentally vacillating, physically infirm, and these have a special claim upon the strong. They are not to be snubbed and shunned: they need an example of cheerfulness set before them, wise counsel given to them, their arms supported by prayer and love’ s solicitude for their good. Whatever is weak in their faith and hope, whatever tends to dishearten and discourage them, should be carefully attended to, so far as lies in our power. A stitch in time saves nine: many a sheep might have been kept from falling into the ditch, had one with a shepherd’ s heart gone after it at the first sign of straying.  

"But let it rather be healed." "Heal" signifies to correct that which is amiss. It is the recovering of a lapsed one which is here in view. Instead of despising sickly Christians, exercise love’ s sympathy toward them. While we should be thankful if God has granted us healthy graces, we must beware of presumption: "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted" (Gal. 6:1). To those groaning under the burden of sin, tell them of the sufficiency of Christ’ s blood. To those fearful about the future, remind them of God’ s faithfulness. To those who are despondent, seek to cheer by citing some of God’ s precious promises. Study the holy art of speaking a word in season to the needy. You will be of great value to the church if you develop a spirit of compassion and the gift of lifting up those fallen by the wayside."  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:14

Call to Diligence   

(Hebrews 12:14)   

The connection between the verses which were before us on the last occasion and that which is now to engage our attention is not apparent at the first glance. There the apostle made a practical application to his readers of the important considerations he had been setting before them in the preceding verses, calling them unto the duty of steadfastness. Here there is a lively exhortation unto the pursuit of peace and holiness. The relation between these exhortations and those which follow, is more intimate than a number of pearls strung together, rather is it more like that of the several members of our physical body, which are vitally joined and dependent upon one another. Failure to observe this fact results in loss, for not only do we fail to appreciate the living connection of one part with another, but we lose the motive and incentive which they mutually supply. It is the business of the teacher to point this out, that we may be duly affected thereby and rejoice together in the perfect handiwork of God.  

"From his exhortation unto patient perseverance in the profession of the Gospel under sufferings and affliction, the apostle proceeds unto a prescription of practical duties; and although they are such as are absolutely necessary in themselves at all times, yet they are here peculiarly enjoined with respect to the same end, or our constancy in professing the Gospel. For no light, no knowledge of the truth, no resolution or courage, will preserve any man in his profession, especially in times of trial, without a diligent attention unto the duties of holiness and Gospel obedience. And he begins with a precept, general and comprehensive of all others" (John Owen).  

The connection between Hebrews 12:14, etc., and verses 12, 13, is threefold. First, the diligent pursuit of peace toward our fellows and of holiness toward God are timely aids unto perseverance in the faith and in consequence, powerful means for preservation from apostasy. The one is so closely joined to the other that the former cannot be realized without an eager striving after the latter. Second, inasmuch as love toward our neighbor ("peace," with all that that involves and includes) and love toward God ("holiness") is the sum of our duty, it is impossible that we should devote ourselves unto their cultivation and exercise so long as we axe permitting afflictions and persecution to paralyze the mind: the spirit of resolute determination must possess us before we can develop our spiritual graces. Third, oppression and suffering provide an opportunity for the exercise and manifestation of our spiritual graces, and are to be improved by us to this very end. "If the children of God grow impatient under afflictions, they will neither walk so quietly and peaceably towards men nor so piously toward God as they should do" (Matthew Henry).  

The first thing which needs to be borne in mind as we approach each verse of this epistle is the special circumstances of those immediately addressed, and to perceive the peculiar pertinency of the apostle’ s instruction to those who were so situated, for this will the better enable us to make a correct application unto ourselves. Now the Hebrews were living among a people where their own espousal of Christianity had produced a serious breach, which had stirred up the fierce opposition of their fellow-countrymen. The attitude of these Hebrews towards Christ was neither understood nor appreciated by the unbelieving Jews; so far from it, they were regarded as renegades and denounced as apostates from the faith of their fathers. Every effort was made to poison their minds against the Gospel, and where this failed, relentless persecution was brought to bear upon them. Hence, it was by no means an easy matter for them to maintain the spirit of the Gospel and live amicably with those who surrounded them; instead, they were sorely tempted to entertain a bitter spirit toward those who troubled them so unjustly, to retaliate and avenge their wrongs. Here, then, was the need for them to be exhorted "follow peace with all men!"  

Now while it be true that Christians are now, for the most part, spared the severe suffering which those Hebrews were called upon to endure, yet faithfulness to Christ is bound to incur the hostility of those who hate Him, and will in some form or other issue in opposition. There is a radical difference in nature between those treading the narrow way to Heaven and those following the broad road to Hell. The character and conduct of the former condemn and rile the self-pleasing disposition and flesh-indulging ways of the latter. The children of the Devil have no love for the children of God, and they delight in doing whatever they can to annoy and aggravate them; and nothing gives them more pleasure than to see successful their efforts to tempt them to compromise or stir up unto angry retaliation. Thus it is a timely injunction for all believers, in any age and in any country, to strive earnestly to live in peace with all men.  

"Follow peace with all men." This is a very humbling word that Christians require to be told to do this. Its implication is clear: by nature men are fractious, wrathful, revengeful creatures. That is one reason why Christ declared "it must needs be that offenses come" (Matthew 18:7)— "must" because of the awful depravity of fallen human nature; yet forget not that He at once added, "But woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." It is because of this contentious, envious, revengeful, spirit which is in us, that we need the exhortation of our text, and in view of what is recorded in Scripture, even of saints, its timeliness is the more apparent. Have we not read of "the strife" between the herdsmen of Abraham and Lot which caused the patriarch and his nephew to part asunder? Have we not read of the discords and fightings between the tribes of Israel issuing in their kingdom being rent in twain? Have we not read of the "contention" between Paul and Barnabas which issued in their separating? These are solemn warnings, danger-signals, which we all do well to take to heart.  

"It is the duty of Christians to be at peace among themselves, to be on their guard against all alienation of affection towards each other; and there can be no doubt that the maintenance of this brotherly-kindness is well fitted to promote steadfastness in the faith and profession of the Gospel. But in the words before us there seems to be a reference not so much to the peace which Christians should endeavor to maintain among themselves, as that which they should endeavor to preserve in reference to the world around them. They are to ‘ follow peace with all men.’   

"They live amidst men whose modes of thinking, and feeling and acting are very different from— are in many points directly opposite to— theirs. They have been fairly warned, that ‘ if they would live godly in this world, they must suffer persecution.’ They have been told that ‘ if they were of the world, the world would love its own; but because they are not of the world, therefore the world hateth them.’ ‘ In the world,’ says their Lord and Master, ‘ ye shall have tribulation.’ But this, so far from making them reckless as to their behavior towards the men of the world, ought to have the directly opposite effect. If the world persecute them, they must take care that this persecution has in no degree been provoked by their improper or imprudent behavior. They must do everything that lies in their power, consistent with duty, to live in peace with their ungodly neighbors. They must carefully abstain from injuring them; they must endeavor to promote their happiness. They must do everything but sin in order to prevent a quarrel.  

"This is of great importance, both to themselves and to their unbelieving brethren. A mind harassed by those feelings which are almost inseparable from a state of discord is not by any means in the fittest state for studying the doctrines, cherishing the feelings, enjoying the comforts, performing the duties of Christianity; and, on the other hand, the probability of our being useful to our unbelieving brethren is greatly diminished when we cease to be on good terms with them. As far as lies in us, then, if it be possible, we are to ‘ live peaceably with all men’ " (John Brown, 1872).  

"Follow peace with all men." The Greek word for "follow" is a very emphatical one, signifying an "earnest pursuit:" it is the eager chasing after something which flies from one, being used of hunters and hounds after game. The Christian is to spare no effort to live amicably with all men, and no matter how contentious and unfriendly they may be, he is to strive and overtake that which seeks to flee from him. Peace is one of the outstanding graces which the Christian is called upon to exercise and manifest. All things pertaining to the Church are denominated things of peace. God is "the God of peace" (Heb. 13:20), Christ is "the Prince of peace" (Isa. 9:6), a believer is designated "the son of peace" (Luke 10-6), and Christians are bidden to have their "feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace" (Eph. 6:15).  

In this term "follow," or pursue, the apostle continues to preserve the central figure of the entire passage, introduced in the first verse of our chapter, of the running of a race: the same word is rendered "I press forward" in Philippians 3:14. Peace may be elusive and hard to capture, nevertheless strive after it, run hard in the chase thereof, for it is well worth overtaking. Spare no pains, strain every nerve to attain unto it. If this exhortion be duly heeded by us then Christians are plainly forbidden to embroil themselves or take any part in the strifes and quarrels of the world: thus they are hereby forbidden to engage in politics, where there is little else than envy, contention and anger. Still less may the Christian take any part in war: there is not a single word in all the N.T. which warrants a follower of the Prince of peace slaying his fellowmen. "Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it" (Ps. 34:14).  

The word "follow" or pursue does not imply the actual obtainment of peace: the most eager hunters and hounds often miss their prey. Nevertheless, nothing short of our utmost endeavors are required of us. "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men" (Rom. 12:18): with fellow-Christians, with those who are strangers to Christ (Eph. 2:19), with our enemies (Matthew 5:44). Few things more adorn and beautify a Christian profession than exercising and manifesting the spirit of peace. Then let us prayerfully strive to avoid those things which occasion strife. Remember the old adage that "It takes two to make a quarrel:" therefore see to it that you provoke not others. Give no encouragement to those who love contention; refrain from all argument— the things of God are too holy: debating is a work of the flesh. To "follow peace with all men" presupposes righteousness in our dealings with them, for we most certainly are not entitled to expect them to treat us amicably unless we give unto each his due, and treat others as we would have them treat us.  

Do not merely be placid when no one irritates you, but go out of your way to be gracious unto those who oppose. Be not fretful if others fail to render the respect which you consider to be your due. Do not be so ready to "stand up for your rights," but yield everything except truth and the requirements of holiness. "If we would follow peace, we must gird up our loins with the girdle of forbearance: we must resolve that as we will not give offense, so neither will take offense, and if offense be felt, we must resolve to forgive" (C.H. Spurgeon). Remember we cannot successfully "pursue peace" if the heavy burden of pride be on our shoulder: pride ever stirs up strife. Nor can we "pursue peace" if the spirit of envy fills the heart: envy is sure to see faults where they exist not, and make trouble. Nor can we "pursue peace" if we are loose-tongued, busybodies, talebearers.  

Even when opposed, our duty is to be peaceful toward those who persecute— a hard lesson, a high attainment, yet Divine grace (when earnestly sought) is "sufficient" even here. Remember the example which the Savior has left us: and cry mightily unto God for help to emulate the same. "When He was reviled, He reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not" (1 Pet. 2:23): He prayed for God to forgive His very murderers. "With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love" (Eph. 4:2). Ah, there are the prerequisities for the procuring of peace— the lack of which being the cause of so much confusion, strife and war. If love reigns our skirts will be dear, for "Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; doth not behave itself unseemly; seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" (1 Cor. 13:4-7).  

"Follow peace with all men." This includes even more than we have intimated above: the Christian is not only to be a peace-keeper, but he should seek to be a peace-maker: such have the express benediction of Christ— "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God" (Matthew 5:9). Seek, then, to restore amicable relations between those who are at enmity and be used of God as a medium of their reconciliation. Instead of fanning the flames of dissension or driving the wedge of division further in, endeavor to cool them by the water of the Word, and by a gracious demeanor and wise counsel seek to smooth out difficulties and heal wounds. "And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace" (James 3:18). "Peaceable men do sow a seed that afterward will yield sheaves of comfort into their own bosoms" (T. Manton).  

"Follow peace with all men and holiness." First, the cultivation of peace is a great aid unto personal and practical holiness: where discontent, envy, and strife dominate the heart, piety is choked. The two things are inseparably connected: where love to our neigh-bout is lacking, love to God will not be in exercise. The two tables of the law must not be divorced: God will not accept our worship in the house of prayer while we entertain in our heart the spirit of bitterness toward another (Matthew 5:23, 24). "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" (1 John 4:20). O my reader, if we imagine that we are sincere in our quest after holiness while striving not to live peaceably with all men, we are cherishing a vain deceit.  

"Some who have aimed at holiness have made the great mistake of supposing it needful to be morose, contentious, faultfinding, and censorious with everybody else. Their holiness has consisted of negatives, protests, and oppositions for oppositions sake. Their religion mainly lies in contrarieties and singularities; to them the text offers this wise counsel, follow holiness, but also follow peace. Courtesy is not inconsistent with faithfulness. It is not needful to be savage in order to be sanctified. A bitter spirit is a poor companion for a renewed heart. Let your determination principle be sweetened by tenderness towards your fellow-men. Be resolute for the right, but be also gentle, pitiful, courteous. Consider the meekness as well as the boldness of Jesus. Follow peace, but not at the expense of holiness. Follow holiness, but do not needlessly endanger peace" (C.H. Spurgeon, on text, 1870).  

"Follow peace with all men, and holiness." By a harmless, kind, and useful behavior toward their unbelieving neighbors the people of God are to conduct themselves. They must avoid that which fosters bitterness and strife, and make it manifest they are followers of the Prince of peace. Yet in pursuing this most needful and inestimable policy there must be no sacrifice of principle. While peace is a most precious commodity nevertheless, like gold, it may be purchased too dearly. "The wisdom which is from above is first pure, then peaceable" (James 3:17). Peace must not be severed from holiness by a compliance with any evil or a neglect of any duty. "First being by interpretation king of righteousness, and after that also King of peace" (Heb. 7:2). "Peace has special relation to man and his good, holiness to God and His honor. These two may no more be severed than the two tables of the law. Be sure then that peace lacks not this companion of holiness: if they cannot stand together, let peace go and holiness be cleaved unto" (W. Gouge).  

There may be the former without the latter. Men may be so determined to maintain peace that they compromise principle, sacrifice the truth, and ignore the claims of God. Peace must never be sought after a price of unfaithfulness to Christ. "Buy the truth and sell it not" (Prov. 23:23) is ever binding upon the Christian. Thus, important though it be to "follow peace with all men," it is still more important that we diligently pursue "holiness." Holiness is devotedness to God and that temper of mind and course of conduct which agrees with the fact that we are "not our own, but bought with a price." Peace with men, then, is not to be purchased at the expense of devotedness to God: "infinitely better to have the whole world for our enemies and God for our friend, than to have the whole world for our friends and God for our enemy" (John Brown).  

The Christian is not only to be diligent in his quest for peace, but he is to be still more earnest in his pursuit after personal and practical holiness. Seeking after the good will of our fellows must be subordinated unto seeking the approbation of God. Our chief aim must be conformity to the image of Christ. If He has delivered us from wrath to come, we must endeavor by all that is within us to follow Him along the narrow way which leadeth unto Life. If He be our Lord and Master, then He is to be unreservedly obeyed. To "follow" holiness is to live like persons who are devoted to God— to His glory, to His claims upon us, to His cause in this world. It is to make it evident that we belong to Him. It is to separate ourselves from all that is opposed to Him. It is to mortify the flesh, with its affections and lusts. It is to "cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit" (2 Cor. 7:1). It is a life task from which there is no discharge while we remain in the body.  

To urge us the more after holiness, the apostle at once adds "without which no man shall see the Lord"— "which" is in the singular number, showing that the antecedent is "holiness." The believer may fail to "follow peace with all men," and though he will suffer loss thereby and bring himself under the chastening rod of his Father, yet this will not entail the Loss of Heaven itself. But it is otherwise with holiness: unless we are made partakers of the Divine nature, unless there be personal devotedness to God, unless there be an earnest striving after conformity to His will, then Heaven will never be reached. There is only one route which leads to the Country of everlasting bliss, and that is the Highway of Holiness; and unless (by grace) we tread the same, our course must inevitably terminate in the caverns of eternal woe.  

The negative here is fearfully emphatic: "without which (namely, "holiness") no man shall see the Lord"— in the Greek it is still stronger the negative being threefold— "not, without, no man." God Himself is essentially, ineffably, infinitely holy, and only holy characters shall ever "see" Him. Without holiness no man shall see Him: no, no matter how orthodox his beliefs, how diligent his attendance upon the means of grace, how liberal he may be in contributing to the cause, nor how zealous in performing religious duties. How this searching word should make everyone of us quail! Even though I be a preacher, devoting the whole of my life to study and laboring for the good of souls, even though I be blest with much light from the Word and be used of God in turning many from Satan to Christ, yet without holiness— both inward and outward— I shall never see the Lord. Unless the earnest pursuit of holiness occupy all my powers, I am but a formal professor, having a name to live while being spiritually dead.  

Without holiness men are strangers to God and cannot be admitted to His fellowship, still less to His eternal habitation. "Thus saith the Lord God; No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh shall enter into My sanctuary" (Ezek. 44:9): such as have no holiness within and without, in heart or in life, cannot be admitted into the sanctuary. If God shut the door of His earthly sanctuary against such as were strangers to holiness, will He not much more shut the doors of His celestial tabernacle against those who are strangers to Christ? "For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial?" (2 Cor. 6:14, 15).  

Unholy persons have fellowship and are familiar with Satan: "Ye are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do" (John 8:44); and again "The whole world lieth in the Wicked one" (1 John 5:19). It would be awful blasphemy to affirm that the thrice holy God would have fellowship with those who are in covenant with the Devil. O make no mistake upon this point, dear reader: if you are not walking after the Spirit, you are walking after the flesh: if you are not living to please Christ, you are living to please self; if you have not been delivered from the power of Darkness, you cannot enjoy the Light. Listen to those piercing words of the Redeemer, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3), and the new birth is holiness begun, it is the implantation of a principle of holiness in the heart, which is the life task of the Christian to cultivate.  

The "holiness" referred to in our text is not imputed holiness, for we cannot be exhorted to "follow after" that! No, it is personal and practical holiness, which is not attained by standing still, but by an earnest, diligent, persistent pursuit after the same. "It will be well for us to remember that the religion of Jesus Christ is not a matter of trifling, that the gaining of Heaven is not to be achieved by a few half-hearted efforts; and if we will at the same time recollect that all-sufficient succor is prepared for us in the covenant of grace we shall be in a right state of mind: resolute, yet humble, leaning upon the merits of Christ, and yet aiming at personal holiness. I am persuaded that if self-righteousness be deadly, self-indulgence is indeed ruinous. I desire to maintain always a balance in my ministry, and while combating self-righteousness, to war perpetually with loose living" (C.H. Spurgeon).  

But for the comfort of the poor and afflicted people of God, who find sin their greatest burden and who grieve sorely over their paucity of holiness, let it be pointed out that our text does not say "without the perfection of holiness no man shall see the Lord." Had it done so, we would not be writing this article, for then the editor had been entirely without hope. There is none upon earth who is fully conformed to God’ s will. Practical holiness is a matter of growth. In this life holiness is but infantile, and will only be matured in glory. At present it exists more in the form of longings and strivings, hungerings and efforts, rather than in realizations and attainments. The very fact that the Christian is exhorted to "follow" or pursue holiness, proves that he has not yet reached it.  

"Without holiness no man shall see the Lord" spiritually, not corporeally: with an enlightened understanding and with love’ s discernment, so as to enjoy personal communion with Him. "If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth" (1 John 1:6): how clear is that! "The pure in heart shall see God" (Matthew 5:8): see Him in His holy ordinances, see His blessed image reflected, though dimly, by his saints, see Him by faith with the eyes of the heart, as Moses, who "endured as seeing Him who is invisible" (Heb. 11:27); and thus be prepared and capacitated to "see" Him in His unveiled glory in the courts above. O to be able to truthfully say, "As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness" (Ps. 17:15). How we should labor after holiness, using all the means appointed thereto, since it is the medium for the soul’ s vision of God.  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:15

Call to Examination   

(Hebrews 12:15)   

We had first thought of giving a brief exposition of this verse at the close of the preceding article. But we felt this would scarcely satisfy some of our more critical readers. Nor is it our custom to dodge difficulties, and this presents a real difficulty unto not a few. Those Arminians who are ready to grasp at a straw have appealed to it in support of their favorite tenet "falling from grace." On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that the replies given by Calvinists thereon have often been unsatisfactory. It seems therefore that a more careful consideration and fuller elucidation of its contents are called for. Following, then, our usual practice, we shall endeavor, as God assists, to bring out the meaning of its several terms and apply them to our consciences and lives.  

The following are the points upon which our attention needs to be concentrated. First, the connection between our present verse and its context. Second, the duty enjoined: "looking diligently." Third, the danger to be avoided: "lest any man fail of the grace of God." Fourth, the evil warned against: "lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you." Fifth, the resultant consequence if the evil be tolerated: "and thereby many be defiled." In considering these points it will have to be carefully ascertained what it is about which we are here exhorted to be "looking diligently." What is signified by "lest any man fail of the grace of God," and if that be the correct translation, or whether the Greek requires us to accept the marginal alternative of "falling from the grace of God." And finally, what is denoted by the "root of bitterness springing up." May wisdom be granted us from on High.  

First, then, the connection between our present verse and its context. We will first consider its more general and remote relation, and then its more specific and immediate. The link between Hebrews 12:15 and that which precedes may be thus exhibited: if the afflictions which fidelity to Christ occasion and the chastenings of the Father are not duly improved by professing Christians they are almost certain to become a serious stumbling-block in the way of personal piety, yea, a temptation to apostasy itself. This, we believe, is the first reference in the "looking diligently." Unless professing Christians are duly "exercised" (verse 11) over God’ s disciplinary dealings with them, they are very apt to misconstrue them, chafe against them, call into question the Divine goodness, and sink into a state of despair, with its accompanying inertia.  

What has just been pointed out above receives confirmation from the verses which immediately follow, for verses 16 and 17 are obviously a continuation of our present text. There we find a solemn exhortation against apostasy itself, pointed by the awful case and example of Esau. Here we are warned against that, which if neglected, has a fearful tendency unto apostasy. Most of us know from painful experience how easily we become discouraged when things do not go as we want, how ready we are to "faint" (verse 5) when the rod of adversity is laid upon us, how real is the temptation to compromise or forsake the path of duty altogether when trials multiply or opposition and persecution is all that our best efforts meet with. Real, then, is our need for heeding this exhortation "Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God."  

It is unspeakably solemn to note that in the case of Esau his temptation to sell his birthright— apostatize— was occasioned by his faintness, for we are told that he said to Jacob, "Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage, for I am faint" (Gen. 25:30). And is it not when we are faint in our minds, cast down by the difficulties of the way, disheartened by the lack of appreciation our efforts meet with, and crushed by one trial on top of another, that Satan bids us give up the fight of faith and "get what pleasure we can out of life" by indulging the lusts of the flesh? Looked at thus our text points out the spring of apostasy— "falling of the grace of God;" the nature of apostasy— a "root of bitterness springing up;" and the result of apostasy— "many be defiled."  

Considering now the more specific and immediate connection of our verse with its context. First, unless the hands which hang down be lifted up and the feeble knees strengthened (verse 12), there will be a "failing of the grace of God;" and unless straight paths are made for our feet and that which is "lame" be prevented from "turning out of the way" (verse 13), then a "root of bitterness" (an apostate) will spring up, and in consequence, "many will be defiled." Second, in verse 14 we are exhorted to "follow" two things, namely, "peace" and "holiness;" while in verse 15 we are warned to avoid two things, namely, "failing of the grace of God" and suffering "a root of bitterness to spring up." The opening "Looking diligently" clearly denotes that our avoidance of the two evils of verse 15 turns or is dependent upon our earnest pursuit of the spiritual graces inculcated in verse 14.  

We are now ready to contemplate the duty which is here enjoined: "looking diligently." This is a call to examination: first, to self-examination. Its immediate force is derived from the closing words of the preceding verse, where the solemn and searching statement is made that "without which (namely ‘ holiness’ ) no man shall see the Lord." No matter though I am in fellowship with the people of God, a member of a scriptural church, a regular attender upon the means of grace, a firm believer in all the doctrines of the Word; yet, if I have never been sanctified by the Spirit of God, if I am not diligently and earnestly cultivating practical holiness, both of heart and life, then I shall never enter Heaven, and enjoy the beatific vision. Hence the pertinency and urgency of this exhortation, "Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God." There is far too much at stake to remain in uncertainty upon such a vital matter, and only the religious trifler will disregard this imperative summons.  

The call to careful self-examination receives its urgency from the very great danger there is of self-deception. Sin darkens the understanding, so that man is unable to perceive his real state before God. Satan "hath blinded the minds of them which believe not" (2 Cor. 4:4). The deep-rooted pride of our hearts makes us think the best of ourselves, so that if a question is raised in our hearts, we are ever prone to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. A spirit of sloth possesses us by nature, so that we are unwilling to go to the trouble which real self-examination calls for. Hence the vast majority of religious professors remain with a head knowledge of the Truth, with outward attention to forms and ceremonies, or resting on a mere consent to the letter of some verse like John 3:16, refusing to "make their calling and election sure."  

God has warned us plainly in His Word that, "There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes and yet is not washed from their filthiness" (Prov. 30:12). He has set before us those who say "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing," and who know not that they are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" (Rev. 3:17). And let it be duly noted that those were in church association, and that at a time before the last of the apostles had left the earth. Christ has told us that "Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works?" yea, that they affirm "we have eaten and drunk in Thy presence" (Luke 13:26); yet will He answer them "I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity" (Matthew 7:23). How such words as those should make each of us tremble! How it behooves us to be "Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God." Alas that such words— written first to those who had been addressed as "holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling" (3:1)— should, for the most part, fall upon unheeding ears.  

The fact is, that our diligence and honesty in self-examination will largely be determined by the value which we set upon our soul and its eternal interests. Alas, the vast majority of professing Christians today are far, far more concerned about their bodies than their souls, about carnal pleasures than spiritual fiches, about earthly comforts than heavenly consolations, about the good opinion of their fellows rather than the approbation of God. But a few— and O how few— are made serious, become in deadly earnest to examine well their foundations and test every inch of the ground they stand on. With them religion is not something to be taken up and laid down according to their fitful moods. Where will they spend ETERNITY is their all-absorbing concern. Every other interest in life sinks into utter insignificance before the vital consideration of seeking to make sure that they have "the root of the matter" in them.  

O my reader, can you be satisfied with the cheap, easy-going religion of the day, which utterly ignores the clamant call of the Son of God "Agonize to enter in at the strait gate" (Luke 13:24)? Can you rest content with the "smooth things" now being proclaimed from well nigh every pulpit, which assures those who are at emnity with God they can become Christians more easily than a youth can join the army, or a man become a ‘ free mason’ or ‘ odd fellow’ ? Can you follow the great crowd who claim to have "received Christ as their personal Savior" when no miracle of grace has been wrought in their hearts, while the Lord Himself declares "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto Life, and few there be that find it" (Matthew 7:14)? Dare you rest upon some "decision" made when you were deeply stirred by some anecdotes addressed to your emotions? Have you nothing more than some change in your religious views or some reformation in your outward ways to show that you are "a new creature in Christ Jesus"? Slight not, we beseech you, this pressing word, "Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God."  

But the word "Looking diligently" has a wider signification than self-examination: it also points out our duty toward each other. The Greek term means "overseeing," exercising a jealous care for one another. This seems to have misled Owen and several others who confined the exhortation unto "the body of the church or society of the faithful" in their mutual relation. But as Spurgeon pointed out on the text, "In the church of God each one should be on his watchtower for himself and for others. The first person who is likely to fail in the church is myself. Each one ought to feel that: the beginning of the watch should therefore be at home." Our text is very similar to the exhortation found in Hebrews 3:13, 14, which is first unto the individual and then to the assembly— "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily."  

Earnestly endeavoring to look well unto my own going, it is then both my duty and privilege to exercise watchfulness over others. "How many persons might be saved from backsliding by a little oversight! If we would speak to the brother kindly and considerately, when we think he is growing a little cold, we might restore him. We need not always speak directly to him by way of rebuke, but we may place a suggestive book in his way, or speak generally upon the subject. Love can invent many ways of warning a friend without making him angry, and a holy example will also prove a great rebuke to sin. In the church we ought to bear one another’ s burden, and so fulfill the law of Christ, exercising the office of bishops over one another, and watching lest any man fail of the grace of God" (C.H. Spurgeon).  

How little of this loving solicitude for the spiritual well-being of our fellow-pilgrims is in evidence today! How little earnest and diligent praying for one another! How little faithfulness in counseling, warning, exhorting! Probably one principal reason for this is the hyper-touchiness of so many professing Christians in this generation. No matter how tactfully the counsel be tendered, how faithfully the warning be given, or how lovingly the rebuke be administered; no matter though it be given by an experienced senior to one he is on familiar terms with, yet in nine cases out of ten his efforts are resented, and he is told— by attitude if not in words— to "mind his own business." Never mind, even if a single ear be gained and a single soul helped, it is worth the disappointments of being repulsed by the others. Only one leper out of the ten appreciated Christ’ s kindness!  

"Lest any man fail of the grace of God." This is the clause which has occasioned controversy: though really it affords no warrant for it, nor will the Greek permit of the marginal rendering. The root word which is here rendered "fail" occurs many times in the N.T., but never once has it the force of "fall from." It means "to lack" or "be deficient of." In Romans 3:23 it is rendered "come short of," in Luke 15:14 to "want," in 2 Corinthians 12:11 "come behind," in Matthew 19:20 "lack," in Philippians 4:12 "suffer need," in Hebrews 11:37 to be "destitute." Thus there is no room for uncertainty as to the meaning of this exhortation: "Looking diligently lest any man fail— come short of, be deficient in, lack— the grace of God."  

But to what does "the grace of God" here refer? That is not quite so easy to answer, for sometimes "grace" is to be regarded objectively, sometimes subjectively; in some passages it refers to the free favor of God, in others to His benevolent operation within the heart, in still others to the effects produced thereby. In our present passage, it seems to the writer, to be used more abstractly, having a comprehensive scope as it is applicable to widely different cases. We feel it safest to regard the clause thus, for God’ s commandment is "exceeding broad" (Ps. 119:96), and very often a single word has a twofold or threefold reference, and therefore we need to be constantly on our guard against limiting the meaning or restricting the application of any utterance of Holy Writ. According to our light we will endeavor to show some of the different cases to which this exhortation belongs.  

"By ‘ the grace of God,’ God’ s favor and acceptance in Christ, as it is proposed and declared by the Gospel, is intended. Herein all spiritual mercies and privileges, in adoption, justification, sanctification and consolation, do consist. For these things, proceeding from the love, grace, and goodness of God in Christ, and being effects thereof, are called the grace of God. The attaining and participation of these things, is that which in the faith and profession of the Gospel, men aim at and design; without which, both the one and the other are in vain. This grace, under all their profession of the Gospel, men may fail of, and this is the evil cautioned against" (John Owen).  

Men may "fail of the grace of God," then, by not submitting themselves to the terms of the Gospel. Those terms are repugnant to the natural man: they are distasteful to his carnal lusts, they are humbling to his pride. But it is at the former of these two points that the majority "fail." The Gospel calls upon sinners to repent, and they cannot do that with sincerity unless they throw down the weapons of their rebellion against God. The thrice holy God will pardon no man so long as he is determined to please himself and continue in a course of sinning. Again; the Gospel calls on sinners to receive Christ Jesus as Lord: to give Him the throne of their hearts, to bow to His scepter. The holy Redeemer will save no man who is unwilling for Him to "rule over" him (Luke 19:14).  

Second, to "fail of the grace of God" is to be satisfied with something short of Divine grace communicated to and ruling in the heart. It is to be contented with a religious substitute for it. How many are deceived by "a form of godliness" who know nothing of its "power" (2 Tim. 3:5). How many mistake a head-knowledge of the Truth for a miracle of grace wrought in the heart. How many substitute outward forms and ceremonies for an experimental acquaintance with the substance of them. How many confuse an external reformation of life with the Divine regeneration and transformation of the soul. Alas, of how very many does it have to be said, "He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul" (Isa. 44:20). O how few there are who know "the grace of God in truth" (Col. 1:5). Do you, my reader? Do you?  

"Some have maintained an admirable character to all appearance all their lives, and yet have failed of the grace of God because of some secret sin. They persuaded even themselves that they were believers, and yet they were not truly so; they had no inward holiness, they allowed one sin to get the mastery, they indulged in an unsanctified passion, and so, though they were laid in the grave like sheep, they died with a false hope, and missed eternal life. This is a most dreadful state to be in, and perhaps some of us are in it. Let the prayer be breathed, ‘ Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.’ Are ye earnest in secret prayer? Do ye love the reading of the Bible? Have ye the fear of God before your eyes? Do you really commune with God? Do you truly love Christ? Ask yourselves these questions often, for though we preach the free Gospel of Jesus Christ, I hope as plainly as any, we feel it to be just as needful to set you on self-examination and to excite in you a holy anxiety. It ought to be often a question with you ‘ Have I the grace of God, or do I fall short of it? Am I a piece of rock crystal which is very like the diamond, but yet is not diamond?’ " (C.H. Spurgeon).  

Third, multitudes "fail of the grace of God" by not persevering in the use of the outward means. They are very earnest and zealous at first, but become careless and slothful. "There are some persons who for a time appear to possess the grace of God, and for a while exhibit many outward evidences of being Christians, but at last the temptation comes most suitable to their depraved tastes, and they are carried away with it. They fail of the grace of God. They appear to have attained it, but they fail at last; like a man in business who makes money for a time, but fails in the end. They fail of the grace of God— like an arrow shot from the bow, which goes straight towards the target for a time, but having too little impetus, fails to reach the mark. There are some who did run well, what doth hinder them that they should not obey the truth?" (C.H. Spurgeon).  

Finally, genuine Christians themselves "fail of the grace of God" by not improving that which God has already bestowed upon them. Faith has been imparted to them, but how little they exercise it. There is an infinite fullness in Christ for them, but how little do they draw upon it. Wondrous privileges are theirs, but how little do they use them. Light has been communicated to them, but how little do they walk in it. They fail to watch and pray lest they enter into temptation (Mark 14:38). They fail to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit (2 Cor. 7:1). They fail to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus (2 Pet. 3:18). They fail to keep themselves from idols (1 John 5:21). They fail to keep themselves in the love of God (Jude 21). And by so failing, their peace is disturbed, their joy is diminished, their testimony is marred, and frequent chastenings are brought upon them.  

"Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you." This is the evil warned against. Observe how abstractly this also is worded: it is not "lest any root of bitterness spring up in you," or "among you," but simply "springing up." The reference, we believe, is again a double one: first to the individual himself, and then to the corporate company. This second "lest" is obviously related intimately to the first: if we "fail of the grace of God" then "a root of bitterness springing up" is to be surely expected. Nor can there be any doubt as to what is signified by this figure of a "root of bitterness springing up"— the uprising of evil is evidently that which is in view. This is what we are here to guard against: failure to do so will bring "trouble" upon us and occasion a stumbling-block to others.  

The first thing to be noted here is the expression "root of bitterness." Now the root of a tree is that part of it which is underground, hence the reference is to that which is unseen. It points to indwelling sin, which continues in a man even after he is regenerated. That is why the Christian is exhorted, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof" (Rom. 6:12). And if that is to be obeyed, then it is imperative we heed the word "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life" (Prov. 4:23). Every stirring of sin within is to be resisted, every defiling effect of it confessed to God. If the weeds be not kept down, the flowers and vegetables will be choked. If the Christian fails in the work of mortification then the cultivation of his graces will be arrested.  

"Lest any root of bitterness springing up." The "springing up" is the appearance of its stalk above the ground. It is the open manifestion of sin in the life, issuing from an unmortified lust in the soul, which is here in view. What is unjudged before God in secret usually ends in becoming open before men. "Be sure your sin will find you out" (Num. 32:23) is a solemn word for each of us on this point. "Lest any root" emphasizes the need of constant watchfulness against every sin, for many branches and sprigs are ready to issue from the main trunk of indwelling corruption. Our safeguards are to yield ourselves wholly to God without reserve at any point, to be well instructed in practical godliness, to preserve a tender conscience, to be more distrustful about ourselves, to cultivate closer daily communion with God, to fix our affections upon things above.  

"Lest any root of bitterness springing up." By nature, sin is pleasant and delightful to us, but in the end it "biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder" (Prov. 23:32). Particularly is this the case with the Christian. God will not long suffer him to indulge his lusts, without making him taste the bitter consequences of the same. The lashings of his conscience, the convictions of the Spirit, the wretchedness of his soul, will cause him to say, "He hath filled me with bitterness, He hath made me drunken with wormwood" (Lam. 3:15). As our text says, "lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble." That which is contrary to God’ s holiness and offends His majesty, He makes a source of trouble to us, either in our minds, bodies, estates, or families. "And many be defiled:" sin is like leaven— its influence spreads: "evil communications corrupt good manners" (1 Cor. 15:33).  

The second half of our text also refers to the local church: in it there is, no doubt, an allusion to Deuteronomy 29:18. Great watchfulness needs to be exercised and a strict discipline maintained therein. Unregenerate professors are ever seeking to creep into the assembly of the saints. If God’ s servants sleep, the Enemy will sow his tares among the wheat. When the suspicion of church officers is aroused, prayer for discernment and guidance is called for. Where the one suspected breaks out in corrupt doctrine or in loose living, he is to be dealt with promptly. Delay is dangerous. The allowance of a "little leaven" will soon corrupt the whole lump. At no point does the local church fail more deplorably today than in its refusal to maintain Scriptural discipline.  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:16-17

Warning Against Apostasy   

(Hebrews 12:16, 17)   

The verses which we are now to consider are among the most solemn to be found in the Word of God. They present a most pointed warning against apostasy. They bring before us what is to all tender consciences a terror-provoking subject, namely, sin for which there is no forgiveness. It is indeed to be deplored that recent writers have dealt with it like they do with most matters— very superficially or quite erroneously. Either they have limited themselves unto two or three passages, ignoring many others directly relating to the theme, or they have wrongly affirmed that no one can commit "the unpardonable sin" during this present dispensation. On the other hand, most of the old writers seem to have devoted their efforts to re-assuring weak and fearing Christians that they had not committed this awful offense, rather than in making any attempt to define the character of the transgression itself.  

The subject is admittedly a difficult one, and we believe God has permitted a measure of obscurity to rest upon it, and that in order to deter men from rashly venturing too near the brink of this terrible precipice. It therefore becomes us to approach it in fear and trembling, with modesty and humility, seeking grace and wisdom from on High to deal with it in a faithful, clear, and helpful manner. For this is no easy thing, if we are to avoid error and preserve the balance of truth. Two extremes have to be guarded against: a blunting of its fearful point so that the wicked would be encouraged to continue trifling with God and sporting with their eternal destiny, or failing to write with sufficient definiteness so that awakened and contrite sinners would not be delivered from sinking into despair beneath Satan’ s lying misuse of it against them.  

Before turning to the positive side it seems necessary to briefly point out wherein they seriously err, who insist that no one ever sins beyond the possibility of Divine pardon during this present era of grace. There are quite a number of passages in the N.T. epistles which clearly show the contrary. In 2 Thessalonians 2:11, 12 we read, "For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." In Hebrews 6:4, 6 it is said of some that" it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance." In Hebrews 10:26, 27 it is said, "For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries;" while in 1 John 5:16 we are expressly informed "there is a sin unto death." In our judgment each of these passages refers to a class of offenders who have so grievously provoked God that their doom is irrevocably sealed while they are yet here upon earth.  

Against the testimony of the above scriptures an appeal has often been made to, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." But the Word of God does not contradict itself, and it is an evil practice which cannot be too strongly condemned to pit one passage against another: any attempt to neutralize one text by another is handling the Truth deceitfully. With regard to 1 John 1:7 three things need to be pointed out.  

First, the precious blood of Christ was never designed to cleanse from every sin— was it designed to cleanse Judas from his betrayal of the Savior! Its application is no wider than its impetration: its virtue does not extend beyond the purpose for which it was shed. Second, it does not say "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin;" instead, it is strictly qualified: "cleanseth us from all sin," that is, God’ s own people. It is dishonest to appropriate these words to unbelievers. Third, the promise is further limited in the preceding clause, "But if we walk in the light as He is in the light."  

Nor do we at all agree with those writers who, while allowing that "the unpardonable sin" may be committed during this present dispensation, yet affirm it is a very rare occurrence, a most exceptional thing, of which only one or two isolated cases may be found. On the contrary, we believe that the Scriptures themselves dearly intimate that many have been guilty of sins for which there was no forgiveness either in this world or the world to come. We say "sins," for a careful and prolonged study of the subject has convinced us that "the unpardonable sin" is not one particular act of committing some specific offense, like maliciously ascribing to Satan the works of the Holy Spirit (which, no doubt, is one form of it), but that it varies considerably in different cases. Both of these conclusions of the present writer will receive illustration and confirmation in what follows.  

The first human being who was guilty of unpardonable sin was Cain. He was a professor or outward worshipper of God, but because Abel’ s offering was accepted and his own rejected, he waxed angry. The Lord condescended to expostulate with him, and went so far as to assure him that if he did well he would not lose his pre-eminence as the firstborn. But so far from doing well, he persisted in wickedness, and his enmity against God was evidenced by his hatred of His child, ending in the murder of him. Whereupon the Lord said unto him, "The voice of thy brother’ s blood crieth unto Me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth... A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth" (Gen. 4:10-12). To which Cain answered, "Mine iniquity is greater than it may be forgiven" (Gen. 4:13, margin).  

The record of Genesis 6 makes it clear that a whole generation of the world’ s inhabitants had transgressed beyond all hope of remedy or forgiveness. "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts if his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth" (Gen. 6:5-7), which was duly accomplished by the Flood. The whole of mankind in the days of Nimrod sinned so grievously (Rom. 1:21-23) that "God gave them up" (Rom. 1:24-26), for His Spirit "will not always strive with men."  

A whole generation of the Hebrews were also guilty of "the great trangression." In Exodus 23:20, 21, we read, "Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of Him, and obey His voice, provoke Him not; for He will not pardon your transgressions: for My Name is in Him." Alas they heeded not this solemn word: "our fathers would not obey, but thrust Him from them, and in their hearts turned back into Egypt" (Acts 7:39). Consequently the Lord said, "Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart, and they have not known My ways. So I sware in My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest" (Heb. 3:10, 11).  

It seems evident to the writer that there have been some in every age who have gone beyond the bounds of Divine mercy. Passing by such individual cases as Pharaoh, Balaam, and Saul, we would observe that the Pharisees of Christ’ s day— the bulk of them at least— were guilty of sin for which there was no forgiveness. It is clear from John 3:2 that they recognized Him as "a Teacher come from God" and from John 11:47 that they could not gainsay His miracles. Nay more, it is plain from Mark 12:7 that they knew the righteousness of His claims: "But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the Heir: come, let us kill Him." Thus they acted with their eyes wide open, sinning against their own confession, against light and knowledge, against the strong conviction His miracles produced, and against His holy life spread before them. Therefore did Christ say to them, "I go My way, and ye shall seek Me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come" (John 8:21).  

"Keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me; then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression" (Ps. 119:13). Here the unpardonable sin is denominated "the great transgression." It is called such because this is what a bold and audacious defiance of God necessarily culminates in, unless sovereign grace intervenes. "Presumptuous" sins are committed by those who, while professing God’ s name and avowing a claim upon His mercy, persist in a known course contrary to His Word. Such rebels, presuming upon God’ s patience and goodness, are mocked by Him, being suffered to go beyond the bounds of His forgiveness. It is also called "blasphemy against the Spirit" (Matthew 12:31), "resisting the Spirit" (Acts 7:51), "doing despite unto the Spirit of grace" (Heb. 10:29). The "new testament" or "covenant" is "the ministration of the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:8), which far exceeds in glory the legal dispensation. To be guilty of the great transgression is to sin willfully against and to speak maliciously of the Holy Spirit, who is revealed and promised in the Gospel; it is a quenching of His convictions, resisting His enlightenment, defying His authority.  

It is called "a sin unto death" (1 John 5:16) because its perpetrator is now out of the reach of the promise of eternal life, having made the Gospel, which is a proclamation of Divine grace unto those who will submit themselves to its requirements, a "savor of death unto death" to himself. He was convicted by it that he was legally dead, and because of his impenitence, unbelief, hardheartedness, and determination to go on having his own way, he is left spiritually dead. Unto others God grants "repentance unto life," (Acts 11:18), but when once "sin unto death" has been committed, it is "impossible to renew again unto repentance" (Heb. 6:4-6). By his opposition to the Gospel and refusal to receive Christ’ s "yoke," the guilty rebel has trampled under foot the blood of God’ s Son, and as that alone can procure forgiveness, there is now no pardon available for him.  

The very fact that it is designated "a sin unto death" rather than "the sin unto death" confirms what we said in a previous paragraph, namely, that it is not some specific offense but rather that the particular form it takes varies in different cases. And herein we may perceive how the sovereignty of God is exercised in connection therewith. God allows some to go to greater lengths of wickedness than others: some evil-doers He cuts off in youth, while other workers of iniquity are permitted to live unto old age. Against some He is more quickly and more strongly provoked than others. Some souls He abandons to themselves more readily than He does others. It is this which renders the subject so unspeakably solemn: no man has any means of knowing how soon he may cross the line which marks the limits of God’ s forebearance with him. To trifle with God is hazardous to the last degree.  

That the sovereignty of God is exercised in this matter appears very clearly from the cases of those whom He is pleased to save. What fearful crimes Manasseh was guilty of before Divine grace renewed him! What dreadful sins Saul of Tarsus committed ere the Lord Jesus apprehended him! Let the writer and the reader review their own unregenerate days: how dreadfully did we provoke the Majesty on high; how long did we persevere in a course of open rebellion; against what restraints, privileges, light and knowledge, warnings and entreaties, did we act! How many of the godless companions of our youth were cut off in their guilt, while we were spared. Was it because our sins were less crimson? No, indeed; so far as we can perceive, our sins were of a deeper dye than theirs. Then why did God save us? and why were they sent to Hell? "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight" must be the answer.  

A sovereign God has drawn the line in every life which marks the parting of the ways. When that line is reached by the individual, God does one of two things with him: either He performs a miracle of grace so that he becomes "a new creature in Christ Jesus," or henceforth that individual is abandoned by Him, given up to hardness of heart and final impenitency; and which it is, depends entirely upon His own imperial pleasure. And none can tell how near he may be to that line, for some reach it much earlier in life than others— according as God sovereignly decreed. Therefore it is the part of wisdom for each sinner to promptly heed that word "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found" (Isa. 55:6), which plainly denotes that soon it may be too late— as Proverbs 1:28-31 and Matthew 25:8-12 plainly show.  

This solemn distinction which God makes between one case and another was strikingly shadowed out under the law. We refer to a remarkable detail concerning the jubilee year, a detail which seems to have escaped the notice of those who have preached and written on the subject. Those in Israel who, through poverty, had sold their possessions, had them restored at the year of jubilee: see Leviticus 25:25-28. That was a wondrous and beautiful figure of the free grace of God towards His people in Christ, by which, and not because of anything of their own, they are restored to the Divine favor and given a title to the heavenly inheritance. But in connection therewith there was an exception, designed by God, we doubt not, to adumbrate that which we are here treating upon. That exception we will briefly notice.  

"If a man sell a dwelling-house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year may he redeem it. And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established forever to him that bought it throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the jubilee" (Lev. 25:29, 30). We cannot now attempt an exposition of this interesting passage or dwell upon its leading features. No part of the "land" could be sold outright (see 5:23), for that was the free gift of God’ s bounty— there can be no failure in Divine grace; but houses in the city were the result of their labor human responsibility being in view. If the house was sold and not repurchased within a year, it passed beyond the reach of redemption, its forfeiture being irrevocable and irrecoverable! Symbolically, the "house" spoke of security under the Divine covenant, for in all generations God in covenant has been the "dwelling-place" of His people (Ps. 90:1). To part with his house typified a professor selling himself to work presumptuous wickedness (1 Kings 21:20), and so selling his soul, his God, his all. To such an one the Spirit will never "proclaim liberty" of the Jubilee, for Satan holds him fast, and Divine justice forbids his discharge: when God "shutteth up a man, there can be no opening" (Job 12:14).  

In view of all that has been before us, how softly we should tread, how careful we should be of not provoking the Holy One! How earnestly we should pray to be kept back from "presumptuous sins"! How diligently should the young improve their privileges: how they should heed that warning, "He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy" (Prov. 29:1)! How careful we should be against adding sin to sin, lest we provoke God to leave us unto final impenitency. Our only safeguard is to heed the voice of the Lord without delay, lest he "swear in His wrath" that we "should not enter into His rest"! How we need to beg God to write those words upon our hearts, "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God" (Heb. 3:12), for there is no hope whatever for the apostate.  

A word now unto those with tender consciences that fear they may have committed sin for which there is no forgiveness. The trembling and contrite sinner is the farthest from it. There is not one instance recorded in Scripture where any who was guilty of "the great transgression" and had been given up by God to inevitable destruction, ever repented of his sins, or sought God’ s mercy in Christ; instead, they all continued obstinate and defiant, the implacable enemies of Christ and His ways unto the end. While there be in the heart any sincere valuing of God’ s approbation, any real sense of His holiness which deters from trifling with Him, any genuine purpose to turn unto Him and submit to His requirements, any true fearing of His wrath, that soul has not been abandoned by Him. If you have a deep desire to obtain an interest in Christ, or become a better Christian; if you are deeply troubled over sin, if your heart grieves over its hardness, if you yearn and pray for more tenderness of conscience, more yieldedness of will, more love and obedience to Christ, then you have no cause to suspect you have committed "the unpardonable sin."  

"Lest there by any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who, for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears" (Heb. 12:16,17). These verses continue what was before us in the preceding one, and complete the series of exhortations begun in verse 12. As we pointed out at the close of the previous article, the ultimate reference in verse 15 is first a warning against that which if disregarded would end in apostasy, and second, a caution against suffering one who evidences the symptoms of an apostate to remain in the assembly— its language being an allusion unto Deuteronomy 29:18. That warning and caution is now exemplified by citing the fearful example of Esau, who, though born among the covenant people and receiving (we doubt not) a pious upbringing, committed a sin for which there was no forgiveness, and became an apostate.  

First of all, two particular sins are here warned against: "fornication" and "profanity," each of which is "a root of bitterness," which if permitted to "spring up" will cause "trouble" to the guilty one and "defile many" with whom he is associated. Both "fornication" and "profanity" are opposed unto the holiness exhorted unto in verse 14. Fornication is a sin against the second table of the Law, and profanity a breach of its first table. As in verse 14 the apostle had enjoined the Hebrews to "follow peace" which has respect to man and "holiness" which regards our relation to God, so now he forbids two sins, the first of which would be committed against man, the second against God. The two sins go together, for where a course of moral uncleanness is followed, profanity almost always accompanies it; and on the other hand, profane persons habitually think lightly of immorality. The forsaking of either sin by sincere repentance is exceedingly rare.  

The term "profane" has a more specific meaning and a wider application than it is commonly accorded in our speech today. "Holy things are said to be profaned when men take off the veneration that is due unto them, and expose them to common use or contempt. To ‘ profane’ is to violate, to corrupt, to prostitute to common use things sacred, either in their nature or by Divine institution. A profane person is one that despiseth, sets light by, or condemneth sacred things. Such as mock at religion, or who lightly regard its promises and threatenings; who despise or neglect its worship, who speak irreverently of its concerns, we call profane persons, and such they are, and such the world is filled with at this day. This profaneness is the last step of entrance into final apostasy. When men, from professors of religion, become despisers of and scoffers at it, their state is dangerous, if not irrevocable" (John Owen).  

An instance of this evil is given in Esau, and a fearfully solemn case his is, one which would warn us not to put our trust in external privileges. "He was the firstborn of Isaac, circumcised according to the law of that ordinance, and partaker of all the worship of God in that holy family; yet an outcast from the covenant of grace and the promise thereof" (Owen). The particular offense with which he is here charged is that "for one morsel of meat" he "sold his birthright." Now the birthright or privilege of the firstborn carried with it the following things: the special blessing of his father, a double portion of his goods, dominion over his brethren, and priestly functions (Num. 3:41) when the father was absent from home. The "birthright" was regarded as a very special thing, being typical of the primogeniture of Christ, of the adoption of saints, and of a title to the heavenly inheritance. All of this Esau despised.  

The historical account of Esau’ s sin is recorded in the closing verses of Genesis 25: the heinousness of it is exhibited in our text. Esau preferred the gratification of the flesh rather than the blessing of God. He relinquished all claims to the privileges contained in and annexed to his being the firstborn, for a trifling and temporary enjoyment of the body. Alas, how many there are like him in the world today. What vast numbers prefer carnal pleasures to spiritual joys, temporal advantages to eternal riches, physical gratification to the soul’ s salvation. By calling Esau "profane," the Holy Spirit reveals that he placed no higher value upon sacred things than he did upon those which were common. That which he received at the price of his wickedness is termed "meat," to indicate that satisfying of the flesh was his motive; and a "morsel," to emphasize the paltriness of his choice.  

The enormity of the sin of "profanity" is determined by the sacredness of the objects to which it is opposed: let the reader carefully compare Leviticus 18:21; 21:9; Nehemiah 13:17; Ezekiel 22:26. The "profane" are guilty of trampling God’ s pearls beneath their feet. To spurn the Scriptures, to desecrate the Sabbath, to revile God’ s servants, to despise or ridicule the Gospel, to mock at the future state, are all so many forms of this unspeakable wickedness. As helps against it we would mention the need of being well instructed from the Word, so that we may know what are "holy" things. To bring our hearts to realize the superlative excellency of holiness. To meditate seriously and frequently upon God’ s indignation against those who slight what He highly esteems.  

"For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears" (verse 17). This takes us back to the closing section of Genesis 27, where we learn the consequences which his sin entailed. Isaac had pronounced the patriarchal benediction upon Jacob, which, when his brother learned thereof deeply agitated him: "He cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry" (Gen. 27:34). It was then that his "tears" were shed: but they proceeded not from anguish of heart because he had sinned so grievously against God, rather did they flow from a sense of self-pity— they expressed his chagrin for the consequences which his folly had produced. Similar are the lamentations of probably ninety-nine out of a hundred so called "death-bed repentances." And such will be the "weeping and wailing" of those in Hell: not because God was so slighted and wronged by them, but because of the eternal suffering which their sins have justly resulted in.  

Esau’ s "tears" were of no avail: "he was rejected." His appeal came too late: Isaac had already bestowed the blessing upon Jacob. It was like an Israelite seeking to recover his property eighteen months after he had sold it: see again Leviticus 25:30. Isaac, who was a prophet of God, His mouthpiece, refused to be moved by Esau’ s bitter wailing. In like manner, the Lord says of those who have sinned away the day of grace "They shall call upon Me, but I will not answer; they shall seek Me early, but they shall not find Me" (Prov. 1:28); and "Therefore will I also deal in fury: Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in Mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them" (Ezek. 8:18). O what point that gives to the call "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near" (Isa. 55:6). Reader, if you have not yet genuinely responded to that call, do so at once; delay is fraught with the utmost peril to your soul.  

The apostle was here addressing professing Christians, and the fearful case of Esau is set before them (and us!) as a warning against departing from the Narrow Way, of exchanging the high privileges of the faithful for the temporary advantages of a faithless world. The doom of the apostate is irretrievable. To lightly esteem, and then despise, sacred things, will be followed "afterward" by bitter regret and unavailing anguish. To reject the terms of the Gospel in order to gratify the lusts of the flesh for a brief season, and then suffer forever and ever in the Lake of Fire, is the height of madness. No excuse could palliate Esau’ s profanity, and nothing can extenuate the wickedness of him who prefers the drudgery of Satan to the freedom there is in Christ. Esau’ s rejection by Isaac was the evidence of his reprobation by God. May it please the Lord to use this article to search the heart of every reader.  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:18-19

Inferiority of Judaism   

(Hebrews 12:18, 19)   

As there are certain parts of a country which offer less attraction than others unto tourists and sight-seers, so there are some portions of Scripture which are of less interest to most readers and writers. As there are some scenes in Nature which can be taken in at a glance while others invite a repeated survey, so there are verses in each Epistle which afford less scope than others unto the teacher. That is why almost every preacher has a sermon on certain favorite texts, whereas other verses are neglected by nearly all pulpits. But the expositor has not the same freedom to follow his inclinations as the textual sermonizer: unless he shirks his duty, he must go through a passage verse by verse, and clause by clause. Still more so is this the case with one who essays to write a commentary upon a whole book of the Bible: he is not free to pick and choose, nor yield to his personal preferences, but must give the same attention and enlargement to one part as to another.  

The above reflections have occurred to the editor as he has pondered the verses which next claim our consideration in Hebrews 12. Their contents are not likely to make much appeal unto the ordinary reader, for there seems little in them which would be relished either by those who have an appetite for "strong meat" or by those preferring the "milk" of babes. Our passage neither sets forth any of the "doctrine of grace" nor presents any practical exhortation for the Christian life. Instead, it alludes to an historical incident which was chiefly of interest to the Jews, and multiplies details from the same which would be tedious unto the average churchgoer of this untoward generation. Nevertheless, it is a part of God’ s Word, and as it lies in our immediate path through this Epistle we shall not ignore or turn from it. As the Lord enables, we shall endeavor to give it the same attention and space as what has preceded it.  

The passage upon which we are about to enter (which reaches from Hebrews 12:18 to the end of the chapter) has been variously interpreted by different commentators. One class of more recent writers have, it seems to us, been far more anxious to read into it their own pet theory regarding the future, than to interpret these verses in accord with the theme of the Epistle in which they are found. It would indeed be strange for the apostle to introduce here a reference to some future "millennium:" the more so in view of the fact that he has studiously avoided the use of the future tense— note the emphatic "ye are come" (verse 22) and "but now" (verse 26). If due attention be paid unto the main line of the apostle’ s argument in this treatise, then there should be no difficulty in arriving at a correct understanding— of the substance of it, at least— of this portion of it.  

As we pointed out so frequently in the earlier articles of this series, the immediate and principal design of the apostle in this Epistle, was to prevail with the Hebrews in persuading them unto a perseverance in their profession of the Gospel, for therein they appear at that time to have been greatly shaken. Therefore does he warn them, again and again, of the various causes and occasions of backsliding. Principal among these were, first, an evil heart of unbelief, the sin which did so easily beset them. Second, an undue valuation of the excellency of Judaism and the Mosaical church-state. Third, wavering under the afflictions and persecutions which fidelity to the Gospel entailed. Fourth, prevalent lusts, such as profaneness and fornication. Each of these we have considered in the preceding sections.  

The principal argument which the apostle had urged unto their constancy in Christianity, was the superlative excellency, glory, and benefit of the Gospel-state into which the Hebrews had been called. This he has accomplished and proved by setting forth the person and office of its Author, His priesthood and sacrifice, with all the spiritual worship and privileges belonging thereto. Each of these he compared and contrasted with the things that corresponded unto the same during the O.T. dispensation. Thereby he set over against each other the type and the antitype, the shadow and the substance, and by so doing made it unmistakably evident that the new economy was immeasurably superior to the old, that all the ordinances and institutions of the law were but prefigurations of those spiritual realities which are now revealed by the Gospel.  

Having insisted so largely and so particularly on these things in the preceding chapters and brought his arguments from them to a plain issue, he now recapitulates them as a whole. In the passage which is now to engage our attention the apostle presents a brief scheme of the two states or economies (designated as "testaments" or "covenants"), balancing them one against another, and thereby demonstrating the conclusive force of his central argument and the exhortations which he had based upon it, unto constancy and perseverance in the faith of the Gospel. It is no new argument which he here proceeds with, nor is it a special amplification of the warning pointed by the example of Esau; still less is it a departure from his great theme by a sudden excursus into the realm of eschatology. Instead, it is a forcible summary, under a new dress, of all he had previously advanced.  

The central design, then, of our passage as a whole, was to present one more and final antithesis of Judaism and Christianity. The contrast here drawn is virtually parallel with the one instituted in Galatians 4 between Hagar and Sarah, the figure of two "mounts" being used instead of the two women. The great honor and chief privilege of the Judaical Church-state whereon all particular advantages did depend, was their coming to and station in mount Sinai at the giving of the Law. It was there that Jehovah revealed Himself with all the insignia of His awe-inspiring majesty. It was there that they were taken into covenant with the Lord (Ex. 24), to be His peculiar people above all the world. It was there that Israel was formed into a national Church (Acts 7:38). It was there that they had committed unto them all the privileges of Divine worship. It is that very glory which the Jews boast of to this day, and whereon they rest in their rejection of the Gospel.  

It was necessary, then, for the apostle to make direct reference unto that upon which the unbelieving Hebrews based all their hopes, and to which they were appealing in their efforts to get their believing brethren to apostatize from Christ. His argument had neither been complete nor conclusive unless he could undermine their confidence in the foundational glory of Judaism, take off their hearts from unduly admiring, and show that it had been succeeded by that which "excelleth." He therefore directs attention to those features in connection with the giving of the Law, which so far from being calculated to win the affections, inspired with dread and terror. He points out a number of items which by their very nature intimated that the Divine communications vouchsafed at Sinai were not the full and final unveiling of the Divine character, such as the souls of awakening sinners longed for.  

Our introduction has been a somewhat lengthy one, though briefer than that of J. Owen, which we have closely followed in the last paragraphs; yet we deemed it necessary. The details of our present passage cannot be viewed in their true perspective until they are rightly focused in the light of our Epistle as a whole. The scope of the passage must first be determined, before we are ready to examine its several members. This calls for time and real study, yet only as this preliminary work is properly executed will we be preserved from those errors which are inevitably fallen into when a passage is treated hurriedly and superficially. This is only another way of saying that, the foundation must be well and securely laid, if it is to bear successfully the superstructure which is raised upon it. Alas that such foundation-labor is so little appreciated today.  

"For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire" (v. 18). The apostle here returns to his central theme by an easy and natural transition. He had just been dehorting from back-sliding, pointed out by the solemn case of Esau. Now he urges unto constancy by appealing to the privileges they enjoyed. As Calvin well put it, "The higher the excellency of Christ’ s kingdom than the dispensation of Moses, and the more glorious our calling than that of the ancient people, the more disgraceful and the less excusable is our ingratitude, unless we embrace in a becoming manner the great favor offered to us, and humbly adore the majesty of Christ which is here made evident. And then, as God does not present Himself to us clothed in terrors as He did formerly to the Jews, but lovingly and kindly invites us to Himself, so the sin of ingratitude will be thus doubled, except we willingly and in earnest respond to His gracious invitation."  

"For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched." The principal design which the apostle here had in hand was to set forth, in its most attractive form (see verses 22-24), that evangelical state where-unto the Hebrews had been called and into which they had entered. This he first does negatively, by describing the Church-state under the O.T., from which they had been delivered. Thus, before the "Ye are come" of verse 22, he introduces this "For ye are not come." Two things were thereby noted: that order or system to which their fathers belonged, but from which they had been freed by their responding to the Gospel call. They were no more concerned in all that dread and terror, and their consideration of that fact supplied a powerful motive to their perseverance in the Christian faith.  

Freely granting that a great privilege was conferred on their fathers at Sinai, the apostle observes "that it was done in such a way of dread and terror, as that sundry things are manifest therein: as, 1. That there was no evidence in all that was done of God’ s being reconciled to them, in and by those things. The whole representation of Him was of an absolute Sovereign and a severe Judge. Nothing declared Him as a Father, gracious and merciful. 2. There was no intimation of any condescension from the exact severity of what was required in the law or of any relief or pardon in case of transgression. 3. There was no promise of grace in a way of aid or assistance for the performance of what was required. Thunders, voices, earthquakes and fire gave no signification of these things. 4. The whole was hereby nothing but a glorious ministration of death and condemnation (as the apostle speaks: 2 Corinthians 3:7) whence the conscience of sinners were forced to subscribe to their own condemnation, as just and equal.  

"5. God was here represented in all outward demonstrations of infinite holiness, justice, severity and terrible majesty on the one hand; and on the other, men in their lowest condition of sin, misery, guilt and death. If there be not therefore something else to interpose between God and men, somewhat to fill up the space between infinite severity and inexpressible guilt, all this glorious preparation was nothing but a theater set up for the pronouncing of judgment and the sentence of eternal condemnation against sinners. And on this consideration depends the force of the apostle’ s argument; and the due apprehension and declaration of, is a better explanation of vv. 18-21 than the opening of the particular expressions will amount to; yet they also must be explained.  

"It is hence evident, that the Israelites in the station of Sinai, did bear the persons of convicted sinners under the sentence of the law. There might be many of them justified in their own persons by faith in the promise; but as they stood and heard and received the law, they represented sinners under the sentence of it, not yet relieved by the Gospel. And this we may have respect to in our exposition, as that which is that final intention of the apostle to declare, as is manifest from the description which he gives of the Gospel-state, and of those that are interested therein" (John Owen).  

"For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched." It is both pathetic and amusing to read the various shifts made by some of the commentators to "harmonize" the opening words of our text with what is said in Exodus 19:12, "Thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall surely be put to death." Some have pleaded that the little "not be touched" was inadvertantly dropped by a copyist of the Greek manuscript. Others insist our verse should be rendered, "Ye are come to a mount not to be touched." But the only "discrepancy" here is in the understanding of the expositors. The apostle was not making a quotation from Exodus. but rather describing, negatively, that order of things unto which the Gospel had brought the believing Hebrews. In so doing, he shows the striking contrast between it and the order of things connected with the giving of the Law.  

"For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched." The simple and evident meaning of this is: The Gospel has not brought you unto that which is material and visible, palpable and touchable by the physical senses, but only what is spiritual and can only be apprehended by faith. A "mount" is a thing of the earth; whereas the glory of Christianity is entirely celestial. The passage which most clearly interprets this clause is found in our Lord’ s discourse with the woman at the well: "Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father... But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth" (John 4:21, 23). Judaism was the Church’ s kindergarten, in which its infantile members were instructed, mainly, through their bodily senses. Christianity has introduced a far superior order of things.  

"For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched," then, is a figurative way of saying that Christ has opened a way into something infinitely superior to a system which, as such, had nothing better than "a worldly sanctuary" and "carnal ordinances" (Heb. 9:1, 10). The Greek word for "come" in our text is that technical or religious term which had been used repeatedly by the apostle in this Epistle to express a sacred access or coming to God in His worship: see Hebrews 4:16, 7:25, 10:1— last clause "comers thereunto." Mount Sinai was a material thing, exposed to the outward senses, and was an emblem of the entire order of things connected with Judaism. As such, it was in complete contrast from that order of things brought in by Christ, which is wholly spiritually, invisible, and celestial. The one was addressed to the bodily senses; the other to the higher faculties of the soul. Spiritually speaking, Romanists and all other Ritualists are occupied with "the mount that might be touched"!  

"And that burned with fire." In their most literal sense those words allude to what transpired at Sinai. In Exodus 19:18 we read, "And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire." But it is with their figurative purport we are more concerned. In Scripture "fire" is the symbol of Divine wrath and judgment. As we are told in Deuteronomy 4:24, "The Lord thy God is a consuming fire, a jealous God," and the "jealousy" of God is, His holy severity against sin, not to leave it unpunished. With respect unto the law which He there gave— for Deuteronomy 33:2 declares "from His right hand went a fiery law"— it signified its inexorable sternness and efficacy to destroy its transgressors. Thus, the "fire" denoted the awful majesty of God as an inflexible Judge, and the terror which His law strikes into the minds of its violators with expectations of fiery indignation.  

This was the first thing which the people beheld when they came to Sinai: God as a "consuming fire" presented to their view! Thus it is in the experience of those whom God saves. For many years, it may be, they lived in a state of unconcern: they had no heart-affecting views of the majesty and authority of God, and no pride-withering apprehensions of the fearfulness of their guilt. But when the Spirit awakens them from the sleep of death, gives them to realize Who it is with whom they have to do, and whose anger burns against sin; when the Law is applied to their conscience, convicting them of their innumerable offenses, their hearts are filled with dread and misery as they perceive their undone condition. There the law leaves them, and thence they must be consumed, unless they obtain deliverance by Jesus Christ.  

And that was exactly what, by Divine grace, these believing Hebrews had obtained. The Redeemer had "delivered them from the wrath to come" (1 Thess. 1:10). They were now as secure in Him as Noah was in the ark. The fire of God’ s wrath had spent itself on the person of their Substitute. God was now reconciled to them, and henceforth they had an inalienable standing before Him— not as trembling criminals, but as accepted sons. To them the word was "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father" (Rom. 8:15). No, as Christians, we have nothing more to do with the mount "that burned with fire," but only with "the Throne of Grace." Hallelujah! Alas that so many Christians are being robbed of their birthright. If Romanists and Ritualists are guilty of being occupied with "the mount that might be touched," then those who are constantly presenting God before His people in His dread majesty— instead of as a loving Father— are taking them back to the mount "that burned with fire."  

"Nor unto blackness and darkness." Here again the literal allusion is unto the awe-inspiring phenomena which attended the giving of the law. There was "a thick cloud upon the mount, . . . mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke" (Ex. 19:16, 18). Different commentators have resorted to various conjectures in their efforts to "harmonize" the "blackness and darkness" with the "fire:" some suggesting the one was followed by the other after an interval of time, others supposing the "darkness" was over the camp and the "fire" at the summit of the mount. But such theorizings are worthless in the face of Deuteronomy 5:22-23, "The Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness . . . ye heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, for the mountain did burn with fire." The fact is this "fire" was supernatural: as that of Babylon’ s furnace burned not while the three Hebrews were in it (Dan. 3), this glowed not— increasing the terror of its beholders because it emitted no light!  

If the above explanation be deemed "far fetched," we would appeal to the corroborating correspondency in the experience of those who have been saved. Was it not a fact that when we were shut up under guilt and terrified by the representation of God’ s severity against sin, we looked in vain for anything in the Law which could yield relief? When the glory of God’ s holiness shined into your conscience and His law was applied in convicting and condemning power, did you perceive His merciful design in the same? No, indeed; at that time, His gracious purpose was covered with "blackness," and "darkness" filled your soul. You perceived not that the law was His instrument for flaying your self-righteous hopes (Rom. 7:10) and "a schoolmaster unto Christ" (Gal. 3:24). Your case appeared hopeless; and despite the fiery power of the law, you knew not how to "order your speech (before God) by reason of darkness" (Job 37:19).  

"And tempest:" under this term the apostle comprises the thundering, lightnings, the earthquake which were on and in mount Sinai (Ex. 19:16, 18) all of which symbolized the disquieting character of so much that marked the Mosaic economy— in contrast from the peace and assurance which the Gospel imparts to those who believingly appropriate it. The order here agrees with the experience of those whom God saves. First, there is an application of the "fiery law," which burns and terrifies the conscience. Second, there is the blackness and darkness of despair which follows the discovery of our lost condition. Third, there is the agitation of mind and turmoil of heart in seeking help by self-efforts and finding none. The soul has no light and knows not what to do. The mind is in a tumult, for no escape from the law’ s just course seems possible. Not yet has Christ appeared to the distressed one.  

"And the sound of a trumpet." This too, we believe, was a supernatural one, emitting ear-splitting tones, shrill and loud, designed to inspire both awe and fear. It signified the near approach of God. It was to summon the people before Him as their lawgiver and Judge (Ex. 19:17). It was the outward sign of the promulgation of the Law, for immediately upon the sound of it, God spoke unto them. It was a pledge of the final judgment, when all flesh shall be summoned before God to answer the terms of His law. Experimentally, it is the imperative summons of the Word for the soul to answer to God’ s call. Those who neglect it, will have to answer for the whole when they receive the final summons at the last day. Those who answer it now, are brought into God’ s presence in fear and trembling, who then reveals to them Christ as an all-sufficient Savior.  

"And the voice of words." This is the seventh and final detail which the apostle here noticed. The "voice of words" was articulate and intelligible, in contrast from the dull roar of the thunder and the shrill tones of the trumpet. Those "words" were the ten commandments, written afterward on the two tables of stone: see Deuteronomy 5:22 and the preceding verses. Those "words" were uttered by the voice of the Lord God Almighty (Ex. 20:1), concerning which we are told, "The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty; the voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars" (Ps. 29:4,5) etc. It was God declaring unto His Church the eternal establishment of His Law, that no alteration should be made in its commands or penalties, but that all must be fulfilled.  

"Which voice they that heard entreated that the words should not be spoken to them any more." This reveals the terror-stricken state of those who were encamped before Sinai. There was that on every side which inspired awe and dread: Nature itself convulsed and supernatural phenomena attending the same. This was intended to show the people that God had ascended His awful tribunal as a strict Judge. But that which filled them with intolerable consternation was the voice of God Himself speaking immediately to them. It was not that they refused to hear Him, but that they desired Him to speak to them through Moses, the typical Mediator. Experimentally, the sinner is overwhelmed when the voice of God in the law comes in power to his conscience.  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:20-21

Inferiority of Judaism   

(Hebrews 12:20, 21)   

The Divine law was, for the substance of it, originally written in the hearts of mankind by God Himself, when their federal head and father was created in His own image and likeness. But through the fall it was considerably marred, as to its efficacious motions in the human heart. The entrance of sin and the corruption of our nature largely silenced its authoritative voice in the soul. Nevertheless, its unchanging demand and dread penalty were secured in the consciences of Adam’ s depraved posterity. The law is so inlaid with the principles of our moral nature, so engrafted on all the faculties of our souls, that none has been able to completely get from under its power. Though the wicked find it utterly contrary to their desires and designs, and continually threatening their everlasting ruin, yet they cannot utterly cast off its yoke: see Romans 2:14, 15. Hence it is that, even among the most degraded and savage tribes, a knowledge of right and wrong, with some standard of conduct, is preserved.  

Not only was the impression of the Divine law upon the human heart largely— though not totally— defaced by Adam’ s apostasy, but from Cain unto the Exodus succeeding generations more and more flouted its authority, and disregarded its requirements in their common practice. Therefore, when God took Israel into covenant relationship with Himself and established them into a national Church, He restored to them His law, in all its purity, majesty, and terror. This He did, not only to renew it as a guide unto all righteousness and holiness, as the only rule of obedience unto Himself and of right and equity amongst men, and also to be a check unto sin by its commands and threatenings, but principally to declare in the Church the eternal establishment of it, that no alteration should be made in it, but that all must be fulfilled to the uttermost before any sinner can have any acceptance with Him.  

As the Law was the original rule of obedience between God and mankind, and as it had failed of its end through the entrance of sin, the Lord had never revived and proclaimed it in so solemn a manner at Sinai, had it been capable of any abrogation and alteration at any time. Nay, He then gave many additional evidences of its perpetuity and abiding authority. It was solely for the promulgation of His law that the presence of God appeared on the mount, attended with such dreadful solemnity. The Ten Commandments were the only communication which God then gave directly unto the people themselves— those institutions which were to be repealed at a later date (the ceremonial laws) were given through Moses! Those ten commandments were spoken directly unto the whole nation with a Voice that was great and terrible. Later, they were written by His own finger on tables of stone. Thus did God confirm His law and evidence that it was incapable of dissolution. How it has been established and fulfilled the Epistle to the Romans makes known.  

The different forms which the Lord’ s appearances took in O.T. times were always in accord with each distinct revelation of His mind and will. He appeared to Abraham in the shape of a man (Gen. 18:1, 2), because He came to give promise of the Seed of blessing and to vouchsafe a representation of the future incarnation. To Moses He appeared as a flame in a bush which was not consumed (Ex. 3), because He would intimate that all the fiery trials through which the Church should pass would not consume it, and that because He was in it. To Joshua He appeared as a man of war, with drawn sword in His hand (Josh. 5:13), because He would assure him of victory over all his enemies. But at Sinai His appearing was surrounded by terrors, because He would represent the severity of His law, with the inevitable and awful destruction of all those who lay not hold of the promise for deliverance.  

The place of this glorious and solemn appearing of the Lord was also full of significance. It was neither in Egypt not yet in Canaan, but in the midst of a great howling desert. Only those who have actually seen the place, can form any adequate conception of the abject dreariness and desolation of the scene. It was an absolute solitude, far removed from the habitation and converse of man. Here the people could neither see nor hear anything but God and themselves. There was no shelter or place of retirement: they were brought out into the open, face to face with God. Therein He gave a type and representation of the Great Judgment at the last day, when all who are out of Christ will be brought face to face with their Judge, and will behold nothing but the tokens of His wrath, and hear only the Law’ s dread sentence announcing their irrevocable doom.  

Sinai was surrounded by a barren and fruitless wilderness, wherein there was neither food nor water. Accurately does that depict the unregenerate in a state of sin: the Law brings forth nothing in their lives which is acceptable to God or really beneficial to the souls of men. The Mount itself produced nothing but bushes and brambles, from which some scholars say its name is derived. From a distance that vegetation makes an appearance of some fruitfulness in the place, but when it be more closely examined it is found that there is nothing except that which is fit for the fire. Thus it is with sinners under the law. They seem to perform many works of obedience, yea, such as they trust in and make their boast of; but when they are weighed in the Divine balance, they are found to be but thorns and briars, the dead works of those whose minds are enmity against God. Nothing else can the law bring forth from those who are out of Christ: "From Me is thy fruit found" (Hos. 14:8) is His own avowal.  

Nor was there any water in the desert of Horeb to make it fruitful. Pause, my reader, and admire the "wondrous works" (Ps. 145:5) of God. When we are given eyes to see, we may discern the Creator’ s handiwork as plainly in the desolate wastes of Nature as in the fertile fields and gardens, as truly in the barren and forbidding mountains as in the fruitful and attractive valleys. He whose fingers had shaped the place where His Son was crucified as "a place of a skull" (Matthew 27:33), had diverted from the desert of Horeb all rivers and streams. That water upon which the people of God then lived, issued from the smitten rock (Ex. 17:6), for it is only through Christ that the Holy Spirit is given: see John 7:28, 39, Acts 2:33, Titus 3:5, 6. They who reject Christ have not the Spirit: see Romans 8:9, Jude 19.  

We may further observe that, the appearing of the Lord God at the giving of the Law was on the top of a high mountain, and not in a plain: this added to both the glory and the terror of it. This gave a striking adumbration of the Throne of His majesty, high over the people, who were far below at its base. As they looked up, they saw the mount above them full of fire and smoke, the ground on which they stood quaking beneath their feet, the air filled with thunderings and lightnings, with the piercing blasts of the trumpet and the voice of the Lord Himself falling on their ears. What other thought could fill their minds than that it was "a fearful thing" to be summoned to judgment before the ineffably Holy One? O that the preachers of our day could say with him who had experienced the reality of Sinai in his own soul, "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men" (2 Cor. 5:11).  

The Lord’ s appearing on mount Sinai was only a temporary one— in contrast with His "dwelling" in Zion (Isa. 8:18). This shadowed-forth the fact that the economy there instituted was but a transient one— though the Law there promulgated is eternal. Those, then, who turn unto Sinai for salvation are left entirely unto themselves. "God dwells no more on Sinai. Those who abide under the law (as a covenant, A.W.P.) shall neither have His presence nor any gracious pledge of it. And all these things are spoken to stir us up to seek for an interest in that blessed Gospel-state which is here proposed to us. And thus much we have seen already, that without it there is neither relief from the cure of the law, nor acceptable fruit of obedience, nor pledge of Divine favor to be obtained" (John Owen, whom we have again followed closely in the above paragraphs).  

Before turning to the final lines in the graphic picture which the apostle gave of the appearing of the Lord at Sinai, let us again remind ourselves of his principal design in the same. The immediate end which the apostle had before him, was to persuade the Hebrews to adhere closely to the Gospel, his appeal being drawn from the evident fact of the superlative excellency of it to the law. In particular, he was here enforcing his former exhortations unto steadfastness under afflictions, to an upright walk in the ways of God, to the following of peace with all men, and to persevere diligently that they failed not of the grace of God. This he does by pointing out that ancient order of things from which they had been delivered, for such is the force of his opening words "ye are not come unto" etc. (verse 18).  

"For they could not endure that which was commanded" (verse 20). Having mentioned in the preceding verses seven things which their fathers came unto at Sinai, the apostle now describes the effects which those startling phenomena produced upon them. The first was, the people "entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more" (verse 19), the reason being "for they could not endure" it. The display of God’ s terrible majesty, the distance from Him they were required to maintain, and the high spirituality of the Law then promulgated, with its fearful penalty attending the least infraction of it, completely overwhelmed them. So it is still: a view of God as a Judge, represented in fire and blackness, will fill the souls of convicted sinners with dread and terror. No matter how boldly and blatantly they have carried themselves, when the Spirit brings a transgressor to that Mount, the stoutest heart will quake.  

When God deals with men by the Law, He shuts them up to Himself and their own conscience. As we pointed out in an earlier paragraph, God gave the Law to Israel neither in Egypt nor in Canaan, but in a desert, a place of absolute solitude, remote from the commerce of men. There the people could neither see nor hear anything but God and themselves. There was no shelter or place or retirement: they were brought out into the open, face to face with Him with whom they had to do. So it is now: when God has designs of mercy toward a sinner, when He takes him in hand, He brings him out of all his retreats and refuges, and compels him to face the just demands of His Law, and the unspeakable dreadful manner in which he has hitherto disregarded its requirements and sought to hear not its accusations.  

When the Law is preached to sinners— alas in so many places today that which gives "the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20) is entirely omitted— it usually falls upon the ears of those who promptly betake themselves to various retreats and reliefs for evading its searching and terror-producing message. They seek refuge in the concerns and amusements of this life in order to crowd out serious and solemn thoughts of the life to come. They listen to the bewitching promises of self-pleasing, "the pleasures of sin for a season." Or, they put far forward in their minds the "evil day," and take security in resolutions of repentance and reformation before death shall come upon them. They have many other things to engage their attention than to listen to the voice of the Law; at least, they persuade themselves it is not yet necessary that they should seriously hearken thereto.  

But when God brings the sinner to the Mount, as He most certainly will, either here or hereafter, all these pretenses and false comforts vanish, every prop is knocked from under him: to hide away from his Judge is now impossible. "Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place" (Isa. 28:17). Then it is that the sinner discovers that "the bed is shorter than a man can stretch himself on it: the covering narrower than he can wrap himself in it" (Isa. 28:20). He is forced out into the open: he is brought face to face with his Maker; he is compelled to attend unto the voice of the Law. There is neither escape nor relief for him. His conscience is now held to that which he can neither endure nor avoid. He is made to come out from behind the trees, to find his fig-leaves provide no covering (Gen. 3:9-11).  

As the stern and inexorable voice of the Law enters into his innermost being, "piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb. 4:12), the poor sinner is paralyzed with fear. The sight of the Divine Majesty on His throne, overwhelms him: the terms and curse of the Law slay his every hope. Now he experiences the truth of Romans 7:9, 10, "For I was alive (in my own estimation) without the law once; but when the commandment came (applied in power to the conscience by the Spirit) sin revived (became a living, raging, cursed reality) and I died (to all expectation of winning God’ s approval). And the commandment, which was unto life, I found unto death." Like Israel before Sinai, the sinner cannot endure the voice of the Law. The Law commands him, but provides no strength to meet its requirements. It shows him his sins, but it reveals no Savior. He is encompassed with terror and sees no way of escape from eternal death.  

That is the very office of the Law in the hands of the Holy Spirit: to shatter the sinner’ s unconcern, to make him conscious of the claims of the holy God, to convict him of his lifelong rebellion against Him, to strip him of the rags of his self-righteousness, to slay all hope of self-help and self-deliverance, to bring him to the realization that he is lost, utterly undone, sentenced to death. "Which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more; for they could not endure that which was commanded" (Heb. 12:19, 20). When the Holy Spirit applies the Law in power, the sinner’ s own conscience is obliged to acknowledge that his condemnation is just. And there the Law leaves him: wretched, hopeless, terror-stricken. Unless he flies for refuge to Christ he is lost forever.  

Reader, suffer us please to make this a personal issue. Have you ever experienced anything which corresponds, in substance, to what we have said above? Have you ever heard the thunderings and felt the lightnings of Sinai in your own soul? Have you, in your conscience, been brought face to face with your Judge, and heard Him read the fearful record of your transgressions? Have you received by the Law such a knowledge of sin that you are painfully conscious that every faculty of your soul and every member of your body is defiled and corrupt? Have you been driven out of every refuge, and relief and brought into the presence of Him who is ineffably holy and inflexibly just, who "will by no means clear the guilty" (Ex. 34:7)? Have you heard that dread sentence "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them" (Gal. 3:10)? Has it brought you down into the dust to cry, "I am lost: utterly, hopelessly lost; there is nothing I can do to deliver myself"? The ground must be ploughed before it can receive seed, and the heart must be broken up by the Law before it is ready for the Gospel.  

In addition to the other terror-producing elements connected with the institution of Judaism, the apostle mentions two other features. "And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart" (verse 20). To increase the reverence which was due to the appearing of Jehovah on Sinai, the people were required to keep their distance at the base of the mount, and were strictly forbidden an approach beyond the bounds fixed to them. This command was confirmed by a penalty, that every one who transgressed it should be put to death, as a disobedient rebel, devoted to utter destruction. This restriction and its sanction was also designed to produce in the people awe and terror of God in His giving of the Law.  

That to which the apostle referred is recorded in Exodus 19:12, 13, "Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever touchest the mount shall be surely put to death: There shall not a hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live." As Owen well suggested, the prohibition respecting the cattle of the Israelites not only made the more manifest the absolute inaccessibleness of God in and by the Law, but also seemed to intimate the uncleanness of all things which sinners possess, by virtue of their relation to them. Everything that fallen man touches is defiled by him, and even "the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord" (Prov. 15:8).  

The punishment of the man who defiantly touched the Mount was death by stoning, that of a beast by stoning or being thrust through with a dart. In either ease they were slain at a distance: no hand touched the one who had offended. This emphasized the heinousness of the offense and the execrableness of the offender: others must not be defiled by coming into immediate contact with them— at what a distance ought we to keep ourselves from everything which falls under the curse of the Law! How the whole of this brings out the stern severity of the Law! "If even an irrational animal was to be put to death in a manner which marked it as un-clean— as something not to be touched— what might rational offenders expect as the punishment of their sins? and if the violation of a positive institution of this kind involved consequences so fearful, what must be the result of transgressing the moral requirements of the great Lawgiver?" (John Brown).  

"And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake" (verse 21). The apostle now turns from the people themselves, and describes the effect upon their leader of the terror-producing phenomena that attended the institution of Judaism. Here was the very man who had dared, again and again, to confront the powerful monarch of Egypt and make known to him the demand of God, and later announced to his face the coming of plague after plague. Here was the commander-in-chief of Israel’ s hosts, who had boldly led them through the Red Sea. He was a holy person, more eminent in grace than all others of his time, for he was "very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth" (Num. 12:3). Now if such a man was overcome with dread, how terrible must be the severity and curse of the Divine Law!  

Furthermore, let it be carefully borne in mind that Moses was no stranger to the Lord Himself: not only was he accustomed to receive Divine revelations, but he had previously beheld a representation of the Lord’ s presence at the bush. Moreover, he was the Divinely-appointed intermediary, the mediator between God and the people at that time. Yet none of these privileges exempted him from an overwhelming dread of the terror of the Lord in the giving the Law. What a proof is this that the very best of men cannot stand before God on the ground of their own righteousness! How utterly vain are the hopes of those who think to be saved by Moses (John 9:28)! Surely if there be anything in all the Scriptures which should turn us from resting on the Law for salvation, it is the horror and terror of Moses on mount Sinai.  

"And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake." The fact that there is no record given in the O.T. of this particular item, occasions no difficulty whatever unto those who believe in the full inspiration of Holy Writ. Nor is there any need for us to have recourse unto the Romish theory of "unwritten tradition," and suppose that a knowledge of the terror of Moses had been orally preserved among the Jews. That which had not been chronicled in the book of Exodus, was here revealed to the apostle by the Holy Spirit Himself, and was now recorded by him for the purpose of accentuating the awfulness of what occurred at Sinai; and this, that the Hebrews should be increasingly thankful that Divine grace had connected them with so different an order of things.  

The scope and design of the whole of our passage should now be obvious to the reader. The purpose of the apostle was to show again how inferior Judaism was to Christianity. This he here does by taking us back to Sinai, where Judaism was formally instituted by the appearing of Jehovah at the giving of the law, and where the Mosaic economy was established by a covenant based thereon. All the circumstances connected with its institution were in most striking accord with the leading features and characteristics of that dispensation. At that time the nation of Israel was in a waste, howling wilderness, standing in speechless terror at the foot of the Mount. There Jehovah manifested Himself in His awful holiness and majesty, as Lawgiver and Judge; the people at a distance fenced off from Him. How profoundly thankful should Christians be that they belong to a much more mild and gracious order of things!  

Sinai was "the mount that might be touched"— a symbol of that order of things which was addressed to the outward senses. The "blackness and darkness" which covered it was emblematic of the obscurity of spiritual things under the Mosaic economy, a thick veil of types and shadows hiding the substance and reality now revealed by the Gospel. The people being fenced off at the base of the mount denoted that under Judaism they had no way of approach and no access into the immediate presence of God. The thunderings, lightnings and fire, expressed the wrath of God against all who transgress His righteous Law. The "tempest" was a sign of the instability and temporariness of that dispensation, in contrast with the peace which Christ has made and the permanent and eternal order of things which He has brought in. The utter consternation of Moses gave clear proof that he was not the perfect and ultimate Mediator between God and men. All of which plainly intimated the need for something else, something better, something more suited unto lost sinners.  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:22

Superiority of Christianity   

(Hebrews 12:22-24)   

"But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly; the Church of the firstborn, which are written in Heaven; and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel" (Heb. 12:22-24). In these verses the apostle completes the last great contrast which he draws between Judaism and Christianity, in which he displays the immeasurable superiority of the latter over the former. Though there may not be in them much of personal interest to some of our readers, yet we feel it incumbent upon us to give the same careful attention to this passage as we have to the previous sections of this epistle.  

The central design of the apostle in verses 18-24 was to convince the believing Hebrews of the pre-eminence of the new covenant above the old, that is, of the Gospel-economy over the Legal. To this end he first directed attention to the awful phenomena which attended the institution of Judaism, and now he sets before them the attractive features which characterizes Christianity. Everything connected with the giving of the Law was fearful and terrifying, but all that marks the Evangelical system is blessed and winsome. The manifestation of the Divine presence at Sinai though vivid and truly magnificent, was awe-inspiring, but the revelation of His love and grace in the Gospel prompts to peace and joy. Those pertained to things of the earth, these concern Heaven itself; those were addressed to the senses of the body, these call into exercise the higher faculties of the soul.  

When going over verses 18-21 we sought to make clear the figurative meaning of their contents. Though there be in them an allusion to historical facts, yet it should be obvious that it is not with their literal signification the apostle was chiefly concerned. As this may not be fully apparent to some of our readers, we must labor the point a little— rendered the more necessary by the gross and carnal ideas entertained by some Bible students. Surely it is quite plain to any unbiased mind that when he said, "For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire" (verse 18) the apostle had reference to something else than a mountain in Arabia. There would be neither force nor even sense in telling Christians "Ye are not come to mount Sinai"— why even of the Hebrew believers it is improbable that any of them had ever seen it.  

If, then, the words "For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched" refer not to any material mount, then they must intimate that order of things which was formally inaugurated at Sinai, the moral features of which were suitably symbolized and strikingly adumbrated by the physical phenomena which attended the giving of the Law. This we sought to show in the course of the two preceding articles. Now the same principle of interpretation holds good and must be applied to the terms of the passage upon which we are now entering. "But ye are come unto mount Sion" no more has reference to a natural mountain than "We have an altar" (Heb. 13:10) means that Christians have a tangible and visible altar. Whatever future the earthly Sion may yet have, it is the antitypical, the spiritual, the Heavenly Sion, which is here in view.  

One of the hardest tasks which sometimes confronts the careful and honest expositor of Holy Writ is to determine when its language is to be understood literally and when it is to be regarded as figurative. Nor is this always to be settled so easily as many suppose: the controversy upon the meaning of our Lord’ s words at the institution of the holy "Supper," "This is My body" shows otherwise. It had been a simple matter for Him to say "This (bread) represents My body," but He did not— why, is best known to Himself. Nor does this example stand by any means alone: much of Christ’ s language was of a figurative character, and more than once His own apostles failed to understand His purport— see Matthew 16:5-7; Mark 7:14-18; John 4:31-34 and John 21:22, 23.  

No, it is by no means always an easy matter to determine when the language of Scripture is to be regarded literally, and when it is to be understood figuratively. In previous generations perhaps there was a tendency to "spiritualize" too much: whether that be so or no, certainly the pendulum has now swung to the opposite extreme. How very often do we hear it said, "The language of Scripture means just what it says, and says just what it means". Many believe that such a declaration is very honoring to God’ s Word, and suppose that anything to the contrary savors strongly of "Modernism." But, surely, a little reflection will soon indicate that such a statement needs qualifying, for there is not a little of the language of Scripture which must be understood other than literally.  

To say nothing about many poetic expressions in the Psalms (such as "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures"), and symbolic language in the Prophets (like "then will I sprinkle clean water upon you... I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh"), take such a saying of our Lord’ s as this: "There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children or lands, for My sake and the Gospel’ s, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children and lands, with persecutions" (Mark 10:29, 30)— the impossibility of literalizing such a promise appears, for example, in a man’ s receiving or having a hundred mothers. Now if that statement is not to be interpreted literally, why should an outcry be raised if the writer presents good reasons for interpreting other verses figuratively?  

After reading the above, some may be inclined to say, "All of this is very bewildering and confusing." Our reply is, Then you must have sat under very superficial preaching. Any well-instructed scribe would have taught you that there is great variety used in the language of Holy Writ, and often much care and pains are required in order to ascertain its precise character. That is one reason why God has graciously provided "teachers" (Eph. 4:11) for His people. True, the path of duty is so plainly defined for us that the wayfaring man (though a fool) need not err therein; but that does not alter the fact that in order to ascertain the exact significance of many particular expressions of Scripture, much prayer, and comparing passage with passage, is called for. The Bible is not a lazy man’ s book, and the Holy Spirit has designedly put not a little therein to stain the pride of men.  

Now much help is obtained upon this difficulty by recognizing that many of the things which pertain to the new covenant are expressed in language taken from the old, the antitype being presented under the phraseology of the type. For instance, when Christ announced the free intercourse between Heaven and earth which was to result from His mediation, He described it to Nathanael in the words of Jacob’ s vision: "Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man" (John 1:51)— not that the Lord Jesus was ever to present the appearance of a ladder for that purpose, such as the patriarch saw in his dream, but that spiritually there would be a like medium of communication established and the agency of a like intercourse maintained. In a similar manner, the death of Christ is frequently spoken of under the terms of the Levitical sacrifices, while the application of His atonement to the soul is called the "sprinkling of His blood on the conscience."  

Not until we clearly perceive that most of that which pertains to the new economy is exhibited to us under the images of the old, are we in the position to understand much of the language found in the Prophets, and many of the expressions employed by our Lord and His apostles. Thus, Christ is spoken of as "our Passover" (1 Cor. 5:7) and as Priest "after the order of Melchizedek" (Heb. 6:20). Paradise is described as "Abraham’ s bosom" (Luke 16:22). The N.T. saints are referred to as "the children of Abraham" (Gal. 3:7) as "the Israel of God" (Gal. 6:16), as "the Circumcision" (Phil. 3:3), as "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people" (1 Pet. 2:9), and that "Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all" (Gal. 4:26). Such terminology as this should amply prepare us for "ye are come unto mount Sion," and should remove all uncertainty as to what is denoted thereby.  

"But ye are come unto Mount Sion." In these words the apostle commences the second member of the comparison between Judaism and Christianity, which completes the foundation on which he bases the great exhortation found in verses 25-29. In the former member (verses 18-21) he had described the state of the Israelitish people (and the Church in it) as they existed under the Legal economy, taken from the terror-producing character of the giving of the Law and the nature of its demands: "they could not endure that which was commanded... and so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake." But now the apostle contrasted the blessed and glorious state into which believers have been called by the Gospel, thereby making manifest how incomparably more excellent was the new covenant in itself than the old, and, how infinitely more beneficial are its privileges unto those whom Divine grace gives a part therein. No less than eight of these privileges are here enumerated— always the number of a new beginning.  

"That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him" (Eph. 1:10). These words throw light on the passage now before us: all the spiritual things of grace and glory, both in heaven and in earth, have been headed up in Christ, so that they all now center in Him. By His mediatorial work the Lord Jesus has repaired the great breach which the sin of Adam entailed. Before sin entered the world there was perfect harmony between Heaven and earth, man and angels uniting in hymning their glorious Creator: together they formed one spiritual society of worshippers. But upon the fall, that spiritual union was broken, and not only did the human race (in their federal head) become alienated from God Himself, but they became alienated from the holy spirits which surround His throne. But the last Adam has restored the disruption which the first Adam’ s sin produced, and in reconciling His people to God, He has also brought them back into fellowship with the angelic hosts.  

Now because God has gathered together in one, recapitulated or headed up, "all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are in earth," when we savingly "come" to Christ, we at the same time, "come" to all that God has made to center in Him; or, in other words, we obtain an interest or right in all that is headed up in Him. Let the reader seek to grasp clearly this fact: it is because believers have been brought to Christ that they "are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels!" By their initiation into the Gospel state, Christians are also inducted into and given access unto all these privileges. Christ and His mediation are specifically mentioned at the close of the various privileges here listed (verse 24), to teach us it is on that account we are interested in them and as the reason for our being so interested.  

Yes, it is to Christ and Him alone (though not, of course, to the exclusion of the Father and His eternal love or the Holy Spirit and His gracious operations) that the Christian owes every blessing: his standing before God, his new creation state, his induction into the society of the holy, his eternal inheritance. It was by Christ that he was delivered from the condemnation and curse of the law, with the unspeakable terror it caused him. And it is by Christ that he has been brought to the antitypical Sion and the heavenly Jerusalem. Not by anything he has done or will do are such inestimable blessings made his. Observe how jealously the Spirit of Truth has guarded this very point, in using the passive and not the active voice: the verb is "ye are come" and not "ye have come." The same fact is emphasized again in 1 Peter 2:25— "ye were as sheep going astray; but are (not "have") now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls"— because of what the Spirit wrought in us, we being entirely passive.  

"But ye are come unto Mount Sion." We need hardly say that this language looks back to the "Zion" of the O.T., the variation in spelling being due to the difference between the Hebrew and Greek. It is in fact to the O.T. we must turn for light upon our present verse, and, as usual, the initial reference is the one which supplies us with the needed key. The first time that "Zion" is mentioned there is in 2 Samuel 5:6, 7, "And the king and his men went to Jerusalem unto the Jebusites the inhabitants of the land... thinking David cannot come in hither. Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion: the same is the city of David." The deeper significance of this appears when we carefully ponder its setting: Zion was captured by David when Israel had been thoroughly tried and found completely wanting. It occurred at a notable crisis in the history of the nation, namely, after the priesthood had been deplorably corrupted (1 Sam. 2:22, 25) and after the king of their choice (Saul) had reduced himself (1 Sam. 28:7) and them (1 Sam. 31:1, 7) to the lowest degradation.  

It was, then, at a time when Israel’ s fortunes were at a low ebb, when they were thoroughly disheartened, and when (because of their great wickedness) they had the least reason to expect it, that God graciously intervened. Just when Saul and Jonathan had been slain in battle, when the Philistines triumphed and Israel had fled before them in dismay, the Lord brought forth the man of His choice. David, whose name means the "Beloved." Up to this time the hill of Zion had been a continual menace to Israel, but now David wrested it out of the hand of the Jebusites and made it the stronghold of Jerusalem. On one of its eminences the temple was erected, which was the dwelling place of Jehovah in the midst of His people. "Zion," then, stands for the highest revelation of Divine grace in the O.T. times.  

Zion lay to the south-west of Jerusalem, being the oldest and highest part of that ancient city. It was outside of the city itself and separate from it, though in Scripture frequently identified with it. Mount Zion had two heads or peaks: Moriah on which the temple was erected, the seat of the worship of God; and the other, whereon the palace of David was built, the royal residence of the kings of Judah— a striking figure of the priestly and kingly offices meeting in Christ. Zion, then, was situated in the best part of the world— Canaan, the land which flowed with milk and honey; in the best part of that land— in Judah’ s portion; in the best part of his heritage— Jerusalem; and in the best part of that metropolis— the highest point, the "city of David." Let the interested reader carefully ponder the following passages and observe the precious things said of Zion: Psalm 48:2, 3; 50:2; 132: 13, 14; 133:3.  

"Zion is, First, the place of God’ s habitation, where He dwells forever: Psalm 9:11; 76:2. Second, it is the seat of the throne, reign and kingdom of Christ: Psalm 2:6; Isaiah 24:23. Third, it is the object of Divine promises innumerable: Psalm 125:1; 128:5, of Christ Himself: Isaiah 59:20. Fourth, thence did the Gospel proceed and the law of Christ come forth: Isaiah 40:9, Micah 4:2. Fifth, it was the object of God’ s especial love, and the place of the birth of His elect: Psalm 87:2, 5. Sixth, the joy of the whole earth: Psalm 48:2. Seventh, salvation and all blessings came forth out of Zion: Psalm 14:7; 110:2; 128:5. Now these things were not spoken of nor accomplished towards that Mount Zion which was in Jerusalem absolutely, but only as it was typical of believers under the Gospel; so the meaning of the apostle is, that by the Gospel believers do come to that state wherein they have an interest in and a right to all the blessed and glorious things that are spoken in the Scriptures concerning and to Zion. All the privileges ascribed, all the promises made to it, are theirs. Zion is the place of God’ s especial gracious residence, of the throne of Christ in His reign, the object of all promises. This is the first privilege of believers under the Gospel. They come to Mount Zion, they are interested in the promises of God recorded in the Scriptures made to Zion; in all the love and care of God expressed towards it, in all the spiritual glories assigned to it. The things spoken of it were never accomplished in the earthly Zion, but only typically; spiritually, and in their reality, they belong to believers under the new testament" (John Owen).  

The contrasts between Sinai and Sion were very marked. The former was located in one of the dreariest and driest places on earth, a "howling desert"; the other was situated in the midst of that land which flowed with milk and honey. The one was ugly, barren, forbidding; the other was "beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth." Sinai was enveloped in "blackness and darkness," while Sion signified "sunny" or "shone upon." God came down on Sinai for only a brief moment, but He dwells in Sion "forever." On the former He appeared in terrible majesty; in the other He is manifested in grace and blessing. At Sinai the typical mediator trembled and quaked; on Sion Christ is crowned with glory and honor.  

"But ye are come to Mount Sion." By this, then, we understand, First, that in being brought to Christ, the believer comes to the antitypical, the spiritual, Sion. Second, more specifically, we understand by this expression that believers are come to the Throne of Grace. Just as, originally, the historical Sion was a menace to Israel, so while we were under the curse of the law God’ s throne was one of judgment. But, just as David (the "Beloved") secured Sion for Israel and it became the place of blessing, where God abode in grace, so as the result of Christ’ s work the Throne of Heaven has become the Throne of Grace, He being Himself seated thereon. Third, in its wider scope, it signifies that believers have a right or title to all the good and glorious things spoken of and to Sion in the O.T.  

"And unto the City of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem," by which we understand Heaven itself, of which the earthly Jerusalem— the seat and center of the worship of God— was the emblem. From earliest times the saints were taught by the Holy Spirit to contemplate the future blessedness of the righteous under the image of a splendid "City," reared on permanent foundations. Of Abraham it is declared, "He looked for a city which hath foundation, whose Builder and Maker is God" (Heb. 11:10). The force of that statement is best perceived in the light of the previous verse: "By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise." Abraham was given to realize that Canaan was but a figure of his everlasting heritage, and therefore did he look forward to (verse 10), "seek" (verse 14), and "desire a better Country, that is, a heavenly" (verse 14). The eternal Abode of the blessed is there called both a "City" and a "Country."  

Many are the allusions to this "City" in the Psalms and the Prophets: we single out a few of the more prominent ones. "There is a river (The Spirit), the streams (His graces) whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High" (Ps. 46:4). "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness" (Ps. 48:1). "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God" (Ps. 87:3). "He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation" (Ps. 107:7). "We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks" (Isa. 26:1). It is to be noted that in several passages the "City" is mentioned with particular reference to "Zion," for we can only have access to God via the Throne of Grace: John 14:6.  

The "City of the living God" intimates the nearness of the saints to God, for Jerusalem was adjacent to Zion— their homes and dwellings were near to His. This figure of the "city" is also found in "Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God" (Eph. 2:19)— see too Revelation 3:12. It is designated "the heavenly Jerusalem" in contrast from the earthly, the "Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all" (Gal. 4:26). It is referred to again in Hebrews 13:14. A "city" is a place of permanent residence, in contrast from the moving tent of the wilderness. In Bible times a "city" was a place of safety, being surrounded by strong and high walls; so in Heaven we shall be eternally secure from sin and Satan, death and every enemy. A city is well stocked with provisions: so in Heaven nothing is lacking which is good and blessed.  

"But ye are come unto . . . the City of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem." "The apostle herein prefers the privileges of the Gospel not only above what the people were made partakers of at Sinai in the wilderness, but also above all that they afterwards enjoyed in Jerusalem in the land of Canaan. In the glory and privileges of that city the Hebrews greatly boasted. But the apostle casts that city in the state wherein it then was, into the same condition with Mount Sinai in Arabia, that is, under bondage, as indeed it then was (Gal. 4:25); and he opposeth thereunto that ‘ Jerusalem which is above,’ that is, this heavenly Jerusalem. This the second privilege of the Gospel-state, wherein all the remaining promises of the O.T. are transferred and made over to believers: whatever is spoken of the city of God or of Jerusalem that is spiritual, that contains in it the love or favor of God, it is all made theirs; faith can lay a claim to it all.  

"Believers are so ‘ come’ to this city, as to be inhabitants, free denizens, possessors of it, to whom all the fights, privileges, and immunities of it do belong; and what is spoken of it in the Scripture is a ground of faith to them, and a spring of consolation. For they may with consolation make application of what is so spoken to themselves in every condition. A ‘ city’ is the only place of rest, peace, safety and honor, among men in this world: to all these in the spiritual sense we are brought by the Gospel. Whilst men are under the law they are at Sinai— in a wilderness where is none of these things; the souls of sinners can find no place of rest or safety under the law. But we have all these things by the Gospel: rest in Christ, peace with God, order in the communion of faith, safety in Divine protection, and honor in our relation to God in Christ" (John Owen).  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:23-24

Superiority of Christianity   

(Hebrews 12:22-24)   

"But ye are come unto" etc. (verse 22). These words do not, in fact cannot, mean, that in some mystical sense believers are "in spirit" projected into the future, to something which will only be actualized in the future. The Greek verb has a specific significance in this Epistle, as may be seen by a careful reference to Hebrews 4:16, 7:25, 11:6: "to come unto" here means to approach as worshippers. In the verses now before us we are shown the high dignity and honor of that spiritual worship which is the privilege of Christians under the Gospel dispensation. When they meet together in the name of the Lord Jesus, as His people, and with a due observance of His holy institutions, they "are come unto," have access to, the eight privileges here enumerated: they draw nigh by faith to Heaven itself, to the antitypical holy of holies. But this is possible only to spiritual worshippers.  

They who are strangers to experimental spirituality soon grow weary even of the outward form of worship, unless their eyes are entertained with an imposing ritual and their ears regaled by appealing music. This is the secret of the pomp and pageantry of Romanism-now, alas, being more and more imitated by professing Protestants; it is to attract and charm religious worldlings. Ritualists quite obscure the simplicity and beauty of true Gospel worship. Man in his natural estate is far too carnal to be pleased with a worship in which there is nothing calculated to fire the imagination and intoxicate the senses by means of tangible objects. But they who worship in spirit and in truth can draw nigh to God more joyously in a barn, and mingle their praises with the songs of Heaven, than if they were in a cathedral.  

How vast is the difference between that spiritual adoration which issues from renewed hearts and that "form of godliness" which is associated with altars and candles, choirs and surpliced ministers! Only that is acceptable to God which is produced by the Holy Spirit through sinners washed in the blood of the Lamb. Under grace-magnifying and Christ-exalting preaching, the spiritual senses of real Christians are exercised; as they behold the Savior's glories in the glass of the Gospel, as they hear His voice, they have an inward impression of His presence, they taste afresh of His goodness, and His name is to them as ointment poured forth, perfuming their spirits. In this joyous frame, their hearts are drawn Heavenwards, and their songs of praise mingle with those of the holy angels and the spirits of just men made perfect.  

"But ye are come unto Mount Sion." David, after having taken Mount Zion from the Jebusites, made it the place of his residence, so that it became "the city of the great king." There he reigned and ruled, there he issued his laws, and thence he extended the sway of his peaceful scepter over the whole of the holy land. From that circumstance, Mount Zion became the great type of the kingdom of God, of which the Lord Jesus Christ is the Head and Sovereign. As David ruling upon Mount Zion in the palace built there as his royal seat, issuing his commands which were obeyed all over the land, so our blessed Redeemer has been exalted according to God's promise "Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion" (Ps. 2:6 and cf. Hebrews 2:9); and there sitting as King in Sion, issues His mandates and sways His peaceful scepter over the hearts of His obedient people.  

"And unto the City of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem." Most of the older writers understood these terms to refer to the Church, but we think this is a mistake, for the Church is referred to, separately, in a later clause. As pointed out in the preceding article, we regard this language as signifying Heaven itself, as the residence of God and the eternal abode of His people. "The living God" is the true and only God, the Triune Jehovah, the Fountain of all life, the One who is "from everlasting to everlasting," without beginning or end: this title is given to each of the eternal Three-Matthew 16:16, 1 Timothy 4:10, 2 Corinthians 6:16, cf. 1 Corinthians 3:16. As "Zion" was the seat of David's throne, so "Jerusalem" was the dwelling place of Jehovah in the midst of His covenant people. "Jerusalem" signifies "the Vision of Peace," and in Heaven the "sons of peace" (Luke 10:6) will behold the glory of God in the face of the Prince of peace.  

"And to an innumerable company of angels." This is the third great privilege enjoyed by the worshippers under the Christian economy: having mentioned the place to which Divine grace has brought believers, the Holy Spirit now described the inhabitants of the heavenly Jerusalem. The angels, who are worshippers of God and His Christ, are perhaps mentioned first because they are in closer proximity to the Throne, because they are the original denizens of Heaven, and because they are greatly in the majority. The reference is, of course, to the holy angels who kept their first estate and sinned not when some of their fellows apostatized. They are "the elect angels" (1 Tim. 5:21), and although they have not been redeemed by the atoning blood of the Lamb, it appears highly probable that they were confirmed in their standing by the incarnation of the Son, for God has united in Christ both elect men and elect angels (Eph. 1:10), that He might be "the Head of all principality and power" (Col. 2:10).  

"Ye are come unto . . . an innumerable company of angels." This sets before us a further contrast between that which characterizes Christianity, and what obtained under the Mosaic economy-that is, so far as the Israelitish nation as a whole was concerned. It is clear from several passages that "angels" were connected with the giving of the Law, when Judaism was formally instituted. We read, "the Lord came from Sinai and rose up from Seir unto them; He shined from mount Paran, and He came with ten thousands of saints: from His right hand went a fiery law for them" (Deut. 33:2): and again, "The chariots of God are twenty thousands, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai" (Ps. 68:17). But while many "thousands" of the heavenly hosts attended Jehovah upon Sinai, this was very different from the "innumerable company" with which we are connected, namely the "ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands" of Revelation 5:11. And even to the many thousands of angels at Sinai the Nation did not "come": instead, they were fenced off at the foot of the mount.  

Redeemed sinners who have fellowship with the Father and the Son by the Holy Spirit, are of one spirit with all the heavenly hosts, for there is a union of sentiment between them. Christians have been brought into a state of amity and friendship with the holy angels: they are members of the same family (Eph. 3:15), are united under the same Head (Col. 2:10), and joined together in the same worship (Heb. 1:6; Revelation 5:9-14). We are "come unto" them by a spiritual relation, entering into association with them, sharing the benefits of their kind offices, for "are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?'' (Heb. 1:14). The angels are "fellow servants" with believers "that have the testimony of Jesus" (Rev. 19:10). Wondrous fact is this that sinners of the earth, while here in this world, have communication with the angels in Heaven, for they are constantly engaged in the same worship of God in Christ as we are: Thus there is perfect oneness of accord between us.  

As we pointed out in the preceding chapter, the Church's spiritual union with the holy angels-being united together in one spiritual society and family-is due to the atoning work of Christ, who by putting away the sins of His people has restored the breach made by Adam's fall and "reconciled all things unto Himself" (Col. 1:20). Hence we believe that in the verse now before us there is not only a contrast drawn between Judaism and Christianity, but that its ultimate reference is to the immense difference brought in between the offense of the first Adam and the righteousness of the last Adam. Upon the transgression of Adam we read "So He drove out the man: and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life" (Gen. 3:24). There God made His "angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire" (Heb. 1:7) to execute His vengeance against us; but now these same angels are our associates in worship and service.  

God is "the Lord of hosts" (Ps. 46:7), myriads of holy celestial creatures being in an attendance upon Him-"an innumerable company of angels:" how this should help us to realize the majesty and grandeur of that Kingdom into which Divine grace has brought us. In this expression we may also discern a word to encourage our trembling hearts in connection with our wrestling against the "hosts of wicked spirits" (Eph. 6:12): numerous as are the forces of Satan assailing us, an "innumerable company of angels" are defending us! This was the blessed truth by which Elisha comforted his fearing servant "they that be with us are more than they that be with them" (2 Kings 6:16, 17). "When the thought of Satan and his legions brings fear, we ought to comfort ourselves with the assurance that more in number and greater in power are the loving and watchful angels, who for Christ's sake regard us with the deepest interest and affection" (A. Saphir).  

Before turning to the next item a word should be said in refutation of the blasphemous error of Romanists concerning our relation to the angels. They teach that we are "come unto" the angels with our prayers, which is one of their empty superstitions-there is not a word in Scriptures to countenance such an idea. Though it be true that the angels are superior to us in dignity and power, yet in communion with God we are their equals-"fellow-servant', (Rev. 22:9), and, as Owen pointed out, "Nothing can be more groundless than that fellow-servants should worship one another"-the worshipping of angels is condemned in Colossians 2:18, Revelation 22:8, 9. Well did Owen also point out, "It is the highest madness for any one to pretend himself to be the head of the church, as the pope does, unless he assume also to himself to be the head of all the angels in Heaven," for we belong to the same holy society.  

"To the general assembly." This expression occasions some difficulty, for in the first place it is not quite clear as to what the Spirit specifically alludes unto. In the second place, the Greek word (pangueris, a compound one) occurs nowhere else in the N.T., so that we are not able to obtain any help from its usage in other passages. In the third place, it is not very easy to decide whether this clause is to be linked with the one immediately preceding or with the one following it. In its classical usage the Greek word was employed in connection with a public convocation, when all the people were gathered together to celebrate a public festival or solemnity. Most of the commentators link this word with what follows: "To the general assembly and church of the firstborn," understanding the reference to be unto the ("general") union of believing Jews and believing Gentiles in one Body. Personally, we think this is a mistake.  

First , such language would be tautological, for if the "general assembly" points to the middle wall of partition being broken down, and converted Jews and Gentiles being joined together in one Body, that would be "the Church." Second , the denomination "church of the firstborn" takes in the totality of God's elect and redeemed people of all ages. Third , there is no "and" between the "innumerable company of angels" and the "general assembly," as there is in every other instance in these verses where a new object is introduced. Personally, we regard this third expression as in apposition (the placing together of two nouns, one of which explains the other) to the former, thus: "unto an innumerable company of angels-the general assembly." There are various ranks and orders among the angels: principalities and powers, thrones and dominions, seraphim and cherubim, and the "general assembly" of them would be the solemn convocation of all the angelic hosts before the throne of God-compare "A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him: thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him: the judgment (a special convocation) was set, and the books were opened" (Dan. 7:10).  

No doubt this amplifying expression (of the "innumerable company of angels") also emphasizes another contrast between the privileges of Christianity and that which obtained under Judaism. Perhaps the contrastive allusion is a double one. First, from the general assembly of Israel at Sinai, when the whole of the nation was then formally assembled together-in fear and trembling. Second, to the general assembly of all the male Israelites three times in the year at the solemn feasts of the O.T. Church (Ex. 34:23, Deuteronomy 16:16) which was called "the great congregation" (Ps. 22:25, 35:18, etc.)-in joy and praise. But each of these were on earth, by men in the flesh; whereas Christians, in their worship, unite with all the holy hosts of Heaven in blessing and adoring the Triune God.  

"And Church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven": that is, to the entire company of God's redeemed. "This is that church whereunto all the promises do belong; the church built on the rock, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail; the spouse, the body of Christ, the temple of God, His habitation forever. This is the church which Christ loved and gave Himself for, which He washed in His own blood, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish (Eph. 5:25-27). This is the church out of which none can be saved, and whereof no one member shall be lost" (John Owen).  

This is the only place in the N.T. where the election of grace is designated "the Church of the firstborn ones" (plural number in the Greek). Why so here? For at least three reasons. First, so as to identify the Church with Christ as the "Heir of all things" (Heb. 1:2). The prominent idea associated with the "firstborn" in Scripture is not that of priority, but rather excellency, dignity, dominion, and right to the inheritance. This is clear from "Reuben, thou art my firstborn,... the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power" (Gen. 49:3); and again "I will make Him My firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth" (Ps. 89:27). For the "firstborn" and the "inheritance" see Genesis 27:19, 28, 29 and cf. Hebrews 12:16; Deuteronomy 21:16; 1 Chronicles 5:1. Second, this title intimates the Church's glory is superior to that of the celestial spirits: redeemed sinners and not fallen angels are God's "firstborn ones." Third, this points a further contrast from Judaism: Israel was God's "firstborn" (Ex. 4:22) among the nations of the earth; but the Church is His "firstborn" among the inhabitants of Heaven!  

The Church is raised to the highest created dignity: superior privileges and a nobler dignity of son-ship pertain to its members than to the holy angels. This is solely due to their union with Christ, the original "Firstborn": Psalm 89:26, 27; Romans 8:29; Hebrews 1:6. Christians have been made "kings and priests unto God" (Rev. 1:6), which compromises the whole right of the inheritance. The entire election of grace, by God's gratuitous adoption, are not only members of His family, but "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ" (Rom. 8:17), and thus given an inalienable title to the heavenly inheritance. This was equally true of the saints of all generations from the foundation of the world, yet a much clearer and fuller revelation thereof has been made under this Christian economy: "which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit" (Eph. 3:5).  

"Which are written in Heaven," announcing that they are genuine Christians-in contrast from mere professors, whose names are recorded only upon the church-scrolls of earth. Just as the registering of men's names on the rolls of corporations, etc., assures them of their right to the privileges thereof (for example, to vote-which we believe is something that no child of God should do), so our names being written in Heaven is the guaranty of our title to the celestial heritage. It was to this Christ referred when He said, "Rejoice because your names are written in heaven" (Luke 10:20). The apostle Paul also speaks of those "whose names are in the book of life" (Phil. 4:3): that Book of Life (cf. Revelation 3:5 and 13:8) is none other than the roll of God's elect, in His eternal immutable designation of them unto grace and glory. "Written in Heaven" points another contrast from Judaism: the names of Jews (as such) were only written upon the synagogue scrolls.  

"And to God the Judge of all." The reference here is not (as some recent writers have supposed) unto the person of Christ, but rather unto God the Father in His rectoral office as the high Governor of all. Does this seem to spoil the harmony of the passage? had we not much preferred it to read "and to God our Father"? No, coming to "God the Judge of all" in nowise conflicts with the other privileges mentioned: it is a vastly different thing to be brought before a judge to be tried and sentenced as a criminal, from having a favorable access to him as our occasions and needs may require. Such is the meaning here: we are come not only to the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the Church, but also the supreme Head of the heavenly society-the Author and End of it.  

"And to God the Judge of all," that is, the Majesty of Heaven itself. It was God as Judge who appointed Christ to death, and it was God as Judge who accepted His sacrifice and raised Him from the dead. To God as "Judge" believers have been reconciled and by Him they were justified (Rom. 8:33). Concerning Christ our Exemplar, we read "when He suffered, He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously" (1 Pet. 2:23). The apostle reminded the saints that "it is a righteous thing for God (as "Judge") to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you" (2 Thess. 1:6). Now it was as Judge that God ascended His awful tribunal at Sinai, and that the people could not endure: but Christians draw nigh to Him with holy boldness because His law has nothing against them-the requirements of His justice were fully met by Christ. How great is the privilege of that state which enables poor sinners, called by the Gospel, to approach the Judge of all upon His "bench" or throne without fear! Only by faith is this possible.  

"And to the spirits of just men made perfect." It is blessed to note that this comes immediately after mention of "the Judge of all"-to show us the saints had nothing to fear from Him, "for there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ" (Rom. 8:1). The reference is to the O.T. believers, who have passed through death: that N.T. saints are "come" to them is clear from Ephesians 2:19. Of course that "made perfect" is relative and not absolute, for their resurrection and full glorification is yet future. As Owen defined it: First, they had reached the end of the race wherein they had been engaged, with all the duties and difficulties, temptations and tribulations connected therewith. Second, they were completely delivered from sin and sorrow, labor and trouble, which in this life they had been exposed to. Third, they had now entered their rest and reward and were, according to their present capacity, in the immediate presence of God and perfectly happy.  

"And to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant:" His personal name is used here because it is in this character He saves His people from their sins-compare our exposition of 9:15-17. Here again a contrast is drawn from that which obtained under the old covenant. Moses was the middle person between Israel and God: chosen by the people (Ex. 20:19, etc.) and appointed by Him to declare His mind unto them; unto him they were all baptized (1 Cor. 10:2). But Moses was merely a man, a fallen descendant of Adam: he delivered God's law to the people, but was incapable of magnifying and making it honorable by a perfect personal obedience. Nor was he that "surety" of the covenant unto God for the people, as Christ was; he did not confirm the covenant by offering himself as a sacrifice to God, nor could he give the people an interest in heavenly privileges. How far short he came of Christ!  

By being brought unto "Sion," Christians are come to all the mercy, grace and glory prepared in the new covenant and presented in the promises of it. Herein lies the supreme blessedness and eternal security of the Church, that its members are taken into such a covenant that they have a personal interest in the Mediator of it, who is able to save them unto the uttermost. This is the very substance and essence of Christian faith, that it has to do with the Mediator of the new covenant, by whom alone we obtain deliverance from the old covenant and the curse with which it is accompanied. It is both the privilege and wisdom of faith to make use of this "Mediator" in all our dealings with God: He it is who offers to God our prayers and praises and brings down the favor of God upon His people.  

"And to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." The blood of Christ is referred to thus in allusion unto the various sprinklings of blood Divinely instituted under the old covenant, the three most signal instances of which are recorded in Exodus 12:22; 24:6-8; Leviticus 16:14, the principal reference here being to Exodus 24, where the old covenant was thus ratified. All of those instances were eminent types of the redemption, justification and sanctification of the Church by the blood of Christ. The specific thing denoted by the "sprinkling" (in contrast from its "shedding") is the application to believers of its virtues and benefits. The more the Christian exercises repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, the more will he experience the peace-speaking power of that precious blood in his conscience. The blood of Christ "speaketh" to God as a powerful Advocate: urging the fulfillment of the Mediator's part of the everlasting covenant, His perfect satisfaction to Divine justice, the full discharge from condemnation purchased for His people.  

The contrast here is very impressive: the blood of Abel called for vengeance (Gen. 4:10), whereas the blood of Christ calls for blessing to be bestowed on those for whom it was shed. Even the blood of the wicked if unrighteously shed, calls to God for it to be recompensed. But Abel was a saint, the first martyr, and his blood cried according to the worth that was in him, for "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." If then the blood of a saint speaks so forcibly to God, how infinitely more powerfully must the blood of "the King of saints" (Rev. 15:3) plead! If the blood of a single member of Christ's Body so speaks to God, what will the blood of the Head Himself! Moreover, Abel's blood only cried to God "from the ground," where it was shed, but Christ's blood speaks in Heaven itself (Heb. 9:12).  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:25

Call to Hear   

(Hebrews 12:25, 26)   

"See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh: for if they escaped not who refused Him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from Heaven" (verse 25). In these words we find the Holy Spirit moving the apostle to make a practical application unto his readers of what he had just brought before them in the previous verses. The degree or extent of the privileges enjoyed, is the measure of our responsibility: the richer the blessing God grants us, the deeper is our debt of obligation to Him. "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more" (Luke 12:48): it was of this principle and fact the Hebrews were now reminded.  

The apostle had just completed drawing his final contrast between Judaism and Christianity (verses 18-24), in which he had again shown the immeasurable superiority of the latter over the former, and now he uses this as a basis for an exhortation unto faith and obedience, or faithfulness and perseverance. Herein we have another example of the apostolic method of ministry: all their teaching had a practical end in view. Their aim was something more than enlightening the mind, namely, the moving of the will and ordering of the walk. Alas that there is so little of this in present-day teaching and preaching. The design of the pulpit now seems to be entertaining the people, and rarely does it go further than instructing the mind— that which searches the conscience or calls for the performance of duty, that which is solemn and unpalatable to the flesh, is, for the most part, studiously avoided. May it please the Lord to grant His servants all needed grace for deliverance from a compliance with this "speak unto us smooth things."  

The grander the revelation which God is pleased to make of Himself, the more punctual the attendance and the fuller the response which He requires from us. In the verses which are now before us we find the apostle improving his argument by pointing out the weighty implications of it. Therein he returns to his main design, which was to urge the professing Hebrews unto steadfastness in their Christian course and conflict, and to steadily resist the temptation to lapse back into Judaism. This deeply important and most necessary exhortation he had urged upon them again and again; see Hebrews 2:1, 3; 3:12, 13; 4:1; 6:4-6; 10:26-29; 12:1, 15. Therein the servant of God may learn another valuable lesson pointed to by the example of the apostle, namely, how God requires him to go over the same ground again and again where the practical duties of the Christian are concerned, and hesitate not to frequently repeat the exhortations of Holy Writ! This may not increase his popularity with men, but it will meet with the Lord’ s approval; and no faithful minister can have both!  

"See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh." The Greek word for "see" is rendered "take heed" in Hebrews 3:12; the word for "refuse" signifies "deprecate"— do not disregard, still less reject. Now not only is this argument based upon the statement made in the preceding verses, but the motive for complying with it is to be drawn therefrom. It is because we "are not come unto the mount that might be touched and that burned with fire" (v. 18), that is, unto that order of things wherein the Divine righteousness was so vividly displayed in judicial manifestion; but because we "are come unto mount Sion," which speaks of pure grace, that we are now thus exhorted, for holiness ever becometh God’ s house. It is in the realization of God’ s wondrous grace that the Christian is ever to find his most effectual incentive unto a godly walk; see Titus 2:11, 12.  

"See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh," which is the negative way of saying "Hear Him"— Heed Him, by believing and yielding obedience to what He says. This exhortation looks back to "I will raise them up a Prophet, from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put My words in His mouth: and He shall speak unto them all that I shall command Him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto My words which He shall speak in My name, I will require it of him" (Deut. 18:18, 19); cf. Acts 3:22; 7:37. This is what the apostle now reminded the Hebrews of: take heed that ye hear Him, for if you fail to, God will consume you with His wrath. A similar charge was given by God after Christ became incarnate: "This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him" (Matthew 17:5).  

"This is the foundation of all Gospel faith and obedience, and the formal reason of the condemnation of all unbelievers. God hath given command unto all men to hear, that is, believe and obey His Son Jesus Christ. By virtue thereof, He hath given command unto others to preach the Gospel unto all individuals. They who believe them, believe in Christ; and they who believe in Christ through Him, believe in God (1 Pet. 1:21), so that their faith is ultimately resolved into the authority of God Himself. And so they who refuse them, who hear them not, do thereby refuse Christ Himself; and by so doing, reject the authority of God, who hath given this command to hear Him, and hath taken on Himself to require it when it is neglected; which is the condemnation of all unbelievers. This method, with respect unto faith and unbelief, is declared and established by our Savior: ‘ he that heareth you, heareth Me; and He that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me:’ Luke 10:16" (John Owen).  

"See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh"— note carefully the present tense: not "that spoke." Christ is still speaking through His Gospel, by His Spirit, and instrumentally through His own commissioned servants, calling upon all who come under the sound of His voice to serve and obey Him. There are many ways in which we may "refuse" to hear and heed Him. First, by neglecting to read daily and diligently the Scriptures through which He speaks. Second, by failing to attend public preaching where His Word is faithfully dispensed— if so be we live in a place where this holy privilege is obtainable. Third, by failing to comply with the terms of His Gospel and yield ourselves unto His authority. Fourth, by forsaking the Narrow Way of His commandments and going back again to the world. Fifth, by abandoning the truth for error, which generally ends in total apostasy. How we need to pray for an hearing ear, that is, for a responsive heart and yielded will.  

"For if they escaped not who refused Him that spake on earth. much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from Heaven." In these words the apostle continues to emphasize the contrast which obtains between Judaism and Christianity. What we have here is an echo from the keynote struck in the opening words of our epistle: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son" (Heb. 1:1, 2). It is in the light of that statement our present verse is to be read and interpreted. The Speaker throughout is one and the same, namely, God (the Father), but the mouthpieces He employed differed greatly: under Judaism He spoke through mere men, the "prophets," but in connection with Christianity He speaks in and by His own beloved "Son."  

This difference in the respective mouthpieces employed by God was in accord with and indicative of the relative importance of the two revelations given by Him. Judaism was but a religion for earth, and a temporary arrangement for the time being: accordingly, human agents were God’ s instruments in connection therewith. But Christianity is a revelation which concerns a heavenly calling, heavenly citizenship, a heavenly inheritance, and exhibits eternal relations and realities: appropriately, then, was the everlasting Son, "the Lord from Heaven," the One by whom its grand secrets were disclosed. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him" (John 1:18). The primary reference there is a dispensational one. Under Judaism God dwelt behind the veil; but under Christianity "we all with unveiled face" behold, as in a glass, "the glory of the Lord" (2 Cor. 3:18). Under the old covenant men were unable to go in to God; but under the new covenant God has, in the person of Christ, come out to men.  

But blessed and glorious as is the contrast between Judaism and Christianity, equally solemn and terrible is the contrast between the punishment meted out to those who refuse God’ s revelation under each. God speaks now from a higher throne than the one He assumed at Sinai: that was on earth; the one He now occupies is in Heaven. Therefore it must inevitably follow that the guilt of those who refuse to heed Him today is far greater, and their punishment must be the more intolerable. Not only do higher privileges involve increased obligations, but the failure to discharge those added obligations necessarily incurs deeper guilt and a heavier penalty. This is what the apostle presses here, as he had in "For if the word spoken by angels (at Sinai) was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" (Heb. 2:2, 3). If, then, we in any wise fear God’ s vengeance or value His favor how it behooves us to most seriously heed the grace proffered in the Gospel!  

Though Christianity has in it far less of what is terrifying than had Judaism and far more in it which exhibits the grace and mercy of God, nevertheless, apostasy from the one cannot be less terrible in its consequences than was apostasy from the other. There is as much to be dreaded in disregarding the authoritative voice of God now as there was then; yea, as we have pointed out, the rejection of His message through Christ involves a worse doom than despising of His word through Moses and the prophets. "He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God?" (Heb. 10:28, 29). True, God does not now speak amid thunderings and lightnings, but rather by a tender appeal to our hearts; yet the rejection of the latter is fraught with more direful consequences than was the refusal of the former.  

Alas that this weighty truth is so feebly apprehended today, and so little emphasized by the pulpit. Is it not a fact that the idea now generally prevailing is, that the God of the N.T. is far more amiable and benevolent than the God of the O.T.? How far from the truth is this: "I change not" (Mal. 3:6) is the Lord’ s express avowal. Moreover, it is under the new covenant (and not the old) that we find the most awe-inspiring and terror-provoking revelation of the righteous wrath of a sin-hating God. It was not through Moses or the prophets, but by the Lord Jesus that the everlasting fires of Hell were most vividly depicted: He it was who spoke the plainest and the most frequently of that fearful place wherein there is "wailing and gnashing of teeth." If Christ was the One to most fully reveal God’ s love, He was also the One who most fully declared His wrath.  

"They escaped not who refused Him that spake on earth." No, even though they had enjoyed such unparalleled privileges. They had been brought out of the house of bondage, delivered from the enemy at the Red Sea, ate of the heavenly manna and drank of the water from the smitten rock; yet we are told "But with many of them God was not well-pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness" (1 Cor. 10:5). The apostle had already reminded the Hebrews that it was of them God had declared, "They do always err in their heart, and they have not known My ways. So I sware in My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest" (Heb. 3:10, 11). And this was because "they refused Him that spake" to them. They were disobedient at Sinai, where, so far from submitting to the Divine authority to have "no other gods," they made and worshipped the golden calf. They were unbelieving at Kadesh Barnea, when they listened to the scepticism of the ten spies.  

"Much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven." Again we say, how greatly at variance with this is the idea which now obtains so generally. The great majority of professing Christians suppose there is much less danger of those bearing the name of the Lord being severely dealt with under the milder regime of Christianity, than there was for renegades in the days of Moses. But our text says, "much more shall not we escape!" Though it be true that Christianity is essentially a system of grace, nevertheless the requirements of holiness and the claims of justice are not thereby set aside. The despisers of grace must be and will be as surely punished as were the despisers of Law; yea, "much more" so because their sin of refusal is more heinous. It is "the wrath of the Lamb" (Rev. 6:16) which the despisers of the Gospel— its invitations and its requirements— will have to reckon with: so far as mount Sion excels mount Sinai so will the punishment of Christ-scorners exceed that of those who despised Moses.  

Ere passing on to our next verse we must anticipate a "difficulty" which our passage is likely to raise in the minds of some readers: How are we to harmonize the eternal security of the saints with this "much more shall not we escape if we turn away from Him that speaketh from Heaven?" Alas, that such a question needs answering: those who frame it betray a lamentable ignorance of what the "security of saints" consists of. God has never promised any man to preserve him in the path of self-will and self-pleasing. Those who reach Heaven are they who follow (though stumbling by and with many falls) the only path which leads there, namely, the "Narrow Way" of self-denial. Or, to put it in another way, the only ones who escape the everlasting buntings are they who heed Him that speaketh from Heaven, for "He became the Author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him" (Heb. 5:9).  

The writer believes firmly in the blessed truth of "the eternal security of the saints," but by no means all who profess to be Christians are "saints." This raises the question, how may I know whether or not I am a saint? The answer is, By impartially examining myself in the light of Holy Writ and ascertaining whether or no I possess the character and conduct of a "saint." The Lord Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me" (John 10:27). A "saint" or "sheep" of Christ, then is one who hears HIS voice above all the siren voices of the world, above all the clamorings of the flesh, and gives evidence that he does so by following Him, that is, by heeding His commandments, being regulated by His will, submitting to His Lordship. And to them, and to none other, Christ says, "And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand" (John 10:28).  

Should it be asked, But was not the apostle addressing the "saints," "sheep," "holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling" (Heb. 3:1) here in Hebrews 12:25? And if so, why did he present before them such an awful threat? First, these solemn words were addressed to all who come under the sound of the Gospel, and the response made by the hearer or reader serves as an admirable test. The proud and self-confident, who rely wholly upon a profession made by them years ago, ignore it to their own undoing, supposing those words have no application to them; whereas the lowly and self-distrustful lay it to heart with trembling, and are thereby preserved from the doom threatened. Second, in the preservation of His people from destruction God uses warnings and threatenings, as well as promises and assurances. He keeps His people in the Narrow Way by causing them to heed such an exhortation as this, "Be not high-minded, but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee" (Rom. 11:20, 21).  

What is meant by turning away from "Him that speaketh from Heaven"? First, it describes the attitude of that large class who come under the sound of the Gospel and dislike its exacting terms: Christ is far too holy to suit their carnal hearts, His call for them "to forsake all and follow Him" pleases not their corrupt nature; so He is "despised and rejected" by them. Second, it depicts the conduct of the stony-ground hearers, who under the emotional appeals of high-pressure evangelists "receive the Word with joy," yet have "no root" in themselves, and so they quickly "fall away:" the scoffings of their godless companions or the appeal of worldly pleasures are too strong for them to continue resisting. Third, it denotes the lapse of those who having "escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are again entangled therein and overcome" so that "the latter end is worse with them than the beginning" (2 Pet. 2:20). Fourth, it announces the apostasy of those who, under pressure of persecution, renounce the Faith.  

"Whose voice then shook the earth: but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven" (verse 26). There are some points about this verse and the one immediately following which are far from easy to elucidate, yet their main purport is not difficult to determine. In ceasing to "speak on earth" and in now "speaking from Heaven" God gave therein intimation that the old covenant had been supplanted by the new: that He had done with Judaism and established the "better thing" in its place. This was what the pious Hebrews found so hard to perceive, for Judaism had been instituted by God Himself. Nevertheless, He only designed it to fulfill a temporary purpose "until the time of reformation" (Heb. 9:10), and that time had now arrived. It was to demonstrate and establish this important fact that God moved His servant to write this Epistle.  

Once more we would call attention to the method employed: Paul did not simply press his apostolic authority, though that had been sufficient of itself; instead, he referred his readers to the written Word of God, quoting from Haggai— in this too he has left an admirable example for all ministers of the Gospel to follow: the words of God Himself are far more weighty than any of ours. At every vital stage of his argument the apostle had referred the Hebrews to the O.T. Scriptures. When he affirmed that Christ was superior to the heavenly hosts, he quoted, "Let all the angels of God worship Him" (Heb. 1:6). When he warned of the danger of apostacy, he referred them to Psalm 95 (Heb. 3:7-11). When he insisted that Christ’ s priesthood excelled Aaron’ s, he cited, "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek" (Heb. 7:17). When he declared that the old covenant was an imperfect and temporary one, he reminded them that Jeremiah had foretold the "new covenant" (Heb. 8:8-10).  

When he dwelt upon Christ coming to earth with the express purpose of supplanting all the Levitical sacrifices by offering Himself unto God, the apostle showed that Psalm 40 had fore-announced (Heb. 10:5-7) this very truth. When he called upon the Hebrews to walk by faith, he quoted Habakkuk 2:4, and then devoted the whole of the 11th chapter to illustrate the fact that all of the O.T. saints had so walked. When he admonished them for fainting under the chastening rod of God, he bade them remember the exhortation of Proverbs 3:11 (Heb. 12:5). When he would prove to them the inferiority of Judaism to Christianity, he dwelt upon the Exodus record of the terrifying phenomena which accompanied the appearing of the Lord at Sinai, where He entered into covenant with their fathers (Heb. 12:18-21). And now that he affirmed that God no longer spake to them "on earth," but rather "from Heaven," he appeals again to their own Scriptures to show this very change had been Divinely predicted.  

What an amazing knowledge of the Scriptures Paul possessed! and what a splendid use he made of it! He did not entertain his hearers and readers with anecdotes or by relating some of the sensational experiences through which God had brought him, still less did he descend to "pleasantries" and jokes in order to amuse them. No, he constantly brought them face to face with the Holy Word of the thrice Holy God. And that, by grace, is the unvarying policy we have sought to follow in this magazine: not only do we sedulously avoid any cheapening of the glorious Gospel of Christ, but we endeavor to furnish a proof text for every statement we make; for we ask no one to believe any doctrine or perform any duty on our mere say-so. Some may complain that there is "too much repetition" in our articles, or that they are "too introspective," or "too Calvinistic," but their quarrel is not with us, but with Him whose Word we expound and enforce.  

"Whose voice then shook the earth: but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven" (verse 26). The simplest and surest way of discovering the meaning of this verse and the force of citing Haggai 2:6, is to keep in mind the particular design which the apostle had before him. That was twofold: to enforce the exhortation he had just given in the previous verse, and to continue emphasizing and demonstrating the superiority of Christianity over Judaism. We will consider its terms, then, from each of these viewpoints. First, Paul emphasizes the terribleness of turning away from God in Christ: if He who "shook" the earth is to be feared, much more so is He who "shakes" Heaven! Then let us beware of ignoring His voice: by inattention, by unbelief, by disobedience, by apostasy.  

"Whose voice then shook the earth" is a figurative reference to God’ s omnipotence, for His "voice" here has reference to the mighty power of God in operation: let the reader carefully compare Psalm 29:3-9, where he will find the wondrous effects of Providence ascribed to the "voice" of God. In particular, the apostle here alludes to the declaration of God’ s authority and the putting forth of His great strength at the time the Law was given: Sinai itself was convulsed, so that "the whole mount quaked greatly" (Ex. 19:18). Yet more than the earthquake is included in the words of our text: the entire commotion involved, with all the particulars enumerated in Hebrews 12:18-21, is comprehended therein. It is designated "shook the earth" because it was all on the earth, and involved only earthly things— it did not reach to Heaven and eternal things.  

"But now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also Heaven." This clause has presented a hard riddle to the commentators, and scarcely any two of them, ancient or modern, agree in the solutions they have offered. Personally, we think they created their own difficulties. First, through failing to perceive that the "but now" is to be understood in connection with the subject the apostle was then discussing, and not as something God was then promising to make good in the future. Second, through failing to give proper attention and weight to the term "promised," which is surely enough to show that the final destruction of this scene (when the doom of the wicked will be sealed) cannot be the subject of which Haggai was prophesying. Third, through a slavish adherence to literalism— recent writers especially— which caused many to miss the meaning of "the earth" and "Heaven" in this passage. But these are points of too much importance to dismiss hurriedly, so we must leave their consideration till the next article.  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:26

Passing of Judaism   

(Hebrews 12:26, 27)   

It is exceedingly difficult, if not quite impossible, for us to form any adequate conception of the serious obstacles presented to the mind of a pious Jew, when any one sought to persuade him that Judaism had been set aside by God and that he must turn his own back upon it. No analogy or parallel exists in our own experience. It was not merely that the Hebrews were required to turn away from something which their ancestors had set up, and around which twined all their own sentiments and affections of national patriotism, but that they were called upon to abandon a religious system that had been appointed and established by Jehovah Himself. That institution, a theocracy, was unique, sharply distinguished from all the idolatrous systems of the heathen. It was God’ s outstanding witness in the earth. It had been signally honored and favored by Him. It had existed for no less than fifteen centuries, and even when Christ appeared, He acknowledged the temple— the center and headquarters of Judaism— as "My Father’ s House."  

We cannot but admire the tender grace of God in the gentle and gradual way in which He "broke the news" to His people, little by little preparing their minds to receive the truth that His purpose in Judaism had been completely accomplished. Intimations were given through the prophets that the order of things with which they were connected would give place to another and better. To the same effect the Lord Jesus dropped one hint after another: as, for example, when He pointed out that the old bottles were incapable of receiving the new wine, or when He declared, not that which enters into a man defileth him (as the ceremonial law had taught!) but that which issues from the heart, or when He announced "The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father" (John 4:21; and finally, when He solemnly affirmed "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate" (Matthew 23:38).  

The rending of the temple veil by a Divine hand was full of deep meaning for those who had eyes to see. The word given through Stephen that "the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands" (Acts 7:48), was another clear ray of heavenly light on the same subject. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus, and the commissioning of him as an apostle to the Gentiles, intimated the direction in which the stream of Divine mercy was now flowing— it had burst the narrow banks of Judaism! The vision granted to Peter (Acts 10) and his message to Cornelius (v. 35), was a further advance along the same line. The important decision of the apostles and elders of the Church at Jerusalem in Acts 15:23-29 not to bind the ceremonial law upon the Gentile converts, was another radical step in the same direction.  

Yet Jerusalem still survived, the temple was yet intact, and its services continued. Moreover, the leaders of the Nation had rejected Christ and denounced Christianity as a device of Satan. Many of the Jewish Christians were sorely puzzled and deeply exercised, for the Roman yoke had not been removed. As yet the followers of Christ were but few in number, and for the most part, poor and despised. The Hebrew believers were being hotly persecuted by their unbelieving brethren, and God had made no manifest interposition on their behalf. They were therefore almost ready to conclude that, after all, they had made a dreadful mistake in forsaking the religion of their fathers, and that the sore afflictions they were passing through were a Divine judgment upon them. It was to allay their fears, to more thoroughly instruct their minds, to establish their hearts, that God moved the apostle to write this particular epistle to them— the great theme of which is a display of the immeasurable superiority of Christianity over Judaism, and its chief design being a call to perseverance and a warning against apostasy.  

But even in this epistle the apostle did not come right out and say plainly "God has discarded Judaism." No, the path of faith is never an easy one. Faith can only thrive while it fights (1 Tim. 6:12). There must be that which deeply exercises the heart if the soul is to be kept in the place of complete dependence upon God! Nevertheless, God always grants sufficient light unto a truly exercised soul to indicate the path which is to be followed; He always provides a foundation for faith to rest upon. Though He may not remove the chief obstacle (as He did not for the Hebrews while the temple still stood!) and grant a complete solution to our difficulties, yet He graciously furnishes the humble soul sufficient help to circumvent them. Thus it was in this epistle. Though no explicit statement is made that God had done with Judaism, yet sufficient proof was furnished that He had set up something better in its place. This comes out again and again in almost every chapter, notably so in the passage now before us.  

What has been pointed out in the last paragraph presents a principle and a fact which it is deeply important for true Christians to lay hold of today. Not a few of the Lord’ s people are now confronted with similar problems, which if not so acute as the Hebrews faced, are just as real to them: problems relating to church-fellowship, baptism, the Lord’ s supper, Sabbath observance. For thirty years a situation existed in Israel which produced two parties, neither of which could convince the other; and, as usual, the larger party was in the wrong. On the one hand was the long-established Judaism, which contained the great majority of the Nation; on the other hand was the handful of God’ s faithful servants with the few who had sufficient grace to receive their teachings and walk by faith. Had the latter been regulated by ancient custom, or by mere numbers, or by the logic of circumstances (the outward providences of God), they had missed God’ s will for them and had "forsaken their own mercy" (Jon. 2:8).  

The little company of converted Hebrews who had left Judaism for Christ were faced with a perplexing and trying situation. No doubt in the case of many of them, their loved ones still adhered reverently and vigorously to the religion of their fathers. Nor could either party convince the other of its error by a simple and direct appeal to Holy Writ. Each side had some Scripture to support it! Nowhere in the O.T. had God expressly said that He would yet do away with Judaism, and nowhere in the N.T. had He openly declared that He had now set Judaism aside. No, dear reader, that is rarely God’ s way! In like manner, Christendom is now divided on various points both of doctrine and of duty, and each side is able to make out a real "case" by an appeal to Scripture, and often, neither can cite one decisive verse proving the other to be wrong. Yet one is wrong! Only by earnestly waiting upon God individually can His mind be discovered.  

But why has God ordered things thus? Why are not the Scriptures so worded that there would be no room for controversy? To try our hearts. The situation which confronted the converted Hebrews was a real test as to whether they would be followers of men or pleasers of God. The self-righteous Pharisees could appeal to a long-established system of religion in justification of their rejection of Christ; and there are those in Christendom today who vindicate their adherence to what God has never commanded and which is dishonoring to His Son, by an appeal to a long line of godly men who have believed and practiced these very things. When others seek to show that an opposite course is required by Scripture, they profess to be "unable to see" what is quite clear to simple and humble souls, and ask for some verse which expressly forbids what they are doing; which is like those who, in the face of His miracles, said, "If Thou be the Christ tell us plainly" (John 10:24).  

No doubt it had made matters much easier for the Hebrews if the apostle said plainly, "God has completely finished with Judaism:" that had "settled the matter" for hesitating ones who were halting between two opinions— and poor fallen human nature loves to have things so "settled" that there may be an end to perturbation of mind and exercise of heart. Moreover, the converted Hebrews would then have had a clear proof-text which must have silenced those who differed from them— and we love to have a verse which will close the mouths of those who agree not with us, do we not? Or, God could have allowed the Romans to capture Jerusalem and destroy the temple thirty years sooner than they did: that also had "settled the matter"— yes, and left the Hebrews to walk by sight, instead of by faith! Instead, He gave them this epistle, which called for prayer, study, meditation, and for more prayer.  

Let us now very briefly review the line of the apostle’ s argument in Hebrews 12:18 and onwards. First, he informs the believing Hebrews "Ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched" and which was so "terrible" that even Moses quaked "exceedingly" (verses 18-21): no, Divine mercy had delivered them from that system. Second, Paul assures them "But ye are come unto mount Sion (verses 22-24): God had brought them unto an order of things where the Throne of Grace predominated. It is ever the Lord’ s way to reserve the best wine for the last. Third, the apostle reminds them that increased privileges involve additional obligations, and that failure to discharge those obligations incurs greater guilt; therefore does he urge them to take heed unto God speaking to them in the person of Christ, warning them that failure so to do would bring down upon them the Divine wrath more surely than did the disobedience of Israel of old (verse 25).  

"Whose voice then shook the earth: but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven" (verse 26). This verse has occasioned much difficulty to the commentators, scarcely any two of them (ancient or modern) agreeing in their interpretation of it. Many of them suppose that the ultimate, if not the prime, reference in the quotation here made from Haggai relates to the final destruction of the earth and the heavens connected with it, as it is described in 2 Peter 3:10-12. But to suppose that Paul here made a declaration which concerned the then far-distant future, is not only to break the unity of this passage, but is to charge him with making a quotation which had no real relevancy to the immediate subject he was discussing. In pondering Hebrews 12:26-29 our first concern must be to trace the connection with the context.  

Now in the context the apostle had been treating of two things: the immeasurable superiority of Christianity over Judaism, and what this involved concerning the responsibility of those who were the subjects of this higher and grander revelation. These same two things are still before the apostle in the closing verses of our chapter: he continued to show how immeasurably the new covenant excels the old, and he continued to enforce the pressing call which he had made in verse 25. First, he had intimated the vast difference which obtained between the mouthpieces which God employed in connection with the two revelations (verse 25): namely, "Moses" (Heb. 10:28) and "His Son" (Heb. 1:2). Second, he had shown the great disproportion between those two teachers, by pointing out the respective positions they occupied (verse 25). "Moses’ seat" (Matthew 23:2) was "on earth," whereas Christ speaks as seated upon His mediatorial throne "from Heaven."  

Two things were intimated by God in the different seats or positions occupied by the messengers He had employed. First, inasmuch as He now spake through the Son from Heaven, God denoted that He had finished with Judaism, which was entirely a thing of the earth. Second, that Christianity was of Divine origin, and had to do solely with celestial things. From one angle, this call in Hebrews 12:25 was very similar to that exhortation "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth" (Col. 3:1, 2). Before their conversion, the affections of the Hebrews had been centred upon the temple— notice how the disciples, just before the crucifixion, came to Christ "for to show Him the buildings of the temple" (Matthew 24:1); but they were to be "thrown down!"— Christ had returned to Heaven, and thither their hearts must follow Him. Thus, the heavenly calling (Heb. 3:1), heavenly citizenship (Phil. 3:20), heavenly inheritance (1 Pet. 1:4), instead of the earthly concerns of Judaism, were now to engage the hearts and minds of the regenerate in Israel.  

Next, in the verses now before us, the apostle brings out the vastly different effects produced through the two messengers. This is the central fact in verses 26, 27: the Voice "from Heaven" produced proportionately greater results than did the voice which spake "on earth." God through Christ speaks more powerfully and effectually than He did through Moses. Let us be careful not to lose sight of this general idea when pondering the details. A much greater and more far-reaching "shaking" was produced by the latter than was the case with the former. We believe that Matthew Henry was on the fight track when he said, "It is by the Gospel from heaven that God shook to pieces the civil and ecclesiastical state of the Jewish nation, and introduced a new state of the church, that cannot be removed, shall never be changed for any other on earth, but shall remain till it be made perfect in heaven." The apostle is still supplying proof that the Hebrew believers were no longer connected with Judaism, but were come to the antitypical Zion.  

"Whose voice then shook the earth." Here is the connecting link with the context: the "then" referring to the instituting of Judaism. "But now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven." The "but now" is not so much a time-mark as it is an adverbial expression, relating to the theme under immediate discussion, namely, the establishment and super-excellency of Christianity. Thus, to show once more the infinitely surpassing and glorious effects of power and majesty which issued from the voice of Christ, speaking from heaven by the Gospel, and so as to give a more lively representation of the same, the apostle compares them with the greatly inferior effects that accompanied the deliverance of the Law. As the right understanding of this "But now" has an important bearing upon all that follows, we subjoin the comments of another thereon.  

"The word now does not denote the period when the promise was made, but the period to which the promise referred, which was now, opposed to then when the Law was established. It was equivalent to ‘ But with regard to the present period, which is the commencement of a new order of things, He has promised, saying.’ This use of the word now in the apostle’ s writings is common: Romans 3:21; 16:26 etc." (John Brown). There is, then, an opposition of the "But now" to what occurred at the "then" at the beginning of the verse. It is to be carefully noted that Paul did not say "He hath now promised," i.e. that in the apostle’ s day God had announced He was going to do something in the far-distant future; instead, it is "But now He hath promised:" the "now" relating to the fulfillment of what Haggai had foretold, and not to some promise given through the apostle.  

"But now He hath promised, saying." This "saying" which the apostle at once quotes from Haggai he styles a "promise," and that for at least three reasons. First, because what was but a prophecy in Haggai’ s day had received its actual accomplishment in the apostle’ s time, in connection with the establishment of Christianity. Second, because this was therefore something for faith to lay hold of, and that is what he was seeking to persuade the Hebrew believers to do. Third, to prevent any misconception on our part: had the apostle been pointing out that the prophecy of Haggai contained a yet deeper meaning and more ultimate reference, even to predicting the final destruction of this world and all its works, he had surely been very far from designating such an unparalleled Divine judgment as that, by the term "promise!" A "promise" always refers to something that is good, and never to a calamity!  

  

"Whose voice then shook the earth: but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven." Let us now inquire, What is denoted by this "shaking" of earth and heaven? This is a figure which is used in the O.T. quite frequently to express a great change, produced by the providences and power of God in the affairs of men. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea" (Ps. 46:1, 2), which is explained in "The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: He uttered His voice, the earth melted" (verse 6). "Thou hast made the earth to tremble: Thou hast broken it: heal the breaches thereof, for it shaketh" (Ps. 60:2): what is signified by that metaphorical language is indicated in the next verse, "Thou hast showed Thy people hard things: Thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment." "Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place" (Isa. 13:13)— language which signifies a tremendous commotion among the nations— compare Joel 3:16. Such vivid imagery is common in the Prophets.  

"He stretched out His hand over the sea," which is interpreted in the next sentence "He shook the kingdoms" (Isa. 23:11). "Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down" (Isa. 24:1)— words, we need hardly say, which are not to be taken literally. "At His wrath the earth shall tremble," explained in the following clause, "and the nations shall not be able to abide His indignation" (Jer. 10:10). "Arise, contend thou with the mountains: and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear ye O mountains, the Lord’ s controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth" (Mic. 6:1, 2): such language is not to be understood literally, as the next clause shows "For the Lord hath a controversy with His people." "For the powers of heaven shall be shaken" (Luke 21:26). Even Mr. Darby admitted (in his "Synopsis"), "This shaking of all things— whether here (Heb. 12:26, 27) or in the analogous passage in 2 Peter— evidently goes beyond Judaism, but has peculiar application to it"— italics ours.  

"Whose voice then shook the earth." The immediate reference is to Sinai at the time the law was given. But, as we have seen, that material mount was emblematic of the entire economy which was then established. Thus the "shaking" of the "earth" denoted the great outward change which took place in the days of Moses. The external state of Israel was then greatly altered. They were organized into a kingdom and church-state (Acts 7:38), into a theocracy. Yet glorious as was that change, it reached not to "heaven," that is to say, it affected not their inner man and was not concerned with spiritual and eternal relations. "The economy established at Sinai, viewed by itself, was a temporal covenant with a worldly nation, referring to temporal promises, an earthly inheritance, a worldly sanctuary, a typical priesthood, and carnal ordinances" (J. Brown).  

"But now (in relation to Christianity) He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven." The careful reader will observe that the prophet had said, "I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land" (Hag. 2:6), whereas the apostle was moved by the Holy Spirit to word it— for the sake of his emphasis— "I shake not the earth only, but also heaven," hence a shaking of both "earth" and "heaven" was here in view. "The voice in heaven produces more extensive and more permament effects. It shakes both earth and heaven— effects a change both on the external and spiritual circumstances of those who are under it; and it effects a permament change, which is to admit of no radical essential change forever" (J. Brown).  

Though a great change had been produced in connection with the giving of the old covenant, a far greater change had been effected in the establishing of the new covenant. That had affected but one nation only, and that, merely in its external and temporal circumstances: this reaches unto God’ s people among all nations, and affects their spiritual and eternal interests. It was reserved for God’ s Son to bring this about, for in all things He must have the preeminence. A much greater commotion and convulsion in human affairs has been brought in by Immanuel, yea, it was then as though the very universe was shaken to its center. In order to the establishing of that kingdom of Christ’ s which shall never be moved, there were tremendous revolutions, both in connection with Judaism and the idolatrous systems of the heathen— "These that have turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6) was the charge preferred against the apostles.  

Now as the great change in the temporal affairs of Israel at the instituting of Judaism had been adumbrated by the quaking of Sinai, so the far greater alterations introduced by the establishing of Christianity were also shadowed forth in the various physical phenomena and angelic appearances. "At His birth a new star appeared in the heavens, which filled the generality of men with amazement, and put those who were wise to diligent inquiries about it. His birth was proclaimed by an angel from heaven, and celebrated by ‘ a multitude of the heavenly hosts.’ In His ministry the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in the shape of a dove. These things may answer that mighty work in heaven which is here intimated. On the earth, wise men came from the east to inquire after Him; Herod and all Jerusalem were shaken at the tidings of Him. In the discharge of His work He wrought miracles in heaven and earth, sea and dry land, on the whole creation of God. Wherefore in the first coming of Christ the words had their literal accomplishment in an eminent manner.  

"Take the words metaphorically for great changes, commotions and alterations in the world, and so also were they accomplished in Him and His coming. No such alteration made in the world since the creation of it as was then, and in what ensued thereon. All the ‘ heavens’ of the world were then shaken, and after a while removed: that is, all their gods and all their worship, which had continued from time immemorial, which were the ‘ heavens of the people,’ were first shaken, and then utterly demolished. The ‘ earth’ also was moved, shaken and changed: for all nations were stirred up, some to inquire after Him, some to oppose Him, whereon great concussions and commotions did ensue; till all the most noble parts of it were made subject to Him.  

"But, as we observed before, it is the dealing of God with the church, and the alteration which He would make in the state thereof, concerning which the apostle treats. It is therefore the ‘ heaven’ of Mosaic worship and that Judaical church-state, with the ‘ earth’ of their political state belonging thereunto, that are here intended. These were they that were ‘ shaken’ at the coming of Christ, and so shaken as shortly after to be removed and taken away, for the introduction of the more heavenly worship of the Gospel, and the immovable evangelical church-state. This was the greatest commotion and alteration that God ever made in the ‘ heaven’ and ‘ earth’ of the church. This was far more great and glorious than the shaking of the ‘ earth’ at the giving of the law. Wherefore, not to exclude the senses before mentioned, which are consistent with this, and may be respected in the prophecy as outward signs and indications of it, this is that which is principally intended in the words, and which is proper to the argument in hand" (John Owen).  

"And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain" (verse 27). This is the apostle’ s inspired commentary on Haggai’ s prophecy. He points out that the "yet once more" denoted there had previously been a great change wrought in Israel’ s fortunes, and also that now another radical alteration had been made therein. He insists that the "shaking" was in order to effect a removal of what was only transient, and that the great change was only in order that that which is unchangeable might remain— that the permanent might be fixedly established.  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:27

Establishing of Christianity   

(Hebrews 12:27)   

The Divine incarnation was not some sudden, isolated, and unexpected event. The advent of our blessed Lord, and with it the dawn of Christianity, marked a climax and consummation. The world was prepared through long processes for the coming of the One and the preaching of the other: from Eden to Bethlehem the centuries were preparing for the appearing of Immanuel. As the processes of creation fitted the earth for man to live upon it, so all history paved the way for the birth of the God-man. The Holy Scriptures focused the Divine preparation in one race, yet all peoples shared in the process: outside of the elect nation God was at work, and all streams converged to a single center. The march of events was both slow and complicated, yet eventually the stage was fully set and a suitable background made for the appearing of the promised Savior.  

"When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman" (Gal. 4:4). This signifies much more than that the time appointed by the Father had now arrived when He would put an end to the Mosaic economy and replace the shadows and types by the substance and Antitype. It denoted that conditions were peculiarly suitable for the introduction of a new and enlarged dispensation, that everything was now ripe for the execution of God’ s great purpose. All the foundations had been laid. The long night of preparation had now run its course. The chrysalis was ready to burst its bonds; the fields were white unto the harvest; the olive tree was ready for the grafting of other branches into it (Rom. 11). The "fullness of time" intimates both ripeness of opportunity and consummation of need. The advent of God’ s Son to this earth and the proclamation of the Gospel far and wide, not only introduced a new era, it also marked the climax of the old.  

In its relation to the immediate context this expression, "the fullness of time," signifies that the Church on earth had been prepared for the coming of God’ s Son by having now outgrown the conditions of her childhood and minority, making her feel the irksomeness of the bonds upon her and to long for the liberty of maturity. The legal economy was merely a "schoolmaster unto Christ," and it had now served its purpose. The old economy had decayed and waxed old, and was "ready to vanish away" (Heb. 8:13). Aged Simeon was a representative of that godly remnant who were "waiting for the Consolation of Israel," for there was a Divinely prepared company that then "looked for redemption in Jerusalem" (Luke 2:25, 38). The favored Nation as a whole had lost its liberty, being under the yoke of the Romans, and seemed on the point of relinquishing its mission; the need for the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies was real and pressing.  

There was a remarkable combination of circumstances tending to prepare the world for the Gospel, and a fearful climax in the world’ s need of redemption. The break up of old heathen faiths and the passing away of the prejudices of antiquity, disposed men for a new revelation which was spiritual, humane, non-provincial. The utter failure of Pagan religion from immorality, and of Pagan philosophy from its impotency to cure that immorality and the miseries it entailed, called loudly for some new Faith, which should be both sure and powerful. The century immediately preceding our Lord’ s advent was probably the most remarkable in all history. Everything was in a state of transition; old things were passing away; the fruit of the ancient order was rotting upon the tree, though without yielding the seeds of a new order. There were strange rumors afloat of coming relief, and singular hopes stirred the hearts of men that some Great One was about to appear and renovate the world.  

"The fullness of time was come." First, the world had reached its climacteric of sin. History has given a faithful record of the terrible moral conditions which obtained among men in the century that immediately preceded our Lord’ s advent. At Rome, which was then the metropolis of the world, the Court of Caesar was steeped in luxury and licentiousness. To provide amusement for his senators six hundred gladiators fought a hand to hand conflict in the public theater. Not to be outdone, Pompey turned five hundred lions into the arena to engage an equal number of his braves, and "delicate ladies" sat applauding and gloating over the blood that flowed. Children were the property of the state, to be disposed of as was deemed best for the public interests. The aged and infirm were banished to an island in the Tiber. Marriage was wholly a matter of sensual caprice; divorce was so frequent, it was customary for women to count them by the number of rings worn on their fingers. About two thirds of the entire civilized world were slaves, their masters having absolute power over them.  

Conditions in Greece were even worse. Sensual indulgence and every species of cruelty were carried to the highest pitch. Gluttony was an art. Fornication was indulged without restraint. Parents were at liberty to expose their children to perish from cold and hunger or to be eaten up by wild beasts, such exposure being practiced frequently, and passed without punishment or censure. Wars were carried on with the utmost ferocity: if any of the vanquished escaped death, slavery of the most abject kind was the only prospect before them; and in consequence, death was considered preferable to capture. "The dark places of the earth were filled with the habitations of cruelty" (Ps. 74:20). The world had reached its climacteric of sin, and this provided a dark background from which could shine forth the Light. Oftentimes a disease cannot be treated until it "comes to a head." In view of the above conditions, the world was ready for the appearing of the great Physician.  

"The fullness of time was come." The world had reached its consummation of want. It had been predicted of old that the Messiah should be "the Desire of all nations:" to this end there must be a complete exposure of the failure of all human plans for deliverance. This time had arrived when Christ was born. Never before had the abject misery and need of humanity been so apparent and so extensive. Philosophy had lost its power to satisfy men, and the old religions were dead. The Greeks and Romans stood at the head of the nations at the time our Lord appeared on earth, and the religious state of those peoples in that age is too well known to require any lengthy description of it. Polytheism and Pantheism were the popular concepts: innumerable deities were worshipped, and to those gods were attributed the most abominable characteristics. Human sacrifices were frequently offered upon their altars.  

Judaism was also fully ripe for the accomplishment of Messianic prophecy. Sadduceeism had leavened the ruling classes and affected the nation with rationalism and skepticism. Phariseeism, which represented the ideas and ideals of the popular party, was too often only formal and hypocritical, and at best was cold and hard, "binding heavy burdens" and laying on men’ s shoulders a load which they refused to touch with their fingers (Matthew 23:4). The nation was under the government of Rome, and was thoroughly discouraged. Was there, then, no eye to pity, no arm to save? Was God unmindful of the tragic condition of mankind? No, blessed be His name, the "fullness of time was come:" a platform was then ready on which the glories of Divine grace might be exhibited, and now arose "the Sun of righteousness with healing in His wings" (Mal. 4:2).  

"The fullness of time was come." The needed preparations were completed, and the high-water mark was reached. Side by side with the preliminary movements in Israel, Divine providence had also been at work in heathendom, making ready the world for the dawn of Christianity. Political conditions were singularly favorable for the coming of the Gospel. Most of the then known earth was within the bounds of the Roman empire. Everywhere the Romans went good roads were made, along which went the soldier, and after him the merchant and scholar. In a short time commercial intercourse fused various peoples. Previously, old national distinctions had bound up religious prejudices, each country having its own gods, and any attempt to foist a foreign religion upon a nation was bitterly resented. But national barriers were now broken down by Roman prowess and international intercourse, and religious exclusiveness was greatly weakened. All of this facilitated the task of the missionaries of the Cross. The Roman roads became highways for the evangelists, and Roman law afforded them protection.  

Parallel with the growth of the Roman empire was the spread of Grecian culture. The Grecian tongue was the one most extensively used as the language of learning: all educated people were supposed to understand it. This was a most suitable medium by which the Christian messengers could speak to a great multitude of peoples, without enduring the tedious delay of learning new languages. In Syria, Egypt, Phrygia, and Italy, as well as Greece and Asia Minor, the heralds of Christ could make themselves understood everywhere by using the common tongue employed by all teachers of that day. Moreover this language was so delicately modulated as to surpass all other forms of speech in its capacity for expressing new ideas. It was therefore exactly what was needed for the setting forth of a new revelation to the world at large.  

It was the same with Judaism. Now had arrived the time for the fulfillment of its mission: the giving to the world of the O.T. Scriptures, and the realization of the Hope which they presented. Judaism was to give birth to Christianity: out of the old soil the new order was to spring. The position of the Jews at that time wonderfully facilitated the spread of the Gospel, for they were already dispersed abroad everywhere. In the days of Augustus there were forty thousand Jews at Rome, and by the time of Tiberius double that number. The Jewish synagogues furnished a means of communication between Christian gospelers and the heathen world. A synagogue was to be found in almost every town throughout the Roman empire, and to it the evangelists first went; and thus a suitable language was provided for communicating with all peoples, and centers of work were to be found in every city.  

In such a striking conjunction of favorable providences we cannot but behold and admire the controlling hand of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. They served to greatly lessen the severe shock which the displacing of the old order of things and the introduction of the new order was bound to bring, for the claims of Christ are of a very radical nature and His demands revolutionizing. Even so, the establishing of Christianity is spoken of as a shaking of "not the earth only, but also heaven" (verse 26): though such language be figurative, nevertheless it refers to that which was intensely real and drastic. Our assertion that the last clause of verse 26 is not to be understood in a material sense (as is now widely supposed), calls for some further expository remarks thereon, particularly concerning its setting here, its original, and its connection.  

At verse 25 the apostle began an exhortation which was based upon what had been pointed out in verses 18-24, and which he re-enforces by additional considerations. The exhortation consists of a call to hear and heed God’ s message to us through Christ. God is the Author of Old and New Testaments alike: in the former He spoke through Moses and the prophets; in the latter by the Son, His final Spokesman. The manifestation which God made in Christ and the message He has given us through Him, completes the revelation of His will. This final message was declared neither by man nor angel, but by the only begotten Son. Then let us beware of treating such a revelation in a manner ill-fitting its high character. The superior dignity of the Messenger and the supreme importance of His message must ensure severer punishment to those who despise and reject Him.  

The urgency of this call for us to hear Christ is intimated by pointing out that since those who had disregarded God’ s message through Moses escaped not, a far worse punishment must be the portion of those who turn a deaf ear unto Him speaking through the Son (verse 25). The superiority of God’ s revelation by the Son to the message given through Moses was evidenced by the phenomena which attended each, and the different effects which followed their appearing: the Voice "from heaven" (by Christ) produced proportionately greater results than did the Voice which spake by Moses, "on earth." The Voice through each produced a "shaking," but that through the latter was far more extensive than that through the former (verse 26). In proof of this declaration the apostle quoted and commented upon a striking prediction found in Haggai, the pertinency and scope of which we would now consider. For a better understanding thereof we will turn to its original setting.  

In chapter 1 Haggai rebukes the indifference of the Jewish remnant (who had returned to Palestine from the Babylonish captivity) for their neglect to rebuild God’ s house. This stirred them up to proceed therewith. In chapter 2 the prophet comforts them. The rebuilding of the temple had then proceeded far enough for it to be made manifest that in its outward glory it was far inferior to Solomon’ s. A great lamentation ensued, and the prophet asks, "Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?" (Heb. 2:3). The people greatly feared that Jehovah had deserted them, and to re-assure them Haggai declared, "Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work: for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts: according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not" (Heb. 2:4, 5); and then it was that he set before them the grand hope of the Messiah’ s appearing.  

"For thus saith the Lord of hosts, Yet once, it is a little while and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; And I will shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts" (Hag. 2:6-9). Here was a message of comfort to the sorrowing remnant of the prophet’ s day, and from it the apostle quotes in Hebrews 12.  

The first thing we would note in the above prediction is the statement "a little while and I will shake," which makes it evident that the "shaking" did not look forward to the final and universal convulsion of nature at the end of time; rather was the reference to that which preceded and was connected with the establishing of Christianity, which was comparatively an impending event in Haggai’ s day. Second, the "shaking" was not to occur in the material world, but in the political and religious realms, as is clear from the closing verses of this very chapter. "I will shake the heavens, and the earth" (verse 21) is at once defined as "and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen" (verse 22)— this commenced shortly afterwards, for the axe lay at the root of the Persian empire. Third, there was the express promise that the glory of the temple built in Haggai’ s day should exceed that of Solomon’ s.  

That third item needs to be very carefully weighed by us, for it is of great importance. This was the chief point of comfort in Haggai’ s prediction. His fellows were deeply distressed (see Ezra 3:12) at the comparative meanness of the house of God which they were erecting, but he assures them it should yet possess a glory that far excelled that of Solomon’ s. That greater glory was not a material one, but a spiritual: it was expressly said to be the coming to it of "the Desire of all nations." It was by the appearing of the Messiah that the real "glory" would accrue unto the second temple, and that must be while it still stood! Haggai’ s temple was enlarged and beautified by Herod three hundred years later, but the original structure was never destroyed, so that it continued one and the same "house;" and to it Christ came! The "little while," then, of Haggai 2:6 was parallel with the "suddenly" of Malachi 3:1.  

The fourth and last thing was "and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts" (Heb. 2:9). That also was spiritual: referring to the peace which Christ should make "through the blood of His cross" (Col. 1:20) between God and His people, and the amity which should be established between believing Jews and believing Gentiles (see Ephesians 2:14-16) in the same worship of God. This was the principal work of Christ: to put away sin (which was the cause of enmity and strife) and to bring in peace. Finally, the manner in which all this was to be effected was by a great "shaking," not only in the midst of Israel, but also among the Gentiles. Observe carefully the "yet once" of Haggai 2:6: there had been a great "shaking" when the first covenant was instituted, but there would be a still greater at the establishing of the new covenant. Thus the "yet once" signifies, first, once more; and secondly, once for all— finally.  

Now from the above prophecy of Haggai Paul quotes in Hebrews 12:26. The apostle’ s object was a double one: to supply additional proof for the superiority of Christianity over Judaism, and to give further point to the exhortation he had made in verse 25. Evidence is here given from the O.T. to show that the voice of God speaking by Christ had produced far greater effects than His word had through Moses. The contrasts, then, between the old and new covenants, and the excelling of the latter over the former, may be summed up thus: the one was connected with Sinai, the other brings us unto Sion (verses 18-24); the one was inaugurated by Moses, the other by the Son; the one was God speaking "on earth," the other "from heaven;" the one "shook the earth," the other "heaven" itself (verse 26); the one is "removed" the other "remains" (verse 27); therefore, HEAR the Son!  

How far astray, then, are those commentators who suppose that Haggai’ s prophecy refers to the final judgment at the last day, when the whole fabric of nature shall shake and be removed! First, such a terrifying event was altogether alien to the scope of Haggai’ s purpose, which was to comfort his sorrowing brethren. Second, such a prediction had been entirely irrevelant to the apostle’ s scope, for he was comparing not the giving of the law with the Day of Judgment, but the giving of the law with the promulgation of the Gospel by Christ Himself; for his whole design was to exhibit the preeminence of the Evangelical economy. Third, nor would such dreadful doom be designated a "promise" (Heb. 12:26). Fourth, the apostle clearly intimated that Haggai’ s prophecy was now fulfilled (verse 28). Finally, there is no reason whatever why we should regard the shaking of heaven and earth here as a literal one: it was spiritual things of which the apostle was discoursing— such as issue in that unshakable kingdom which believers receive in this world.  

Let us admire the striking appropriateness of Haggai’ s prophecy to the purpose the apostle then had in hand. Haggai’ s prediction concerned the person and appearing of Christ: "The Desire of all nations shall come." There it was announced that God would do greater works than He had performed in the days of Moses (Hag. 2:5-7). God shook Egypt before He gave the law, He shook Sinai at the giving of it, He shook the surrounding nations (especially in Canaan) just after it. But in "a little while" He would do greater things. The prophet’ s design was to fix the eyes of the Jews upon the first advent of Christ, which was their great expectation, and to assure them that their temple would then possess a glory far excelling that of Solomon’ s. Meanwhile, God would overthrow "the throne of kingdoms and destroy the strength of the heathen" (verse 22), as the forerunning signs of Christ’ s advent during the short season which intervened before His appearing.  

How pertinent and well-suited, then, was Haggai’ s prophecy to the subject Paul was developing! That prediction had been fulfilled: Christ had come and made good its terms: conclusive proof of this is found in the changing of the verb— the prophet’ s "I will shake" being altered to "I shake," for the apostle regarded the "shaking" as present and not future. A "promise" had been given that a greater work of Divine power, grace and glory should be wrought at the appearing of the Messiah than what took place in connection with the exodus from Egypt and the giving of the law, and this was now accomplished. How clearly and how forcibly did this demonstrate the pre-eminency of the new covenant above the old: so far as the glory of the second temple excelled that of the first was Christianity superior to Judaism! Finally, how well did this "shaking" of heaven intimate the permamency and finality of Christianity, for the shaking was in order that the unshakable might abide (verse 27).  

It now remains for us to weigh the comment which the apostle made upon this citation from Haggai: "And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain" (verse 27). Incidentally, let it be pointed out that here we have a helpful illustration of the province and task of the teacher: in expounding God’ s Word he not only compares passage with passage and defines the meaning of its terms, but he also indicates what legitimate inferences and conclusions may be drawn, what its statements imply as well as directly affirm. This is exactly what the apostle does here: he argues that the word "once" (used by the prophet) not only signified "once more," but that it also denoted the setting aside of the order of things previously existing.  

There is a fullness in the words of Holy Writ which can only be discovered by prolonged meditation and careful analysis. The prophecy of Haggai had said nothing expressly about the "removing" of anything, yet what was not stated explicitly was contained therein implicitly. The apostle insists that a "removing" was implied in the terms of Haggai’ s prediction. The very fact that God had "shaken" the Mosaic economy to its very foundations— the preaching and miracles of Christ (and later by His apostles) had caused thousands to leave it, the Lord’ s denunciation of the religion leaders and His exposure of their hypocrisy had undermined the confidence of the masses, while the rending of the temple veil by a Divine hand had clearly and solemnly signified the end of the Levitical system— was plain intimation that He was on the eve of setting the whole aside, and that, for the purpose of setting up something better in its place; what that something is, we must leave for our next chapter.  

N.B. Had some of our twentieth century Christians been present they would have taken issue with the apostle and said, "Paul, you are taking undue liberties with the Word of God, which we cannot consent to. The Holy Spirit through Haggai spoke of a "shaking," whereas you change it to "removing." Had the apostle replied, "I am simply pointing out what the prophet’ s language clearly implies, drawing an obvious inference from his statement." The rejoinder would be, "We do not need to do any reasoning upon the Word. Moreover, any simple soul can see that shaking and removing are very different things, and had the prophet meant the latter he would have said so, and not used the former." An expositor of Scripture often encounters such quibbling today: it is worse than ignorance, for it deceives not a few into supposing that such slavish adherence to the letter of Scripture (being occupied with its sound, instead of seeking its sense) is honoring the same.  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:28

Kingdom of Christ   

(Hebrews 12:28)   

We hope that we made clear in the preceding articles the general idea contained in the citation from the O.T. which the apostle made in Hebrews 12:26, namely, that under the proclamation of the Gospel there would be a more radical and far-reaching effect produced, than was the case at the giving of the Law, thereby manifesting the superiority of the one over the other. The more specific meaning of Haggai’ s prediction (Heb. 2:6) was that the Jewish church and state would be dissolved, for both the ecclesiastical and civil spheres of Judaism ("heaven and earth") were "shaken." Its wider significance comprehended the convulsions which would be produced in heathendom (the "sea" of Haggai 2:6, and cf. verses 21, 22). The great design of God in the Divine incarnation was the setting up of Christ’ s kingdom, but before it could be properly established there had to be a mighty shaking in order that the shadows in Judaism might give place to the substance, and that sinners among the Gentiles be made spiritual.  

The appearing of the Messiah introduced and necessitated a total dissolution of the entire Judaic economy: the Levitical institutions being fulfilled in Christ, they had now served their purpose. This was solemnly signified by the Divine rending of the temple veil, and forty years later by the total destruction of the temple itself. But in the meanwhile it was difficult to persuade the Hebrews that such was the case, and therefore did the apostle clinch the argument he had made in 12:18-24 and the exhortation he had given in verse 26 by quoting a proof-text from their own Scriptures. Haggai’ s language that the Lord would "shake the heavens" referred, as we have seen, not to the starry heavens or celestial planets, but to the Judaical constitution under the ceremonial law— called the "heavens" because they typed out heavenly things! Ultimately God would "shake" and remove all dominions, thrones and powers which were opposed to the kingdom of Christ— as, for example, He later did the Roman empire.  

"Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved" (verse 28). The design of the Holy Spirit in the whole of this passage (Heb. 12:18-29) was to enhance in the Hebrews’ estimation the supremacy and excellency of Christ’ s kingdom, which His Gospel has "brought to light," and of which the believers have been given the right and assurance, for it was to make way for the establishment of Christ’ s kingdom that those mighty "shakings" occurred. Paul insists that God’ s "shakings" were in order to "remove" that which hindered the manifestation and development of Christ’ s kingdom. Here, then, is further proof that, so far from Haggai’ s prophecy looking forward to the universal convulsion of nature at the last day, it has already had its fulfillment: believers now actually obtain the fruit of that "shaking," for they "receive" the unshakable kingdom, namely the kingdom of Christ which cannot be moved. We trust this is now so plain to the reader that further effort on our part to establish the same is unnecessary.  

But not only did the prophecy of Haggai announce the superiority of Christianity over Judaism and the necessary setting aside of the one for the other, but it also clearly intimated the finality of the Christian dispensation. This is plain from the words of Hebrews 12:27, "yet once more." According to modem dispensationalists Paul should have said, "yet twice more," for their view is, that just as the Mosaic dispensation was followed by the Christian, so the Christian will be succeeded by a revived and glorified Judaism in "the Millennium." But "once more" means once only, and then no more. Christianity is the final thing which God has for this earth. The last great dispensational change was made when the Gospel was given to all the world: hence Peter could say, "the end of all things is at hand" (1 Pet. 4:7), for God has now spoken His last word to mankind. Hence also John said, "It is the last hour" (1 John 2:18), which had not been true if another dispensation is to follow the one we are now in.  

"And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain" (verse 27). Here the apostle explains Haggai’ s "Yet once it is a little while (cf. the "now" of Hebrews 12:26) and I will shake the heavens" etc. When Paul refers to the things shaken and removed "as of things that are made," he was far from adding a superfluous clause: it emphasized again the contrast he was drawing. The phrase "as of things that are made" is elliptical, needing the added words "made" (by hands) to bring out its sense. Everything connected with Judaism was made by human hands: even the tables of stone on which were inscribed the ten commandments, God commanded Moses to "hew" (Ex. 34:1), while the tabernacle and all connected with it was to be "made" according to "the pattern" God showed him (Ex. 25:8, 9). In sharp and blessed contrast, the immaterial and spiritual things of Christianity are "not made with hands" (2 Cor. 5:1), but are "made without hands" (Col. 2:11).  

"Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved let us have grace whereby we may serve God." The apostle here draws an inference from what had just been pointed out concerning the shaking and removing of Judaism and the establishing of Christianity. First, here is a great privilege into which Christians have entered, namely, a spiritual state under the rule of Jesus Christ— whom God hath anointed and set as king upon His holy hill of Zion (Ps. 2:6)— here called a "kingdom." Second, the essential character of this kingdom, in contrast from all others, namely its immoveability— its finality and permanency. Third, the way of the believer’ s participation of it: we "receive" it. "This kingdom, then, is the rule of Christ in and over the Gospel-state of the church, which the apostle hath proved to be more excellent than that of the Law" (John Owen). This kingdom we must now consider.  

At the beginning of human history God’ s kingdom was realized on this earth, so that there was no need to pray, "Thy kingdom come." God’ s kingship was established in Eden, and all the blessings that flow from subjection to His dominion were then enjoyed. The supremacy of God was gladly and spontaneously acknowledged by all His creatures. But sin entered, and a radical change ensued. Man repudiated the kingship of God, for by transgressing His commandments Adam rejected His sovereignty. By so doing, by heeding the suggestions of the Serpent, the "kingdom of Satan" (Matthew 12:26) was set up in this world. Shortly afterwards, God established His mediatorial kingdom, Abel being its first subject.  

Since the Fall there have been two great empires at work on this earth: the "world" and "the kingdom of God." Those who belong to the former own not God; those who pertain to the latter, profess subjection to Him. In O.T. times the Israelitish theocracy was the particular sphere of God’ s kingdom on earth, the domain where His authority was manifested in a special way (Judg. 8:23, 1 Samuel 12:12, Hosea 13:9, 10, etc.). But subjection to Him, even there, was, on the part of the Nation as a whole, but partial and brief. The time soon came when Jehovah had to say to His servant, "They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them" (1 Sam. 8:7). Then it was that the Lord appointed human kings in Israel as His representatives, for while the Sinaitic convenant (Ex. 19:6) continued in force Jehovah remained their King— it was the "King which made a marriage feast for His Son" (Matthew 22:2)! Though Saul, David, and his successors, bore the regal character, and thus partly obscured the Divine government, yet it was not abolished (see 2 Chronicles 13:8). The throne on which Solomon sat was called "The throne of the kingdom of the Lord" (1 Chron. 28:5).  

Through Israel’ s prophets God announced that there should yet be a more glorious display of His government than had been witnessed by their fathers of old, and promised that His dominion would take a more spiritual form in the establishing of the Messianic kingdom. This became the great theme of the later predictions of the O.T., though the nature and character of what was to come was necessarily depicted under the figures and forms of those material things with which the people were familiar and by those objects of Judaism which were most venerated by them. The setting up of the spiritual and immoveable kingdom of Christ was the issue and goal of all the prophets declared: see Luke 1:69, 70 and cf. Daniel 2:44. "The Lord reigneth, He is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith He hath girded Himself: the world (i.e. the "world to come" of Hebrews 2:5, the new "world" brought in by Christ) also is established, that it cannot be moved" (Ps. 93:1, which is parallel with "we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved" (Heb. 12:28).  

But though it had been clearly revealed through the prophets that the Lord Messiah would be a King and have a universal empire, yet the bulk of Abraham’ s natural descendants entertained a grossly mistaken conception of the true design of Christ’ s appearing and the real nature of His kingdom, and this mistake produced a most pernicious influence upon their tempers and conduct when the gracious purpose of His advent was fulfilled. The sense which they affixed to the Messianic prophecies was one that flattered their pride and fostered their carnality. Being ignorant of their spiritual needs and puffed up with a false persuasion of their peculiar interests in Jehovah’ s favor on the ground of their fleshly descent from Abraham (John 8:39, 41), the lowly life and holy teaching and claims of the Lord Jesus were bitterly opposed by them (John 8:48, 59; Luke 19:14).  

Though God had made many announcements through Israel’ s prophets that the Messiah would occupy the regal office, yet clear intimation was given that He would be very different from the monarchs of earth (Isa. 53:2). Though the Messiah’ s dominion and reign had been described under material symbols, yet was it made plain that His kingdom would not be "of this world." Through Zechariah it was announced, "Behold, Thy King cometh unto thee: He is just and having salvation: lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass" (Heb. 9:9). How different was that from the imposing splendor assumed by earth’ s sovereigns! what a contrast was His ass from their magnificent chariots and state-coaches! How plainly did the poverty and meanness of Christ’ s regal appearance intimate that His kingdom was not of a temporal kind! The Maker of heaven and earth, the Lord of angels, disdained such things as are highly esteemed among men.  

The fatal mistake made by the Jews respecting the true nature of the kingdom of the Messiah lay at the foundation of all the opposition with which they treated Him, and of their own ultimate ruin. How it behooves us, then, to prayerfully seek right views of Christ’ s kingdom, and to resist everything which tends to secularize His holy dominion, lest by corrupting the Evangelical Economy we dishonor the blessed Redeemer, and be finally punished as the enemies of His government. As the main cause of the Jews’ infidelity was their erroneous notion of a temporal kingdom of the Messiah, so the principal source of the corruption of Christianity has been the attempt made by Rome and her daughters to turn the spiritual kingdom of Christ into a temporal one, by uniting church and state and seeking to extend it by earthly means.  

In John’ s Gospel (which gives the spiritual side of things more than do the first three Gospels, being specially written to and for believers), there is a most significant word after the account of our Lord’ s regal entry into Jerusalem on the back of an ass: "These things understood not His disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of Him" (John 12:16). So prejudiced were the apostles by the erroneous teaching of the Pharisees, that even they did not rightly apprehend the nature of Christ’ s kingdom till after His ascension. They, too, were looking for a material kingdom, expecting it to appear in external pomp and glory; and hence they were at a complete loss to apprehend those scriptures which spoke of Christ’ s kingdom as of a mean and lowly appearance. Well did Matthew Henry say, "The right understanding of the spiritual nature of Christ’ s kingdom of its powers, glories, and victories, would prevent our misinterpreting and misapplying of the Scriptures that speak of it."  

Alas, how blind men still are as to what constitutes the true glory of Christ’ s kingdom, namely, that it is a spiritual one, advanced by spiritual means, for spiritual persons, and unto spiritual ends. "To subdue hearts, not to conquer kingdoms; to bestow the riches of His grace to poor and needy sinners, not, like Solomon, to heap up gold and silver and precious stones; to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him, not to spread ruin and desolation over countless provinces (as did Ceasar, Charlemagne, Napoleon— A.W.P.); to be surrounded with an army of martyrs, not an army of soldiers; to hold a court where paupers, not princes, are freely welcome" (J.C. Philpot). Only those favored with true spiritual discernment will be able to perceive what the real honors and glories of the Lamb consist of.  

The Mediatorial King must of necessity have a kingdom: even at His birth He was proclaimed as "Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:11), and the first inquiry made of Him was "where is He that is born King of the Jews?" (Matthew 2:2). Christ’ s Kingship and kingdom follow from a twofold cause. First, His sovereignty as God is essential to His Divine nature, being underived, absolute, eternal, and unchanging. Second, His sovereignty as Mediator is derived, being given to Him by the Father as the reward of His obedience and sufferings. It has two distinct aspects: first, in its wider and more general application it embraces all the universe; second, in its narrower and more specific administration it is restricted to the Church, the election of grace. In addition to these distinctions, it is important to note Christ never affirmed that the setting up of His kingdom on this earth was in any way dependent upon the attitude of the Jews toward Him: no, the eternal purpose of God was never left contingent upon the conduct of worms of the dust.  

"When the Jews refused Jesus as the Messiah, He did not say that the founding of the kingdom would be postponed until His second coming, but He did say the kingdom should be taken from them and given to the Gentiles!" (W. Masselink, "Why the Thousand Years?"). "Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures. The Stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the Head of the corner: this is the Lord’ s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes? Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matthew 21:42, 43). Moreover, every passage in the epistles which speak of Christ’ s kingdom as a present reality, refutes the theory that His kingdom has been postponed until His second advent: see Colossians 1:13, Revelation l:9— Christ’ s kingdom existed in the days of John, and he was in it! Christ is now "the Prince of the kings of the earth" (Rev. 1:5). He has already been "crowned with glory and honor" (Heb. 2:9).  

In consequence of the entrance of sin, God has set up a kingdom in antagonism to the kingdom of Satan. It is essentially different from the kingdoms of the world, in its origin, nature, end, method of development and continuance. It is essentially a kingdom of righteousness, and its central principle is the loyalty of heart of its subjects to the King Himself. It is not a democracy, but an absolute monarchy. The special agency for the extension of it is the organized churches of Christ with their regular ministry. By His providential operations the Lord Jesus is working in every sphere and causing all the historic movements of peoples and nations, civilized and uncivilized, to further its interests and advance its growth; though at the time of such movements this is hidden from carnal sense. Its consummation shall be ushered in by the return of the King, when His servants shall be rewarded and His enemies slain.  

"There is but one kingdom or spiritual realm in which Christ reigns forever, and which in the end shall be eternally glorious in the perfect glory of her King; yet in Scripture there are three distinct names used to set forth the excellencies and the blessedness of that realm in various aspects, namely, the Kingdom, the Church, and the City of God" (A. A. Hodge). Of the three terms the word "kingdom" is the most flexible and has the widest range in its N.T. usage. It designates, first, a sphere of rule, a realm over which the government of Christ extends. It signifies, second, a reign or the exercise of royal authority. It denotes, third, the benefits or blessings which result from the benevolent exercise of Christ’ s regal authority. "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink"— the reign of Christ does not express itself in that kind of activity; "but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 14:17)— these are the characteristics of His realm.  

That Christ’ s kingdom is of an altogether different nature and character from the kingdoms of this world is clear from His own teaching: "But Jesus called them to Him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister; and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:42-45). And again, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36): observe He did not say "My kingdom is not in this world," but "not of it." It is not a provincial thing, nor a political institution; it is not regulated by territorial or material considerations, nor is it governed by carnal policy; it is not made up of unregenerate subjects, nor is it seeking mundane aggrandizement. It is purely a spiritual regime, regulated by the Truth. This is seen from the means He used at its first establishment, and His appointments for its support and enlargement— not physical force, but gracious overtures.  

Some men who are fond of drawing innumerable distinctions and contrasts under the guise of "rightly dividing the Word of Truth," draw a sharp line between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Christ. But this is clearly confuted by "hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God" (Eph. 5:5), and again "the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ" (Rev. 11:15 and cf. 12:10). Its spiritual nature is plainly seen from Jehovah’ s statement, "they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them" (1 Sam. 8:7): His throne and scepter was an invisible one. In like manner when the Jews said of Christ, "We will not have this Man to reign over us" (Luke 19:14), they intimated that they were unwilling to surrender their hearts to His moral sway. So too when Paul said, "But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, and will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power" (1 Cor. 4:19, 20) he obviously meant, "the spiritual power thereof felt in your hearts."  

The reign of Christ has a twofold application. First, He sustains the relation of a gracious Sovereign to His redeemed people, ruling them in love, maintaining their interests, supplying their needs, restraining their foes; training them for His service now and for the glory awaiting them in Heaven. Second, He is the moral Governor over the world, for however unconscious they may be of His operations, all men are controlled by Him and their schemings and actions over-ruled for His own ends. Even earth’ s potentates are obliged to obey His secret will: "by Me kings reign, and princes decree justice" (Prov. 8:15); "The king’ s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: He turneth it whithersoever He will" (Prov. 21:1). His government over the world, yea, over the entire universe, is administered by a wisely adapted series of means, appointed and directed by Him.  

It is important to recognize this twofold scope of Christ’ s reign. To the Father He said, "As Thou has given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him" (John 17:2). The kingdom of Christ as it is spiritual and inward is peculiar to the elect, but His kingdom as it is judicial and outward is universal. The two things are distinguished again in Psalm 2: "Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion" (verse 6), and "Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession" (verse 8). Christ is not only "King of saints" (Rev. 15:3), but He is also "King of nations" (Jer. 10:7). He reigns over all mankind, and those who do not submit themselves to Him as Redeemer, shall yet stand before Him as Judge. "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shall dash them to pieces like a potter’ s vessel" (Ps. 2:9): this speaks of the judiciary acts of His power. Joseph in Egypt typed out the same: the power of all the land was made over to him (Gen. 41:43), but his brethren had a special claim upon his affections.  

Now this kingdom of Christ, considered in its spiritual and inward aspect, believers are said to "receive," that is, they participate in its privileges and blessings. As Christ’ s kingdom is "not of the world" but "heavenly" (2 Tim. 4:18), so its subjects are not of the world but heavenly. From the Divine side, they enter by means of the Spirit’ s quickening, for "except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). From the human side, they enter when they throw down the weapons of their rebellion and take Christ’ s yoke upon them, for "except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3). It was when we transferred our allegiance from Satan to Christ that it could be said, "The Father hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son" (Col. 1:13). They who have received the Gospel into an honest and good heart have been admitted into and made participants of the kingdom of Christ.  

"Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved." In seeking to define more closely the "we receiving," let us remember the threefold meaning of the term "kingdom." First, it signifies that we are admitted into that realm or sphere where Christ is owned as Supreme. Second, it signifies that we have surrendered to the reign or scepter of Christ, for Him to rule over our hearts and lives. Third, it signifies that we now participate in the blessings of Christ’ s government. This word "receiving" also denotes that we have this kingdom from Another: "walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto His kingdom and glory" (1 Thess. 2:12); "hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom?" (James 2:5); "Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matthew 25:34); all bring out this thought.  

In affirming that this is a kingdom "which cannot be moved" the apostle emphasized once more the great superiority of Christianity over Judaism, and also showed wherein the kingdom of Christ differs from all the kingdoms of earth, which are subject to commotions and convulsions. This "kingdom which cannot be moved" is but another name for "those things which cannot be shaken" that "remain" of verse 27: it is the substance and reality of what was typed out under the Mosaic economy. "We have received a kingdom that shall never be moved, nor give way to any new dispensation. The canon of Scripture is now perfected, the Spirit of prophecy is ceased, the mystery of God is finished: He hath put His last hand to it. The Gospel-church may be made more large, more prosperous, more purified from contracted pollution, but it shall never be altered for another dispensation; they who perish under the Gospel, perish without remedy" (Matthew Henry).  

  

  

Combined Bible: Heb 12:29

Final Warning   

(Hebrews 12:28, 29)   

"Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire." A brief analysis of these verses reveals the following weighty points. First, the inestimable blessing which believers have been made the recipients of: a kingdom which is eternal. Second, the obligation devolving upon them: to serve God with true veneration and pious devotedness. Third, the warning by which this is pointed: because there can be no escape from the Divine wrath which overtakes apostates. In his helpful commentary J. Brown pointed out that "to receive an immoveable kingdom is but another mode of expressing what is meant by ‘ ye are come to mount Sion’ (verse 22). It is another descriptive figurative mode of expressing that the privileges and honors under the new covenant men obtain by the faith of the truth as it is in Jesus." In support of this: "they that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion: they shall never be moved" (Ps. 125:1).  

Now there is a twofold "kingdom" which believers have "received:" a kingdom of grace, which is set up in the heart of the saint, where Christ reigns as supreme Sovereign, and a kingdom of glory, prepared for us in Heaven, where we shall reign as kings with Christ forever. John Owen insisted that the former only is here intended, Ezekiel Hopkins threw the emphasis almost entirely upon the latter; personally we believe that both are included, and shall expound it accordingly, condensing the main points from each of these writers.  

Christians are already possessors of the kingdom of grace, for Christ has established His dominion over them. Though He sits personally upon the Throne of heaven, yet He rules in believers by His spirit (who has received commission from Him), and also by His Word energized in them by the Spirit. The interest of believers in this kingdom is called their "receiving" it, because they have it by gift or grant from their Father: Luke 12:32. First, they receive its doctrine, truth, and law: they own its reality and submit to its authority: Romans 6:17. Second, they receive it in the light, grace, and spiritual benefits of it: they enjoy its privileges of righteousness, peace, and joy: Romans 14:17. Third, they receive it in its dignities and securities: they are kings and priests unto God (Rev. 1:6), and so safe are they as to be "kept by the power of God through faith" (1 Pet. 1:5). Fourth, they receive it by a supernatural initiation into its spiritual mysteries (1 Cor. 4:20), the glory of which is immediate access to God and heart enjoyment of Him.  

The privileges which Christians receive by their believing the Gospel are inconceivably grand. They are in the kingdom, the kingdom of God and Christ, a spiritual and heavenly kingdom; enriched with inexhaustible treasures of spiritual and celestial blessings. Christians are not to be measured by their outward appearance or worldly circumstances, but rather by the interest they have in that kingdom which it was their Father’ s good pleasure to give them. It is therefore their privilege and duty to conduct themselves and behave as those who have received such wondrous privileges and high dignities from God Himself: far should they be from envying poor millionaires and the godless potentates of this earth. Our portion is infinitely superior to the baubles of time and sense. Though the world knows us not, unto God we are "the excellent of the earth" (Ps. 16:3), the crown-jewels of His Son, those whom angels serve or minister unto. O for grace to conduct ourselves as the sons and daughters of the Almighty.  

In what sense or senses has the believer "received" the kingdom of glory? First, by the immutable Word of Promise. To the believer the promise of God is as good security as the actual possession. The poor worldling cannot understand this, and he regards the confidence of the Christian as naught but fanaticism. But the simple trusting soul already possesses the kingdom of glory because God has infallibly assured him "in black and white" of the possession of it. It is the immutable Word of Promise which gives him the right and title to the inheritance, and therefore as it now belongs to him by right and title, he may well call it his. When God has promised anything, it is all the same to a believer whether He saith it is done or it shall be done.  

Second, the believer has "received" the kingdom of glory by grace giving him the earnest and firstfruits of it. The comforts and graces of the Spirit are referred to again and again under these figures: appropriately so, for an "earnest" is a part (an instalment) of what is agreed upon, and the "firstfruits" are a sample and pledge of the coming harvest. Now grace and glory are one and the same in essence, differing only in degree: grace is Heaven brought down into the soul, glory is the soul conducted to Heaven. Grace is glory commenced, glory is grace consummated. Probably one of the meanings of "Light is sown for the righteous" (Ps. 97:11) is, the "light" of everlasting life and bliss is now in the graces of regenerated souls as in their seed, and they shall certainly bud and blossom forth into perfect fruitage.  

Third, the believer has "received" the kingdom of glory by the realisation of Jaith. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1). Here is a spiritual grace which brings distant things near and gives to the future a present reality. Faith brings into the soul what lies altogether outside the reach of our natural senses. It is a supernatural faculty which is quite beyond the ken of the natural man. Faith beholds what the eye cannot see, it grasps that made without hands; it supplies demonstration or proof of that which the infidel scoffs at.  

Fourth, the believer has "received" the kingdom of glory by the embraces of hope. In Scripture, the grace of "hope" is something far better than a vague longing for something we do not yet possess: it is a sure expectation, a definite assurance of what God has promised. Hope supplies a present anticipation of the future realization. Faith believes, hope enjoys those things which God has prepared for them that love Him. Therefore hope is called the "anchor of the soul... which entereth into that within the veil" (Heb. 6:19), for it lays hold on that glory which is there laid up for us. Hope is the taster of our comforts, and excites the same delight and complacency as the fruition itself will impart— the same in kind, though not in degree.  

The particular property of this kingdom which is here emphasized by the Holy Spirit (in accordance with the thought of the context) is, that it "cannot be moved"; therein does it differ from all other kingdoms— here, as everywhere, does our blessed Redeemer have the" pre-eminence." Owen pointed out that. "No dominion ever so dreamed of eternity, as did the Roman Empire; but it hath not only been shaken, but broken to pieces and scattered like chaff before the wind: see Daniel 2:44; 7:14, 27"— so terribly so, that today, the closest students of history are unable to agree as to its actual boundaries. But nothing like that shall ever happen to the Savior’ s dominion: therefore do we read of "the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Pet. 1:11). No internal decays can ruin it; no external opposition shall overthrow it. Yet the language of our verse goes even further than that: God Himself will not remove it.  

"That which is here peculiarly intended is, that it is not obnoxious unto such a shaking and removal as the church-state was under the old covenant; that is, God Himself would never make any alteration in it, nor ever introduce another church-state or worship. God hath put the last hand, the hand of His only Son, unto all revelations and institutions. No addition shall be made unto what He hath done, nor alteration in it: no other way of calling, sanctifying, ruling, and saving of the church, shall ever be appointed or admitted; for it is here called an immovable kingdom, in opposition unto that church state of the Jews which God Himself first shook, and then took away— for it was ordained only for a season" (John Owen). Here again we perceive the superiority of Christianity over Judaism: the one was mutable, the other immutable; the one was evanescent, the other eternal; the one was founded by Moses, the other is established by Him who is "the same yesterday, and today, and forever."  

The fact that Christ’ s kingdom is an "everlasting" one (2 Pet. 1:11), that it shall "never be moved" (Heb. 12:28), and that "of His kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke 1:33), has occasioned difficulty to some, in the light of "then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father" (1 Cor. 15:24). But the difficulty is at once removed if we bear in mind the distinctions pointed out in our last article. The sovereign dominion which Christ has over all creatures as a Divine person, is something of which He can never divest Himself. Likewise, that dominion over His own people which belongs to Him as the incarnate Son, is also eternal: He will remain forever the Head and Husband of the Church; nor can He relinquish the Mediatorial office. But that dominion to which He was exalted after His resurrection, and which extends over all principalities and powers (John 17:2, Matthew 28:18), will be relinquished when its design is accomplished: this is clearly seen in the remaining words of 1 Corinthians 15:24, "When He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet." Thus, the "kingdom" which Christ delivers up to the Father is that rule of His over His enemies.  

The immovability and eternality of Christ’ s kingdom holds good of it equally whether we consider it in its present grace aspect or its future glory aspect, for we have received "a kingdom which cannot be moved." The kingdom of grace is so Divinely fixed in the heart of believers that all the efforts of sin and all the attacks of Satan are unable to overthrow it: "the foundation of God standeth sure" (2 Tim. 2:19); "being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will finish it" (Phil. 1:6). It is absolutely impossible that one of Christ’ s sheep should perish: in the day to come He will exclaim, "Behold I and the children which God hath given Me" (Heb. 2:13). If this be true of the kingdom of grace, then much more so of the kingdom of glory, when sin shall be no more and Satan shall never again tempt the redeemed.  

Now from the glorious nature of this "kingdom" the apostle proceeds to draw an inference or point a practical conclusion: "Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably." As J. Brown pointed out, to "receive a kingdom" is to be invested with royalty, to be made kings and priests unto God (Rev. 1:6). Since, then, royalty is the most exalted form of human life, the most dignified honor known upon earth, how it behooves us to seek from God that aid which shall enable us to "walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called." Once again we are reminded of the inseparable connection between privilege and duty, and the greater the privilege the stronger the obligation to express our gratitude in a suitable and becoming manner: not merely in emotional ecstasies or fulsome words, but by obedience and worship, that we may "serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear."  

The commentators differ considerably as to what is denoted by "let us have grace," yet it seems to us, its meaning is quite simple and obvious. Its signification may be ascertained by three considerations involved in what immediately follows. First, this "grace" is essential unto the serving of God "acceptably" and, as we shall see, this "service" has a principal reference to our worshipping of Him. Second, this "grace" is the root from which proceeds "reverence and godly fear," so that it must point to something more than simple gratitude for what God has already done for us— which is how many of the writers limit it. Third, this "grace" is imperative if we are not to be consumed by Divine wrath— the "consuming fire" of verse 29. We therefore understand this expression to mean, let us persevere in the faith and duties of the Gospel, whereby we are alone enabled to offer acceptable worship to God; let us endeavor after an increase of Divine aid and succor; let us strive after a continual exercise of the grace He has given us; let us seek to bring our hearts more and more under its sanctifying power.  

We believe the key to our present passage is found in Exodus 19:10, 11, 15. Under the old covenant the way and means in which Israel was to make a solemn approach unto God in worship was specifically defined: they were to reverently prepare themselves by purification from uncleanness and separation from fleshly indulgences. That was an outward adumbration of the spiritual purity which God now requires from us both internally and externally. Because God has revealed Himself in Christ in a far more glorious manner to us than He manifested Himself before Israel at Sinai, we ought to earnestly endeavor after a more eminent preparation of heart and sanctification of our whole persons in all our approaches to the Most High. There must be in us the spiritual counterpart of what was shadowed out in them ceremonially. The fear of God was wrought in Israel by the terrors of His law: though our fear be of another kind, it ought to be none the less real and effectual in us to its proper ends.  

The great end in view is, that "we may serve God acceptably." In this particular epistle the Greek word used here signifies that service unto God which consists in His worship, in prayer and praise, and the observance of all the institutions of Divine worship. For example, "in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience" (Heb. 9:9); and again, "We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle" (Heb. 13:10); while in 10:2 the word is actually rendered "worshippers." Nor is this meaning of the Greek word peculiar to the Hebrews epistle: "She was a widow of about four score and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day" (Luke 2:37); "who change the truth of God into a lie, and worship and serve the creature more than the Creator" (Rom. 1:25). The specific reference, then, is had unto the worship of God according to the Gospel, as superseding the institutions under the old economy. Needless to say, such worship cannot proceed from any who are not walking in Gospel obedience.  

Now it is in order to our being so fitted for the Divine service that we may worship God "acceptably," that the exhortation comes, "let us have grace." There is a double reference: that our persons may be acceptable, and that our worship may be pleasing in His sight. An intimation is hereby given that there may be a performance of the duties of Divine worship when neither the persons who perform them, nor the duties themselves, are accepted by Him. So it was with Cain and his sacrifice, as it is with all hypocrites always. The principal things required unto this acceptance are, first, that the persons of the worshippers be accepted in the Beloved. Second, that the actual performance of worship must, in all the duties of it, be in strict accord with what God (and none other) has appointed. Third, that our spiritual graces be in actual exercise, for it is in and by this, in the discharge of all our religious duties, that we give glory unto God. How can our worship be pleasing unto Him if we be in a backslidden state?  

That which is here specifically singled out as necessary unto our worship being acceptable is, that we serve God "with reverence and godly fear." As John Owen wisely pointed out, these "may be learned best from what they are opposed unto. For they are prescribed as contrary unto some such defects and faults of Divine worship, as from which we ought to be deterred, by the consideration of the holiness and severity of God as is manifest from the next verse, ‘ for our God is a consuming fire.’ " The sins from which we ought to be deterred by a consideration of these Divine perfections are, First, the want of a due sense of the awe-inspiring majesty of Him with whom we have to do. God provided against this evil under the old economy by the terror wrought in the people at the giving of the Law, by the many restrictions interposed against their approaches to Him (none being allowed to enter the holy of holies), and by all the outward ceremonies appointed; and though all these are now removed, yet a deep spiritual sense of God’ s holiness and greatness should be retained in the mind of all who draw nigh to Him in worship.  

Second, the lack of a due sense of our own vileness, and our infinite distance from God both in nature and state, which is always required to be in us. The Lord will never accept the worship of a Pharisee: while we are puffed up with a sense of our own importance and filled with self-righteousness or self-complacency, He will not accept our approaches unto Him. And nothing is more calculated to hide pride from us and fill our hearts with a sense of our utter insignificance as a sight and realization of the ineffable purity and high sovereignty of God. When Isaiah beheld Him "high and lifted up," he exclaimed "Woe is me! for I am undone" (Isa. 6:5); when Job beheld the Almighty, he cried, "Behold, I am vile" (Job 40:4).  

Third, carnal boldness in a formal performance of sacred duties, while neglecting an earnest endeavor to exercise grace in them, which is something which God abhors. O the daring impiety of worldly professors taking upon their polluted lips the ineffable name of God, and offering unto Him "the sacrifice of fools" (Ecclesiastes 5:1). What a marvel it is that He does not strike dead those blatant and presumptuous souls who vainly attempt to deceive Him with their lip service while their hearts are far from Him. It is to prevent these, and other like evils, that we are here exhorted to worship God "with reverence and godly fear," that is, with a holy abasement of soul, having our minds awed by a sense of the infinite majesty of God, our hearts humbled by a consciousness of our vileness and our creaturely nothingness.  

No exhortation in this epistle is more needed by our perverse generation than this one. How this imperative requirement "with reverence and godly fear" rebukes the cheap, flippant, irreverent "worship" (?) of the day. O what unholy lightness and ungodly familiarity now marks the religion of Christendom: many address the great Deity as though they were His equals, and conduct themselves with far less decorum than they would show in the presence of an earthly monarch. The omission of bowing the head in silent prayer when we take our place in the congregation, the vulgar glancing around, the unseemingly whispering and chattering, the readiness to smile or laugh at any remarks of the preacher’ s which may be wrested, are all so many instances of this glaring and growing evil. "God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all about Him" (Ps. 89:7).  

The Greek word for "reverence" is rendered "shamefacedness" in 1 Timothy 2:9. This, in extraordinary instances, is called a "blushing," a "being ashamed," a "confusion of face" (Ezra 9:6; Daniel 9:7); yet, the essence of it, ought always to accompany us in the whole worship of God. "Godly fear" is a holy awe of the soul when engaged in sacred duties, and this from a consideration of the great danger there is of our sinful miscarriages in the worship of God, and of His severity against such heinous offenses. God will not be mocked. A serious soul is hereby moved unto watchfulness and diligence not to provoke so great, so holy, so jealous a God, by a neglect of that reverence and godly fear which He requires in His service, and which is due unto Him on account of His glorious perfections. If the seraphim veil their faces before Him (Isa. 6:2). how much more should we do so!  

"For our God is a consuming fire" (verse 29). This is the reason given why we must serve God with reverence and fear. The words are taken from Deuteronomy 4:24, where they are used to deter Israel from idolatry, for that is a sin God will not tolerate. The same description of God is here applied by the apostle unto those lacking grace to worship Him with the humility and awe which He demands. If we are graceless in our persons, and devoid of reverence in our worship, God will deal with us accordingly. As a fire consumes combustible matter cast into it, so God will destroy sinners. The title "our God" denotes a covenant relationship, yet though Christians are firmly assured of their interest in the everlasting covenant, God requires them to have holy apprehensions of His majesty and terror: see 2 Corinthians 5:10, 11.  

The twin graces of love and fear, fear and love, should be jointly active in the believer, and it is in preserving a balance between them that his spiritual health largely consists. So it is here: observe the remarkable conjunction: "our God," in covenant relationship, our Father; and yet "a consuming fire," to be trembled at! The first is to prevent despair from considering God’ s ineffable purity and inflexible justice; the latter is to check a presumptous irreverence unto which a one-sided occupation with His grace and love might embolden us. Thus, the principal exhortation "let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably" is urged by two widely different motives: because we have "received a kingdom" and because God is a "consuming fire." Carnal reason would ask, If we have received a kingdom which cannot be moved, why should we fear? But if God be such "a consuming fire" how can we ever expect such a kingdom, since we are but a stubble? But the Spirit-taught have no difficulty in perceiving why the apostle joined together these two things.  

The Christian’ s interest in His favor, is no warrant for casting off a solemn fear of God: though He has laid down His enmity against him, He has not cast off His majesty and sovereignty over him. "Even those who stand highest in the love and favor of God, and have the fullest assurance thereof and of their interest in Him as their God, ought, nothwithstanding, to fear Him as a sin-avenging God and a consuming fire" (Ezek. Hopkins, 1680). Though God has taken His redeemed into intimate nearness to Himself, yet He requires that they always retain a due apprehension of the majesty of His person, the holiness of His nature, the severity of His justice, and the ardent jealousy of His worship. If we truly dread falling under the guilt of this awful sin of irreverence, our minds will be influenced unto godly fear. The grace of fear is in nowise inconsistent with or an impediment to a spirit of adoption, holy boldness, or godly rejoicing: see Psalm 2:11, Matthew 28:8, Philippians 2:12.  

"Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably," for without it there will be neither "reverence" nor "godly fear." Without Divine aid and unction we cannot serve God at all, for He accounts not that worship which is offered by graceless persons. Without grace in actual operation we cannot serve God acceptably, for it is in the exercise of faith and fear, love and awe, that the very life and soul of spiritual worship consists. O how earnestly do we need to seek an increase of Divine "grace" (2 Cor. 9:8; 12:9), and keep it operative in all duties of the worship of God: that in view of His awful wrath, we may have a dread of displeasing Him; in view of His majesty our hearts may be humbled; and in view of His love, we may seek to honor, please and adore Him. "Sanctify the Lord of hosts Himself; and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread" (Isa. 8:13 and cf. Matthew 10:28).  

  

  

Maclaren: Heb 12:1-2

The Cloud Of Witnesses And Their Leader

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset [us], and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. '--Heb. 12:1-2.

WHAT an awful sight the rows above rows of spectators must have been to the wrestler who looked up at them from the arena, and saw a mist of white faces and pitiless eyes all directed on himself! How many a poor gladiator turned in his despair from them to the place where purple curtains and flashing axes proclaimed the presence of the emperor, on whose word hung his life, whose will could crown him with a rich reward!

That is the picture which this text brings before our eyes, as the likeness of the Christian life. We are in the arena; the race has to be run, the battle to be fought. All round and high above us, a mist, as it were, of fixed gazers beholds us, and on the throne is the Lord of life, the judge of the strife, whose smile is better than all crowns, whose downward-pointing finger seals our fate. We are compassed with a cloud of witnesses, and we may see Jesus the author and finisher of faith. Both of these facts are alleged here as encouragements to persevering, brave struggle in the Christian life. Hence we have here mainly two subjects for consideration, namely the relation between the saints who are gone and ourselves, and the encouragement derived from it; and the contrasted relation between Jesus and ourselves, and the encouragement derived from it.

I. The Metaphor Of The Cloud Of Witnesses' Is Perhaps Intended To Express Multitude,

And also elevation. It may have been naturally suggested by the thought of the saints of the Old Testament (of whom the previous chapter has been so nobly speaking) as exalted to heaven, and hovering far above and far away like the pure whitenesses that tower there. Raphael's great Sistine Madonna has for background just such a light mist of angel faces and adoring eyes all turned to the gentle majesty of the Virgin. There may also be blending in the writer's mind such a reference to the amphitheatre as we have already noticed, which certainly exists in the later portion of the context. But we must remember that tempting as it is to a hasty reader to deduce from the words the idea that the saints whose warfare is accomplished' look down on our struggles here, there is, at all events, no support to that idea in the word' witnesses.' It is not used, as often in our speech, as equivalent to spectators,' but means here exactly what it does in the previous chapter, namely, attesters or testifiers. They are not witnesses of us, but to us, as we shall see presently. It may, indeed, be that the thought of the heavenly spectators of our Christian course is implied in the whole strain of the passage, and of the imagery borrowed from the arena, which would certainly be incomplete if there were nothing to answer to the spectators, who, whether at Corinth or Rome, made so important a part in the scene.

We shall be going too far, I think, if we dogmatically assert, on the strength of a figure, that this context teaches a positive communion between earth and heaven of such a sort as that they who have overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of His testimony,' know about the struggles of us down here in the arena. Still, one feels that such an idea is almost needed to give full force either to the figure or exhortation. It does seem somewhat lame to say, You are like racers, surrounded with a crowd of witnesses, therefore run, only do not suppose that they really see you. If this be so, the glowing imagery certainly seems to receive a violent chill, and the flow of the exhortation to be much choked. Still we can go no further than a modest perhaps.'

But even as a may be,' the thought of such a knowledge stimulates. As all the thousand eyes of assembled Greece looked on at the runners, and all the dialects of its states swelled the tumult of acclaim which surged round the victor, so here the general assembly and Church of the firstborn, the festal gathering on Mount Zion, into relations with which this very chapter says we have come, may be conceived of as sitting, solemn and still, on the thrones around the central throne, and bending not unloving looks of earnest pity on the arena below where they too once toiled and suffered.

It may be that, before their eyes, who have been made wise by death, and who, standing within the sanctuary of God, understand the end' of life and life's sorrows, are manifest our struggles, as with weary feet and drooping limbs we blunder on in the race. Surely there is love in heaven, and it may be there is knowledge, and it may be there is care for us. It may be that, standing on the serene shore beside the Lord, who has already prepared a meal for us with His own hands, they discern, tossing on the darkened sea, the poor little boats of us downhearted, unsuccessful toilers, who cannot yet descry the Lord, or the welcome which waits on the beach.

At all events the thought may come with cheer to our hearts, that, whether conscious of one another's mode of being or no, they in their triumph and we in our toils are bound together with real bonds. The thought, if not the knowledge, of their blessedness may be wafted down to us, just as the thought, if not the knowledge, of our labour may be in their restful souls. The hope of their tranquil shore may strengthen us that are far off upon the sea, though we cannot see more of it than the dim lights moving about, and catch an occasional fragrance in the air that tells of land, just as the memory of their stormy voyage mingles in their experience with their gladness because the waves be quiet, and God has brought them to their desired haven.

Such thoughts may come with encouragement for the conflict, even if we hesitate to assert that the cloud of witnesses is a cloud of spectators. What, then, is the sense in which these heroes of the faith which the previous chapter has marshalled in a glorious bede-roll, are witnesses'? The answer will be found by observing the frequent occurrence of the word, and its cognate words, in that chapter. We read there, for instance, that the elders' had witness borne to them' (Hebrews 11:2, Revised Version); that Abel by the acceptance of his sacrifice, had witness borne to him that he was righteous," God bearing witness in respect of his gifts' (Hebrews 11:4, Revised Version); that Enoch had witness borne to him that he had been well pleasing unto God' (Hebrews 11:5, Revised Version), and that the whole illustrious succession had witness borne to them through their faith' (Hebrews 11:39, Revised Version). This witness borne to them by God is, of course, His giving to them the blessings which belong to a genuine faith, whether of conscious acceptance with God, or of inward peace and power, or of outward victory over sorrows and foes. But they become witnesses to us for God by the very same facts by which He makes Himself the witness of their faith, for they therein become proofs of the blessedness of true religion, visible evidences of God's faithfulness, and their histories shine out across the centuries testifying to us in our toils how good it is to trust in the Lord, and how small and transient are the troubles and hindrances that a life of faith meets. The calm stars declare the glory of God, and witness from age to age of His power, which keeps them every one from failing; and these bright names that shine in the heaven of His word proclaim His tender pity, and His rewarding love to all who, like them, fight the good fight. Like the innumerable suns that make up the Milky Way, they melt into one bright cloud that lies still and eternal above our heads and sheds a radiance on our dim struggles. So we have here brought out the stimulus to our Christian race from the faith and blessedness of these saints.

We have their history before us: we know what they were, and we have the end of their conversation'--that is, the issue or outcome of their manner of life--as the next chapter says. It was a hard fight, but it ended in victory. They had more than their share of sorrows and troubles, but' the glory dies not, and the grief is past.' From their thrones they call to us words of cheer, and point us to their tears turned into diamonds, to their struggles stilled in depths of repose, to their wounded brows crowned with light and glory.

They witness to us how mighty and divine a thing is a life of faith. Their human weakness was filled with the power of God. Tremblings and self-distrust and all the ills that flesh is heir to dwelt in them. Black doubts and sore conflicts were their portion. They, too, knew what we know, how hard it is to live and do the right. But they fought through, because a mightier hand was upon them, and God's grace was breathed into their weakness--and there they stand, victorious witnesses to us, that whosoever will put his trust in the Lord shall have strength according to his need inbreathed into his uttermost weakness, and have One by his side in every furnace, like unto the Son of Man. They witness to us of companions in suffering, and the thought of them may come to a lonely heart wading in dark. deep waters, with the assurance that there is a ford, and that others have known the icy cold; and the downward rush of the stream, and have not been carried away by it. It is not a selfish thought that sometimes brings encouragement to a solitary sufferer, the same afflictions have been accomplished in your brethren.' It helps us to remember the great multitude who before us have come through the great tribulation and are before the throne. The cloud of witnesses testify how impotent is sorrow to harm, how strong to bless those who put their trust in God.

They witness to us of the faithfulness of God, who has led them, and upheld them, through all their conflicts, and has brought them to His side at last. That wondrous power avails for us, flesh and young, as when it helped the world's grey fathers. God refers us to their experiences, and summons them as His witnesses, for they will speak good of His name, and each of them, as they bend down from their seats around the arena, calls to us, O love the Lord, all ye His saints. I was brought low and He helped me.' So that we, taking heart by their example, can set ourselves to our struggles with the peaceful confidence, This God is our God for ever and ever.'

The word rendered witnesses' has a narrower meaning in later usage, according to which it comes to signify those who have sealed their testimony with their blood, in which sense it is transferred, untranslated, into English, in martyr.' What an eloquent epitome of the early history of the Church lies in that one fact! So ordinarily had the faithful confessor to die for his testimony that the very name had the thought of a bloody death inextricably associated with it. And if we for a moment think of that meaning, and look back to the long series of martyrs from the days of Stephen to the last Malagasy Christian or missionary, what solemn scorn of soft delights, and noble contempt of life itself may be kindled in our souls. Easy paths are appointed to us. We' have not yet resisted unto blood.' Let us run our smoother race with patience, as we think of those who ran theirs with bleeding feet, and through the smoke of Smithfield or the dust of the arena beheld the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing ready to help, and so went to their death with the light from His face changing theirs into the same image.

But let us not forget that all these witnesses for God were imperfect men, whose imperfections are full of encouragement for us. Look at the names in that great muster-roll--Noah with his drunkenness, Jacob with his craft, Samson with his giant strength and giant passion, Jephtha with his savage faithfulness to a savage vow, David with his too well-known sins, and in them all not one name to which some great evil did not cling.

There are quickly reached limits to the veneration with which we are to regard the noblest heroes and saints, and none of them are to be to us patterns, however we may draw encouragement from their lives, and in some respects follow their faith. Thank God for the shameful stories told of so many of them in the unmoved narrative of Scripture! They were men of common clay. The saints' halo is round the head of men and women like ourselves. We look at our own sins and shortcomings, and are ready to despair. But we may lift our eyes to the cloud of witnesses and for every evil of ours find a counterpart in the earthly lives of these radiant saints. Thinking of our own evil we may hopefully say, as we gaze on them, Such were some of ye, but ye are washed, and ye are sanctified.' Therefore I will not doubt but that He is able to keep me, even me,' from falling, and to present me faultless before the presence of His glory.'

II. But We Are Not Left To Draw Encouragement From The Remembrance Of Men Of Like Passions With Ourselves Only.

The second of these clauses turns our thoughts to the contrasted relations between Christ and us, and the stimulus derived from it. Looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.'

Our Lord is here very emphatically set in a place by Himself apart from all that cloud of witnesses, who in their measure are held forth as noble examples of faith. All these, the greatest names of old, are in one class, and He stands above them in a class of which He is the only member. There we see no other man save Jesus only. Whatever be the inference from that fact, the fact itself is plain. He is something to all the fighters in the lists which none of these are. Our eyes may profitably dwell on them, but we have to look higher than their serene seats, even to His throne, and the relation between us and Him is altogether unlike that which binds us to the holiest of these.

The names He bears in this context are noteworthy, the author and finisher of faith,' the former being the same word which, in Acts 3:15, is rendered prince' (of life), and in this Epistle (Heb. 2:10), captain' (of salvation). Its meaning may perhaps be best given as leader.' All these others are the long files of the great army, but Christ is the Commander of the whole array. As Captain of the Lord's host am I come up, said the man with the drawn sword, who stood before Joshua as he brooded outside the walls of Jericho over his task, and that armed angel of the Lord was He who, in the fulness of time, took our humanity that He might lead the many sons to glory. Not in order of time, but by the precedence of nature, is He the Leader and Lord of all who live by faith.

He is also the finisher, or more properly the perfecter of faith, inasmuch as He in His own life has shown it in its perfect form and power; inasmuch also as He gives to each of us, if we will have it, grace to perfect it in our lives; and inasmuch as, finally, He crowns and rewards it at last.

One more remark as to the force of the language here may be allowed. The word rendered looking' is an emphatic compound, and if full force be given to both its elements, we might read it looking away,' that is, turning our eyes from all other, even the grandest of these grand witnesses, to gaze on Christ alone.

All these details serve to bring out the unique position which our Lord holds, and the attitude in which we should stand to Him.

Christ is the one perfect example of faith. We are familiar with the rest of His perfect example in regard to other graces of the Christian character, but we dwell less frequently than we ought on Him as having Himself lived a life of faith. Many orthodox believers so believe in Christ's divinity as to weaken their sense of the reality of His manhood, just as, on the other hand, a vivid apprehension of His manhood obscures to many the rays of His divinity. We lose much by not making very real to our minds that Jesus lived His earthly life by faith, that for Him as for us dependence on God, and humble confidence in Him, were the secret of peace, and the spring of power. This very Epistle, in another place, quotes the words of the psalm,' I will put my trust in Him,' as the very inmost expression of Christ's life, and as one of the ways in which He proves His brotherhood with us. He, too, knows what it is to hang on God; and is not only in His divine nature the object, but in His true manhood the pattern of our faith.

And His pattern is perfect. In all others, even the loveliest of saints and most heroic of martyrs, the gem is marred by many a streak of baser material, but in Him is the one entire and perfect chrysolite.' That faith never faltered, never turned its gaze from the things not seen, never slackened its grasp of the things hoped, nor degenerated into self-pleasing, nor changed its attitude of meek submission. We may look to others for examples, but they will all be sometimes warnings as well, only to Jesus we may look continually and find unsullied purity and perfect faith.

He is more than example. He gives us power to copy His fair pattern. The influence of heroic, saintly lives may be depressing as well as encouraging. Despondency often creeps over us when we think of them. It is not models that we want, for we all know well enough what we ought to be, and an example of supreme excellence in morals or religion may be as hurtful as the unapproachable superiority of Shakespeare or Raphael may to a young aspirant. Perfect patterns will not save the world. They do not get themselves copied. What we want is not the knowledge of what we ought to be, but the will and the power to be it. And that we get from Christ, and from Him alone. He stretches out His hand to hold us up in our poor struggles. His grace and His peace come into our hearts. Looking to Him, His Spirit enters our spirits, and we live, yet not we, but Christ liveth in us. Models will help us little. They stand there like statues on their pedestals, pure marble loveliness; but in Christ the marble becomes flesh, and the lovely perfection has a heart to pity and a strong hand stretched out to help. So let us look away from all others, who can only give us example, to Him who can give us strength. Turn from the circling thrones to the imperial throne in the centre. We are more closely bound to Him who sits on it than to them. Look away from the cloud of witnesses to the sun of our souls, from whom, gazing, we receive warmth and light and life. They may teach us to fight, but He fights in us. They are patterns of faith. So is He, but He is also its object and its giver.

Christ is the imperial Rewarder of faith. At the last He will give the full possession of all which it has looked and hoped for, and will lift it into the nobler form in which, even in heaven, we shall live by faith. In that region where struggles cease, and sense and sight no longer lead astray, and we behold Him as He is, faith still abides, as conscious dependence and happy trust. It is perfected in manner, measure, and reward. And Christ is the giver of all that perfects it.

Let us, then, turn away our eyes from all beside, and look to Christ. He is the Reward as well as the Rewarder of our faith. As we look to Him we shall gain power for the fight, and victory and the crown. The gladiators in the arena lowered their swords to the emperor, before they fought, with the grim greeting Hail, Caesar! the dying salute thee.' So, in happier fashion, our Lord, who has Himself fought in the lists where we now strive. Then we shall have strength for the conflict, and when the conflict is drawing to its end and all else swims before our sight, and the din grows faint in our ears, we shall close our eyes in peace; and when we open them again, lo! the bloody field, and the broken sword, and the battered helm, have all disappeared, and we sit, crowned and palm-bearing, at His side, hailed as victors, and lapped in sweetest rest for ever more!

The Christian Life A Race

Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.'--Heb. 12:1.

THE previous clauses of this verse bring before us the runner's position as compassed about with a cloud of witnesses,' and his preparation as laying aside every weight and.., sin.' The text carries us a stage further in the metaphor, and shows us the company of runners standing ready, stripped, and straining at the starting-post, with the long course stretching before them.

The metaphor of the Christian life as a race is threadbare, so far as our knowledge is concerned, but it may be questioned if it has sunk deeply enough into the practice of any of us. It is a very noble one, and contains an ideal of the Christian life which it would do us all good to hold up by the side of our realisation of it. It might stimulate and it would shame us.

What is the special note of that metaphor? Compare with the kindred one, equally well-worn and threadbare, of a journey or a pilgrimage. The two have much in common. They both represent life as changeful, continuous, progressive, tending to an end; but the metaphor of the race underscores, as it were, another idea, that of effort. The traveller may go at his leisure, he may fling himself down to rest under a tree, he may diverge from the road, but the runner must not look askance, must not be afraid of dust or sweat, must tax muscle and lungs to the utmost, if, panting, he is to reach the goal and win the prize. So, very significantly, our writer here puts forward only one characteristic of the race. It is to be run with patience,' by which great word the New Testament means, not merely passive endurance, noble and difficult as that may be, but active perseverance which presses on unmoved, ay, and unhindered, to its goal in the teeth of all opposition.

But, whilst that is the special characteristic of the metaphor, as distinguished from others kindred to it, and of the ideal which it sets forth, I desire in this sermon to take a little wider sweep, and to try to bring out the whole of the elements which lie in this well-worn figure. I see in it four things: a definite aim, clearly apprehended and eagerly embraced; a God-appointed path; a steady advance; and a strenuous effort. Now let us ask ourselves the question, Do they correspond to anything in my professing Christian life?

We have here, then,

I. A Definite Aim, Clearly Apprehended And Eagerly Embraced.

Most men have aims, definite enough, in regard to lower things, and if you ask the average man out of the ruck what he is living for, he will generally be able to answer curtly and clearly, or at any rate his life will show, even if he cannot put it into words. But all these are means rather than ends; I am living to make a big business.' I am living to make a fortune.' I am living to found a family.' I am living to learn a science, an art, a profession.' I am living for enjoyment,' etc., etc. Yes, and then suppose somebody perks up with the exceedingly inconvenient further question,' Well, and what then?' Then, all that fabric of life-aims rushes down into destruction, and is manifest for what it is--altogether disproportionate to the man that is pursuing it. Such shabby, immediate aims' are not worth calling so. But my text sets forth far beyond, and far above them, the one only goal which it is becoming, which it is natural, which it is anything else than ludicrous, if it were not so tragical, that any man should be pursuing. And what is that mark? You can put it in a hundred different ways. Evangelical Christian people generally say salvation, and a great many so-called Evangelical Christian people have a very low, inadequate, and selfish idea of what they mean by the word. Let us put it in another form. The only aim that it is worthy of a man to live for, as his supreme and dominant one, is that he shall be completely moulded in character, disposition, nature, heart, and will into the likeness of Jesus Christ, who is the image of God, and that he shall pass into no Nirvana of unconsciousness, but into that blessed union with the divine nature, which is not absorption into it, or the weakening of the individual, but the making a man tenfold more himself because he lives in God, as the taper plunged into the jar of oxygen, which burns the brighter for its surroundings, and unlike the taper, is unconsumed by burning. Thus the complete development of human character into the divine image, and the complete union of the human with the divine, is the aim that Christianity sets before us.

And that aim it becomes every one of us professing Christians clearly to apprehend, and keep ever in view as the thing to which we are not merely tending, but to which we are striving. Clearly apprehended, and eagerly embraced, this conception of the purpose of our lives must be if we are not to make them ignoble and conscious or unconscious hypocrisies. But remember that such an aim may be pursued through, and requires for its attainment, all those lower aims and ends which monopolise men's efforts without regard to anything beyond. What we want most is a Christianity which, recognising that great, supreme purpose, follows it persistently and doggedly through all nearer and lesser pursuits. We want our Christian principle to penetrate into all the tissues of our lives, and to bring there healing, purging, and quickening. And if we suppose that the greatest of all aims is contrary to any of these lesser ones, except such of them as are sinful, then we misapprehend both the highest blessedness and good of the nearest objects that are set before us, and still more fatally misapprehend the very genius and intention of that Christianity, which is not unworldliness but the secret of making the world and all its fading sweets subservient to this highest end.

Now, need I say one word as to the nobleness and blessedness of a life which is consistently and thoroughly ordered with a view to this great aim? Think of the unity that thus will be blessedly breathed over all the else bewildering diversity of earthly conditions and occupations. As the moon gathers into one great tidal wave the heaped waters of the shoreless ocean, and mastering currents, and laughing at the opposing powers of the tempest, carries the watery wall round the earth, so the white, pure beam of that aim shining down on the confused welter of our earthly life will draw it all after itself. Think, too, of the power that comes into a life from this unity. A man of one aim is always formidable, and high above all other aims in its absorbing power is this one that a Christian man only deserves his name if he sets and keeps before him. Such a unity will, if I may so say, gather together the whole power of our nature, and bring it into a point, and it will heat it as well as concentrate it. If you take a bit of blunt iron, cold, and try to bore a hole in a ten-inch plank, you will make little progress; but if you sharpen it to a point, and heat it red-hot, then it will penetrate anything. So my life gathered up into one, and heated, by the very fact of its being concentrated, will pierce through all obstacles, and I shall be strong in the proportion in which this one thing I do,' and do it through all other things.

I need not remind you, either, of the blessedness which is involved in this unity of aim, clearly apprehended and eagerly embraced, in so far as it will act as a test of all lower pursuits and objects. Wherever there comes a little rill of fresh water down upon the coral reef the creatures that build it die, and the reef disappears, and thus a great aim will kill all lower ones that work in the dark, creeping and crawling, and that are contrary to itself. Further, this supreme aim is supremely blessed, because it will shine ever before us. There is a blessedness in having an object of pursuit which we never reach. It is better to steer straight to the pole-star, though we never get there, than to creep like the old mariners, from headland to headland, and leave behind us sinking on the backward horizon, purpose after purpose, hope after hope, aim after aim. Better to have it shining ahead.

Let me point out the second idea contained in this metaphor, that of,

II. A God-Appointed Path.

The race is set before us.' Set before us by whom? The course is staked out and determined by the Judge of the games. And that may well be applied in two directions. My duties are appointed by God, and if only we realise that, and bring the thought of His will continually into connection with the smallest of the acts which circumstances, relationships, occupations and the like constitute our duties, how different they all become! It is an entirely different thing to say, Being where I am, I must do so-and-so'; or Right and wrong being what it is, I must do so-and-so ; or to say, This and that man prescribes so-and-so for me'; and to say: Thou hast prepared a path for us, and ordained that we should walk therein.' That elevates, that sweetens, that calms us, that smooths the road, makes the rough places plain and the crooked things straight. We want with the clear vision of the aim the equally clear and abiding persuasion that God has appointed the path. A modern thinker said that religion was morality touched by emotion. No, religion is morality transfigured into obedience to the law of God. Bring your duties into connection with His appointment, and they will all be easy; and when the path stretches gloomy before you, and it seems that you are called upon to do some hard thing, say: Created unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.'

Then there is the other thought that, as the duties are appointed by Him, so the circumstances are appointed, too. You know what they call an obstacle-race, in which the intention is to accumulate as many difficulties in the course as can be crowded into it; I fancy that is a good deal like the race that is set before all of us, by God's wisdom. There are many fences to be climbed, many barriers to be crept under, many deep ditches to be waded through, many bad bits of road studded with sharp points, through which we have to pick our way. We say as to ourselves, and as to our friends, What does it all mean?' And the answer is, He has set the race before for our profit that we might be partakers of His holiness.'

Again, we have here the notion of,

III. A Steady Progress.

Continual advance is the very salt of the Christian life, and unless there be such progress there is something fatally wrong with the Christianity. An unprogressive Christianity is very apt to become a moribund and then a dead Christianity. Of course that is so because the aim of which I have been speaking is, in its very nature, inaccessible and yet capable of indefinite approximation. Alps upon Alps arise.' Neither in regard to the intellectual or spiritual apprehension of the deep things of God, nor in regard to the incorporation of His likeness into itself, will human nature ever be able to say, Lo, I have passed through the land, and know it all.' But an indefinite approximation to an eternally unreached point is a description of a geometrical figure, and it is the description of the Christian life. And, therefore, at no point must we stop, and at no point is it safe for us to say, I have apprehended and attained.' Our nature, quite as much as the divine nature towards which we tend, demands this continuous progress, for the human spirit is capable of an indefinite expansion, and the seed of the life kindred to God which is lodged in every believing soul, though it be at the beginning less than the least of all,' must grow into a great tree.

Ah, brethren! what a sad contrast to this unbroken progress our lives present to our own consciousness! How many Christian people there are who have almost lost sight of the notion, and have certainly ceased from the practice of an unbroken advance in either of the directions of which I have been speaking, likeness to God or communion with Him! Ask yourselves the question, Am I further on than I was this day last year, this day ten years, this day twenty years?' The Japanese gardeners pride themselves on having the secret of dwarfing forest trees, and they will put an oak into a flower-pot; and there it is, only a few inches high, in age a patriarch, in height a seedling. And that is what a great many of you Christian people are doing, dwarfing the tree; even if you are not distorting it. And now the last thing that I point out here is

IV. The Strenuous Effort.

I have already said a word or two about that as being the differentia, the special characteristic, of this metaphor. And I may just refer for one moment to the fact that the word rendered here race,' and quite rightly so rendered, literally means a contest--Let us run the contest that is set before us.' What does that say? Why, just this, that every foot of advance has to be fought; it is not merely' running,' it is conflict as well. And then, pointing in the same direction, comes the selection in the text, which I have already touched upon, of the one qualification that is necessary--patient endurance, which suggests antagonism. Opposition--where does the opposition come from? The Apostle asked the Galatians that once. Ye did run well; what did hinder you?' And the answers are diverse: flowers by the roadside, golden apples flung across the course, siren voices tempting us, the force of gravity holding us back, the pressure of the wind on our faces. Yes, and my own self most of all. That is what hinders, and that is what has to be fought against by myself. Effort, effort, effort is the secret of all noble life, in all departments, and it is the secret of advancing Christian life.

Now, let us understand aright the relations between the faith of which the New Testament makes so much and the effort of which this metaphor makes so much. A great many Christian people seem to fancy that faith supersedes effort. Not sol It stimulates and strengthens effort. If I trust, I receive the power to run, but whether I shall really run or not depends on myself. God gives the ability in Jesus Christ, and then we have to use the ability, and to turn it into an actuality. They have invented a movable platform at the Paris Exhibition, they tell me, on which a man steps, and having stepped upon it is lazily carried to his destination in the building without lifting a foot or moving a muscle. And some people seem to think that Christianity is a platform of that sort, a living way,' on which, if once they get, they may be as idle as they like, and they will reach their journey's end. Not so! Not so! By faith we enter on the race; through faith we receive the power that will make us able to run and not be weary, and to walk and not faint. But unless we run we shall not advance, and unless we advance we shall not attain. Understand, then, that faith is the basis of effort, and effort is the crown of faith. If we will thus trust ourselves to that Lord, and draw from Him the power which He is infinitely willing to give, then the great vision of the prophet will be fulfilled in our case, and we shall find stretching across the low, swampy levels of this world a highway,' and it shall he a way of holiness, and no ravenous beast shall come up therein, but the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.'

Weights And Sins

Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us.' Heb. 12:1.

THERE is a regular series of thoughts in this clause, and in the one or two which follow it. Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us; and let us run with patience the race that is set before us--looking unto Jesus.' That is to say, If we would run well, we must run light; if we would run light, we must look to Christ. The central injunction is, Let us run with patience'; the only way of doing that is the laying aside all weights and sin'; and the only way of laying aside the weights and sins is, looking unto Jesus.'

Of course the Apostle does not mean some one special kind of transgression when he says,' the sin which doth so easily beset us.' He is speaking about sin generically --all manner of transgression. It is. not, as we sometimes hear the words misquoted,' that sin which doth most easily beset us.' All sin is, according to this passage, a besetting sin. It is the characteristic of every kind of transgression, that it circles us round about, that it is always lying in wait and lurking for us. The whole of it, therefore, in all its species, is to be cast aside if we would run with patience this appointed race. But then, besides that, there is something else to be put aside as well as sin. There is every weight' as well as every transgression--two distinct things, meant to be distinguished. The putting away of both of them is equally needful for the race. The figure is plain enough. We as racers must throw aside the garment that wraps us round--that is to say,' the sin that easily besets us'; and then, besides that, we must lay aside everything else which weights us for the race --that is to say, certain habits or tendencies within us.

We have, then, to consider these three points;--First, There are hindrances which are not sins. Secondly, If we would run, we must put aside these. And lastly, If we would put them aside, we must look to Christ.

In the first place, there are hindrances which are not sins. The distinction which the writer draws is a very important one. Sin is that which, by its very nature, in all circumstances, by whomsoever done, without regard to consequences, is a transgression of God's law. A weight' is that which, allowable in itself, legitimate, perhaps a blessing, the exercise of a power which God has given us--is, for some reason, a hindrance and impediment in our running the heavenly race. The one word describes the action or habit by its inmost essence, the other describes it by its accidental consequences. Sin is sin, whosoever does it; but weights may be weights to me, and not weights to you. Sin is sin in whatever degree it is done; but weights may be weights when they are in excess, and helps, not hindrances, when they are in moderation. The one is a legitimate thing turned to a false use; the other is always, and everywhere, and by whomsoever performed, a transgression of God's law.

Then, what are these weights? The first step in the answer to that question is to be taken by remembering that, according to the image of this text we carry them about with us, and we are to put them away from ourselves. It is fair to say then, that the whole class of weights are not so much external circumstances which may be turned to evil, as the feelings and habits of mind by which we abuse God's great gifts and mercies, and turn that which was ordained to be for life into death. The renunciation that is spoken about is not so much the putting away from ourselves of certain things lying round about us, that may become temptations; as the putting away of the dispositions within us which make these things temptations. The other is, of course, included as well; but if we want to understand the true depth of the doctrine of self-denial and self-sacrifice which is taught here, we must remember that the sin and the weights alike lie within our own hearts--that they are our feelings, not God's perfect gifts--that they are our abuse of God's benefits, not the benefits which are given to us for our use. We shall have to see, presently, that by the power which we possess of turning all these outward blessings of God's hands into occasion for transgression, God's most precious endowments may become weights--but let us observe that, accurately and to begin with, the text enjoins us to put away what cleaves to us, and is in us, not what is lying round about us.

Then, if it be mainly and primarily, legitimate feel ings and thoughts, abused and exaggerated, which make the weights that we are to lay aside, what are the things which may thus become weights? Oh, brethren I a little word answers that. Everything. It is an awful and mysterious power that which we all possess, of perverting the highest endowments, whether of soul or of circumstances, which God has given us, into the occasions for faltering, and falling back in the divine life. Just as men, by devilish ingenuity, can distil poison out of God's fairest flowers, so we can do with everything that we have, with all the richest treasures of our nature, with the hearts which He has given us that we may love Him with them; with the understandings which He has bestowed upon us, that we may apprehend His divine truth and His wonderful counsel with them; with these powers of work in the world which He has conferred upon us, that by them we may bring to Him acceptable service and fitting offering; and, in like manner, with all the gladness and grace with which He surrounds our life, intending that out of it we should draw ever occasions for thankfulness, reasons for trust, helps towards God, ladders to assist us in climbing heavenward. Ah! and because we cleave to them too much, because we cleave to them not only in a wrong degree but in a wrong manner (for that is the deepest part of the fault), we may make them all hindrances. So, for instance, in a very awful sense is fulfilled that threatening, A man's foes shall be they of his own household,' when we make those that we love best our idols, not because we love them too well, but because we love them apart from God; when instead of drawing from those that are dear to us--our husbands, and wives, and children, and parents, and friends, and every other tender name--lessons of God's infinite goodness, and reasons why our hearts should flow perpetually with love to Him--we stay with them, and hang back from God, and forget that His love is best, His heart deepest, and His sufficiency our safest trust. That is one single instance; and as it is in that sacredest of regions, so is it in all others. Every blessing, every gladness, every possession, external to us, and every faculty and attribute within us, we turn into heavy weights that drag us down to this low spot of earth. We make them all sharp knives with which we clip the wings of our heavenward tendencies, and then we grovel in the dust.

And now, if this be the explanation of what the Apostle means by weights '--legitimate things that hinder us in our course towards God--there comes this second consideration, If we would run we must lay these aside. Why must we lay them aside? The whole of the Christian's course is a fight. We carry with us a double nature. The best of us know that flesh lusts against spirit, and spirit against flesh.' Because of that conflict, it follows that if ever there is to be a positive progress in the Christian race, it must be accompanied, and made possible, by the negative process of casting away and losing much that interferes with it. Yes! that race is not merely the easy and natural unfolding of what is within us. The way by which we come to' the measure of the stature of perfect men' in Christ, is not the way by which these material bodies of ours grow up into their perfectness. They have but to be nourished, and they grow. The blade and the ear, and the full corn in the ear,' come by the process of gradual growth and increase. That law of growth is used by our Lord as a description, but only as a partial description, of the way by which the kingdom of Christ advances in the heart. There is another side to it as well as that. The kingdom advances by warfare as well as by growth. It would be easy if it were but a matter of getting more and more; but it is not that only. Every step of the road you have to cut your way through opposing foes. Every step of the road has to be marked with the blood that comes from wounded feet. Every step of the road is won by a tussle and a strife. There is no spiritual life without dying, there is no spiritual growth without putting off the old man with his affections and lusts.' The hands cannot move freely until the bonds be broken. The new life that is in us cannot run with patience the race that is set before it, until the old life that is in us is put down and subdued. And if we fancy that we are to get to heaven by a process of persistent growth, without painful self-sacrifice and martyrdom, we know nothing about it. That is not the law. For every new step that we win in the Christian course there must have been the laying aside of something. For every progress in knowledge, there must have been a sacrifice and martyrdom of our own indolence, of our own pride, of our own blindness of heart, of our own perverseness of will. For every progress in devout emotion, there must have been a crucifying and slaying of our earthly affections, of our wavering hearts that are drawn away from God by the sweetness of this world. For every progress in strenuous work for God, there must have been a slaying of the selfishness which urges us to work in our own strength and for our own sake. All along the Christian course there must be set up altars to God on which you sacrifice yourselves, or you will never advance a step. The old legend that the Grecian host lay weather-bound in their port, vainly waiting for a wind to come and carry them to conquest; and that they were obliged to slay a human sacrifice ere the heavens would be propitious and fill their sails, may be translated into the deepest verity of the Christian life. We may see in it that solemn lesson--no prosperous voyage, and no final conquest until the natural life has been offered up on the altar of hourly self-denial. That self-denial must reach beyond gross and undoubted sins. They must be swept away, of course, but deeper than these must the sacrificial knife strike its healing wound. If you would run with patience,' you must lay aside every weight,' as well as the sin which so easily besets you.'

So much for the why; well, then, how is this laying aside to be performed? There are two ways by which this injunction of my text may be obeyed. The one is, by getting so strong that the thing shall not be a weight, though we carry it; and the other is that feeling ourselves to be weak, we take the prudent course of putting it utterly aside. Or, to turn that into other words: the highest type of the Christian character would be, that we should, as the Apostle says, use the world without abusing it '--that' they who possess should be as though they possessed not; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not.' The noblest style of a Christian would be a man, who exercising all the faculties which God had given him, and enjoying all the blessings wherewith God had surrounded him, walked his Christian course like some of those knights of old, lightly bearing his heavy mail, not feeling it a burden, but strong enough to bear the massive breastplate and to wield the ponderous sword, and fitted for his rough warfare by it all. It would be possible, perhaps, some day for us to come to this--that inasmuch as it is the feelings within us which make the weights, and not the objects without us- we should keep and enjoy the blessings and the gladness that we possess, and yet never thereby be thwarted or stayed in our journey heavenward. It would be the highest condition. I suppose we shall come to it yonder, where there will no longer be any need to maim ourselves that we may enter into life,' but where all the maimings that were done in this world for the sake of entering into life, shall be compensated and restored, and each soul shall stand perfect and complete, wanting nothing.

But, alas! though that course be the highest, the abstract best, the thing for which we ought to strive and try; it is not the course for which the weakness and inaptness of the most of us makes us strong enough. And therefore, seeing that we have a nature so weak and feeble, that temptations surround us so constantly, that so many things legitimate become to us harmful and sinful--the path of prudence, the safe path, is absolutely and utterly to put them away from us, and have nothing to do with them.

Of course, there are many duties which, by our own sinfulness, we make weights, and we dare not, and we cannot if we would, lay them aside. A man, for instance, is born into certain circumstances, wherein he must abide; he has a calling whereunto he is called.' Your trade is a weight, your daily occupations are weights. The spirit of this commandment before us is not, Leave your plough, and go up into the mountain to pray.' Again, a man finds himself surrounded by friends and domestic ties. He dare not, he must not, he cannot, shake himself free from these. There are cases in which to put away the occupation that has become a weight--to sacrifice the blessing that has become a hindrance--to abstain from the circumstances which clog and impede our divine life, is a sin. Where God sets us, we must stand, if we die. What God has given us to do, we must do. The duties that in our weakness become impediments and weights, we must not leave.

But for all besides these, anything which I know has become a snare to me--unless it be something in the course of my simple duty, or unless it be some one of those relations of life which I cannot get rid of--I must have done with it! It may be sweet, it may be very dear, it may lie very near thy heart, it may be a part of thy very being:--never mind, put it away! If God has said to you, There, my child, stand there, surrounded by temptations!--then, like a man, stand to your colours, and do not take these words as if they said--I am to leave a place because I find myself too weak to resist--a place in which God, for the good of others or for the good of myself, has manifestly set me. But for all other provinces of life, if I feel myself weak I shall be wise to fly. As Christ has said, If thy hand offend thee,' put it down on the block there, and take the knife in the other, and cut it off': it is better, it is better for thee to go into life with that maimed and bleeding stump, an imperfect man, than with all thy natural capacities and powers to be utterly lost at the last! And some of us, perhaps, may feel that these solemn lessons apply not only to affection and outward business. I may be speaking to some young man to whom study, and thought, are a snare. I know that I am saying a grave thing, but I do say, In that region too, the principle applies. Better be ignorant, and saved, than wise, and lost. Better a maimed man in Christ's fold, than a perfect man, if that were possible, outside of it.

I know that there is a large field for misconception and misapplication in the settlement of the practical question--Which of my weights arise from circumstances that I dare not seek to alter, and which from circumstances that I dare not leave unaltered? There is a large margin left for the play of honesty of purpose, and plain common-sense, in the fitting of such general maxims to the shifting and complicated details of an individual life. But no laws can be laid down to save us that trouble. No man can judge for another about this matter. It must be our own sense of what harms our spiritual life, and not other people's notions of what is likely to harm either theirs or ours, that, guides us. What by experience I find does me harm, let me give up! No man has a right to come to me and say, There is a legitimate thing, an indifferent thing; it is not a sin; there is not in it, in itself, the essential element of transgression; but you must forsake it, because it is a weight to other people! To my own master I stand or fall. The commandment is, Have no weights! But the way to fulfil that com-mandment-whether by rejecting the thing altogether, or by keeping it, and yet not letting it be a weight, that is a matter for every one's own conscience, for every one's own judgment and practical prudence, guided by the Spirit of God, to determine. The obedience to the commandment is a simple matter of loyalty to Christ. But the manner of obedience is to be fixed by Christian wisdom. And remember that on both sides of the alternative there are dangers. There is danger in the too great freedom which says, I am strong; I can venture to do this thing--another man cannot--and I will do it! There is a danger on the other side in saying, We are all weak, and we will forsake all these things together! The one class of moralists are apt to confound their own unsanctified inclinations with the dictates of Christian freedom. The other class are apt to confound their own narrowness with the commandments of God. The one class are apt to turn their liberty into a cloak of licentiousness. The other class are apt to turn their obligation into a yoke which neither they nor their disciples are able to bear. The Apostle pointed out the evils which these two ways of dealing with things indifferent are apt to foster when he said to those who adopt the one, Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not'; and to those who adopt the other' Let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth.' That is to say, on the one hand, beware of the fancied superiority to the weaknesses and narrowness of your more scrupulous brother, which is prone to creep into the hearts of the more liberal and strong. Remember that perhaps the difference between you is not all in your favour. It may be that what you call over-scrupulous timidity is the fruit of a more earnest Christian principle than yours; and that what you call in yourself freedom from foolish scruples, is only the result of a less sensitive conscience, not of a more robust Christianity. Then for the other class, the lesson is, Let not him which eateth not, judge him that eateth.' Judge not from the height of your superior self-denial, your brother who allows himself what you avoid. Your besetting sin is self-righteous condemnation of those who perhaps, after all, are wiser as well as wider than you, and who in their strength may be able to walk as near to God on a road, which to you would be full of perils, as you are in the manner of life which you know to be needful for you. Let us all remember, besides, that a thing which to ourselves is no weight, may yet be right for us to forsake, out of true and tender brotherly regard to others who, weaker than we, or perhaps more conscientious than we, could not do the same thing without damaging their spirits and weakening their Christian life. Him that is weak in the faith, receive.' Him that is weak in the faith, help. And in all these matters indifferent, which are weights to one and not weights to another, let us remember, first, for ourselves, that a weight retained is a sin; and let us remember, next, for others, that they stand not by our experience, but by their own; and that we are neither to judge their strength, nor to offend their weakness.

And now, in the last place: This laying aside of every weight is only possible by looking to Christ. That self-denial of which I have been speaking has in it no merit, no worthiness. The man that practises it is not a bit better than the man that does not, except in so far as it is a preparation for greater reception of the spiritual life. Some people suppose that when they have laid aside a weight, conquered a hindrance, given up some bad habit, they have done a meritorious thing. Well, we are strengthened, no doubt, by the very act; but then, it is of no use at all except in so far as it makes us better fitted for the positive progress which is to come after it. What is the use of the racer betaking himself to the starting-post, and throwing aside every weight, and then standing still? He puts aside his garments that he may run. We empty our hearts; but the empty heart is dull, and cold, and dark: we empty our hearts that Christ may fill them.

That is not all: Christ must have begun to fill them before we can empty them. Looking to Jesus' is the only means of thorough-going, absolute self-denial. All other surrender than that which is based upon love to Him, and faith in Him, is but surface work, and drives the subtle disease to the vitals. The man that tries, by paring off an excrescence here, and giving up a bad habit there, to hammer and tinker and cut himself into the shape of a true and perfect man, may do it outwardly. He will scarcely do that, but it is possible he may partially. And then, what has he made himself? A whited sepulchre'; outside, --adorned, beautiful, clean; inside,--full of rottenness and dead men's bones! The self that was beaten in the open field of outward life, retires, like a defeated army, behind broad rivers; and concentrates itself in its fortresses, and prepares hopefully for a victorious resistance in the citadel of the heart.

My brother, if you would run with patience the race that is set before you,' you must lay aside every weight.' If you would lay aside every weight, you must look to Christ, and let His love flow into thy soul. Then, self-denial will not be self-denial. It will be blessing and joy, sweet and easy. Just as the old leaves drop naturally from the tree when the new buds of spring begin to put themselves out, let the new affection come and dwell in thy heart, and expel the old. Lay aside every weight' -- looking unto Jesus.' Then, too, you will find that the sacrifice and maiming of the old man has been the perfecting of the man. You will find that whatever you give up for Christ you get back from Christ, better, more beautiful, more blessed, hallowed to its inmost core, a joy and a possession for ever. For He will not suffer that any gift laid upon His altar shall not be given back to us. He will have no maimed man in His service. So, the hand that is cut off, the eye that is plucked out, the possessions that are rendered up, the idols that are slain--they are all given back to us again when we stand in God's own light in glory--perfect men, made after the image of Christ, and surrounded with all possessions transfigured and glorified in the light of God. There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.

Maclaren: Heb 12:2

The Perfecter Of Faith

Set down at the right hand of the throne of God.'--Heb. 12:2.

ST. LUKE gives us two accounts of the Ascension, one at the end of his Gospel and one at the beginning of the Acts. The difference of position suggests delicate shades of colouring and of distinction in the two narratives, the one is the ending of the sweet intercourse on earth, the other is the beginning of a new era and a different type of companionship. So in that which closes the Gospel, emphasis is put upon our Lord's ascension as being parted from; and all that is told us is of the final benediction befitting a farewell, and of the uplifted hands, which left upon their minds the last sweet impression of the departing friend. But if we turn to the Acts of the Apostles, where the incident is the same, the whole spirit of the narrative is altered. We see there the beginning of a new era, and so we read nothing about parting, but, instead of the indefinite expression, He blessed them, we hear of their promised investiture with a new power, and of there being laid upon them a new obligation--Ye shall be clothed with the Spirit: ye shall be My witnesses.' And the two men who stand by them, and are only mentioned in the Book of Acts, announce the great thought, that the departing Christ will return, He shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go.' All in that account has a forward aspect. It is a beginning with a new power, strengthened by a new duty, and having a far-off hope. Thus equipped, these eleven no more feel that their Lord is parted from them, nor that they are abandoned and forlorn; but they cast themselves into their new circumstances, and joyfully take up their new work. So the Ascension of Christ is represented in that second account as being the transition from the earthly to the heavenly life and type of communion with Him, and as the preparation for that great fact which my text enshrines in highly figurative language, as being the sitting at the right hand of the throne of God. The Ascension is no transient fact, it is the beginning of the permanent condition of the Church, and of the permanent present relations between Jesus Christ, God, the Church, and the world. So I desire to turn now to the various characteristics of the present and permanent relationship of Jesus Christ to these three--God, the Church, the world.

And first of all I wish to notice we have here the thought of the Enthroned Christ. The attitude of sitting indicates repose. The position at the right hand of the throne of God indicates participation in the divine energies and in the administration of the divine providences. But the point to observe is that the Ascension is declared to be the prerogative of the Man Christ Jesus. And so with great emphasis and significance, in the verse with a part of which I am now dealing, we have brought together the name of the humanity, the name that was borne by many another Jew in the same era as Jesus bore it, we have brought together the name of the humanity and the affirmation of the divine dignity, We see Jesus, set down at the right hand of the throne of God.' And over and over again, not only in this Epistle, but in other parts of Scripture, we have the same intentional, emphatic juxtaposition of the two ideas which shallow thinkers regard as in some sense incompatible--the humanity and the divinity.

Remember, for instance, this same Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go.' And remember the rapturous and wonderful exclamation which broke from the lips of the proto-martyr. Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.' So then that exaltation and ascension is--according to New Testament teaching, which is not contradicted by the deepest thought of the affinities and resemblances of the divine and the human--the lifting up of the Man into the glory which the Incarnate Word had with the Father before the world was. And just as the earthly life of that Incarnate Word has shown how divine a thing a human life here may be, so the heavenly life of the still Incarnate Word shows us what our approximation to, and union with, the divine nature may be, when we are purged and perfected in the Kingdom of God, whither the Forerunner is for us entered.

But further, in addition to this thought, there comes another which is constantly associated with the teaching of this session of the Son of Man at the right hand of God, namely, that it, is intercessory. That is a word the history of which will take us far, and I dare not enter upon it now. But one thing I wish to make very emphatic, and that is that the ordinary notion of intercession is not the New Testament notion. We limit it, or tend to limit it, to prayer for others. There is no such idea in the New Testament use of the phrase. It is a great deal wider than any verbal expression of sympathy and desire. It has to deal with realities and not with words. It is not a synonym for asking for another that some blessing may come upon him; but the intercession of the great High Priest who has gone into the holiest of all for us covers the whole ground of the acts by which, by reason of our deep and true union with Jesus Christ through faith, He communicates to His children whatsoever of blessing and power and sweet tokens of ineffable love He has received from the Father. Whatsoever He draws in filial dependence from the Divine Father He in brotherly unity imparts to us; and the real communication of real blessing, and not the verbal petitions for forgiveness, is what He is doing there within the veil. He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.'

But still further in this great figure of my text, the Enthroned Christ, there lies a wondrous thought which He Himself has given us, I go to prepare a place for you.' What activities are involved in that wondrous idea it boots us not to inquire, nor would it become us to say. We know that never could we tread those pure pavements except our robes and our feet had been washed by Him. But that is the consequence of His earthly work, and not of His heavenly and present energy. Perhaps in our ignorance of all that lies behind the veil, we can get little further than to see that the very fact of His presence is the preparation of the place. For that awful thought, that crushing thought, of eternal life under conditions bewilderingly different from anything we experience here, would be no joy unless we could say we shall see Him and be with Him. I know not how it may be with you, but I think that the nearer we come to the end of the earthly life, and the more the realities beyond begin to press upon our thoughts and our imaginations as those with which we shall soon make acquaintance, we feel more and more how unquestionable the misery the thought of eternal life would bring if it were not for the fact that the world beyond is lighted up and made familiar by the thought of Christ's presence there. Can you fancy some poor clod-hopping rustic brought up from a remote village and set down all in a moment in the midst of some brilliant court? How out of place he would feel, how unhomelike it would appear, how ill at ease he would be; ay, and what an unburdening there would be in his heart, if amongst the strange splendour he detected beneath the crown and above the robes, sitting on the throne, one whom he had known in the far-off hamlet, and who there had taken part with him in all the ignoble toils and narrow interests of that rustic scene. Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you,' and when I lift up my eyes to those far-off realities which overwhelm me when I try to think about them, I say, I am not dazzled by the splendour, I am not oppressed by the perpetuity of it, I do not faint at the thought of unlike conditions, for I shall be the same and He will be with me.

It is enough that Christ knows all,And I shall be with Him.'

And so the Enthroned Christ is preparing a place for us. Ay, brethren, and He is not preparing it for us only when we die, but He is preparing it for us whilst we live; for it is only by faith in Him that we have boldness of access and confidence. And neither for the prayers and desires of Christian men on earth nor for the spirits of just men made perfect hereafter will the eternal golden gates swing open except His hand is on the bolt, and by His power the way into the Holiest is made manifest. And so set your minds as well as your affections on the things above, where Christ is sitting on the right hand of God.

Now, secondly, we have here the Present Christ. Matthew, in his Gospel, does not tell of the Ascension, but he preserves the promise, Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world,' and that promise is not contradicted, but is realised by the fact of Christ's ascension. He does tell us of the remarkable utterance to Mary on the morning of the Resurrection. Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father.' The implication that we have plainly is, when I am ascended you may touch. And the contact of even her nervous and clutching hand round His feet is less than the touch and the presence for which that departure makes the way. He was parted from them' is the thought that ends the Gospel. He was parted for a season that thou mightest receive Him for ever, is the thought that begins the Acts and the history of the Church. And it is true of Him and His relation to us, and because it is true about Him and about His relation to us, it is also true about all those who sleep in Jesus. Their relation towards the earthly form ceases, and there is an empty place where they once stood.

But there is a presence more real and capable of yielding finer influences, strengthening and sanctifying, than ever came from the earthly presence. It is blessed to clasp hands, it is blessed to link arms, it is blessed to press together the lips; but there is a higher touch than these, and sight is a less clear vision than faith; and they who can pass across the abyss of the centuries and the yet broader and deeper and blacker abyss between earth and heaven, and lay the hand of faith on the hand of Christ, have passed through the veil, that is to say His flesh, and have clasped .His real presence. Yes, and the thing that calls itself such, is but a part of the general retrogression of Catholicism to heathenism and materialism. We have the real presence if we have the Christ in our heart by faith. He is present with us; enthroned on high above all heavens, He yet is near the humblest heart, the companion of the lonely, the solace of all that trust Him. He trod the winepress alone,' in order that none of us need ever live alone or die alone.

And there is another side to this presence. As I have said, He is present with us here, and you and I may be present with Him yonder; for one of the Epistles tells us that, we die with Him that we may live with Him, and that God has quickened us (if we are Christian people) together with Him and made us sit together with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.' Your life, Christian men and women, is in its roots and sources, and ought to be in its flow and course, hid with Christ in God,' and you should not only seek to realise the presence of the Master with you, but to climb to Himself, being present with Him.

Thirdly, this great figure of my text sets before us the working Christ. The attitude of sitting at the right hand of God suggests repose; but that is a repose which is consistent with, and is accompanied by, the greatest energy for continuous operation. You remember, no doubt (although, perhaps, not in its full significance), the great words with which the close of St. Mark's Gospel points on to the future,' So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went everywhere preaching the word.' The Master gone, the servants left; the Master resting, the servants journeying and toiling. It is like the two halves of Raphael's great transfiguration picture. The Lord and the three are up there in the amber light, the demoniac boy writhing in his convulsions, and the disciples by him helpless, down here. The gap is great. Yes. They went everywhere preaching the Word, the Lord also working with them, and confirming the Word with signs following.' There is the true notion of the repose of Christ resting indeed at the right hand of God, yet working with His servants scattered over the face of the earth. And so in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, the keynote is struck when St. Luke says, The former treatise have I made of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach until the day on which He was taken up'; and this treatise, O Theophilus, is the second volume of the one story, the history of all that Jesus continued both to do and to teach after the day on which He was taken up. Acts of the Apostles? No; Acts of the Ascended Christ--that is the name of the book. Never mind about the apostles. They do come into the foreground; but the writer has little care about them. It is the Christ who is moving; and so we find it all through the book, the Lord did this, the Lord did that, the Lord did the other thing; and the apostles are, I was going to say, the pawns on the chess-board. And so you remember, too, that dying Stephen saw the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. He sprang to his feet, not breaking the eternal repose, to look down and to send down help and sustenance and blessing and good cheer to the man there at the fool of the old wall ready to die for Him.

And that is the type of the whole history of the Church. I have said that Christ's Ascension is the transition from the lower to the higher form of presence; and it is the transition to the wider form of work. He works for us, on us, in us, and with us, and as the apostle Peter said in expounding the significance of the Day of Pentecost, Being to the right hand of God exalted He hath shed forth this,' so the Christ is no longer tired, but is still working, working in us, with us, and for us.

And lastly, the metaphor of my text brings before us the returning Christ. It was not only the angel's message that declared that departure and ascension were not the last that the worker was going to see of Jesus. The necessities of the case, if I may say so, tell us the same message. The Incarnation necessarily involves the Crucifixion; the Crucifixion (if it is what we believe it to be) as necessarily involves the Resurrection, for it was not possible that He should be holden of it,' the grim death. The Resurrection and the Ascension are but as it were the initial point, which is produced into the line of His heavenly session. It cannot be that Ascension is the last word to be said. The path of the King does not run into a cul de sac like that. The world has not done with Jesus Christ. He is coming, was the great thought around which all the past clustered. He will come, is the great hope around which all the future hopes for the Church and the world are piled and built. He shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go,' corporeally, visibly, locally, in His manhood, in His divinity. As He was once offered to bear the sin of many, so shall He come the second time without sin unto salvation.' Brethren, that is the hope of the Church, discredited by many unworthy representations and mixed up with a great deal that does not commend it by the folly of those who believe in it; but standing out so distinct and so required by all that is gone before, that no Christian man can afford to relegate the expectation into the region of dimness, or to waver in his faith in it, without much imperilling his conception of his Master, and the blessedness of union with Him. You do not understand the Cross unless you believe in the throne; and you do not understand the throne unless you believe in the judgment-seat. The returning Christ shall judge the world. Brethren! Jesus is enthroned. Do you bow to His command? Do you trust His power? Do you see in Him the pattern of what you may be, and the pledge that you will be it if you put your confidence in your Lord? The enthroned Christ is present. Do you walk in blessed and continuous communion with Him? The enthroned and present Christ is working. Do you trust in His operation, peacefully, for yourself, for the Church, for the world? Do you open your heart to the abundant energies with which He is flooding His Church, and which His Church is so sadly and so much allowing to run to waste? The enthroned, present, working Christ is coming back, and you and I have to choose whether we shall be of the servants whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching,' and obeying His command with girt loins and lit lamps, and so will sweep with Him into the festal hall, and sit down with Him, on His throne; or whether we shall wail because of Him, and shrink abashed from the judgment-seat of Christ.

Maclaren: Heb 12:4

Resisting Unto Blood

Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.'--Heb. 12:4.

YE have not yet resisted'--then others had done so; and the writer bids his readers contrast their own comparative immunity from persecution from the fate of such, in order that they may the more cheerfully do the easier task devolved upon them. Who were those others?

If the supposition of many is correct that this Epistle was addressed to the Mother Church at Jerusalem, the fate of Stephen the first martyr, and of James the brother of John, who had had the rule over' that Church, may have been in the writer's mind. If the date assigned to the letter by some is accepted, the persecution under Nero, which had lighted the gardens of the Capitol with living torches, had already occurred; and the writer may have wished the Jerusalem Church to bethink themselves that they had fared better than their brethren in Rome. But whether these conjectures are adopted or no, there is another contrast evidently in the writer's mind. He has been speaking of the long series of heroes of the faith, some of whom had been stoned and sawn asunder,' and he would have the Christians whom he addresses contrast their position with that of these ancient saints and martyrs. And there is another contrast more touching still, more wonderful and impressive, in his mind; for my text follows immediately upon a reference to Jesus Christ,' who endured the Cross, despising the shame.' So Himself had resisted unto blood.' And thus the writer bids his readers think of the martyrs in the Mother Church; of the blood that had deluged the Church at Rome; of the slaughtered saints in past generations; and, above all, of the great Captain of their salvation; and, animated by the thoughts, manfully to bear and mightily to resist in the conflict that is laid upon them. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.'

I. So Then, We Have Here, To Begin With, The Permanent Condition Of The Christian Life, As One Of Warfare And Resistance.

The imagery of the whole context is drawn from the arena. A verse or two before the writer was speaking about the race. Now he slightly shifts his point of view, and is speaking rather about the wrestling or the pugilistic encounters that were there waged. And his point is that always, and everywhere, however the forms may vary in which the conflict is carried on, there is inseparable from the Christian life an element of effort, endurance and antagonism. That is worth thinking about for a moment. It is all very well to sing of green pastures and still waters, and to rejoice in the blessings, the consolations, the tranquillities, the raptures of Christian experience, and to rejoice in the thought of the many mercies for body and soul which come to men through faith. That is all true and all blessed, but it is only one side of the truth. And unless we have apprehended, and have reduced to practice and experience the other side of the Christian life, which makes it a toil and a pain to the lower self, and a continual resistance, I venture to say that we have no right to the soothing and sweet and tender side of it; and have need to ask ourselves whether we know anything about Christianity at all. It is not given to us merely--it is not given to us chiefly--to secure those great and precious things which it does secure, but it is given to us in order that, enriched and steadied and strengthened by the possession of them, we should be the better fit for the conflict, just as a wise commander will see that his soldiers are well fed before he flings them into the battle.

But then, passing from that, which is only a side issue, let me remind you of what our antagonist is' striving against sin."

Now some people would take my text to mean solely the conflict which each of us has to wage with our own evils, meannesses and weaknesses. And some, guided by the context, would take the reference to be exclusively to the antagonisms with evils round about us, and with the embodiment of these in men who do not share Christian views of life or conduct. But I think that neither the one nor the other of these two exclusive interpretations can be maintained. For sin is one, whether embodied in ourselves or embodied in men or in institutions. And we have the same conflict to wage against precisely the same antagonist when we are occupied in the task of purging ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, and when we are occupied in the wider task of seeking to bring every man to recognise the power of Christ's love, and to live in purity by obedience to Him.

And so, the first field on which every Christian is to win his spurs, to prove his prowess, and to exercise his strength is the field within, where the lists are very narrow, and where self wages war against self in daily conflict. Every man of us carries his own worst enemy inside his own waistcoat. We have all lusts, passions, inclinations, desires, faults, vices, meannesses, selfishnesses, indolences,--a whole host of evils lying there like a nest of vipers within us, and our first task, and our lifelong task, is to take the sting and the poison out of these, and to throttle them and to cast them out.

And then, and only after that, there comes the next thing--viz., the antagonism in which Christian men must permanently stand to a world which does not sympathise with their views, which is strange to the maxims that rule their lives, and which renders no fealty to the King whom they are sworn to obey. And that antagonism runs out into various forms.

First of all, it is the solemn duty of every Christian to wage war so as to prevent himself from being caught up in the current of godless living which prevails round him. We have to fight to keep ourselves from being harmed by the world and the worldly communities amidst which we dwell. What would become of the captain of a ship who did not take care to have his compass corrected so as to neutralise the effects of all the mass of iron in his vessel? You walk as in the wards of a hospital. If you do not take precautions you will catch the disease that is in the air. It is as certain that careless Christian people who do not ever keep on guard against impending and surrounding evil shall be infected by it, as it is certain that if an Englishman goes out, say to the United States, he will come back with the intonations of our brethren on the other side of the Atlantic slipping unconsciously from his tongue. The first duty, imperative upon Christian people, is to realise that they live in the midst of an order of things that is not in accordance with the Master's principles, and so to beware that they do not catch the infection.

I do not need to say a word about the other form of antagonism, which is equally imperative, and which will prevent us from caring much about the judgments that may be formed of us by the people round us. With me it is a very small matter that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment.'

But the resistance against sin, which is the Christian man's merciful warfare in the world, is not completed either by his keeping himself from complicity with surrounding evils or by his refusing to let antagonism divert him from his course. There is something more that is plain duty, and that is, that every Christian should be Christ's soldier in the attempt to get Christ's commandments recognised, and the principles of His word obeyed, in the world.

Society is not organised on Christian principles. You have only to look around you to see that. I do not need to dwell upon the various discordances between the plain teachings of this Book and every community, and every nation, and every individual; but let me remind you that until the Sermon on the Mount is the law for individuals and communities, the Christian man, if he is loyal to his Lord, must be striving against sin' in the endeavour to get established Christ's kingdom, which is the kingdom of righteousness. That sermon does not contain all Christian truth, but it is the Magna Charta of an applied Christianity; the laws of the kingdom from the lips of the King Himself.

So, brethren, I come to you with this for my message, that no Christian man is doing his work as Christ's soldier, striving against sin,' until he is seeking, with the best of his strength, to get Christ's law, which is righteousness, established on the face of the earth.

Talk of dynamiters and explosives, why, there is explosive power enough in Christianity to shatter to pieces the corruptions which make so large a part of modern social life. But, alas I the Christian Church has too long and too generally been employed in damping down the gunpowder instead of firing it, and seeking to explain away the large and plain commandments of the Master, instead of seeking to apply them.

There is a new spirit springing up around us to-day, for which we should be devoutly thankful, whilst at the same time we must forget that, like all new movements, it is apt to be one-sided and exaggerated. Much harm is done, I believe, in many directions by Christian teachers seeking to apply the principles of Christ's commandments to various phases of social iniquity without a clear knowledge of the facts of the case. But that being fully admitted, I still rejoice to believe that Christ's men round about us are waking up, as they never did before, to the solemn obligation laid upon Christian churches, if they are not to perish of inanition and inactivity, to proclaim and seek to have recognised Christ's laws for the individual and Christ's law for the community.

Only remember the limitations and the antecedents about which I have already spoken a word. No man has any business to go crusading among other people until he has cleansed himself. And the first task of the Christian reformer is with his own heart. And again, it is useless to deal with institutions unless you deal with the men who live under them. The main work of the Christian Church must ever be with individuals, and through their improvement the improvement of society will be most fully secure. But the error of many good and earnest men to-day is in thinking that if you set the environment,' as they call it, right you will get the men right. It is a mistake. Take a pack of drunken wastrels out of the slums and put them into model lodging-houses, and in a fortnight the lodging-houses will be as dirty as the sties from which the men were dragged. Mend the men, and then you may hopefully set them in new environment; mend the men, and society will be mended. And, mend yourselves first, and then you will be able to mend society. Resist your own sin, and then go out to fight with the sin of others.

II. Notice The Brunt Of The Battle Which Has Been Borne By Others.

I have already said that the immediate context suggests two contrasts between the comparative immunity from persecution of the readers of the letter and certain others.

The first is that suggested by all that glorious muster-roll of heroes and martyrs of the faith which precedes this chapter. And I may say without dealing in rhetoric, or dilating on the subject, that Christian men in this generation may well bethink themselves of what it was that their fathers bore, and did, that has won for them this ease.

I remember an old church, on the slopes of one of the hills of Rome, which is covered over on all its interior walls with a set of the most gruesome pictures of the martyrs. There may be an unwholesome admiration and adoration of these. I think modern Christianity, in its complacency with itself, and this marvellous nineteenth century, of which we are so proud, would be all the better if it went back sometimes to remember that there were times when young men and maidens, and old men and children,' had to resist to blood; and when they went to their deaths as joyfully as a bride to the altar.

Ah, brethren I you Nonconformists in this generation, who have an easy-going religion, do not always remember how it was won. Think of George Fox and the Friends. Think of the early Nonconformists, hunted and hurried, their noses slit and ears cropped off, their pillories and exile, and then be ashamed to talk about the difficulties that you have to meet. Ye have not resisted unto blood.'

There is a far more touching contrast suggested, and apparently mainly in the writer's mind, because just before he has said, Consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners.' The word that he employs for consider' might be rendered compare, weigh in the balance,' Christ's sufferings and yours. He has borne the heavy end of the Cross of which He lays the light end upon our shoulders. Of course the more mysterious and profound aspects of Christ's death, in which He is no pattern for us, but the propitiation for our sins, do not come into view in this contrast. They are abundantly treated in the rest of the letter. But here the writer is thinking of Jesus Christ in His capacity of the Prince of sufferers for righteousness' sake, who could have escaped His Cross if He had chosen to abandon His warfare and His witness. Jesus Christ is a great deal more than that. And the differentia of His sufferings and death is not touched by such a consideration. But do not let us forget that He is that, and that whatever else His death is, it stands also as being the very climax of all suffering for righteousness. He is the King of the martyrs as well as the Sacrifice for the world's sin. Let us turn to Him, and mark the heroic strength of character, hidden from hasty observation by the sweet gentleness in which it was enshrined, like the iron hand in a velvet glove. Let us understand how His pattern is held forth to us, and how the Cross is our example, as well as the ground of all our hope. Ye have not yet resisted. Consider Him.'

III. And Now, Lastly, Note The Lighter Warfare Incumbent Upon Us.

The resistance changes its form, but in essence it continues. In old days warfare consisted in men bludgeoning each other, or engaging in hand-grips foot to foot and face to face. Nowadays it is artillery duels--a great deal more scientific, a great deal less coarse; but it is warfare all the same. The world used to burn Christians, to hang them, to stone them. It does not do that now, but it fights them yet. The world has become partially Christianised, and the principles of Christianity have, in a certain imperfect way, infiltrated themselves through the mass, so that the antagonism is not quite as hot as it once was. And the Church has weakened its testimony and largely adopted the maxims of the world. So why should the world persecute a Church which is only a bit of the world under another name? But let any man for himself honestly try to live a life modelled on Christ's maxims, and let him cast himself against some of the clamant evils round about him, and seek to subdue them, because Christ has bidden him, and he will see whether the old antagonism is not there yet. What a chorus of select epithets will immediately be discharged! Impracticable,' fanatical,' one-sided,' revolutionary,' sour visaged,' Pharisee,' hypocrite.' These will be the sweet-smelling flowers in the garland that will be woven. Depend upon it, a Christian man who is bent on living out Christianity for himself, and on seeking to apply it around him, will have to fight and endure.

But all that is as nothing--nothing--to what the front rank had to go through, and went through, joyfully. They fell in the trenches and filled them up, that the rear rank might pass across. They bore sword stabs; we have only to bear pin pricks. Stones were flung at them, as at Stephen outside the wall; handfuls of mud are all that we have to be afraid of.

So, brethren, accept thankfully to-day's form of the permanent conflict, and see that you do unmurmuringly, cheerfully, and thoroughly the task that is laid upon you. And do not think much of the discomforts and annoyances. For us to speak about sacrifices for Christ is as if a bargeman on a canal were to dilate on the perils of his voyage in the hearing of an Arctic explorer; or as if a man that went in a first-class carriage to London were to speak to an African traveller about the perils of the road.' Ye have not yet resisted unto blood. Consider Him'; and take up your cross, and follow Him.

Maclaren: Heb 12:10

A Father's Discipline

For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness.'--Heb. 12:10.

FEW words of Scripture have been oftener than these laid as a healing balm on wounded hearts. They may be long unnoticed on the page, like a lighthouse in calm sunshine, but sooner or later the stormy night falls, and then the bright beam flashes out and is welcome. They go very deep into the meaning of life as discipline; they tell us how much better God's discipline is than that of the most loving and wise of parents, and they give that superiority as a reason for our yielding more entire and cheerful obedience to Him than we do to such.

Now, to grasp the full meaning of these words, we have to notice that the earthly and the heavenly disciplines are described in four contrasted clauses, which are arranged in what students call inverted parallelism--that is to say, the first clause corresponds to the fourth and the second to the third. For a few days' pairs off with that we might be partakers of His holiness.' Now, at first sight that does not seem a contrast; but notice that the for' in the former clause is not the for' of duration, but of direction. It does not tell us the space during which the chastisement or discipline lasts, but the end towards which it is pointed. The earthly parent's discipline trains a boy or girl for circumstances, pursuits, occupations, professions, all of which terminate with the brief span of life. God's training is for an eternal day. It would be quite irrelevant to bring in here any reference to the length of time during which an earthly father's discipline lasts, but it is in full consonance with the writer's intention to dwell upon the limited scope of the one and the wide and eternal purpose of the other.

Then, as for the other contrast--for their own pleasure,' or, as the Revised Version reads it, as seemed good to them'--but He for our profit.' Elements of personal peculiarity, whim, passion, limited and possibly erroneous conceptions of what is the right thing to do for the child, enter into the training of the wisest and most loving amongst us; and we often make a mistake and do harm when we think we are doing good. But God's training is all from a simple and unerring regard to the benefit of His child. Thus the guiding principles of the two disciplines are contrasted in the two central clauses.

Now, these are very threadbare, commonplace, and old-fashioned thoughts; but, perhaps, they are so familiar that they have not their proper power over us; and I wish to try in this sermon, if I can, to get more into them, or to get them more into us, by one or two very plain remarks.

I. I Would Ask You To Note, First, The Grand, Deep, General Conception,

Here firmly laid hold of, of life as only intelligible when it is regarded as education or discipline.

God corrects, chastens, trains, educates. That is the deepest word about everything that befalls us. Now, there are involved in that two or three very obvious thoughts, which would make us all calmer and nobler and stronger, if they were vividly and vitally present to us day by day.

The first is that all which befalls us has a will behind it and is co-operant to an end. Life is not a heap of unconnected incidents, like a number of links flung down on the ground, but the links are a chain, and the chain has a staple. It is not a law without a law-giver that shapes men's lives. It is not a blind, impersonal chance that presides over it. Why, these very meteors that astronomers expect in autumn to be flying and flashing through the sky in apparent wild disorder, all obey law. Our lives, in like manner, are embodied thoughts of God's, in as far as the incidents which befall in them are concerned. We may mar, we may fight against, may contradict the presiding divine purpose; but yet, behind the wild dance of flashing and transitory lights that go careering all over the sky, there guides, not an impersonal Power, but a living, loving Will. He, not it; He, not they, men, circumstances, what people call second causes--He corrects, and He does it for a great purpose.

Ah! if we believed that, and not merely said it from the teeth outwards, but if it were a living conviction with us, do you not think our lives would tower up into a nobleness, and settle themselves down into a tranquillity all strange to them to-day?

But, then, further, there is the other thought to be grasped, that all our days we are here in a state of pupilage. The world is God's nursery. There are many mansions in the Father's house; and this earth is where He keeps the little ones. That is the true meaning of everything that befalls us. It is education. Work would not be worth doing if it were not. Life is given to us to teach us how to live, to exercise our powers, to give us habits and facilities of working. We are like boys in a training ship that lies for most of the time in harbour, and now and then goes out upon some short and easy cruise; not for the sake of getting anywhere in particular, but for the sake of exercising the lads in seamanship. There is no meaning worthy of us--to say nothing of God--in anything that we do, unless it is looked upon as schooling. We all say we believe that. Alas! I am afraid very many of us forget it.

But that conception of the meaning of each event that befalls us carries with it the conception of the whole of this life, as being an education towards another. I do not understand how any man can bear to live here, and to do all his painful work, unless he thinks that by it he is getting ready for the life beyond; and that nothing can bereave him of the force he made his own, being here.' The rough ore is turned into steel by being,

Plunged in baths of hissing tears,And heated hot with hopes and fears,And battered with the shocks of doom!

And then--what then? Is an instrument, thus fashioned and tempered and polished, destined to be broken and thrown as rubbish to the void'? Certainly not. If this life is education, as is obvious upon its very face, then there is a place where we shall exercise the faculties that we have acquired here, and manifest in loftier forms the characters which here we have made our own.

Now, brethren, if we carry these thoughts with us habitually, what a difference it will make upon everything that befalls us! You hear men often maundering and murmuring about the mysteries of the pain and sorrow and suffering of this world, wondering if there is any loving Will behind it all. That perplexed questioning goes on the hypothesis that life is meant mainly for enjoyment or for material good. If we once apprehended in its all-applicable range this simple truth, that life is a discipline, we should have less difficulty in understanding what people call the mysteries of Providence. I do not say it would interpret everything, but it would interpret an immense deal. It would make us eager, as each event came, to find out its special mission and what it was meant to do for us. It would dignify trifles, and bring down the overwhelming magnitude of the so-called great events, and would make us lords of ourselves, and lords of circumstances, and ready to wring the last drop of possible advantage out of each thing that befell us. Life is a Father's discipline.

II. Note The Guiding Principle Of That Discipline.

They, as seemed good to them.' I have already said that, even in the most wise and unselfish training by an earthly parent, there will mingle subjective elements, peculiarities of view and thought, and sometimes of passion and whim and other ingredients, which detract from the value of all such training. The guiding principle for each earthly parent, even at the best, can only be his conception of what is for the good of his child; and oftentimes that is not purely the guide by which the parent's discipline is directed. So the text turns us away from all these incompletenesses, and tells us, He for our profit'--with no sidelong look to anything else, and with an entirely wise knowledge of what is best for us, so that the result will be always and only for our good. This is the point of view from which every Christian man ought to look upon all that befalls him.

What follows? This, plainly: there is no such thing as evil except the evil of sin. All that comes is good--of various sorts and various complexions, but all generically the same. The inundation comes up over the fields, and men are in despair. It goes down; and then, like the slime left from the Nile in flood, there is better soil for the fertilising of our land. Storms keep sea and air from stagnating. All that men call evil in the material world has in it a soul of good.

That is an old, old commonplace; but, like the other one, of which I have been speaking, it is more often professed than realised, and we need to be brought back to the recognition of it more entirely than we ordinarily are. If it be that all my life is paternal discipline, and that God makes no mistakes, then I can embrace whatever comes to me, and be sure that in it I shall find that which will be for my good.

Ah, brethren, it is easy to say so when things go well; but, surely, when the night falls is the time for the stars to shine. That gracious word should shine upon some of us in to-day's perplexities, and pains, and disappointments, and sorrows--fie for our profit.'

Now, that great thought does not in the least deny the fact that pain and sorrow, and so-called evil, are very real. There is no false stoicism in Christianity. The mission of our troubles would not be effected unless they did trouble us. The good that we get from a sorrow would not be realised unless we did sorrow. Weep for yourselves,' said the Master,' and for your children.' It is right that we should writhe in pain. It is right that we should yield to the impressions that are made upon us by calamities. But it is not right that we should be so affected as that we should fail to discern in them this gracious thought' for our profit.' God sends us many love-tokens, and amongst them are the great and the little annoyances and pains that beset our lives, and on each of them, if we would look, we should see written, in His own hand, this inscription: For your good.' Do not let us have our eyes so full of tears that we cannot see, or our hearts so full of regrets that we cannot accept, that sweet, strong message.

The guiding principle of all that befalls us is God's unerring knowledge of what will do us good. That will not prevent, and is not meant to prevent, the arrow from wounding, but it does wipe the poison off the arrow, and diminish the pain, and should diminish the tears.

III. Lastly, Here We See The Great Aim Of All The Discipline.

The earthly parent trains his son, or her daughter, for earthly occupations. These last a little while. God trains us for an eternal end: that we should be partakers of His holiness.' The one object which is congruous with a man's nature, and is stamped on his whole being, as its only adequate end, is that he should be like God. Holiness is the Scriptural shorthand expression for all that in the divine nature which separates God from, and lifts Him above, the creature; and in that aspect of the word the gulf can never be lessened nor bridged between us and Him. But it also is the expression for the moral purity and perfection of that divine nature which separates Him from the creatures far more really than do the metaphysical attributes that belong to His infinitude and eternity; and in that aspect the great hope that is given to us is that we may rise nearer and nearer to that perfect whiteness of purity; and though we cannot share in His essential, changeless being, may walk'--as befits our limited and changeful natures--in the light, as He'--as befits His boundless and eternal being--is in the light.' That is the only end which it is worthy of a man, being what he is, to propose to himself as the issue of his earthly experience. If I fail in that, whatever else I have accomplished, I fail in everything. I may have made myself rich, cultured, learned, famous, refined, prosperous; but if I have not at least begun to be like God in purity, in will, in heart, then my whole career has missed the purpose for which I was made, and for which all the discipline of life has been lavished upon me. Fail there, and, wherever you succeed, you are a failure. Succeed there, and, wherever you fail, you are a success.

That great and only worthy end may be reached by the ministration of circumstances and the discipline through which God passes us. These are not the only ways by which He makes us partakers of His holiness, as we well know. There is the work of that Divine Spirit who is granted to every believer to breathe into him the holy breath of an immortal and incorruptible life. To work along with these there is the influence that is brought to bear upon us by the circumstances in which we are placed and the duties which we have to perform. These may all help us to be nearer and liker to God.

That is the intention of our sorrows. They will wean us; they will refine us; and they will blow us to His breast, as a strong wind might sweep a man into some refuge from itself. I am sure that among my hearers there are some who can thankfully attest that they were brought nearer to God by some short, sharp sorrow than by many long days of prosperity. What Absalom, in his wayward, impulsive way, did with Joab is like what God sometimes does with His sons. Joab would not come to Absalom's palace, so Absalom set his corn on fire; and then Joab came. So God sometimes burns our harvests that we may go to Him.

But the sorrow that is meant to bring us nearer to Him may be in vain. The same circumstances may produce opposite effects. I dare say there are people listening to me now who have been made hard, and sullen, and bitter, and paralysed for good work, because they have some heavy burden or some wound that life can never heal, to be carried or to ache. Ah, brethren! we are often like shipwrecked crews, of whom some are driven by the danger to their knees, and some are driven to the spirit-casks. Take care that you do not waste your sorrows; that you do not let the precious gifts of disappointment, pain, loss, loneliness, ill-health, or similar afflictions that come into your daily life, mar you instead of mending you. See that they send you nearer to God, and not that they drive you farther from Him. See that they make you more anxious to have the durable riches and righteousness which no man can take from you, than to grasp at what may yet remain of fleeting earthly joys.

So, brethren, let us try to school ourselves into the habitual and operative conviction that life is discipline. Let us yield ourselves to the loving will of the unerring Father, the perfect love. Let us beware of getting no good from what is charged to the brim with good. And let us see to it that out of the many fleeting circumstances of life we gather and keep the eternal fruit of being partakers of His holiness. May it never have to be said of any of us that we wasted the mercies which were judgments too, and found no good in the things that our tortured hearts felt to be also evils, lest God should have to wail over any of us, In vain have I smitten your children; they have received no correction!'

Maclaren: Heb 12:17

Esau's Vain Tears

For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.'--Heb. 12:17.

THESE words have been often understood as teaching a very ghastly and terrible doctrine, viz., that a man may earnestly and tearfully desire to repent, and be unable to do so. Such teaching has burdened many a heart, and has put obstacles before many feeble feet in the way of a return to God. It seems to me to be contradicted by a thousand places of Scripture, and to involve something very much like a contradiction in terms.

The Revised Version, by a very slight change, has dispelled that ugly dream. It has put the clause for he found no place of repentance' in a parenthesis. The effect of that is to bring the first and last clauses of the verse more closely together; and to show more clearly that what Esau is represented as seeking, and seeking with tears in vain, is not repentance, but the Father's blessing.

It may not, perhaps, be legitimate, regard being had to the construction of the sentence, to treat the clause in question as a parenthesis, because it is so closely connected with the succeeding clause by the antithesis of' found' in the one and sought' in the other. But although that may be so, I have no doubt whatever that the truth intended to be conveyed by the parenthesis of the Revised Version is the true interpretation of the words before us; and that we are to find here simply the declaration that this man, at a given time of his life, would have inherited the blessing,' sought it carefully with tears,' and found it not.

Now the words, thus understood, teach a sufficiently grave and solemn lesson, though they do not teach the ghastly, and, as I believe, the erroneous thought that has been drawn from them. And it may be worth our while to consider for a moment the lessons that they do teach, and to try to lay them upon our hearts.

I. I Begin Then, First, With Asking You To Look At The History Which Is Held Up Before Us Here As A Solemn Warning.

The character of Esau is a very simple one. In many respects he is much more attractive and admirable than his brother Jacob. He is frank, generous, quick to kindle into anger, but, as the story shows us too, quick to forgive; placable, easily to be entreated; with the wild Arab virtues of chivalry and generosity and bravery; and the vices belonging to such a character, of almost utter incapacity to rise beyond the present, and of a great susceptibility to mere material and sensual gratification.

And so he comes in from the field hungry and faint. The pottage smells savoury there, as it smokes in the dish before him. The birthright is a long way off, very unsubstantial, very ideal, and the thing that is nearest him, though it be small, shuts out from his view the far greater thing that lies beyond. Therefore he elects to secure present gratification of a material character, whatever becomes of future satisfaction of a higher and more spiritual nature.

And are you going to throw stones at him for that? Is it such a very unusual thing to find men choosing paths that will yield some modicum of sufficiently hot and sufficiently savoury pottage, whatever becomes of their birthright? Is there nobody here that believes more in wealth than in purity? Is there no young man here who would rather live to make a fortune than to cultivate his own nature into loftiest beauty? Are there none of you that despise the priceless things, the things that have no price in the market because they are beyond all its wealth to purchase? Are there none of us who are such fools that a spoonful of pottage to-day seems to us to be more real and more precious than a whole heaven hereafter?

Esau had a show of reason. He said: I am ready to die, and what will my birthright do for me?' Better a thousand times that he, or we, should die as animals that we may live as the sons of God, than that we should buy existence at the price of true life. And so the man of our text is sufficiently like the rest of you, for you to have a fellow feeling to him that should make you wondrous kind, and his faults are nothing at all extraordinary, but only putting in graphic form, and in such disproportion as to be almost absurd, the choice that the mass of men always make between present and future, between the material and the spiritual. And then the story goes on to tell us that, long years afterwards, we do not know how long, he found out what a fool he had been. Perhaps so much as thirty or forty years elapsed between the moment when he despised his birthright and the other moment that is set before us here. What are the points that come out in the narrative to which our text refers? When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father', and again, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.' These are the parts of the history which the writer of the Hebrews recalls to his Jewish hearers. There is nothing in them about Esau's vainly seeking for repentance, but there is an account of his passionate weeping and loud entreaties that he yet might obtain a blessing from Isaac's trembling lips. In the story there is no word of his vainly trying to repent, but there is a real repentance in the sense in which alone that word can be employed, in reference to such an incident and upon that plane of things, viz., there is in him a decided and fundamental change of view, of mind, as to the value of the birthright that he had despised, and that is repentance; and there is bitter sorrow for what had passed, and that is repentance; and there is earnest desire that it might be different, and that is a sign of repentance. There is no sign of sorrow for sin, of repentance, in that sense of the word, but if we take the word not in the religious meaning, but in what may be called its secular significance, there are in Esau's case, as recorded in Genesis, both the elements of a decided alteration of mind and purpose, and of penitence and sorrow for the past.

These, then, are the facts of the story, and these are the facts to which my text appeals, for it begins by saying, as to those to whom the whole narrative was familiar: Ye know how that.' Therefore all that follows must find its vindication in the story as it is written in Genesis.

II. These, Then, Being The Facts, Let Me Now Come, In The Second Place, To Deal With The Lesson Which This Story Teaches Us.

Remember what I have said as to points which come out in the narrative, that the man there seeks with tears for the blessing, that so far from vainly seeking to repent, in the lower sense of the word which alone is appropriate in the present case, he does repent. Therefore that expression of our text he found no place of repentance' does not mean he found no place where he could repent,' but it means he found no field on which such repentance as he had could operate--so as to undo that which was past.:His repentance did not alter the fixed destination of the blessing. His repentance, his change of mind as to the worth of the thing thrown away, and as to his own conduct in despising it, did not bring the thing back again to him. His tears did not obliterate what was done. He wished that it had been otherwise, but his wishes were vain.

And that is the lesson, my brethren, which this text as it stands is intended to teach us. We are pointed back to that tragic picture of Esau there, weeping, wringing his hands in the wild passion of his uncultured nature, when the blessing, seen to be desirable too late, had vanished from his convulsive grasp. And the lesson that is taught us is just this old solemn one. There may come in your life a time when the scales will fall from your eyes, and you will see how insignificant and miserable are the present gratifications for which you have sold your birthright, and may wish the bargain undone which cannot be undone. You cannot wash out bitter memories, you cannot blot out habits by a wish. Tears will not alter the irrevocable, you cannot avert consequences that fall upon a man, the consequences of a lifetime, by any weeping and wringing of your hands, and by any wish that they might disappear. What I have written I have written,' said Pilate, and in tragic sense it is true about many a man who at the end looks back upon many a line which dying he would wish to blot,' but which stands ineffaceable, not to be scratched out by any of your penknives, unless you can cut out the substance of the soul on which it is written.

My brother! learn the lesson. You young men and women, do you begin right, that there may not be in your career deeds or a set of the life which one day you may wake to see has been all madness and misery! Oh! it is an awful thing for men to stand looking back upon a past life which to them appears as the vale of Sodom, on the morning after the eruption, did to Abraham as he looked on it from Mamre, and lo! the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.' So foul with slime-pits of boiling bitumen, the indulged lusts of the flesh, and dark with curling smoke-wreaths which tell of infernal fires wasting the fields that might have waved fruitful with harvests, the dark remembrances and blighting habits of sin set on fire of hell, does many a man's life lie spread out to his gaze. How fain would he cancel the record, if he could! How fain would he forget and reverse the history! How fain would he bring back his early innocence of these lusts and crimes! In vain! in vain!

The past stands--Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.' I know, thank God for the knowledge, I know that--as we shall have to say presently--any man, at any moment of his earthly career, may find, if he seeks for it, the mercy of the Lord which bringeth salvation, but I know too that the salvation which comes to a man who has all his life been giving himself up to earth, and limiting his views and moulding his character by the present and its contemptible objects, will not be as large, as full, as blessed in many an aspect, as the salvation which might have been his if at an early stage in his life, with his character still to mould, and his memory still unwritten with evil, he had turned himself to his God, and found peace in the blood of Jesus Christ. Maimed and marred in a thousand ways, having memories which burn and sting, having habits which it will be hard to fight against; with the marks of the gyves upon his wrists; and his eyes unaccustomed to the daylight, like the prisoner that came out of the Bastille after a lifetime of imprisonment there, and wanted to go back again because he could not hear freedom and sunshine; so many a man brought to God and saved yet so as by fire, near the end of his days, has to feel that it is not all the same whether a lifetime has been spent in the temple and priestly service, or in the foul haunts of vice and debauchery.

We shall always have as much of God as we can hold, and as much of salvation as we desire; but the tragical thing is that a life spent in living, Esau-like, for the world and for the present, lames our desires and limits our capacities, so that even if such a man afterwards become a Christian, it may be impossible even for the giving God to give us as large a bestowment of His mercy and grace as we might otherwise have possessed.

On the other side it is not to be forgotten the publicans and the harlots shall go into the Kingdom of God before you,' Pharisees and Sadducees. And there is such a thing as the deep repentance and the passionate trust with which a soul, all spattered and befouled with fleshly sins, may cleave to the Master that may overcome even these disabilities of which I have spoken. But in the main it remains true that even if Esau at the last gets a blessing, he bears away a less blessing than he might have done had his earlier life been different.

III. And Now Let Me Turn Last Of All To What I Venture To Consider The Misapprehension Which These Words Do Not Teach.

They do not teach that a man may desire to repent with tears and be unable to do so. That, it seems to me, is to assert a staring, stark contradiction, for if a man desire to repent he must have changed his views as to the conduct of which he desires to repent, and that change of view is the repentance which he desires. And if a man desires to repent there must be in him some measure of regret and sorrow for the conduct of which he desires to repent, considered as sin against God, and that is repentance.

Nor do the words teach, as it seems to me, the cognate thought which has sometimes been deduced from them, that a man may desire to receive the salvation of His soul from God, and may not receive it. To desire is to possess; to possess in the measure of the desire, and according to its reality. There is no such thing in the spiritual realm as a real longing unfulfilled. Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely.' And the awful pictures that have been drawn of men weeping because they could not repent, and of men with passionate tears imploring from the Father in heaven the blessing which does not come to them, are slanders upon God and misapprehensions of His gospel. That gospel proclaims that wheresoever and whosoever will ask shall receive, or rather that God has already given, and that nothing but obstinate determination not to possess prevents any man from being enriched with the fulness of God's salvation.

Only remember, dear brethren, it is possible for a man to wish vagrantly, with half his will, to wish in a languid fashion, to wish while he is not prepared to surrender what stands in the way of his wish being gratified. And such wishing as that never got salvation, and never will. There are plenty of people that would like to be saved as they understand it, and to be sure that they are so, who are not prepared to close with the terms of salvation. It is not wishing of that sort that I am talking about. Heaven may be had for the wishing, but it must be an honest wish, it must be out-and-out wishing, it must be wishing which actuates the life, it must be wishing which drives you to the Cross of Christ. And then, in the measure of the desire shall be the gift; and the larger the petition, the larger the benediction which comes fluttering down from heaven on to your head and into your heart.

We have all sold our birthright, but we have a Brother in whom we may win it back, the elder Brother of us prodigals, who, instead of grudging us the fatted calf and the festival welcome, Himself has died that they may be ours; and that no penitence may be unavailing, nor any longing be unsatisfied for ever more.

Whatever we are, whatever has been our past, however embruted in sensual vice, however entangled in material gains, we have but to turn ourselves to that gracious Lord our Brother, in whom the Father blesses us with all heavenly blessings, and we shall share in the birthright of His firstborn Son, being heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.'

Maclaren: Heb 12:22-23

With Whom Faith Lives

Ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, 23. To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven.'--Heb. 12:22-23.

THE magnificent passage of which these words are part sums up the contrast between Judaism and Christianity which this whole Epistle has been illustrating and enforcing. The writer takes the scene on Sinai as expressive of the genius of the former revelation, whose centre was a law which evoked the consciousness of sin, and kindled terror; and which was embodied in sensible and material symbols. Far other and better are the characteristics of the latter revelation. That excites no dread; is given from no flashing mountain with accompaniments of darkness and trumpet blasts and terrible words; and it brings us into contact with no mere material and therefore perishable symbols, but with realities none the less real because they are above sense, and not remote from us though they be.

For, says my text, Ye are come,' not Ye shall come.' The humblest life may be in touch with the grandest realities in the universe, and need not wait for death to draw aside the separating curtain in order to be in the presence of God and in the heavenly Jerusalem.

How are these things brought to us? By the revelation of God in Christ. How are we brought to them? By faith in that revelation. So every believing life, howsoever encompassed by flesh and sense, can thrust, as it were, a hand through the veil, and grasp the realities beyond. The scene described in the first words of my text may verily be the platform on which our lives are lived, howsoever in outward form they may be passed on this low earth; and the companions, which the second part of our text discloses, may verily be our companions, though we wander lonely as a cloud,' or seem to be surrounded by far less noble society. By faith we are come to the unseen realities which are come to us by the revelation of God in Christ. Ye are come unto Mount Zion.'

Now, looking generally at these words, they give us just two things--the scene and the companions of the Christian life. The remainder of the passage will occupy us on future occasions, but for the present I confine myself to the words which I have read. And I shall best deal with them, I think, if I simply follow that division into which they naturally fall, and ask you to note, first, where faith lives, and, second, with whom faith lives.

I. First, Then, Where Faith Lives.

Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.' There are two points here which carry us back to the topography of the ancient sacred city. In the literal Jerusalem, Zion was the lofty Acropolis, at once fortress and site of the king's palace, and round it clustered the dwellings of the city.

The two symbols are thus closely connected, and present substantially the same idea, and perhaps it is pressing a figure too far to find a diversity of meaning in the separate parts of this closely connected whole. But still it seems to me that there is a substantial difference of aspect in the two clauses.

The first thought, therefore, that I would suggest to you is this, that the life of a man who has truly laid hold of Jesus Christ, and so is living by faith, is on its inward side--that is, in deepest reality--a life passed in the dwelling of the great King. All through this letter, the writer is recurring to the thought of access to God, unimpeded and continual, as being the great gift which Jesus Christ has brought to us. And here he gathers it into the noblest symbol. There, lifted high above all the humbler roofs, flash the golden pinnacles of the great palace in which God Himself dwells. And we, toiling and moiling down here, surrounded by squalid circumstances, and annoyed by many cares, and limited by many narrownesses which we often find to be painful, and fighting with many sorrows, and seeming to ourselves to be, sometimes, homeless wanderers in a wilderness, may yet ever more dwell in the house of the Lord, to behold His beauty and to inquire in His temple.'

The privilege has for its other side a duty; the duty has for its foundation a privilege. For if it be true that the real life of every believing soul is a life that never moves from the temple-palace where God is, and that its inmost secret and the spring of its vitality is communion with God, what shall we say of the sort of lives that most of us most often live? Is there any truth in such exalted metaphors as this in reference to us? Does it not sound far liker irony than truth to say of people whose days are so shuttlecocked about by trifling cares, and absorbed in fleeting objects, and wasted in the chase after perishable delights, that they are come unto Mount Zion,' and dwell in the presence of God? Is my life hid with Christ in God ? There is no possibility of Death being your usher, to introduce you into the house of God not made with hands, unless faith has introduced you into it even whilst you tarry here, and unless your habitual direction of heart and mind towards Him keeps you ever more at least a waiter at His threshold, if you do not pass beyond. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than dwell in the tents of wickedness.'

My brother! do we so knit ourselves to Him, by heartfelt acceptance of the good news of His loving proximity to us which Jesus Christ brings, as that indeed we have left earth and care and sin at the foot of the mount, with the asses and the servants, and have our faces set to the lofty sweetnesses of our Father's house'? Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house,' and no less blessed are they in whose hearts are the ways' that lead to it.

Then let me remind you how Zion contrasts with Sinai, and thus suggests the thought that a true Christian life, based upon faith, has a communion with God which is darkened by no dread, nor disturbed by consciousness of unforgiven sin. We have set against each other the terrors of that theophany on Mount Sinai, attendant on, or rather precedent to, the giving of the law--the mountain wrapped in smoke; in the heart of the wreathing blackness the flashing fire; from out of the midst of it the long-drawn trumpet blasts, the proclamation of the coming of the King; and then the voice which, divine as it was, froze the marrow of the hearers' bones, that they entreated that no words like these should any more fall on their trembling ears.

That is the one picture. The other shows us the mount where the King dwells, serene and peaceful, the clouds far below the horizon; the flashing fire changed into lambent light; the blast of the trumpet stilled; the dread voice changed into a voice that speaketh better things' than were heard amidst the granite cliffs of the wilderness.

And so in vivid, picturesque form the writer gathers up the one great contrast between the revelation of which the message was law and its highest result the consciousness of sin and the shrinking that ensued, and the other of which the inmost heart is love, and the issue the attraction of hearts by the magnetism of its grace. The old fable of a mountain of loadstone which drew ships at sea to its cliffs is true of this Mount Zion, which is exalted above the mountains that it may draw hearts tossing on the restless sea of life to the fair havens' beneath its sheltering height. There is no dread, though there is reverence, and no fear, though there is awe, in the approach of those who come through Jesus Christ, and live beneath the smile of their reconciled God and Father. Ye are come unto Mount Zion,' the dwelling-place of the living God, from whose lips there will steal into the ears and the hearts of those who keep near Him, gracious words of consolation, so thrilling, so soothing, so enlightening, so searching, so encouraging, that they which hear them shall say, Speak yet again, that I may be blessed.'

And then there is the other aspect of this scene where faith lives. Ye are come unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.' I need not remind you of how much we hear in this Epistle in reference to that city. It is generally set forth as being yet to come, as being the object of seeking rather than of possession. But the fact is that there are two aspects of it. In one it is future, in the other it is present. The general idea to be attached to it is simply that of the order and social state of those who love and serve God. Here, in this part of my text, we have to deal with the city rather than with its inhabitants. They follow thereafter, but, so far as we can separate between the two, we have just this idea enforced in the words that I am now commenting upon--viz., that the lowliest life, knit, as it seems to be, by so many bonds to the perishable associations and affinities of earth, yet, if it be a life of faith in Jesus Christ, has its true affinities and relationships beyond, and not here. We have our citizenship in heaven,' says the Apostle, from whence also we look for the Saviour.' And every Christian man and woman is therefore bound to two or three very plain duties.

If you are living by faith, you do not belong to this order in the midst of which you find yourself. See that you keep vivid the consciousness that you do not. Cultivate the sense of detachment from the present, of not being absorbed by, or belonging to, things which are not coeval with yourself, and from all of which you will have to pass. Cultivate the sense of having your true home beyond the seas; and look to it as emigrants and colonists in a far-off land do to the old country, as being home. Live by the laws of your own city, and not by those that run in the community in which you dwell. You are under another jurisdiction. The examples, the maxims of low earthly prudence, or even of a somewhat higher earthly morality, are not your laws. You are not bound to do as the people round about you do. I appeal unto Caesar.' I take my orders from him. I send my despatches home, and report to headquarters, and if I get approbation thence, it does not matter what the people amongst whom I dwell think about me. Make your investments at home. The Jews invented banking and letters of credit in order that they might the more easily shift their wealth from one land to another as exigencies required. We are strangers where we are. Do not put your property into the country in which you live as an alien, and lock it up there; but remit, as you can do, to the land where you are going, and to which you belong. Home securities are a good deal better than foreign ones. Ye are come to the city of the living God.' Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.'

II. And Now Let Me Turn To The Other Thought Here With Whom Does Faith Live?

I need not trouble you with merely expository remarks upon the diversity of arrangements which is possible in the second half of my text. Suffice it to say that just as the scene of the life of faith has been represented in a twofold and yet closely connected form as Mount Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem, so the companions of that life are also represented in a twofold and yet closely connected form.

A slight alteration in the punctuation and order of the words in our text brings out, as it seems to me, the writer's idea. Suppose you put a comma after innumerable company,' and substitute for that phrase the original Greek word, so reading and to myriads,' and then pause there. That is the general definition, on which follows the division of the myriads' into two parts; one of which is the general assembly of angels,' and the other is the Church of the firstborn which are written in heaven.' So then, of companions for us, in our lonely earthly life, there be two sorts, and as to both of them the condition of recognising and enjoying their society is the same--viz., the exercise of faith.

Now the word rendered general assembly' has a grander idea in it than that. It is the technical word employed in classic Greek for the festal meetings of a nation at their great games or other solemn occasions, and always carries in it the idea of joy as well as of society. And so here the writer would have us think of one part of that great city, the heavenly Jerusalem, as, if I may so say, the dwelling-place of a loftier race of creatures whose life is immortal and pure joy; and that we, even we, have some connection with them. In an earlier part of this letter we read that they are all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation.' But here the ministration is not referred to, simply the fact of union and communion.

I am not going to enter at any length upon that subject, concerning which we know but very little. But still it seems to me that our ordinary type of Christian belief loses a great deal because it gives so little heed to the numerous teachings of the New Testament in regard to the reality of the existence of such beings, and of the tie that unites them with lowly believers here. All the servants of the King are friends of one another. And howsoever many they may be, and howsoever high above us in present stature any may tower, and howsoever impossible it be for us to see the glancing and hear the winnowing of their silver wings, as they flash upon errands of obedience to Him, and rejoice to hearken to the voice of His word, there is joy in the true belief that the else waste places of the universe are filled with those who, in their loftiness, rejoice to bend to us, saying, I am thy fellow servant, and of them which worship God.'

Brethren, we have a better face brightening the unseen than any angel face. But just because Jesus Christ fills the unseen for us, in Him we are united to all those of whom He is the Lord, and He is Lord of men as well as angels. So if the eyes of our hearts are opened, we, too, may see the mountain full of chariots of fire and horses of fire round about' the believing soul. And we, too, may come to the joyful assembly of the angels, whose joy is all the more poignant and deep when they, the elder brethren, see the prodigals return.

But the second group of companions is probably the more important for us. Ye are come,' says the text, not only to the angelic beings that cluster round His throne in joyful harmony, but also to the Church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven.' And, seeing that the names are in heaven, that means, evidently, men who themselves are here upon earth.

I have not time to dwell upon the great ideas which are here contained in the designation of the community of believing souls; I only remind you that probably the word church' is not so much employed here in its distinct ecclesiastical sense (for there are no ecclesiastical phrases in the Epistle to the Hebrews), as with allusion to the assembly of the Israelites beneath Mount Sinai, the contrast with which colours the whole of the context. It means, therefore, in general, simply the assembly of the firstborn'. Can there be more than one firstborn in a family? Yes! In this family there can, for it is a name here not pointing to a temporary order, but to dignity and prerogative. The firstborn had the right of inheritance; the firstborn was sanctified to the Lord; the firstborn, by his primogeniture, was destined in the old system to be priest and king. All Israel collectively was regarded as the firstborn of the Lord. We, if our hearts are knit to Him who is preeminently firstborn amongst many brethren, obtain, by virtue of our union with Him, the rights and privileges, the obligations and responsibilities, of the eldest sons of the family of God. We inherit; we ought to be sanctified. It is for us, as the first fruits of His creatures,' to bring other men to Him, that through the Church the world may reach its goal, and creation may become that which God intended it to be.

These firstborn have their names written in heaven --inscribed on the register of the great city. And to that great community, invisible like the other realities in my text, and not conterminous with any visible society such as the existing visible Church, all those belong and come who are knit together by faith in the one Lord.

So, dear friends, it is for us to realise, in the midst, perhaps, of loneliness, the tie that knits us to every heart that finds in Jesus Christ what we do. In times when we seem to stand in a minority; in times when we are tormented by uncongenial surroundings; when we are tempted by lower society; when we are disposed to say, I am alone, with none to lean upon,' it does us good to think that, not only are there angels in heaven who may have charge concerning us, but that, all over the world, there are scattered brethren whose existence is a comfort, though we have never clasped their hands.

Such, then, is the scene, and such is the society, in which we may all dwell. Christian men and women, do you make conscience of realising all this by faith, by contemplation, by direct endeavours to pierce beyond the surface and shows of things to the realities that are unseen? See to it that you avail yourself of all the power, the peace, the blessing which will be yours in the degree in which your faith makes these the home and companions of your lives.

How noble the lowest life may become, like some poor, rough sea-shell with a gnarled and dimly coloured exterior, tossed about in the surge of a stormy sea, or anchored to a rock, but when opened all iridescent with rainbow sheen within, and bearing a pearl of great price! So, to outward seeming, my life may be rough and solitary and inconspicuous and sad, but, in inner reality, it may have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, and have angels for its guardians, and all the firstborn for its brethren and companions.

Maclaren: Heb 12:23

Faith's Access To The Judge, And His Attendants

Ye are come, to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.'--Heb. 12:23.

THE principle of arrangement in this grand section of this letter is obscure, and I am afraid that I cannot cast much, if any, light upon it. We might, at first sight, have expected that the two clauses of our present text should have been inverted, so as to bring all the constituent parts of the city of the living God' closely together--viz.,' the angels,' the members of the militant Church on earth, and those of the triumphant Church in heaven; and also to bring together God the Judge of all,' and Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant.' But the arrangement, as it stands in our text, may be compared profitably with that of the preceding verses, which we were considering in the last sermon. There, as here, the allusion to the immediate presence of God passed at once into the reference to the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. And just as there Zion, the palace, was immediately connected with the city of the living God, so here the writer, harking back, as it were, to his original starting-point, no sooner names God the Judge' than he passes on to set before us the spirits of just men made perfect.' In the earlier clauses we have had the more general reference to the palace and the city around it. Here, if I may so say, we pass within the palace gates, and the writer tells us what we find there. This interweaving of the presence of God with that of the creatures that live in His love witnesses to the great truth that our God dwells in no isolated supremacy, but in the midst of a blessed society; and that the solitary souls who find their way into His presence have a welcome, not only from Him, but from all their brethren of His great family.

So the arrangement may not be so inexplicable as, at first sight, it strikes us as being, if it suggests to us the close and indissoluble connection between God Himself and all those who, in every place, whether the place above or the place beneath, call upon the name of Him who is both their God and ours. In dealing with these words, I have simply to consider these two ideas thus set before us.

I. Faith Plants Us At The Very Bar Of God.

Ye are come to God the Judge of all.' Now, it is to be observed that, more accurately, the words might be rendered, Ye are come to the God of all as Judge'; for the point which the writer wishes to bring out is not so much the general idea of the divine presence, as that presence considered under a specific aspect, and referring to one mode of His action--viz., the judicial. It is further to be noticed that the judgment which is here spoken about is not, as the very language, Ye are come to the Judge,' implies, future, but present. The Old Testament, with continual reference to which this letter is saturated, has a great deal more to say about the present continuous judgment which .God works all through the ages than about the final future judgment. And, in accordance, not only with the language of our text, which makes coming a present thing, but, in accordance also with the whole tone of the Old Testament, we should recognise here, not so much a reference to the final tribunal before which all mankind must stand (at which the Judge is characteristically represented in the New Testament as being, not God the Father, but Jesus Christ), as to the continual judgment, both in the sense of decision as to character and infliction of consequences, which is being exercised now by the God of all.

So, then, the first thought that I would suggest from this idea is, Here is a truth which it is the office of faith to realise continually in our daily lives. Your loving access to God, Christian men and women, has brought you right under the eye of the Judge, and, though there be no terror in our approach to that tribunal, there ought to be a wholesome awe as the permanent attitude of our spirits, the awe which is the very opposite of the cowering dread which hath torment. He would be a bold criminal who would commit crimes in the very judgment-hall and before the face of his judge. And that must be a very defective Christian faith which, like the so-called faith of many amongst us, goes through life and sins in entire oblivion of the fact that it stands in the very presence of the Judge of all the earth. Oh, if we could rend the veil as death will rend it, and see the things which are, as faith will help us to see them --for it thins, if it does not tear, the envious curtain between--would it be possible that we should live the low, mean, selfish, earthly, sinful lives, devoured by anxieties, defaced by stains, depressed by trivial sorrows, which, alas! so many of us do live? Ye are come.., unto God the Judge of all.' If ye call Him Father, who, without respect of persons, judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.'

Then, again, notice that this judgment of God is one which a Christian man should joyfully accept. The Lord will judge His people,' says one of the psalms. You only have I known of all the inhabitants of the earth; therefore will I punish you for your iniquities,' says one of the prophets. Such sayings represent this present judgment as inevitable, just because of the close connection into which true faith brings a man with his Father in heaven. Inevitable, and likewise most blessed and desirable, for in the thought are included all the methods by which, in providence, and by ministration of His truth and of His Spirit, God reveals to us our hidden meannesses; and delivers us sometimes, even by the consequences which accrue from them, from the burden and power of our sin.

So, then, the office of faith in regard to this continuous judgment which God is exercising upon us because He loves us is, first of all, to open our hearts to it by confession, by frank communion, by referring all our actions to Him to court that investigation. That judgment is no mere knowledge by cold omniscience, such as a heathen conception of the divine eye might make it to be; but just as a careful gardener will go over his rose-trees, and the more carefully the more precious they are in his sight, to pick from each nestling-place at the junction of the leaves with the stem the tiny insects that are sucking out the sap and destroying them, so God will search our hearts in order to pluck from these the crawling evils which, microscopic and tiny as they may be, will yet, in their multitude innumerable, be destructive of our spirits' lives.

It is a gospel when we say, The Lord will judge His people.' Therefore in many a psalm we have the writers spreading themselves out before God, and beseeching Him to come and search them, and try them, and sift them through His sieve, and know them altogether, in the sure confidence that wheresoever He beholds an evil He will be ready to cure it, and that whosoever spreadeth out his sin before God will be lightened of the burden of his sin.

This merciful judgment, which is, in fact, all directed to the perfecting and sanctifying of its subjects, reaches its end in the measure in which we register its decisions in our consciences. God writes His mind about us on them, and when they speak they are only speaking an echo of the sentence that has been pronounced from that loftier tribunal. Therefore, whosoever professeth himself to be a Christian and does anything, be it great or small, which his conscience rebukes when done, and prohibited before it was done, that man is despising the judgment of God, and bringing down upon himself the condemnation which follows despised judgment. If we should judge ourselves we should not be judged.' Reverence your consciences: they are the echo of the Judge's voice; peruse their records; they are the register of the Judge's sentence; and whensoever that inward voice speaks, bow before it and say,' Lord! Thy servant heareth.'

And then, further, remember that this judgment is one that demands our thankful acceptance of the discipline which it puts in force. If we knew ourselves we should bless God for our sorrows. These are His special means of drawing His children away from their evil. When we are chastened, we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world.' Oh! there would be less impatience, less blank amazement when suffering comes to us, less vain and impotent regrets for vanished blessings, if we saw in all the dealings of our Father's hands the results of His judgment, and believed that it is better for us to be separated, though it be with violence and much bleeding of torn-away hearts, from our idols than that our idolatry should destroy us and mar them. Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.' This judgment is not only the merciful separation of us from our sins, but it is also a judgment on our behalf.

The office of the early Jewish judges was not only the judicial one which we mean by the word, but was much wider, and some trace of that wider idea runs through almost all the Old Testament references to the divine judgment. It comes to mean, not merely a decision adverse or favourable, as the case may be, as to the moral character of its subjects, but it also substantially means pleading their cause, defending their right, intervening for them, and so in many a psalm you will find such petitions as this, Judge me, O Lord; for I am poor and needy. Plead my cause against them which rise up against me.' And the same conception of the Judge's office appears in one of our Lord's parables, familiar to us all, in which we are told that the Lord will judge His own elect, though He bear long with them.'

Thus, another of the blessed thoughts that come out of this conception of our approach to the Judge of all' is that we may confidently commit our cause to Him, and leave our vindication in His hands. So, abstinence from self-assertion, from self-vindication, from vengeance or recompense, patience, courage, consolation, strength, all these virtues will be ours if we understand to whom we come by our faith, and can behold, on the throne of the universe, One who will plead our cause, and undertake for us whensoever we are burdened and oppressed.

II. Secondly, Faith Carries Us While Living To The Society Of The Living Dead.

The Judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect.' Immediately on the thought of God arising in the writer's mind, there rises also the blessed thought of the blessed company in the centre of whom He lives and reigns. We can say little about that subject, and perhaps the less we say the more we shall understand, and the more deeply we shall feel. We get glimpses but no clear vision, as when a flock of birds turn in their rapid flight, and for a moment the sun glances on their white wings; and then, with another turn, they drift away, spots of blackness in the blue. So we see but for a moment as the light falls, and then lose the momentary glory, but we may at least reverently note the exalted words here.

The spirits of, men made perfect.' That is to say, they dwell freed from the incubus and limitations, and absolved from the activities, of a bodily organisation. We cannot understand such a condition. To us it may seem to mean passivity or almost unconsciousness, but we know, as another New Testament writer has told us, that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord; and that in some deep, and to us now undiscoverable, fashion, that which the corporeal frame does for men here, immersed in the material world, there the encircling Christ in whom they rest does for them. We know little more, but we have a glimpse of a land of deep peace in which repose is not passivity nor unconsciousness, any more than service is weariness. And there we have to leave it, knowing only this, that it is possible for a man to exist and to be, in a relative sense, perfected without a body. Then, further, these spirits are perfect.'

The writer has said, at the close of the preceding chapter, that the ancient saints without us should not be made perfect.' And here he employs the same word with distant reference, as I suppose, to his previous declaration. From which I infer that that old thought is true, that Jesus Christ shot some rays of His victorious and all-reconciling power from His Cross into the regions of darkness, and brought thence those who had been waiting for His coming through many a long age. A great painter has left on the walls of a little cell in his Florentine convent a picture of the victorious Christ, white-robed and banner-bearing, breaking down the iron gates that shut in the dark, rocky cave; and flocking to Him, with outstretched hands of eager welcome, the whole long series from the first man downwards, hastening to rejoice in His light, and to participate in His redemption.

So the ancient Church was perfected' in Christ; but the words refer, not only to those Old Testament patriarchs and saints, but to all who, up to the time of the writer's composition of his letter, slept in Jesus.' They have reached their goal in Him. The end for which they were created has been attained. They are in the summer of their powers, and full-grown adults, whilst we here, the maturest and the wisest, the strongest and the holiest, are but as babes in Christ.

But yet that perfecting' does not exclude progress, continuous through all the ages; and especially it does not exclude one great step in advance which, as Scripture teaches us, will be taken when the resurrection of the body is granted. Corporeity is the perfecting humanity. Body, soul, and spirit, these make the full-summed man in all his powers. And so the souls beneath the altar, clothed in white, and rapt in felicity, do yet wait for the adoption, even the redemption of the body.'

Mark, further, that these spirits perfected would not have been perfected there unless they had been made just here. That is the first step, without which nothing in death has any tendency to ennoble or exalt men. If we are ever to come to the perfecting of the heavens, we must begin with the justifying that takes place on earth.

Let me point you to one other consideration, bearing not so much on the condition as on the place of these perfected spirits. It is very significant, as I tried to point out, that they should be closely associated in our text with God the Judge of all.' Is there any hint there that men who have been redeemed, who being unjust, have been made just, and have had experience of restoration and of the misery of departure, shall, in the ultimate order of things, stand nearer the throne than unfallen spirits, and teach angels? It is the just man made perfect,' and not the festal assembly of the angels, that are brought into connection here with the Judge of all.' Is there any hint that in some sense these perfected spirits are assessors of God in His great judgment? Ye shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel,' seems to point in that direction. But the ground is precarious, and I only point to the words in passing as possibly affording a foothold for a perhaps.'

But the more important consideration is the real unity between poor souls here who are knit to Jesus Christ, and the spirits of the just made perfect who stand so close to the judgment-seat.

Ah, brethren! we have to alter the meaning of the words present' and absent' when we come to speak of spiritual realities. The gross localised conceptions that are appropriate to material space, and to transitory time, have nothing to do with that higher religion. It is no mere piece of rhetoric or sentiment to say that where our treasure is, there are our hearts, and where our hearts are there are we.

Love has no localities. It knits together two between whom oceans wide roll; it knits together saints on earth and saints in heaven. To talk of place is irrelevant in reference to such a union; for if our love, our aims, our hopes be the same, we are together. And if they on the upper side, and we on the lower, grasp each the outstretched hand of the same God, then we are one in Him, and the same life will tingle through our earthly frames and through their perfected spirits. He is the centre of the great wheel whose spokes are light and blessedness; and all who stand around Him are brought into unity by their common relation to the centre.

Our sorrows would be less sorrowful, our loss less utter, if we truly believed that while apart we are still together. Our courage and our hope would rise if we came closer in loving, contemplation and believing thought to the present blessedness of those once our fellow-travellers, who, weak as we, have entered into rest. Heaven itself would gain some touch of true attractiveness if we more clearly saw, and more thankfully felt, that there is the Judge of all,' and there also the spirit of just men made perfect.'

But howsoever great may be the encouragement, the consolation, the quieting that come from them, let us turn away our eyes from the surrounding and lower seats to fix them on the central throne. Let us ever realise that we are ever in our great Judge's eye. Let us spread out our hearts for His scrutiny and decision, for His discipline if need be. Let us commit to Him our cause, and, in the peace that comes therefrom, we may understand why it was that psalmists of old called upon earth to rejoice and the hills to be glad because He cometh to judge the earth, to judge the world with righteousness, and the people with His truth.'

Maclaren: Heb 12:24

The Messenger Of The Covenant And Its Seal

Ye are come, to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.'--Heb. 12:24.

IN previous sermons on the preceding context, we have had frequent occasion to remark on the parallel and contrast between Sinai and Zion, as expressive of the difference between the genius of Judaism and Christianity, which shapes the whole of this section. That contrast and parallel are most obvious at its beginning and here at its close.

In the beginning we had the mountain of the Law, swathed in darkness, lit by flashing flame, contrasted with the sunny slopes of Zion, palace-crowned, and the wild desert set in opposition to the city of peace that clustered round the foot of Zion's Mount. Here at the close we have the key-words of the old revelation laid hold of and applied to the new. Judaism was a covenant in the form of a law, of which the terms were these: Do, and thou shalt live!' The gospel is a covenant in the form of a promise, of which the tenor is Believe and live; live and do!' The ancient covenant had Moses for its mediator, passing between the mountain and the plain. The gospel has a better and a truer link of union between God and man than any mere man, however exalted, can be. The ancient system had its sprinkled blood, by which the men on whom it fell entered into the covenant, and were ceremonially sanctified. The new covenant has its blood. An awful voice rolled amongst the peaks of Sinai. That blood of sprinkling' speaks too. And then the writer blends with that allusion another, to the voice of the blood of the first martyr, every drop of which cried to God for retribution, and points to the blood of the more innocent Abel, every drop of which appeals to the Father's heart for pardon.

Now it may be said that thus to present Christian truth under the guise of the symbols of an ancient ceremonial and external system is a retrograde step. And some people, who think themselves very enlightened, tell us that the time is past for looking at Christianity from such a point of view. One great man has let himself talk about Hebrew old clothes.' I am very much mistaken if these old clothes will not turn out to be something like the raiment that the Hebrews wore in the wilderness, which waxed not old for forty years,' and outlasted a great many suits that other people had cut for themselves. We have only to ponder upon these emblems until they become significant to us, in order to see that, instead of being antiquated and effete, they are throbbing with life, and fit as close to the needs of to-day as ever they did. They came with a special message, no doubt, to these men to whom this letter was first addressed, who were by descent and habit Hebrews, and saturated with the law. But their message is quite as much to you and me; and I desire now simply to bring out the large and permanent meanings which lie beneath them.

I. First, Then, Note That God's Revelation To Us Is In The Form Of A Covenant.

Now, of course, when we talk about a covenant or compact between two men, we mean a matter of bargaining on the terms of which both have been consulted, and which has assumed its final form after negotiations and perhaps compromise. But there are necessarily limitations to the transference of all human ideas to divine relations. One such limitation is expressed in the very language of the original. The word rendered covenant' suppresses the idea of conjunction, and emphasises that of appointment. By which we are to learn that the covenant which God makes with man is of His own settling and is not the result of mutual giving and taking; that men have nothing to do with the determining of these conditions; that He Himself has made them, and that He is bound by them, not because we have arranged them with Him, but because He has announced them to us. With that limitation we can take the idea and apply it to the relation between God and us, established in the great message of the gospel.

For what is the notion that underlies the old-fashioned, and to some of you obsolete and unwelcome word? Why, simply this, it is a definite disclosure of God's purpose as affecting you and me, by which disclosure He is prepared to stand and to be bound. It is a revelation, but a revelation that obliges the Revealer to a certain course of conduct; or, if you would rather have a less theological word, it is a system of promise under which God mercifully has willed that we should live. And just as when a king gives forth a proclamation, he is bound by the fact that he gave it forth, so God, out of all the infinite possibilities of His action, condescends to tell us what His line is to be, and He will adhere to it. He lets us see the works of the clock, if I may so say, not wholly, but in so far as we are affected by His action.

What, then, are the terms of this covenant? We have them drawn out, first, in the words of Jeremiah, who apprehended, when he was dwelling in the midst of that eternal system, that it could not be a final system; and next, by the writer of this letter quoting the prophet, who, in the midst of the vanishing of that which could be shaken, saw emerging, like the fairy form of the fabled goddess out of the sea-foam, the vast and permanent outlines of a nobler system. The promises of the covenant are, then, full forgiveness as the foundation of all, and built upon that, a knowledge of God inwardly illuminating and making a man independent of external helps, though he may sometimes be grateful for them; then a mutual possession which is based upon these, whereby I, even I, can venture to say, God is mine, and, more wonderful still, I, even I, can venture to believe that He bends down from heaven and says: And thou, thou art Mine!' and then, as the result of all--named first, but coming last in the order of nature--the law of His commandment will be so written upon the heart that delight and duty are spelt with the same letters, and His will is our will. These are the elements, or you can gather them all up into one, namely, the promise of eternal life--based upon forgiveness, operating through the knowledge of God, and issuing in perfect conformity to His blessed will.

If these, then, be the articles of the paction, think for a moment of the blessedness that lies hived in this ancient, and to some of us musty, thought of a covenant of God's. It gives a basis for knowledge. Unless He audibly and articulately and verifiably utters His mind and will, I know not where men are to go to get it. Without an actual revelation from heaven, of other nature, of clearer contents, of more solid certitude than the revelations that may have been written upon the tablets of our hearts, over which we have too often scrawled the devil's message, and over and above the ambiguous articles that may be picked out and pieced together, from reflection upon providence and nature, we need something better and firmer, more comprehensively and more manifestly authoritative, before we are entitled to say, Behold! I know that God loves me, and that I may put my trust in Him.' Brethren! I for my part believe that between agnosticism on that side, and the full evangelical faith of the New Testament in a supernatural revelation on this side, all forms of so-called Christianity which shy at the idea of a supernatural revelation are destined to have the life squeezed out of them, and that what will be left will be the two logical positions; first, God, if there be a God, never spoke, and we do not know anything about Him; and, second, God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son.' If there be a God at all, and if there be in Him any love and any righteousness, it is infinitely more reasonable to suppose that He should have spoken His mind and heart to men, and given them a covenant on which they can reckon, than that He has been from the beginning a dumb God, that never opened His mouth with a word of guidance or of sympathy for the sons of men. Believe that who may; I cannot believe in a pure theism, which has no place for a supernatural revelation.

And then, again, let me remind you how here is the one foothold, if I may so say, for confidence. If God hath not spoken there is nothing to reckon upon. There are perhapses, probabilities if you like, possibilities, but nothing beyond, and no man can build a faith on a peradventure. There must be solid ground on which to rest; and here is solid ground: I make a covenant with you.' God is not a man that He should lie, nor the Son of Man that He should repent.' And armed with that great thought that He has verily rent the darkness and spoken "words which commit Him and assure us, we, even the weakest of us, may venture to go to Him, and plead with Him that He cannot and dare not alter the thing that has gone forth out of His mouth; and so, in deepest reverence, can approach Him and plead the necessity of a great Must under which He has placed Himself by His own word. God is faithful, the covenant-making and the covenant-keeping God.

II. Secondly, Mark That Jesus Christ Is The Executor Of This Covenant.

Moses, of course, was a go-between, in a mere external sense; from the mountain to the plain and from the plain to the mountain, he passed, and in either case simply carried a message bearing God's will to man or man's submission to God. But we have to dig far deeper into the idea than that of a mere outward messenger who carries what is entrusted to him, as an errand boy might, if we are to get the notion of Christ's relation to these great promises, which, massed together, are God's covenant with us. Observe that the emphasis is here laid on the manhood of the Lord. It is Jesus who is the Mediator of the covenant': and observe, too, that that idea passes into the wider notion of His place as the link uniting God and man. The depth of the thought is only reached when we recognise His divinity and His humanity. He is the ladder with its foot on earth and its top in heaven.

Because God dwells in Him, and the word became flesh, He is able to lay His hand upon both, and to bring God to man and man to God.

He brings God to man. If what I have been saying is at all true, that for all solid faith we must have an articulate declaration of the divine mind and heart, it seems to me to be equally irrefragable that for any such declaration of the divine heart and mind we must have a human vehicle. God speaks through men. It is His highest way of making Himself known to men. And Jesus Christ in His Manhood declares God to us. Not by the mere words which He speaks, as a teacher and a wise man, a religious genius and a saint, a philosopher and a poet, a moralist and a judge; but by these, and also by His life, by His emotions of pity and gentleness and patience, and by everything that He does and everything that He endures, He speaks to us of God.

Brethren, where shall a poor man rest his soul outside of the direct or indirect influences of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ? Why! the very men who reject Him to-day, on the plea that they have learnt a nobler conception of God than they can find in Christianity, owe their conception of Him to the gospel which they reject. Where else is there certitude solid enough to resist the pressure of sorrow and of sin; confidence enough to maintain faith in the face of difficulty and conscious evil and death; or energy enough in a creed to make religion an all-controlling influence and an all-gladdening stay except in Jesus Christ? I venture to say, nowhere! Nowhere beyond the limits to which either the river of the water of life has manifestly flowed; or some rills and rivulets from it have crept underground to give strange verdure to some far-off pasture; nowhere else is there found the confidence in the Father's heart which is the property of the Christian man, and the result of the Christian covenant. Jesus Christ brings God to man by the declaration of His nature incarnate in humanity.

And, on the other hand, He brings man to God: for He stands to each of us as our true Brother, and united to us by such close and real bonds as that all which He has been and done may be ours if we join ourselves to Him by faith. And He brings men to God, because in Him only do we find the drawings that incline wayward and wandering hearts to the Father. And He seals for us that great Covenant in His own person and work, in so far as what He in manhood has done has made it possible that such promises should be given to us. And, still further, He is the Mediator of the covenant, in so far as He Himself possesses in His humanity all the blessings which manhood is capable of deriving from the Father, and He has them all in order that He may give them all. There is the great reservoir from which all men may fill their tiny cups.

Men tell us that they want no Mediator between them and God. Ah, my brother I go down into your own hearts; try to understand what sin is; and then go up as near as you can to the dazzling white light, and try partially to conceive of what God's holiness is, and tell us, Do you think you, as you are, could walk in that light and not be consumed? It seems to me that no man who has any deep knowledge of his own heart, and any, though it be inadequate, yet true, conception of the divine nature, dare take upon his lips that boast that we often hear, We need none to come between us and God.'

For me, I thankfully hear Him say, No man cometh to the Father but by Me ; and pray for grace to tread in that only way that leadeth unto God.

III. Note The Sprinkling Of The Blood Which Seals The Covenant.

There is an allusion there, as I have already suggested, to the ceremonial at Sinai, when, in token of their entrance into the covenant, the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled upon the crowd; and also an allusion to the voice of the blood of the innocent Abel, which cried to God from the ground.' The writer has already referred to that in the earlier part of the letter; and here he weaves the two together because, with whatever differences of representation, the substantial meaning of both images is the same. The blood shed establishes the covenant; and the blood sprinkled brings us into it.

If Jesus had not died, there would have been no promises for us, beginning in forgiveness and ending in wills delighting in God's law. It is the new covenant in His blood.' The death of Christ is ever present to the divine mind and determines the divine action.

Hence the allusion to the voice, in contrast both to the dread voice that echoed among the grim peaks of Sinai, and to that which, as if each drop had a tongue, called from Abel's innocent blood for retribution. Christ's, too, has a voice, and that an all-power-ful one. It cries for pardon with the same authority of intercession as we hear in His wondrous high-priestly prayer: Father, I will.'

Further, that sprinkling, which introduced technically and formally these people into that covenant, represents for us the personal application to ourselves of the power of His death and of His life by which we may make all God's promises our own, and be cleansed from all sin. It is sprinkled.' Then it is capable of division into indefinitely small portions, and of the closest contact with individuals. That is but a highly metaphorical way of saying that Jesus Christ has died for each of us, that each of us may find acceptance and cleansing, and the inheritance of all the promises, if we put our trust in Him.

For remember, these words of my text are the end of a great sentence, which begins, Ye are come.'

Faith is that coming. What did Christ say? He that cometh unto Me shall never hunger. He that believeth on Me shall never thirst.' There is His own interpretation of the metaphor. Whosoever trusts Him, comes to Him. If I put my tremulous faith on that dear Lord, though He be on the throne of the universe, and I down here, in this far-away dim corner of His creation, I am with Him where He is, and no film of distance need separate us. If we trust Him we come to Him. If we rest upon Him as our advocate and hope, then the loud voice of our sins will not be heard, accusing-tongued though they be, above the voice of His pleading blood.

And they who come to Christ, therein and thereby, come to all other glorious and precious persons and things in the universe. For, as I have already said, my text is the end of a long sentence, and is last named as being the foundation of all that precedes, and the condition of our finding ourselves in touch with all the other glories of which the writer has been speaking. He that comes to Christ is in the city. He that comes to Christ's--not will be--in the palace. He that comes to Christ is in the presence of the Judge. He that comes to Christ touches angels and perfected spirits, and is knit to all that are knit to the same Lord. He that comes to Christ comes to cleansing, and enters into the fulness of the promise, and lives in the presence and companionship of his present-absent Lord. If we come to Jesus by faith, Jesus will come at last to us to receive us to Himself; and join us to the choirs of the perfected spirits who' have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'

Maclaren: Heb 12:25

Refusing God's Voice

See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh: for if they escaped not who refused Him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven.'--Heb. 12:25.

THE writer has finished his great contrast of Judaism and Christianity as typified by the mounts Sinai and Zion. But the scene at the former still haunts his imagination and shapes this solemn warning. The multitude gathered there had shrunk from the divine voice, and entreated that it might not be spoken to them any more.' So may we do, standing before the better mount of a better revelation. The parallel between the two congregations at the two mountains is still more obvious if we remark that the word translated in my text refuse' is the same as has just been employed in a previous verse, describing the conduct of the Israelites, where it is rendered' entreated.' It may seem strange that after so joyous and triumphant an enumeration of the glorious persons and things with whom we are brought into contact by faith, there should come the jarring note of solemn warning which seems to bring back the terrors of the ancient law. But, alas! the glories and blessedness into which faith introduces us are no guarantees against its decay; and they who are come unto Mount Zion and the city of the living God,' may turn their backs upon all the splendour, and wander away into the gaunt desert.

I. So We Have Here, First Of All, The Solemn Possibility Of Refusal.

Now, to gain the whole force and solemnity of this exhortation, it is very needful to remember that it is addressed to professing Christians, who have in so far exercised real faith, as that by it they are come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God.' We are to keep that clear, or we lose the whole force and meaning of this exhortation before us, which is addressed distinctly, emphatically, and, in its true application, exclusively to Christian men--See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh.'

Then, again, it is to be noted that the refusal here spoken about, and against which we professing Christians are thus solemnly warned, is not necessarily entire intellectual rejection of the gospel and its message. For the Israelites, who made the original refusal,' to which that against which we are warned is paralleled, recognised the voice that they would not listen to as being God's voice; and just because it was His voice, wanted to hear no more of it. And so, although we may permissibly extend the words before us to include more than is thereby originally meant, yet we must remember that the true and proper application of them is to the conduct of men who, recognising that God is speaking to them, do not want to hear anything more from Him. That is to say, this warning brings to us Christians the reminder that it is possible for us so to tamper with what we know to be the uttered will and expressed commandment of God, as that our conduct is tantamount to saying, Be silent, O Lord! and let me not hear Thee speak any more to me.' The reason for that refusal, which thus, in its deepest criminality and darkest sin, can only be made by men that recognise the voice to be God's, lies just here, they could not endure that which was commanded.' So, then, the sum of the whole thing is this, that it is possible for Christian people so to cherish wills and purposes which they know to be in diametrical and flagrant contradiction to the will and purpose of God, that obstinately they prefer to stick by their own desires, and, if it may be, to stifle the voice of God.

Then remember, too, that this refusal, which in reality is the rising up of the creature's will, tastes, inclinations, desires, against the manifest and recognised will of God, may, and as a matter of fact often does, go along with a great deal of lip reverence and unconsciously hypocritical worship. These men, from whom the writer is drawing his warning in the wilderness there, said, Do not let Him speak! We are willing to obey all that He has to command; only let it come to us through human lips, and not in these tremendous syllables that awe our spirits.' They thought themselves to be perfectly willing to keep the commandments when they were given, and all that they wanted was some little accommodation to human weakness in the selection of the medium by which the word was brought. So we may be wrenching ourselves away from the voice of God, because we uncomfortably feel that it is against our resolves, and all the while may never know that we are unwilling to obey His commandments. The unconscious refusal is the formidable and the fatal one.

It comes by reason, as I have said, fundamentally of the rising up of our own determinations and wishes against His commandments; but it is also due to other causes operating along with this. How can you hear God's voice if you are letting your own yelping dog-kennel of passions speak so loudly as they do? Will God's voice be heard in a heart that is all echoing with earthly wishes, loudly clamant for their gratification, or with sensual desires passionately demanding their food to be flung to them? Will God's voice be heard in a heart where the janglings of contending wishes and earthly inclinations are perpetually loud in their brawling? Will it be heard in a heart which has turned itself into a sounding-board for all the noises of the world and the voices of men? The voice of God is heard in silence, and not amidst the Babel of our own hearts. And they who, unconsciously, perhaps, of what they are doing, open their ears wide to hear what they themselves in the lower parts of their souls prescribe, or bow themselves in obedience to the precepts and maxims of men round them, are really refusing to hear the voice of God.

It is not to be forgotten, howsoever, that whilst thus the true and proper application of these words is to Christian men, and the way by which we refuse to listen to that awful utterance is by withdrawing our lives from the control of His will, and dragging away our contemplations from meditation upon His word, yet there is a further form in which men may refuse that voice, which eminently threatened the persons to whom this warning was first directed. All through this letter we see that the writer is in fear that his correspondents should fall away into intellectual and complete rejection of Christianity. And the reason was mainly this, that the fall of the ancient and sacred system of the old covenant might lead them to distrust all revelation from God, and to cast aside the gospel message. So the exhortation of my text assumes a special closeness of application to us whose lot has been cast in revolutionary times, as was theirs, and who have, in our measure, something of that same experience to go through which made the sharp trial of these Hebrew Christians. To them, solid and permanent as they had fancied them, ancient and God-appointed realities and ordinances were melting away; and it was natural that they should ask themselves, Is there anything that will not melt, on which we can rest?' And to us in this day much of the same sort of discipline is appointed; and we, too, have to see, both in the religious and in the social world, much evidently waxing old and ready to vanish away which our fathers thought to be permanent. And the question for us is, Is there anything that we can cling to? Yes! to the voice that speaks from heaven' in Jesus Christ. As long as that is sounding in our ears we can calmly look out on the evanescence of the evanescent, and confidently rely on the permanence of the permanent. And so, brother, though this, that, and the other of the externals of Christianity, in polity, in form, in mode, may be passing away, be sure of this, the solid core abides; and that core lies in the first word of this letter. God, hath spoken unto us in His Son.' See that no experience of mutation leads you to falter in your confidence in that voice, and see that ye refuse not Him that speaketh.'

II. Again, Note The Sleepless Vigilance Necessary To Counteract The Tendency To Refusal.

See that ye refuse not.' A warning finger is, as it were, lifted. Take heed against the tendencies that lie in yourself and the temptations around you. The consciousness of the possibility of the danger is half the battle. Blessed is the man that feareth always,' says the psalm. The confident'--by which is meant the presumptuous, and not the trustful--goeth on and is punished.' The timid--by which I mean the self-distrustful--clings to God, because he knows his danger, and is safe. If we think that we are on the verge of falling, we are nearer standing than we ever are besides. To lay to heart the reality and the imminence and the gravity of the possibility that is disclosed here is an essential part of the means for preventing its becoming a reality. They who would say I cannot turn away because I have come,' have yet to learn the weakness of their own hearts and the strength of the world that draws them away. There is no security for us except in the continual temper of rooted self-distrust, for there is no motive that will drive us to the continual confidence in which alone is security but the persistent pressure of that sense that in ourselves we are nothing, and cannot but fall. I want no man to live in that selfish and anxious dread which hath torment,' but I am sure that the shortest road to the brave security which is certain of never being defeated is the clear and continual consciousness that

In ourselves we nothing can,Full soon were we down-riddenBut for us fights the proper Man,Whom God Himself hath bidden.'

The dark underside of the triumphant confidence, which on its sunny side looks up to heaven and receives its light, is that self-distrust which says always to ourselves, We have to take heed lest we refuse Him that speaketh.'

If there is any need to dwell upon specific methods by which this vigilance and continuous self-distrust may work out for us our security, one would say--by careful trying to reverse all these conditions which, as we have seen, lead us surely to the refusal. Silence the passions, the wishes, the voices of your own wills and tastes and inclinations and purposes. Bring them all into close touch with Him. Let there be no voice in your hearts till you know God's will; and then with a leap let your hearts be eager to do it. Keep yourselves out of the babble of the world's voices; and be accustomed to go by yourselves and let God speak. Nature seems to be silent to the busy traveller who never gets away from the thumping of the piston of the engine and the rattle of the wheels of the train. Let him go and sit down by himself on the mountain top, and the silence becomes all vocal and full of noises. Go into the lone place of silent contemplation, and so get near God, and you will hear His voice. But you will not hear it unless you still the beating of your own heart. Even in such busy lives as most of us have to live it is possible to secure some space for such solitary communion and meditation if we seriously feel that we must, and are ready to cut off needless distractions. He who thus has the habit of going alone with God will be able to hear His voice piercing through the importunate noises of earth, which drown it for others. Do promptly, precisely, perfectly, all that you know He has said. That is the way to sharpen your ears for the more delicate intonations of His voice, and the closer manifestations of His will. If you do not, the voice will hush itself into silence. Thus bringing your lives habitually into contact with God's word, and testing them all by it, you will not be in danger of refusing Him that speaketh.'

III. Lastly, Note The Solemn Motives By Which This Sleepless Vigilance Is Enforced.

If they escaped not who refused Him that spake on earth'--or, perhaps, who on earth refused Him that spake'--much more shall not we escape if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven.' The clearness of the voice is the measure of the penalty of non-attention to it. The voice that spoke on earth had earthly penalties as the consequence of disobedience. The voice that speaks from heaven, by reason of its loftier majesty, and of the clearer utterances which are granted to us thereby, necessarily involves more severe and fatal issues from negligence to it.

Mark how the words of my text deepen and darken in their significance in the latter portion. In the first we had simply' refusal,' or the desire not to hear the voice, and in the latter portion that has solidified and deepened itself into turning away from Him.' That is to say, when we once begin, as many professing Christians have begun, to be intolerant of God's voice meddling with their lives, we are upon an inclined plane, which, with a sharp pitch and a very short descent, carries us down to the darker condition of turning away from Him.' The man who stops his ears will very soon turn his back and be in flight, so far as he can, from the voice. Do not tamper with God's utterances. If you do, you have begun a course that ends in alienation from Him.

Then mark, again, the evils which fell upon these people who turned away from Him that speaketh on earth were their long wanderings in the wilderness, and their exclusion from the Land of Promise, and final deaths in the desert, where their bleaching bones lay white in the sunshine. And if you and I, dear friends, by continuous and increasing deafness to our Father's voice, have turned away from Him, then all that assemblage of flashing glories and majestic persons and of reconciling blood to which we come by faith, will melt away, and leave not a wrack behind.' We shall be like men who, in a dream, have thought themselves in a king's palace, surrounded by beauty and treasures, and awaken with a start and a shiver to find themselves alone in the desert. It will be loss enough if the fair city which hath foundations, and the palace-home of the king on the mountain, and the joyful assemblage of the angels, and the Church of the firstborn, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and the blood of sprinkling, all pass away from our vision, and instead of them there is nothing left but this mean, vulgar, fleeting world. They will pass if you do not listen to God, and that is why so many of you have so little conscious contact with the unseen and glorious realities to which faith gives access.

But then there are dark and real penalties to come in another life which the writer dimly shows to us. It is no part of my business to enlarge upon these solemn warnings. An inspired man may do it. I do not think that it is reverent for me to do it much. But at the same time, let me remind you that terror is a legitimate weapon to which to appeal, and unwelcome and unfashionable as its use is nowadays, it is one of the weapons in the armoury of the true preacher of God's Word. I believe we Christian ministers would do more if we were less chary of speaking out the terror of the Lord.' And though I shrink from anything like vulgar and rhetorical and sensational appeals to that side of divine revelation, and to what answers to it in us, I consider that I should be a traitor to the truth if I did not declare the fact that such appeals are legitimate, and that such terror is a part of the divine revelation.

So, dear friends, though I dare not dwell upon these, I dare not burke them. I remind you--and I do no more--of the tone that runs through all this letter, of which you have such instances as these, If the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression received its just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?' and' Of how much sorer punishment,, think you, shall they be thought worthy who have counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith they were sanctified a common thing?' See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh,' for the clearer, the tenderer, the more stringent the beseechings of the love and the warnings of Christ's voice, the more solemn the consequences if we stop our ears to it. Better to hear it now, when it warns and pleads and beseeches and comforts and hallows and quickens, than to hear it first when it rends the tombs and shakes the earth, and summons all to judgment, and condemns some to the outer darkness to which they had first condemned themselves.

MHCC: Heb 12:1-11

The persevering obedience of faith in Christ, was the race set before the Hebrews, wherein they must either win the crown of glory, or have everlasting misery for their portion; and it is set before us. By the sin that does so easily beset us, understand that sin to which we are most prone, or to which we are most exposed, from habit, age, or circumstances. This is a most important exhortation; for while a man's darling sin, be it what it will, remains unsubdued, it will hinder him from running the Christian race, as it takes from him every motive for running, and gives power to every discouragement. When weary and faint in their minds, let them recollect that the holy Jesus suffered, to save them from eternal misery. By stedfastly looking to Jesus, their thoughts would strengthen holy affections, and keep under their carnal desires. Let us then frequently consider him. What are our little trials to his agonies, or even to our deserts? What are they to the sufferings of many others? There is a proneness in believers to grow weary, and to faint under trials and afflictions; this is from the imperfection of grace and the remains of corruption. Christians should not faint under their trials. Though their enemies and persecutors may be instruments to inflict sufferings, yet they are Divine chastisements; their heavenly Father has his hand in all, and his wise end to answer by all. They must not make light of afflictions, and be without feeling under them, for they are the hand and rod of God, and are his rebukes for sin. They must not despond and sink under trials, nor fret and repine, but bear up with faith and patience. God may let others alone in their sins, but he will correct sin in his own children. In this he acts as becomes a father. Our earthly parents sometimes may chasten us, to gratify their passion, rather than to reform our manners. But the Father of our souls never willingly grieves nor afflicts his children. It is always for our profit. Our whole life here is a state of childhood, and imperfect as to spiritual things; therefore we must submit to the discipline of such a state. When we come to a perfect state, we shall be fully reconciled to all God's chastisement of us now. God's correction is not condemnation; the chastening may be borne with patience, and greatly promote holiness. Let us then learn to consider the afflictions brought on us by the malice of men, as corrections sent by our wise and gracious Father, for our spiritual good.

MHCC: Heb 12:12-17

A burden of affliction is apt to make the Christian's hands hang down, and his knees grow feeble, to dispirit him and discourage him; but against this he must strive, that he may better run his spiritual race and course. Faith and patience enable believers to follow peace and holiness, as a man follows his calling constantly, diligently, and with pleasure. Peace with men, of all sects and parties, will be favourable to our pursuit of holiness. But peace and holiness go together; there can be not right peace without holiness. Where persons fail of having the true grace of God, corruption will prevail and break forth; beware lest any unmortified lust in the heart, which seems to be dead, should spring up, to trouble and disturb the whole body. Falling away from Christ is the fruit of preferring the delights of the flesh, to the blessing of God, and the heavenly inheritance, as Esau did. But sinners will not always have such mean thoughts of the Divine blessing and inheritance as they now have. It agrees with the profane man's disposition, to desire the blessing, yet to despise the means whereby the blessing is to be gained. But God will neither sever the means from the blessing, nor join the blessing with the satisfying of man's lusts. God's mercy and blessing were never sought carefully and not obtained.

MHCC: Heb 12:18-29

Mount Sinai, on which the Jewish church state was formed, was a mount such as might be touched, though forbidden to be so, a place that could be felt; so the Mosaic dispensation was much in outward and earthly things. The gospel state is kind and condescending, suited to our weak frame. Under the gospel all may come with boldness to God's presence. But the most holy must despair, if judged by the holy law given from Sinai, without a Saviour. The gospel church is called Mount Zion; there believers have clearer views of heaven, and more heavenly tempers of soul. All the children of God are heirs, and every one has the privileges of the first-born. Let a soul be supposed to join that glorious assembly and church above, that is yet unacquainted with God, still carnally-minded, loving this present world and state of things, looking back to it with a lingering eye, full of pride and guile, filled with lusts; such a soul would seem to have mistaken its way, place, state, and company. It would be uneasy to itself and all about it. Christ is the Mediator of this new covenant, between God and man, to bring them together in this covenant; to keep them together; to plead with God for us, and to plead with us for God; and at length to bring God and his people together in heaven. This covenant is made firm by the blood of Christ sprinkled upon our consciences, as the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled upon the altar and the victim. This blood of Christ speaks in behalf of sinners; it pleads not for vengeance, but for mercy. See then that you refuse not his gracious call and offered salvation. See that you do not refuse Him who speaketh from heaven, with infinite tenderness and love; for how can those escape, who turn from God in unbelief or apostacy, while he so graciously beseeches them to be reconciled, and to receive his everlasting favour! God's dealing with men under the gospel, in a way of grace, assures us, that he will deal with the despisers of the gospel, in a way of judgment. We cannot worship God acceptably, unless we worship him with reverence and godly fear. Only the grace of God enables us to worship God aright. God is the same just and righteous God under the gospel as under the law. The inheritance of believers is secured to them; and all things pertaining to salvation are freely given in answer to prayer. Let us seek for grace, that we may serve God with reverence and godly fear.

Matthew Henry: Heb 12:1-3

Here observe what is the great duty which the apostle urges upon the Hebrews, and which he so much desires they would comply with, and that is, to lay aside every weight, and the sin that did so easily beset them, and run with patience the race set before them. The duty consists of two parts, the one preparatory, the other perfective.

I. Preparatory: Lay aside every weight, and the sin, etc. 1. Every weight, that is, all inordinate affection and concern for the body, and the present life and world. Inordinate care for the present life, or fondness for it, is a dead weight upon the soul, that pulls it down when it should ascend upwards, and pulls it back when it should press forward; it makes duty and difficulties harder and heavier than they would be. 2. The sin that doth so easily beset us; the sin that has the greatest advantage against us, by the circumstances we are in, our constitution, our company. This may mean either the damning sin of unbelief or rather the darling sin of the Jews, an over-fondness for their own dispensation. Let us lay aside all external and internal hindrances.

II. Perfective: Run with patience the race that is set before us. The apostle speaks in the gymnastic style, taken from the Olympic and other exercises.

1. Christians have a race to run, a race of service and a race of sufferings, a course of active and passive obedience.

2. This race is set before them; it is marked out unto them, both by the word of God and the examples of the faithful servants of God, that cloud of witnesses with which they are compassed about. It is set out by proper limits and directions; the mark they run to, and the prize they run for, are set before them.

3. This race must be run with patience and perseverance. There will be need of patience to encounter the difficulties that lie in our way, of perseverance to resist all temptations to desist or turn aside. Faith and patience are the conquering graces, and therefore must be always cultivated and kept in lively exercise.

4. Christians have a greater example to animate and encourage them in their Christian course than any or all who have been mentioned before, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ: Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, Heb 12:2. Here observe,

(1.) What our Lord Jesus is to his people: he is the author and finisher of their faith - the beginning, perfecter, and rewarder of it. [1.] He is the author of their faith; not only the object, but the author. He is the great leader and precedent of our faith, he trusted in God; he is the purchaser of the Spirit of faith, the publisher of the rule of faith, the efficient cause of the grace of faith, and in all respects the author of our faith. [2.] He is the finisher of our faith; he is the fulfiller and the fulfilling of all scripture-promises and prophecies; he is the perfecter of the canon of scripture; he is the finisher of grace, and of the work of faith with power in the souls of his people; and he is the judge and the rewarder of their faith; he determines who they are that reach the mark, and from him, and in him, they have the prize.

(2.) What trials Christ met with in his race and course. [1.] He endured the contradiction of sinners against himself (Heb 12:3); he bore the opposition that they made to him, both in their words and behaviour. They were continually contradicting him, and crossing in upon his great designs; and though he could easily have both confuted and confounded them, and sometimes gave them a specimen of his power, yet he endured their evil manners with great patience. Their contradictions were levelled against Christ himself, against his person as God - man, against his authority, against his preaching, and yet he endured all. [2.] He endured the cross - all those sufferings that he met with in the world; for he took up his cross betimes, and was at length nailed to it, and endured a painful, ignominious, and accursed death, in which he was numbered with the transgressors, the vilest malefactors; yet all this he endured with invincible patience and resolution. [3.] He despised the shame. All the reproaches that were cast upon him, both in his life and at his death, he despised; he was infinitely above them; he knew his own innocency and excellency, and despised the ignorance and malice of his despisers.

(3.) What it was that supported the human soul of Christ under these unparalleled sufferings; and that was the joy that was set before him. He had something in view under all his sufferings, which was pleasant to him; he rejoiced to see that by his sufferings he should make satisfaction to the injured justice of God and give security to his honour and government, that he should make peace between God and man, that he should seal the covenant of grace and be the Mediator of it, that he should open a way of salvation to the chief of sinners, and that he should effectually save all those whom the Father had given him, and himself be the first-born among many brethren. This was the joy that was set before him.

(4.) The reward of his suffering: he has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Christ, as Mediator, is exalted to a station of the highest honour, of the greatest power and influence; he is at the right hand of the Father. Nothing passes between heaven and earth but by him; he does all that is done; he ever lives to make intercession for his people.

(5.) What is our duty with respect to this Jesus. We must, [1.] Look unto him; that is, we must set him continually before us as our example, and our great encouragement; we must look to him for direction, for assistance, and for acceptance, in all our sufferings. [2.] We must consider him, meditate much upon him, and reason with ourselves from his case to our own. We must analogize , as the word is; compare Christ's sufferings and ours; and we shall find that as his sufferings far exceeded ours, in the nature and measure of them, so his patience far excels ours, and is a perfect pattern for us to imitate.

(6.) The advantage we shall reap by thus doing: it will be a means to prevent our weariness and fainting (Heb 12:3): Lest you be weary and faint in your minds. Observe, [1.] There is a proneness in the best to grow weary and to faint under their trials and afflictions, especially when they prove heavy and of long continuance: this proceeds from the imperfections of grace and the remains of corruption. [2.] The best way to prevent this is to look unto Jesus, and to consider him. Faith and meditation will fetch in fresh supplies of strength, comfort, and courage; for he has assured them, if they suffer with him, they shall also reign with him: and this hope will be their helmet.

Matthew Henry: Heb 12:4-17

Here the apostle presses the exhortation to patience and perseverance by an argument taken from the gentle measure and gracious nature of those sufferings which the believing Hebrews endured in their Christian course.

I. From the gentle and moderate degree and measure of their sufferings: You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin, Heb 12:4. Observe,

1. He owns that they had suffered much, they had been striving to an agony against sin. Here, (1.) The cause of the conflict was sin, and to be engaged against sin is to fight in a good cause, for sin is the worst enemy both to God and man. Our spiritual warfare is both honourable and necessary; for we are only defending ourselves against that which would destroy us, if it should get the victory over us; we fight for ourselves, for our lives, and therefore ought to be patient and resolute. (2.) Every Christian is enlisted under Christ's banner, to strive against sin, against sinful doctrines, sinful practices, and sinful habits and customs, both in himself and in others.

2. He puts them in mind that they might have suffered more, that they had not suffered as much as others; for they had not yet resisted unto blood, they had not been called to martyrdom as yet, though they knew not how soon they might be. Learn here, (1.) Our Lord Jesus, the captain of our salvation, does not call his people out to the hardest trials at first, but wisely trains them up by less sufferings to be prepared for greater. He will not put new wine into weak vessels, he is the gentle shepherd, who will not overdrive the young ones of the flock. (2.) It becomes Christians to take notice of the gentleness of Christ in accommodating their trial to their strength. They should not magnify their afflictions, but should take notice of the mercy that is mixed with them, and should pity those who are called to the fiery trials to resist to blood; not to shed the blood of their enemies, but to seal their testimony with their own blood. (3.) Christians should be ashamed to faint under less trials, when they see others bear up under greater, and do not know how soon they may meet with greater themselves. If we have run with the footmen and they have wearied us, how shall we contend with horses? If we be wearied in a land of peace, what shall we do in the swellings of Jordan? Jer 12:5.

II. He argues from the peculiar and gracious nature of those sufferings that befall the people of God. Though their enemies and persecutors may be the instruments of inflicting such sufferings on them, yet they are divine chastisements; their heavenly Father has his hand in all, and his wise end to serve by all; of this he has given them due notice, and they should not forget it, Heb 12:5. Observe,

1. Those afflictions which may be truly persecution as far as men are concerned in them are fatherly rebukes and chastisements as far as God is concerned in them. Persecution for religion is sometimes a correction and rebuke for the sins of professors of religion. Men persecute them because they are religious; God chastises them because they are not more so: men persecute them because they will not give up their profession; God chastises them because they have not lived up to their profession.

2. God has directed his people how they ought to behave themselves under all their afflictions; they must avoid the extremes that many run into. (1.) They must not despise the chastening of the Lord; they must not make light of afflictions, and be stupid and insensible under them, for they are the hand and rod of God, and his rebukes for sin. Those who make light of affliction make light of God and make light of sin. (2.) They must not faint when they are rebuked; they must not despond and sink under their trial, nor fret and repine, but bear up with faith and patience. (3.) If they run into either of these extremes, it is a sign they have forgotten their heavenly Father's advice and exhortation, which he has given them in true and tender affection.

3. Afflictions, rightly endured, though they may be the fruits of God's displeasure, are yet proofs of his paternal love to his people and care for them (Heb 12:6, Heb 12:7): Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. Observe, (1.) The best of God's children need chastisement. They have their faults and follies, which need to be corrected. (2.) Though God may let others alone in their sins, he will correct sin in his own children; they are of his family, and shall not escape his rebukes when they want them. (3.) In this he acts as becomes a father, and treats them like children; no wise and good father will wink at faults in his own children as he would in others; his relation and his affections oblige him to take more notice of the faults of his own children than those of others. (4.) To be suffered to go on in sin without a rebuke is a sad sign of alienation from God; such are bastards, not sons. They may call him Father, because born in the pale of the church; but they are the spurious offspring of another father, not of God, Heb 12:7, Heb 12:8.

4. Those that are impatient under the discipline of their heavenly Father behave worse towards him than they would do towards earthly parents, Heb 12:9, Heb 12:10. Here, (1.) The apostle commends a dutiful and submissive behaviour in children towards their earthly parents We gave them reverence, even when they corrected us. It is the duty of children to give the reverence of obedience to the just commands of their parents, and the reverence of submission to their correction when they have been disobedient. Parents have not only authority, but a charge from God, to give their children correction when it is due, and he has commanded children to take such correction well: to be stubborn and discontented under due correction is a double fault; for the correction supposes there has been a fault already committed against the parent's commanding power, and superadds a further fault against his chastening power. Hence, (2.) He recommends humble and submissive behavior towards our heavenly Father, when under his correction; and this he does by an argument from the less to the greater. [1.] Our earthly fathers are but the fathers of our flesh, but God is the Father of our spirits. Our fathers on earth were instrumental in the production of our bodies, which are but flesh, a mean, mortal, vile thing, formed out of the dust of the earth, as the bodies of the beasts are; and yet as they are curiously wrought, and made parts of our persons, a proper tabernacle for the soul to dwell in and an organ for it to act by, we owe reverence and affection to those who were instrumental in their procreation; but then we must own much more to him who is the Father of our spirits. Our souls are not of a material substance, not of the most refined sort; they are not ex traduce - by traduction; to affirm it is bad philosophy, and worse divinity: they are the immediate offspring of God, who, after he had formed the body of man out of the earth, breathed into him a vital spirit, and so he became a living soul. [2.] Our earthly parents chastened us for their own pleasure. Sometimes they did it to gratify their passion rather than to reform our manners. This is a weakness the fathers of our flesh are subject to, and this they should carefully watch against; for hereby they dishonour that parental authority which God has put upon them and very much hinder the efficacy of their chastisements. But the Father of our spirits never grieves willingly, nor afflicts the children of men, much less his own children. It is always for our profit; and the advantage he intends us thereby is no less than our being partakers of his holiness; it is to correct and cure those sinful disorders which make us unlike to God, and to improve and to increase those graces which are the image of God in us, that we may be and act more like our heavenly Father. God loves his children so that he would have them to be as like himself as can be, and for this end he chastises them when they need it. [3.] The fathers of our flesh corrected us for a few days, in our state of childhood, when minors; and, though we were in that weak and peevish state, we owed them reverence, and when we came to maturity we loved and honoured them the more for it. Our whole life here is a state of childhood, minority, and imperfection, and therefore we must submit to the discipline of such a state; when we come to a state of perfection we shall be fully reconciled to all the measures of God's discipline over us now. [4.] God's correction is no condemnation. His children may at first fear lest affliction should come upon that dreadful errand, and we cry, Do not condemn me, but show me wherefore thou contendest with me, Job 10:2. But this is so far from being the design of God to his own people that he therefore chastens them now that they may not be condemned with the world, 1Co 11:32. He does it to prevent the death and destruction of their souls, that they may live to God, and be like God, and for ever with him.

5. The children of God, under their afflictions, ought not to judge of his dealings with them by present sense, but by reason, and faith, and experience: No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness, Heb 12:11. Here observe,

(1.) The judgment of sense in this case - Afflictions are not grateful to the sense, but grievous; the flesh will feel them, and be grieved by them, and groan under them.

(2.) The judgment of faith, which corrects that of sense, and declares that a sanctified affliction produces the fruits of righteousness; these fruits are peaceable, and tend to the quieting and comforting of the soul. Affliction produces peace, by producing more righteousness; for the fruit of righteousness is peace. And if the pain of the body contribute thus to the peace of the mind, and short present affliction produce blessed fruits of a long continuance, they have no reason to fret or faint under it; but their great concern is that the chastening they are under may be endured by them with patience, and improved to a greater degree of holiness. [1.] That their affliction may be endured with patience, which is the main drift of the apostle's discourse on this subject; and he again returns to exhort them that for the reason before mentioned they should lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees, Heb 12:12. A burden of affliction is apt to make the Christian's hands hang down, and his knees grow feeble, to dispirit him and discourage him; but this he must strive against, and that for two reasons: - First, That he may the better run his spiritual race and course. Faith, and patience, and holy courage and resolution, will make him walk more steadily, keep a straighter path, prevent wavering and wandering. Secondly, That he may encourage and not dispirit others that are in the same way with him. There are many that are in the way to heaven who yet walk but weakly and lamely in it. Such are apt to discourage one another, and hinder one another; but it is their duty to take courage, and act by faith, and so help one another forward in the way to heaven. [2.] That their affliction may be improved to a greater degree of holiness. Since this is God's design, it ought to be the design and concern of his children, that with renewed strength and patience they may follow peace with all men, and holiness, Heb 12:14. If the children of God grow impatient under affliction, they will neither walk so quietly and peaceably towards men, nor so piously towards God, as they should do; but faith and patience will enable them to follow peace and holiness too, as a man follows his calling, constantly, diligently, and with pleasure. Observe, First, It is the duty of Christians, even when in a suffering state, to follow peace with all men, yea, even with those who may be instrumental in their sufferings. This is a hard lesson, and a high attainment, but it is what Christ has called his people to. Sufferings are apt to sour the spirit and sharpen the passions; but the children of God must follow peace with all men. Secondly, Peace and holiness are connected together; there can be no true peace without holiness. There may be prudence and discreet forbearance, and a show of friendship and good-will to all; but this true Christian peaceableness is never found separate from holiness. We must not, under pretence of living peaceably with all men, leave the ways of holiness, but cultivate peace in a way of holiness. Thirdly, Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. The vision of God our Saviour in heaven is reserved as the reward of holiness, and the stress of our salvation is laid upon our holiness, though a placid peaceable disposition contributes much to our meetness for heaven.

6. Where afflictions and sufferings for the sake of Christ are not considered by men as the chastisement of their heavenly Father, and improved as such, they will be a dangerous snare and temptation to apostasy, which every Christian should most carefully watch against (Heb 12:15, Heb 12:16): Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God, etc.

(1.) Here the apostle enters a serious caveat against apostasy, and backs it with an awful example.

[1.] He enters a serious caveat against apostasy, Heb 12:15. Here you may observe, First, The nature of apostasy: it is failing of the grace of God; it is to become bankrupts in religion, for want of a good foundation, and suitable care and diligence; it is failing of the grace of God, coming short of a principle of true grace in the soul, notwithstanding the means of grace and a profession of religion, and so coming short of the love and favour of God here and hereafter. Secondly, The consequences of apostasy: where persons fail of having the true grace of God, a root of bitterness will spring up, corruption will prevail and break forth. A root of bitterness, a bitter root, producing bitter fruits to themselves and others. It produces to themselves corrupt principles, which lead to apostasy and are greatly strengthened and radicated by apostasy - damnable errors (to the corrupting of the doctrine and worship of the Christian church) and corrupt practices. Apostates generally grow worse and worse, and fall into the grossest wickedness, which usually ends either in downright atheism or in despair. It also produces bitter fruits to others, to the churches to which these men belonged; by their corrupt principles and practices many are troubled, the peace of the church is broken, the peace of men's minds is disturbed, and many are defiled, tainted with those bad principles, and drawn into defiling practices; so that the churches suffer both in their purity and peace. But the apostates themselves will be the greatest sufferers at last.

[2.] The apostle backs the caution with an awful example, and that is, that of Esau, who though born within the pale of the church, and having the birthright as the eldest son, and so entitled to the privilege of being prophet, priest, and king, in his family, was so profane as to despise these sacred privileges, and to sell his birthright for a morsel of meat. Where observe, First, Esau's sin. He profanely despised and sold the birthright, and all the advantages attending it. So do apostates, who to avoid persecution, and enjoy sensual ease and pleasure, though they bore the character of the children of God, and had a visible right to the blessing and inheritance, give up all pretensions thereto. Secondly, Esau's punishment, which was suitable to his sin. His conscience was convinced of his sin and folly, when it was too late: He would afterwards have inherited the blessing, etc. His punishment lay in two things: 1. He was condemned by his own conscience; he now saw that the blessing he had made so light of was worth the having, worth the seeking, though with much carefulness and many tears. 2. He was rejected of God: He found no place of repentance in God or in his father; the blessing was given to another, even to him to whom he sold it for a mess of pottage. Esau, in his great wickedness, had made the bargain, and God in his righteous judgment, ratified and confirmed it, and would not suffer Isaac to reverse it.

(2.) We may hence learn, [1.] That apostasy from Christ is the fruit of preferring the gratification of the flesh to the blessing of God and the heavenly inheritance. [2.] Sinners will not always have such mean thoughts of the divine blessing and inheritance as now they have. The time is coming when they will think no pains too great, no cares no tears too much, to obtain the lost blessing. [3.] When the day of grace is over (as sometimes it may be in this life), they will find no place for repentance: they cannot repent aright of their sin; and God will not repent of the sentence he has passed upon them for their sin. And therefore, as the design of all, Christians should never give up their title, and hope of their Father's blessing and inheritance, and expose themselves to his irrevocable wrath and curse, by deserting their holy religion, to avoid suffering, which, though this may be persecution as far as wicked men are concerned in it, is only a rod of correction and chastisement in the hand of their heavenly Father, to bring them near to himself in conformity and communion. This is the force of the apostle's arguing from the nature of the sufferings of the people of God even when they suffer for righteousness' sake; and the reasoning is very strong.

Matthew Henry: Heb 12:18-29

Here the apostle goes on to engage the professing Hebrews to perseverance in their Christian course and conflict, and not to relapse again into Judaism. This he does by showing them how much the state of the gospel church differs from that of the Jewish church, and how much it resembles the state of the church in heaven, and on both accounts demands and deserves our diligence, patience, and perseverance in Christianity.

I. He shows how much the gospel church differs from the Jewish church, and how much it excels. And here we have a very particular description of the state of the church under the Mosaic dispensation, Heb 12:18-21. 1. It was a gross sensible state. Mount Sinai, on which that church-state was constituted, was a mount that might be touched (Heb 12:18), a gross palpable place; so was the dispensation. It was very much external and earthly, and so more heavy. The state of the gospel church on mount Zion is more spiritual, rational, and easy. 2. It was a dark dispensation. Upon that mount there were blackness and darkness, and that church-state was covered with dark shadows and types: the gospel state is much more clear and bright. 3. It was a dreadful and terrible dispensation; the Jews could not bear the terror of it. The thunder and the lightning, the trumpet sounding, the voice of God himself speaking to them, struck them with such dread that they entreated that the word might not be so spoken to them any more, Heb 12:19. Yea, Moses himself said, I exceedingly fear and quake. The best of men on earth are not able to converse immediately with God and his holy angels. The gospel state is mild, and kind, and condescending, suited to our weak frame. 4. It was a limited dispensation; all might not approach to that mount, but only Moses and Aaron. Under the gospel we have all access with boldness to God. 5. It was a very dangerous dispensation. The mount burned with fire, and whatever man or beast touched the mount must be stoned, or thrust through with a dart, Heb 12:20. It is true, it will be always dangerous for presumptuous and brutish sinners to draw night to God; but it is not immediate and certain death, as here it was. This was the state of the Jewish church, fitted to awe a stubborn and hard-hearted people, to set forth the strict and tremendous justice of God, to wean the people of God from that dispensation, and induce them more readily to embrace the sweet and gentle economy of the gospel church, and adhere to it.

II. He shows how much the gospel church represents the church triumphant in heaven, what communication there is between the one and the other. The gospel church is called mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, which is free, in opposition to mount Sinai, which tendeth to bondage, Gal 4:24. This was the hill on which God set his king the Messiah. Now, in coming to mount Zion, believers come into heavenly places, and into a heavenly society.

1. Into heavenly places. (1.) Unto the city of the living God. God has taken up his gracious residence in the gospel church, which on that account is an emblem of heaven. There his people may find him ruling, guiding, sanctifying, and comforting them; there he speaks to them by the gospel ministry; there they speak to him by prayer, and he hears them; there he trains them up for heaven, and gives them the earnest of their inheritance. (2.) To the heavenly Jerusalem as born and bred there, as free denizens there. Here believers have clearer views of heaven, plainer evidences for heaven, and a greater meetness and more heavenly temper of soul.

2. To a heavenly society. (1.) To an innumerable company of angels, who are of the same family with the saints, under the same head, and in a great measure employed in the same work, ministering to believers for their good, keeping them in all their ways, and pitching their tents about them. These for number are innumerable, and for order and union are a company, and a glorious one. And those who by faith are joined to the gospel church are joined to the angels, and shall at length be like them, and equal with them. (2.) To the general assembly and church of the first-born, that are written in heaven, that is, to the universal church, however dispersed. By faith we come to them, have communion with them in the same head, by the same Spirit, and in the same blessed hope, and walk in the same way of holiness, grappling with the same spiritual enemies, and hasting to the same rest, victory, and glorious triumph. Here will be the general assembly of the first-born, the saints of former and earlier times, who saw the promises of the gospel state, but received them not, as well as those who first received them under the gospel, and were regenerated thereby, and so were the first-born, and the first-fruits of the gospel church; and thereby, as the first-born, advanced to greater honours and privileges than the rest of the world. Indeed all the children of God are heirs, and every one has the privileges of the first-born. The names of these are written in heaven, in the records of the church here: they have a name in God's house, are written among the living in Jerusalem; they have a good repute for their faith and fidelity, and are enrolled in the Lamb's book of life, as citizens are enrolled in the livery-books. (3.) To God the Judge of all, that great God who will judge both Jew and Gentile according to the law they are under: believers come to him now by faith, make supplication to their Judge, and receive a sentence of absolution in the gospel, and in the court of their consciences now, by which they know they shall be justified hereafter. (4.) To the spirits of just men made perfect; to the best sort of men, the righteous, who are more excellent than their neighbours; to the best part of just men, their spirits, and to these in their best state, made perfect. Believers have union with departed saints in one and the same head and Spirit, and a title to the same inheritance, of which those on earth are heirs, those in heaven possessors. (5.) To Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. This is none of the least of many encouragements there are to perseverance in the gospel state, since it is a state of communion with Christ the Mediator of the new covenant, and of communication of his blood, that speaketh better things than the blood of Abel. [1.] The gospel covenant is the new covenant, distinct from the covenant of works; and it is now under a new dispensation, distinct from that of the Old Testament. [2.] Christ is the Mediator of this new covenant; he is the middle person that goes between both parties, God and man, to bring them together in this covenant, to keep them together notwithstanding the sins of the people and God's displeasure against them for sin, to offer up our prayers to God, and to bring down the favours of God to us, to plead with God for us and to plead with us for God, and at length to bring God and his people together in heaven, and to be a Mediator of fruition between them for ever, they beholding and enjoying God in Christ and God beholding and blessing them in Christ. [3.] This covenant is ratified by the blood of Christ sprinkled upon our consciences, as the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled upon the altar and the sacrifice. This blood of Christ pacifies God and purifies the consciences of men. [4.] This is speaking blood, and it speaks better things than that of Abel. First, It speaks to God in behalf of sinners; it pleads not for vengeance, as the blood of Abel did on him who shed it, but for mercy. Secondly, To sinners, in the name of God. It speaks pardon to their sins, peace to their souls; and bespeaks their strictest obedience and highest love and thankfulness.

III. The apostle, having thus enlarged upon the argument to perseverance taken from the heavenly nature of the gospel church state, closes the chapter by improving the argument in a manner suitable to the weight of it (Heb 12:25, etc.): See then that you refuse not him that speaketh - that speaketh by his blood; and not only speaketh after another manner than the blood of Abel spoke from the ground, but than God spoke by the angels, and by Moses spoke on mount Sinai; then he spoke on earth, now he speaks from heaven. Here observe,

1. When God speaks to men in the most excellent manner he justly expects from them the most strict attention and regard. Now it is in the gospel that God speaks to men in the most excellent manner. For, (1.) He now speaks from a higher and more glorious seat and throne, not from mount Sinai, which was on this earth, but from heaven. (2.) He speaks now more immediately by his inspired word and by his Spirit, which are his witnesses. He speaks not now any new thing to men, but by his Spirit speaks the same word home to the conscience. (3.) He speaks now more powerfully and effectually. Then indeed his voice shook the earth, but now, by introducing the gospel state, he hath shaken not only the earth, but the heavens, - not only shaken the hills and mountains, or the spirits of men, or the civil state of the land of Canaan, to make room for his people, - not only shaken the world, as he then did, but he hath shaken the church, that is, the Jewish nation, and shaken them in their church-state, which was in Old Testament times a heaven upon earth; this their heavenly spiritual state he hath now shaken. It is by the gospel from heaven that God shook to pieces the civil and ecclesiastical state of the Jewish nation, and introduced a new state of the church, that cannot be removed, shall never be changed for any other on earth, but shall remain till it be made perfect in heaven.

2. When God speaks to men in the most excellent manner, the guilt of those who refuse him is the greater, and their punishment will be more unavoidable and intolerable; there is no escaping, no bearing it, Heb 12:25. The different manner of God's dealing with men under the gospel, in a way of grace, assures us that he will deal with the despisers of the gospel after a different manner than he does with other men, in a way of judgment. The glory of the gospel, which should greatly recommend it to our regard, appears in these three things: - (1.) It was by the sound of the gospel trumpet that the former dispensation and state of the church of God were shaken and removed; and shall we despise that voice of God that pulled down a church and state of so long standing and of God's own building? (2.) It was by the sound of the gospel trumpet that a new kingdom was erected for God in the world, which can never be so shaken as to be removed. This was a change made once for all; no other change shall take place till time shall be no more. We have now received a kingdom that cannot be moved, shall never be removed, never give way to any new dispensation. The canon of scripture is now perfected, the Spirit of prophecy has ceased, the mystery of God is finished, he has put his last hand to it. The gospel church may be made more large, more prosperous more purified from contracted pollution, but it shall never be altered for another dispensation; those who perish under the gospel perish without remedy. And hence the apostle justly concludes, [1.] How necessary it is for us to obtain grace from God, to serve him acceptably: if we be not accepted of God under this dispensation, we shall never be accepted at all; and we lose all our labour in religion if we be not accepted of God. [2.] We cannot worship God acceptably, unless we worship him with godly reverence and fear. As faith, so holy fear, is necessary to acceptable worship. [3.] It is only the grace of God that enables us to worship God in a right manner: nature cannot come up to it; it can produce neither that precious faith nor that holy fear that is necessary to acceptable worship. [4.] God is the same just and righteous God under the gospel that he appeared to be under the law. Though he be our God in Christ, and now deals with us in a more kind and gracious way, yet he is in himself a consuming fire; that is, a God of strict justice, who will avenge himself on all the despisers of his grace, and upon all apostates. Under the gospel, the justice of God is displayed in a more awful manner, though not in so sensible a manner as under the law; for here we behold divine justice seizing upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and making him a propitiatory sacrifice, his soul and body an offering for sin, which is a display of justice far beyond what was seen and heard on mount Sinai when the law was given.

Barclay: Heb 12:1-2

This is one of the great, moving passages of the New Testament; and in it the writer has given us a well-nigh perfect summary of the Christian life.

(i) In the Christian life we have a goal. The Christian is not an unconcerned stroller along the byways of life; he is a wayfarer on the high road. He is not a tourist, who returns each night to the place from which he starts; he is a pilgrim who is for ever on the way. The goal is nothing less than the likeness of Christ. The Christian life is going somewhere, and it would be well if, at each day's ending, we were to ask ourselves: "Am I any farther on?"

(ii) In the Christian life we have an inspiration. We have the thought of the unseen cloud of witnesses: and they are witnesses in a double sense. For they have witnessed their confession to Christ and they are now witnesses of our performance. The Christian is like a runner in some crowded stadium. As he presses on. the crowd looks down; and the crowd looking down are those who have already won the crown.

Longinus, in his great work On The Sublime, has a recipe for greatness in literary endeavour. "It is a good thing." he writes, "to form the question in our souls, How would Homer perhaps have said this? How would Plato or Demosthenes have lifted it up to sublimity? How would Thucydides have put it in his history? For when the faces of these people come before us in our emulation they will, as it were, illumine our road and will lift us up to those standards of perfection which we have imagined in our minds. It would be still better if we were to suggest this to our minds. 'What would this that I have said sound like to Homer, if he were standing by, or to Demosthenes, or how would they have reacted to it?' In truth it is a supreme test to imagine such a judgment court and theatre for our own private productions, and, in imagination, to submit an account of our writings to such heroes as judges."

An actor would act with double intensity if he knew that some famous dramatic master was sitting in the stalls watching him. An athlete would strive with double effort if he knew that a stadium of famous Olympic athletes was watching him. It is of the very essence of the Christian life that it is lived in the gaze of the heroes of the faith who lived, suffered and died in their day and generation. How can a man avoid the struggle for greatness with an audience like that looking down upon him?

(iii) In the Christian life we have a handicap. If we are encircled by the greatness of the past. We are also encircled by the handicap of our own sin. No man would seek to climb Mount Everest with a pantechnicon of lumber weighing him down. If we would travel far, we must travel light. There is in life an essential duty of discarding things. There may be habits, pleasures, self-indulgences, associations which hold us back. We must shed them as the athlete sheds his track suit when he goes to the starting-mark; and often we will need the help of Christ to enable us to do so.

(iv) In the Christian life we have a means. That means is steadfast endurance. The word is hupomone (5281) which does not mean the patience which sits down and accepts things but the patience which masters them. It is not some romantic thing which lends us wings to fly over the difficulties and the hard places. It is a determination, unhurrying and yet undelaying, which goes steadily on and refuses to be deflected. Obstacles do not daunt it and discouragements do not take its hope away. It is the steadfast endurance which carries on until in the end it gets there.

(v) In the Christian life we have an example. That example is Jesus himself. For the goal that was set before him, he endured all things; to win it meant the way of the Cross. The writer to the Hebrews has a flash of insight--despising the shame, he says. Jesus was sensitive; never had any person so sensitive a heart. A cross was a humiliating thing. It was for criminals, for those whom society regarded as the dregs of humanity--and yet he accepted it. St. Philip of Neri bids us "to despise the world, to despise ourselves, and to despise--the fact that we are despised" (spernere mundum, spernere te ipsum, spernere te sperni). If Jesus could endure like that, so must we.

(vi) In the Christian life we have a presence, the presence of Jesus. He is at once the goal of our journey and the companion of our way; at once the one whom we go to meet and the one with whom we travel. The wonder of the Christian life is that we press on surrounded by the saints, oblivious to everything but the glory of the goal and forever in the company of him who has already made the journey and reached the goal, and who waits to welcome us when we reach the end.

Barclay: Heb 12:3-4

The writer to the Hebrews uses two very vivid words when he speaks of fainting and growing weary. They are the words which Aristotle uses of an athlete who flings himself on the ground in collapse after he has surged past the winning post of the race. So Hebrews is in effect saying: "Don't give up too soon; don't collapse until the winning post is passed.

To urge them to that he uses two arguments.

(i) For them the struggle of Christianity has not yet become a mortal struggle. When he speaks of resisting to the point of blood, he uses the very phrase of the Maccabaean leaders when they called on their troops to fight to the death. When the writer to the Hebrews says that his people have not yet resisted to the point of blood, as Moffatt puts it, "he is not blaming them, he is shaming them." When they think of what the heroes of the past went through to make their faith possible, surely they cannot drift into lethargy or flinch from conflict.

(ii) He pleads with them to compare what they have to suffer with what Jesus suffered. He gave up the glory which was his; he came into all the narrowness of the life of humanity; he faced the hostility of men; in the end he had to die upon a cross. So the writer to the Hebrews in effect demands: "How can you compare what you have to go through with what he went through? He did all that for you--what are you going to do for him?"

These two verses stress the essential costliness of Christian faith. It cost the lives of the martyrs; it cost the life of him who was the Son of God. A thing which cost so much cannot be lightly discarded. A heritage like that is not something that a man can hand down tarnished. These two verses make the demand that comes to every Christian: "Show yourself worthy of the sacrifice that men and God have made for you."

Barclay: Heb 12:5-11

The writer to the Hebrews sets out still another reason why men should cheerfully bear affliction when it comes to them. He has urged them to bear it because the great saints of the past have borne it. He has urged them to bear it because anything they may have to bear is a little thing compared with what Jesus Christ had to bear. Now he says that they must bear hardship because it is sent as a discipline from God and no life can have any value apart from discipline.

A father always disciplines his child. It would not be a mark of love to let a son do what he likes and have nothing but an easy way; it would show that the father regarded the son as no better than an illegitimate child to whom he felt neither love nor responsibility. We submit to an earthly father's discipline which is imposed only for a short time, until we reach years of maturity, and which at best always contains an element of arbitrariness. The earthly father is he to whom we owe our bodily life; how much more should we submit to the discipline of God to whom we owe our immortal spirits and who, in his wisdom, seeks for nothing but our highest good.

There is a curious passage in Xenophon's Cyropaedia. There is an argument about whether the man who makes men laugh or makes them weep is of most use in the world. Aglaitidas says: "He that makes his friends laugh seems to me to do them much less service than he who makes them weep; and if you will look at it rightly, you, too, will find that I speak the truth. At any rate, fathers develop self-control in their sons by making them weep and teachers impress good lessons on their pupils in the same way, and laws, too, turn the citizens to justice by making them weep. But could you say that those who make us laugh either do good to our bodies or make our minds any more fitted for the management of our private business or the affairs of state?" It was the view of Aglaitidas that it was the man who exerted discipline who really did good to his fellow-men.

There is no doubt that this passage would come to those who heard it for the first time with a double impact, for all the world knew of that amazing thing the patria potestas, the father's power. A Roman father had by law absolute power over his family. If his son should marry, the father continued to have absolute power both over him and any grandchildren there might be. It began at the beginning. A Roman father could keep or discard his newborn child as he liked. He could bind or scourge his son; he could sell him into slavery; and he even had the right to execute him. True, when a father was about to take serious steps against a member of his family, he usually called a council of all its adult male members, but he did not need to. True, later on public opinion would not permit the execution of a son by a father, but it happened as late as the time of Augustus. Sallust, the Roman historian, tells us of an incident during the Catiline conspiracy. Catiline rebelled against Rome and amongst those who went out to join his forces was Aulus Fulvius, the son of a Roman senator. He was arrested and brought back, and his own father tried him and judged him and ordered him to be put to death. In regard to the patria potestas a Roman son never came of age. He might have engaged on a state career; he might be holding the highest magistracies; he might be held in honour by the whole country; all that did not matter; he was directly and completely under his father's power so long as his father survived. If ever a people knew what parental discipline was the Romans did; and when the writer to the Hebrews talked about the way in which an earthly father disciplined his son, his hearers well knew what he was talking about.

So, then, the writer insists that we must look on all the hardships of life as the discipline of God and as sent to work, not for our harm but for our ultimate and highest good. To prove his point he makes a quotation from Pro 3:11-12. There are many ways in which a man may look at the discipline which God sends him. .

(i) He may resignedly accept it. That is what the Stoics did. They held that nothing in this world happens outside the will of God; therefore, they argued, there is nothing to do but to accept it. To do anything else is simply to batter one's head against the walls of the universe. That is possibly the acceptance of supreme wisdom; but none the less it is the acceptance not of a father's love but of a father's power. It is not a willing but a defeated acceptance.

(ii) A man may accept discipline with the grim sense of getting it over as soon as possible. A certain famous Roman said: "I will let nothing interrupt my life." If a man accepts discipline like that he regards it as an infliction to be struggled through with defiance and certainly not with gratitude.

(iii) A man may accept discipline with the self-pity which leads in the end to collapse. Some people, when they are caught up in some difficult situation, give the impression that they are the only people in the world whom life ever hurt. They are lost in their self-pity.

(iv) A man may accept discipline as a punishment which he resents. It is strange that at this time the Romans saw in national and personal disasters nothing but the vengeance of the gods. Lucan wrote: "Happy were Rome indeed, and blessed citizens would she have, if the gods were as much concerned with caring for men as they are with exacting vengeance from them." Tacitus held that the disasters of the nation were proof that not men's safety but men's punishment was the interest of the gods. There are still people who regard God as vindictive. When something happens to them or to those whom they love their question is: "What did I do to deserve this?" And the question is asked in such a tone as to make it clear that they regard the whole matter as an unjust punishment from God. It never dawns upon them to ask: "What is God trying to teach me and to do with me through this experience?"

(v) So we come to the last attitude. A man may accept discipline as coming from a loving father. Jerome said a paradoxical but true thing: "The greatest anger of all is when God is no longer angry with us when we sin." He meant that the supreme punishment is when God lets us alone as unteachable. The Christian knows that "a father's hand will never cause his child a needless tear" and that everything can be utilised to make him a wiser and a better man. As Robert Browning wrote in Rabbi ben Ezra:

"Then welcome each rebuff

That turns earth's smoothness rough,

Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!

Be our joy three-parts pain!

Strive and hold cheap the strain;

Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

For thence--a paradox

Which comforts while it mocks--

Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail;

What I aspired to be,

And was not, comforts me.

A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale."

We shall cease from self-pity, from resentment and from rebellious complaint if we remember that there is no discipline of God which does not take its source in love and is not aimed at good.

Barclay: Heb 12:12-17

With this passage the writer to the Hebrews comes to the problems of everyday Christian life and living. He knew that sometimes it is given to a man to mount up with wings as an eagle; he knew that sometimes a man is enabled to run and not be weary in the pursuit of some great moment of endeavour; but he also knew that of all things it is hardest to walk every day and not to faint. Here he is thinking of the daily struggle of the Christian way.

(i) He begins by reminding them of their duties. In every congregation and in every Christian society there are those who are weaker and more likely to go astray and to abandon the struggle. It is the duty of those who are stronger to put fresh vigour into listless hands and fresh strength into failing feet. The phrase used for stack hands is the same as is used to describe the children of Israel in the days when they wished to abandon the rigours of the journey across the wilderness and to return to the ease and the fleshpots of Egypt.

The Odes of Solomon (6: 14ff.) have a description of the work of those who are true servants and ministers:

"They have assuaged the dry lips,

And the will that fainted they have raised up...

And limbs that had fallen

They have straightened and set up."

One of life's greatest glories is to be an encourager of the man who is near to despair and a strengthener of the man whose strength is failing. To help these people we have to make their ways straight. A Christian has a double duty; he has a duty to God and a duty to his fellow men. The Testimony of Simeon (5: 2, 3) has an illuminating description of the duty of the good man. "Make your heart good in the sight of the Lord; and make your ways straight in the sight of men; so you will find favour in the sight of the Lord and of men."

To God a man must present a clean heart; to men he must present an upright life. To show a man the right way to walk, by personal example to keep him on the right road, to remove from the path something that would make him stumble, to make the journey easier for faltering and lagging feet, is a Christian duty. A man must offer his heart to God and his service and example to his fellow-men.

(ii) The writer to the Hebrews turns to the aims which must ever be before the Christian.

(a) He must aim at peace. In Hebrew thought and language peace was no negative thing; it was intensely positive. It was not simply freedom from trouble; it was two things.

First, it was everything which makes for a man's highest good. As the Hebrews saw it, that highest good was to be found in obedience to God. Proverbs says: "My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: for length of days and long life and peace shall they add unto thee." The Christian must aim at that complete obedience to God in which life finds its highest happiness, its greatest good, its perfect consummation, its peace. Second, peace meant right relationships between man and man. It meant a state when hatred was banished and each man sought nothing but his neighbour's good. Hebrews says: "Seek to live together as Christian men ought to live, in the real unity which comes from living in Christ."

The peace to be sought is that coming from obedience to God's will, which raises a man's life to its highest realization and enables him to live in and to produce right relationships between his fellow-men.

One thing remains to be noted--that kind of peace is to be pursued. It requires an effort; it is not something which just happens. It is the product of mental and spiritual toil and sweat. Rudyard Kipling wrote:

"Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made

By singing:--'Oh, how beautiful!' and sitting in the shade,

While better men than we go out and start their working-lives

At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives."

The gifts of God are given, but they are not given away; they have to be won, for they can be received only on God's conditions--and the supreme condition is obedience to himself

(b) He must aim at holiness (hagiasmos, 38). Hagiasmos has in it the same root as the adjective hagios, which is usually translated holy. The root meaning is always difference and separation. Although he lives in the world, the man who is hagios (40) must always in one sense be different from it and separate from it. His standards are not the world's standards, nor his conduct the world's conduct. His aim is not to stand well with men but to stand well with God. Hagiasmos (38), as Westcott finely put it, is "the preparation for the presence of God." The life of the Christian is dominated by the constant memory that its greatest aim is to enter into the presence of God.

(iii) The writer to the Hebrews goes on to point the dangers which threaten the Christian life:

(a) There is the danger of missing the grace of God. The word he uses might be paraphrased failing to keep up with the grace of God. The early Greek commentator Theophylact interprets this in terms of a journey of a band of travellers who every now and again check up, "Has anyone fallen out? Has anyone been left behind while the others have pressed on?" In Micah there is a vivid text (Mic 4:6), "I will assemble the lame." Moffatt translates it: "I will collect the stragglers." It is easy to straggle away, to linger behind, to drift instead of to march, and so to miss the grace of God. There is no opportunity in this life which cannot be missed. The grace of God brings to us the opportunity to make ourselves and to make life what they are meant to be. A man may, in his lethargy, his thoughtlessness, his unawareness, his procrastination, miss the chances which grace brings to him. Against that we must ever be upon the watch.

(b) There is the danger of what the Revised Standard Version calls "a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit." The phrase comes from Deu 29:18; and there it describes the man who goes after strange gods and encourages others to do so, and who thereby becomes a pernicious influence on the life of the community. The writer to the Hebrews is warning against those who are a corrupting influence. There are always those who think the Christian standards unnecessarily strict and punctitious; there are always those who do not see why they should not accept the world's standards of life and conduct. This was specially so in the early Church. It was a little island of Christianity surrounded by a sea of paganism; its members were, at the most, only one generation away from heathenism. It was easy to relapse into the old standards. This is a warning against the infection of the world, sometimes deliberately, sometimes unconsciously, spread within the Christian society.

© There is the danger of failing into immorality or relapsing into an unhallowed life. The word used for unhallowed is bebelos (952). It has an illuminating background. It was used for ground that was profane in contradistinction to ground that was consecrated The ancient world had its religions into which only the initiated could come. Bebelos (952) was used for the person who was uninitiated and uninterested in contradistinction to the man who was devout. It was applied to such men as Antiochus Epiphanes who was pledged to wipe out all true religion; it was applied to Jews who had become apostates and had forsaken God. Westcott sums up this word by saying that it describes the man whose mind recognizes nothing higher than earth, for whom there is nothing sacred, who has no reverence for the unseen. An unhallowed life is a life without any awareness of or interest in God. In its thoughts, aims, pleasures, it is completely earthbound. We have to have a care lest we drift into a frame of mind and heart which has no horizon beyond this world, for that way inevitably lie the failure of chastity and the loss of honour.

To sum it all up, the writer to the Hebrews cites the example of Esau. He really puts two stories together--Gen 25:28-34and Gen 27:1-39. In the first Esau came in from the field ravenously hungry and sold his birthright to Jacob for a share of the food which he was preparing. The second story tells how Jacob subtly robbed Esau of his birthright by impersonating him when Isaac was old and blind and so gaining the blessing which belonged to Esau as the elder of the two sons. It was when Esau sought the blessing that Jacob had shrewdly obtained and learned he could not get it that he lifted up his voice and wept (Gen 27:38).

There is more to this than lies upon the surface. In Hebrew legend and in rabbinic elaboration Esau had come to be looked upon as the entirely sensual man, the man who put the needs of his body first. Hebrew legend says that while Jacob and Esau--they were twins--were still in their mother's womb, Jacob said to Esau: "My brother, there are two worlds before us, this world and the world to come. In this world men eat and drink and traffic and marry and bring up sons and daughters; but all this does not take place in the world to come. If you like, take this world and I will take the other." And Esau was well content to take this world, because he did not believe that there was any other. On that very day when Jacob's subterfuge gained him Isaac's blessing, legend said that Esau already had committed five sins--"he had worshipped with strange worship, he had shed innocent blood, he had pursued a betrothed damsel, he had denied the life of the world to come, and he had despised his birthright."

Hebrew interpretation saw Esau as the sensual man, the man who saw no pleasures beyond the crude pleasures of this world. Any man like that sells his birthright; for a man throws away his inheritance when he throws away eternity.

The writer to the Hebrews says, according to the King James Version, that Esau found no place for repentance. The Greek for repentance is metanoia (3341), which literally means a change of mind. It is better to say that it was now impossible for Esau to change his mind. It is not that he was barred from the forgiveness of God. It is just the grim fact that there are certain choices which cannot be unmade and certain consequences which not even God can take away. To take a very simple example--if a young man loses his purity or a girl her virginity, nothing can ever bring it back. The choice has been made and it stands. God can and will forgive but he cannot turn back the clock.

We do well to remember that there is a certain finality in life. If, like Esau, we take the way of this world and make bodily things our final good, if we choose the pleasures of time in preference to the joys of eternity, God can and will still forgive but something has happened that can never be undone. There are certain things in which a man cannot change his mind but must abide for ever by the choice that he has made.

Barclay: Heb 12:18-24

This passage is a contrast between the old and the new. It is a contrast between the giving of the law on Mount Sinai and the new covenant of which Jesus is the mediator. Down to Heb 12:21it has echo after echo of the story of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. Deu 4:11describes that first law-giving: "And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain; while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud and gloom. And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire." Exo 19:12-13tells of the unapproachability of that awful mountain: "And you shall set bounds for the people round about, saying, 'Take heed that you do not go up into the mountain, or touch the border of it: whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death: no hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned, or shot; whether beast or man, he shall not live: When the trumpet sounds a long blast they shall come up to the mountain.' " Deu 5:23-27tells how the people were so afraid to hear the voice of God for themselves that they asked Moses to go and to bring God's message to them. "If we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, we shall die." Deu 9:19tells of the terror of Moses, but the writer to the Hebrews has transferred these words to the giving of the law, although in the original story they were spoken by Moses when he came down from the mountain and found the people worshipping the golden calf. The whole passage down to Heb 12:21is a pattern of reminiscences from the story of the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. All the terrifying things have been gathered together to stress the awfulness of that scene.

In the giving of the law at Mount Sinai three things are stressed. (i) The sheer majesty of God. The story stresses the shattering might of God and in it there is no love at all. (ii) The absolute unapproachability of God. So far from the way being open to God, he who tries to approach him meets death. (iii) The sheer terror of God. Here is nothing but an awe-stricken fear which is afraid to look and even to listen.

Then at Heb 12:22comes the difference. The first section deals with all that man can expect under the old covenant, a God of lonely majesty, complete separation from man, and prostrating fear. But to the Christian there has come the new covenant and a new relationship with God.

Hebrews makes a kind of list of the new glories that await the Christian.

(i) The new Jerusalem awaits him. This world with all its impermanence, its fears, its mysteries, its separations goes and life for the Christian is made new.

(ii) The angels await him in joyful assembly. The word used for joyful assembly is paneguris (3831) which is the word for a joyful national assembly in honour of the gods. To the Greek it described a joyful holy day when all men rejoiced. For the Christian, the joy of heaven is such that it makes even the angels break into rejoicing.

(iii) There await him God's elected people. The writer to the Hebrews uses two words to describe them. He says literally that they are the first-born. Now the characteristic of the first-born son is that the inheritance and the honour are his. He says that they are those whose names are written in the registers of heaven. In ancient days kings kept a register of their faithful citizens. So there await the Christian all those whom God has honoured and all those whom God has reckoned amongst his faithful citizens.

(iv) There awaits him God the Judge. The writer to the Hebrews never forgot that, at the end, the Christian must stand the scrutiny of God. The glory is there; but the awe and the fear of God still remain. The New Testament is never in the slightest danger of sentimentalising the idea of God.

(v) There await him the spirits of all good men who have achieved their goal. Once they encircled him in the unseen cloud; now he will be one of them. He himself goes to join those whose names are on God's honour roll.

(vi) Finally the writer to the Hebrews says that it was Jesus who initiated this new covenant and made this new relationship with God possible. It was he, the perfect priest and the perfect sacrifice, who made the unapproachable approachable and he did this at the cost of his blood. So the section ends with a curious contrast between the blood of Abel and the blood of Jesus. When Abel was slain, his blood upon the ground called for vengeance (Gen 4:10); but when Jesus was slain, his blood opened up the way of reconciliation. His sacrifice made it possible for man to be friends with God.

Once men were under the terror of the law; the relationship between them and God was one of unbridgeable distance and shuddering fear. But after Jesus came and lived and died, the God who was far distant was brought near and the way opened to his presence.

Barclay: Heb 12:25-29

Here the water begins with a contrast which is also a warning. Moses brought to earth the oracles of God. The word that he uses (chrematizein, 5537) implies that Moses was only the transmitter of these oracles, the mouthpiece through which God spoke; and yet the man who broke these commandments did not escape punishment. On the other hand there is Jesus. The word used of him (lalein, 2980) implies the direct speech of God. He was not merely the transmitter of God's voice, he was God's voice. If that be so, how much more will the man who refuses to obey him find punishment? If a man merits condemnation for neglecting the imperfect message of the law, how much more does he merit it for neglecting the perfect message of the gospel? Because the gospel is the full revelation of God, there is laid on the man who hears it a double and a terrible responsibility; and his condemnation must be all the more if he neglects it.

Hebrews goes on to draw out another thought. When the law was given, the earth was shaken. "And Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain quaked greatly" (Exo 19:18). "Tremble, O earth at the presence of the Lord" (Psa 114:7). "The earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain at the presence of God" (Psa 68:8). "The crash of thy thunder was in the whirlwind; thy lightnings lighted up the world; the earth trembled and shook" (Psa 77:18).

The writer to the Hebrews finds another reference to the shaking of the earth in Hag 2:6. There the Greek version of the Old Testament says: "Once again, in a little while, (the Hebrew says, "very soon") I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land." The writer to the Hebrews takes this to be an announcement of the day when this earth shall pass away and the new age will begin. In that day everything that can be shaken will be destroyed; the only things to remain will be the things which can never be shaken; and chief among them is our relationship with God.

All things may pass away; the world as we know it may be uprooted; life as we experience it may come to an end; but one thing stands eternally sure--the relationship of the Christian to God.

If that be so there is a great obligation laid upon us. We must worship God with reverence and serve him with fear; for nothing must be allowed to disturb that relationship which will be our salvation when the world passes away. So the writer to the Hebrews finishes with one of those threatening quotations which he so often flings like a thunderbolt at his readers. It is a quotation from Deu 4:24. Moses is telling the people that they must never break their agreement with God and relapse into idolatry. For he is a jealous God. They must worship him alone or they will find him a consuming fire. It is as if the writer to the Hebrews was saying: "There is a choice before you. Remain steadfastly true to God, and in the day when the universe is shaken into destruction your relationship with him will stand safe and secure. Be false to him and that very God who might have been your salvation will be to you a consuming fire of destruction." It is a grim thought; but in it there is the eternal truth that, if a man is true to God, he gains everything and, if he is untrue to God, he loses everything. In time and in eternity nothing really matters save loyalty to God.

Constable: Heb 11:1--12:14

IV. THE PROPER RESPONSE 11:1--12:13

"In chapter 10:22-25 there were three exhortations, respectively to Faith, Hope and Love. These are elaborated in turn: chapter 11 dealing with Faith; chapter 12 with Hope; chapter 13 with Love."³³⁸

In this fourth major section of the epistle, the writer concentrated on motivating his readers to persevere in their faith with steadfast endurance. He continued the idea that he introduced in 10:35-39.³³⁹ Having introduced "faith" and "endurance" in 10:39, the writer proceeded to develop these concepts further in inverted order. He celebrated the character of faith in chapter 11 and then summoned the readers to endurance in 12:1-13. The first of these sections is exposition and the second exhortation.

"The characteristic vocabulary of this section relates to the vital issue of enduring disciplinary sufferings. Anticipating the subsequent development in 12:1-13, the writer underscored the community's need for hypomone, endurance,' in 10:36. That note is resumed in 12:1, when the commitment required of the Christian life is reviewed under the metaphor of an athletic contest, and the key to victory is found in endurance.'"³⁴⁰

"The story of God's people includes a succession of examples of persistent, forward-looking faith. The story is not complete without us. We, in our turn, must submit to God's fatherly discipline and stand firm together in the faith."³⁴¹

Constable: Heb 12:1-13

B. Demonstrating Necessary Endurance 12:1-13

The writer followed up his scriptural exposition with another final exhortation (chs. 12-13). This is a pattern he followed consistently throughout this epistle.

He first called on his readers to persevere faithfully so they would not lose any of their reward. This section is chiastic.

A A call to run with endurance (vv. 1-3)

B Explanation of the role of suffering (vv. 4-11)

A' A call to renew commitment to endure (vv. 12-13)

Constable: Heb 12:1-3

1. The example of Jesus 12:1-3

One writer posited a chiastic structure for verses one and two.

"Therefore we,

[A] having seated around about us such a cloud of witnesses,

[B] setting aside every weight and every clinging sin . . .

[C] with patient endurance . . .

[D] let us run the race that is set before us

[E] keeping our eyes on Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of the faith,

[D'] who for the

j

oy that was set before Him . . .

[C'] patiently endured the cross . . .

[B'] despising shame . . .

[A'] and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."³⁷⁸

This structure focuses attention on the central element, Jesus, rather than on the first element, us.³⁷⁹

"It seems likely that here [in 12:1-2], as in 1, 3 [i.e., 1:3], the author intentionally used poetic language to highlight and emphasize the significance of his theme: Jesus Christ is better.' Moreover, the balance and rhythm of the language make the text more esthetically attractive and provide a high degree of emotive impact. Thus the interpretation of the discourse by the intrusion of poetic language was bound to carry considerable impact and appeal . . ."³⁸⁰

One writer argued that Hebrews 11:1-12:2 is an encomium, a literary work in praise of someone or something, on Jesus.³⁸¹ Another saw this section as an encomium on faith.³⁸²

12:1 The "cloud of witnesses" refers to the Old Covenant saints whom the writer just mentioned (ch. 11). They are "witnesses" not because they presently witness our actions, but because by their lives they bore witness to their faith in God.³⁸³ The writers of the New Testament never used the Greek word translated "witnesses" (martys) in the sense of spectators.³⁸⁴ The description of them as a "cloud" is an interesting one since they are presently without resurrected bodies. They await the resurrection of their bodies at the Second Coming (Dan. 12:2). The writer's point was that we have many good examples of people who faithfully trusted God in the past. Nevertheless the word "witness" does also imply a spectator (cf. 10:28; 1 Tim. 6:12). Perhaps it is best to understand the writer's figure as meaning that faithful witnesses to the faith are watching us as we run the race.³⁸⁵

In view of this encouragement we should lay aside everything that impedes our running the Christian race successfully (cf. 1 Cor. 9:24; 2 Tim. 4:7-8). Popular moral philosophers who spoke on the streets of every Hellenistic community in the first century commonly used an athletic contest as an illustration of life.³⁸⁶ "Encumbrances" are weights that may not be sins but nevertheless make perseverance difficult.

"Some one is recorded to have asked whether a certain thing would do a person harm, and the reply was given, No harm, if you do not wish to win.'"³⁸⁷

We should also lay aside sin. "The sin" that the writer warned his readers against especially in Hebrews is unbelief, apostasy. In view of the immediately preceding context, it might refer to discouragement. However many different kinds of sin can trip us up, and we should avoid all sin for this reason.

"This might have reference to the love of wealth, attachment to the world, preoccupation with earthly interests, or self-importance."³⁸⁸

The reason for this self-discipline is so we can keep on running the Christian race effectively. The writer conceived of the Christian life as an endurance race, a marathon, not a 50-yard dash.

". . . the real test of life is the steady, normal progress of the soul--'not paroxysms of effort but steady endurance.'"³⁸⁹

12:2-3 As a runner keeps looking toward his or her goal, so we should keep looking to Jesus, not primarily to the other witnesses (v. 1). When we take our eyes of faith off Jesus, we begin to sink, like Peter (Matt. 14:22-33). Jesus should be our primary model when it comes to persevering. The writer used the simple personal name "Jesus" to accent our Lord's humanity, especially His endurance of pain, humiliation, and the disgrace of the cross.

He is our "author" (lit. file leader, captain, pioneer; 2:10). It was by looking to Him in faith that we were saved. Jesus set the example of living by faith for us, the evidence of His faith being his prayers. Jesus perfected faith in the sense that He finished His course of living by faith successfully (cf. 2:13).

"As the perfecter of faith' Jesus is the one in whom faith has reached its perfection."³⁹⁰

"He alone is the source of hope and help in their time of need. Looking to Him in faith and devotion is the central theological and practical message of Hebrews."³⁹¹

The joy of the prospect of His reward, namely, His victory over death, glorification, inheritance, and reign motivated Him, too (1:9, 13-14; 8:1; 10:12). This is the only occurrence of "cross" outside the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles, and its presence here stresses the shame associated with Jesus' crucifixion. What we look forward to is very similar to what Jesus anticipated. Such a prospect will help us endure suffering and despise the shame involved in living faithful to God.

12:3 The readers should think upon Jesus so they might not grow tired of persevering and lose heart. Meditation on Jesus and the cross encourage us to continue to follow God's will faithfully.

"The clear implication for the audience is that if they were to relinquish their commitment to Christ under the pressure of persistent opposition they would express active opposition against themselves (as in 6:6!), just as did Jesus' tormentors [cf. 10:38-39]."³⁹²

Constable: Heb 12:4-11

2. The proper view of trials 12:4-11

The writer put his readers' sufferings in perspective so they might not overestimate the difficulty they faced in remaining faithful to God.

"Suffering comes to all; it is part of life, but it is not easy to bear. Yet it is not quite so bad when it can be seen as meaningful. . . . The writer points out the importance of discipline and proceeds to show that for Christians suffering is rightly understood only when seen as God's fatherly discipline, correcting and directing us. Suffering is evidence, not that God does not love us, but that he does."³⁹³

12:4 The readers had not yet resisted sin to the extent that their enemies were torturing or killing them for their faith, as had been Jesus' experience. Evidently there had been no martyrs among the readers yet, though the writer and the readers undoubtedly knew of Christians elsewhere who had died for their faith. Their striving against sin probably refers to both resisting sinful opponents and resisting temptations to sin in their own lives (v. 1).

12:5-8 We need to remember, too, that God allows us to experience some opposition to make us stronger in the faith (Deut. 8:5; Prov. 3:11-12; James 1).³⁹⁴ Another value of divine discipline is that it prepares us to reign with Christ (cf. 2:10). God's discipline assures us that we are His sons. All believers are "partakers" (cf. 1:9; 3:1, 14; 6:4) of discipline. The "illegitimate children" in view seem to be genuine children of God but not approved sons.³⁹⁵

"A father would spend much care and patience on the upbringing of a true-born son whom he hoped to make a wealthy heir; and at the time such a son might have to undergo much more irksome discipline than an illegitimate child for whom no future of honor and responsibility was envisaged, and who therefore might be left more or less to please himself."³⁹⁶

Ishmael is an Old Testament example of an illegitimate child. He was the true child of Abraham. Yet because he was illegitimate (i.e., the son of Hagar rather than Sarah, Abraham's wife) he did not receive the inheritance that Isaac, the legitimate child, did (cf. Gen. 17:19-21; 21:12-14). Ishmael received some blessing because he was Abraham's son, but he did not receive the full inheritance because he was an illegitimate child.

The approved sons in view here in Hebrews are evidently those who persevere through discipline to the end of their lives whereas the illegitimate children do not but apostatize.³⁹⁷

"In the Roman world, an illegitimate child' had no inheritance rights."³⁹⁸

God deals with apostate believers in judgment, but He deals with persevering believers in discipline (cf. 5:8). The writer seems to be saying that God disciplines all Christians, but when a believer apostatizes God may let him go his own way without disciplining him further. God disciplines Christians to prepare us for future service, but when we apostatize He stops preparing us for future service. This is probably true only in extreme cases of departure from God and His truth (cf. 6:6, where we read that it is impossible to renew these apostates to repentance).

"The author does not specify what, in literal terms, would be involved in being an illegitimate member of God's family. The context does not refer, even indirectly, to false brethren secretly brought in' (Gal. 2:4). The wider context does suggest that such illegitimate offspring are apostates such as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, probably alluded to in v. 3; or more generally, those who do not keep faith firmly to the end (10:39)."³⁹⁹

Another view of the terms "sons" and "illegitimate children" is that they refer to true Christians and only professing but not genuine Christians respectively.⁴⁰⁰ The reason I do not favor this view is that throughout this epistle I believe the writer is urging true Christians to remain faithful and not apostatize. In other words the context favors this interpretation. Moreover an illegitimate child is, after all, still a child of his father. We need to understand the legitimate and illegitimate distinction in the light of Jewish and Roman culture.

"The ancient world found it incomprehensible that a father could possibly love his child and not punish him. In fact, a real son would draw more discipline than, say, an illegitimate child for the precise reason that greater honor and responsibility were to be his."⁴⁰¹

Perhaps this explains why committed Christians seem to experience more difficulties than non-committed Christians. God is preparing committed Christians for greater honor and responsibility in the future.

12:9-11 As Christians we need to submit to God's discipline in our lives because it will result in fullness of life and greater holiness and righteousness with peace.

". . . there may be an implied contrast between temporary human punishment and the permanent reward which is given to those who submit to divine discipline."⁴⁰²

God always designs discipline for our welfare even though it may not be pleasant to endure.

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."⁴⁰³

The title "Father of spirits" (v. 9) occurs only here in the New Testament (cf. Num. 16:22; 27:16). It probably means something like "our spiritual Father," as some English versions translate it (TEV, NEB, JB), in contrast to our physical (earthly) fathers.

This is one of the great sections in the New Testament that clarifies the reason for the Christian's trials (cf. James 1; 1 Peter). It is essential that we view our sufferings as the Lord's discipline rather than as an indication of His displeasure, or worse, His hatred (cf. Deut. 1:26-27) if we would persevere faithfully. There is a real as well as a linguistic connection between "discipline" and "disciple" and "discipleship."

Constable: Heb 12:12-13

3. The need for greater strength 12:12-13

The writer next urged his readers to take specific action that would enhance their continuance in the faith.

This word of exhortation, as well as the others, reveals that the original readers were spiritually weak. Consequently the writer urged them to build up their strength so they could work effectively and walk without stumbling (cf. Prov. 4:25-27). The Greek word ektrepo, translated "be put out of joint" (v. 13), has the technical medical sense of a foot turning so as to become dislocated.⁴⁰⁴ This power comes as we draw upon our resources for strength, namely, the Word of God and the ministry of our great High Priest (4:12-16). The readers also needed to level the path of discipleship they trod by removing impediments to their progress. Then the lame among them (i.e., the very weak) might recover as they proceeded to walk. The writer probably intended this exhortation to include laying aside sin (v. 1) and compromising associations with apostates who might throw unneeded barriers such as false teaching in the Christians' path.

This encouragement completes the thought of verses 1-13. The writer began with an exhortation, expounded the value of discipline, and ended with another exhortation.

"A depth of pastoral concern is evident throughout this section. The writer understood that faith can be eroded by constant exposure to harsh circumstances."⁴⁰⁵

Constable: Heb 12:14--Jam 1:1

V. Life in a Hostile World 12:14--13:25

This final major section of the book apparently grew out of the writer's reflection on the Greek text of Proverbs 4:26-27 (cf. 12:13). He specified how his readers could "make straight paths for your feet."

"In the final division of the homily the writer provides the members of the house church with a fresh orientation for life as Christians in a hostile society. The new people of God are engaged in pilgrimage to the city of God. This world is not their home; their goal is a kingdom that cannot be shaken' (12:28) or the city that is to come' (13:14). The metaphor of the journey to the city of God characterizes men and women of committed faith as pilgrims and implies an understanding of Christian life as commitment to pilgrimage. It also implies fidelity to the covenant."⁴⁰⁶

The sections of this final division all contain these themes of pilgrimage and covenant privilege and obligation. As in the first division (1:1-2:18), there is much emphasis on God speaking and the importance of listening to His voice.

"The writer offers his readers advice on how to live as a community of faith, between well-founded hope and the dangers which surround them."⁴⁰⁷

Constable: Heb 12:14-29

A. The Danger of Unresponsiveness (the Fifth Warning) 12:14-29

The writer now turned from the hearers' responsibility as they experienced suffering (vv. 1-13) to the peril of rejecting God who continues to speak to us through His Son using the Scriptures.

As the preceding pericope (vv. 1-13), this one also is a chiasm.

A Exhortation (vv. 14-17)

B Exposition (vv. 18-24)

A' Exhortation (vv. 25-29)

"The synthesis of so many significant themes and motifs within a single section identifies 12:14-29 as the pastoral and theological climax of the sermon . . ."⁴⁰⁸

Constable: Heb 12:14-17

1. The goal of peace 12:14-17

These verses summarize what the writer said previously about irrevocable loss through disobedience, unbelief, apostasy, and contempt for New Covenant privileges. The fearful warning about Esau brings these earlier warnings to an awesome head.

12:14 We need to live peaceably with all people as much as we can (cf. Matt. 5:9; Mark 9:50; Rom. 12:18; 14:19) because peaceful interpersonal relationships foster godliness (James 3:18). However this writer's emphasis was more on the objective reality that results from Christ's death than on our subjective enjoyment of peace. Since we will one day see the Lord, and since no sin can abide in His presence, we must pursue holiness in our lives now. A better translation than "sanctification" here is "holiness" (Gr. hagiasmon; cf. hagiatetos in v. 10, and hagiasomenoi in 10:10).⁴⁰⁹ As with peace, holiness is our present state, and we need to continue to manifest it by remaining faithful when tempted to depart from the Lord.

This statement may seem at first to contradict the fact that Satan saw God and appeared in His presence in Job 1 and 2. While Satan did and probably still does have access to God's presence, that will not be his permanent privilege. The writer of Hebrews spoke here of the permanent privilege of human beings.

12:15 Negatively the writer warned against neglecting God's grace (help). God's grace enables us to persevere (cf. 3:12), but here it is almost synonymous with the Christian faith. This neglect would result in unfaithfulness spreading as a poison among God's people (cf. Deut. 29:17-18). The writer pictured departure from the truth here as a root that produces bitter fruit in the Christian community. It results in the spiritual defilement of many other believers eventually. The writer was not implying that most of his readers were in danger of apostatizing but that the failure of only one individual can affect many other believers.

"Stubbornness, when it grows, produces the noxious fruit of apostasy, which is equivalent to excluding oneself from the grace of God. . . .

"The sin of one individual can corrupt the entire community when that sin is apostasy, because defilement is contagious. One who is defiled by unbelief and apostasy becomes a defiler of others."⁴¹⁰

"The writer has just referred to the need for helping those who are weak and failing in their faith. It would be logical that this still is in reference to them, providing a more specific instance in which some are failing. It is a failing with reference to the grace of God, especially as it relates to seeking forgiveness for failure. It is uncalled for to take this reference and make it a general designation of the plan of salvation."⁴¹¹

12:16-17 Esau is a clear example of someone who apostatized; he despised his inheritance and forfeited it to satisfy his immediate desires. That is precisely what the writer warned his readers not to do in this letter. Esau could not regain his inheritance later when he repented. His decision had permanent consequences; he could not repent (cf. 4:1; 6:6).⁴¹² His inability to repent was not a matter of forgiveness but of consequences.

"To take a very simple example--if a young man loses his purity or a girl her virginity, nothing can ever bring it back. The choice was made and the choice stands. God can and will forgive, but God Himself cannot turn back the clock and unmake the choice or undo the consequences."⁴¹³

The writer warned against two things in verse 16: immorality (Gr. pornos) and being godless (bebelos) like Esau. The Old Testament makes no mention of Esau's immorality, so probably the writer understood this term metaphorically in the sense of "apostate."⁴¹⁴ Esau was "godless" in that he relinquished his covenant rights for the sake of immediate gratification.⁴¹⁵ He is "the prototype of all who throw away the heavenly reality for the sake of the earthly one."⁴¹⁶

"Whether or not Esau was saved is not relevant to this discussion. The writer uses him as an illustration of the fact that the saved can lose their firstborn inheritance rights. His example is applied to those who have come to the church of the firstborn ones (Heb. 12:23).

"True Christians fully parallel the description of Esau. We are children of God and we are firstborn sons. Because of that we possess the rights of the firstborn. We do not have to earn these rights. They are given to us through the grace of God. However, we must value and keep these rights and are warned by Esau's example regarding the possibility of not doing so. But even though we cannot forfeit eternal life, we can forfeit our firstborn rights."⁴¹⁷

"Esau's willingness to give up all that was his as the firstborn son reflected a contempt for the covenant by which his rights were warranted. By descriptive analogy, he is representative of apostate persons who are ready to turn their backs on God and the divine promises, in reckless disregard of the covenant blessings secured by the sacrificial death of Jesus. The immediate reference is to the objective blessings of peace' and holiness,' specified in v 14. With the example of Esau, apostasy is further defined as a decisive rejection of God's gifts."⁴¹⁸

"There is an interesting, often overlooked parallel between the five warnings in the Book of Hebrews and the seven overcomers' promises in the Book of Revelation. The warnings and the overcomers' promises both have the same end in view. The last warning has to do with the birthright (Heb. 12:14-17), and the last overcomers' promise has to do with the throne (Rev. 3:21). The successive thought in the warnings in the Book of Hebrews is that of Christians ultimately realizing their birthright--sons exercising the rights of primogeniture. The great burden of Hebrews is bringing many sons unto glory' (Heb. 2:10). And the successive thought in the overcomers' promises in the Book of Revelation is that of Christians ultimately ascending the throne--co-heirs, companions, exercising power with Christ. The great burden of Revelation, chapters two and three is that of placing equipped Christians upon the throne with Christ.

"In Jewish history, the birthright belonged to the firstborn son in a family simply by right of birth and consisted of three things: 1) ruler of the household under and for the father, 2) priest of the family, and 3) the reception of a double portion of all the father's goods. Although a firstborn son did nothing whatsoever to come into possession of the birthright, he could conduct his life in such a manner so as to forfeit the birthright. He could not forfeit his position as firstborn in the family, but he could forfeit the rights of the firstborn."⁴¹⁹

Constable: Heb 12:18-24

2. The superiority of the New Covenant 12:18-24

The writer proceeded to explain the superiority of the New Covenant by comparing it with the Old Covenant using the figure of two mountains: Sinai and Zion.

12:18-21 These verses describe the giving of the Old Covenant at Mt. Sinai (cf. 2:2-4; Exod. 19:9-23; Deut. 4:11; 9:8-19).⁴²⁰ The writer made Sinai and Zion metaphors to show the difference in quality between relationship to God under the Old and New Covenants (cf. Gal. 4:24-26).⁴²¹ The emphasis in this comparison is on the holiness of God and the fearful consequences of incurring His displeasure (cf. Judg. 13:20; 1 Kings 8:12; 18:38; Nah. 1:3; Matt. 24:31; 1 Cor. 15:52; 1 Thess. 4:16). God was far from the Israelites, and even Moses felt terror.

12:22-24 The giving of the New Covenant and the things associated with that covenant are more impressive because they are the heavenly realities. These realities include the heavenly city and heavenly beings (i.e., angels and believers). Everything about this vision encourages us to come boldly into God's presence (cf. 4:16).

The phrase "the general assembly and church of the first-born"--the Greek construction suggests one group--probably refers to all those believers who had died but will receive their full inheritance.⁴²²

"To come to the church of the firstborn' means to be called to the privilege of being a firstborn son. All Christians are called to be part of that assembly and by birth have a right to be there. However, they may forfeit that right and never achieve their calling. That is the thrust of all the warnings of the book of Hebrews."⁴²³

The first-born was the son who received the greatest amount of inheritance. This is another reference to Christ's companions (1:9; 3:12) who are partakers of His glory (3:14; 6:4; 12:8), namely, those who faithfully persevere in their faith.⁴²⁴ Their names are on a heavenly roll as those who died cleaving to the Lord (cf. Exod. 32:33; Ps. 68:29; Isa. 4:13; Dan. 12:1; Luke 10:20; Phil. 4:3; Rev. 3:5; 13:8; 20:12).⁴²⁵

"The spirits of righteous men made perfect" evidently refers to all the glorified redeemed, faithful and unfaithful, whom Christ's sacrifice has perfected (cf. 10:10, 14; 11:40).

Jesus' blood is better than Abel's because it did not cry out for justice and retribution as Abel's did (cf. 11:4; Gen. 4:10).⁴²⁶ It satisfied God's demands and secured God's acceptance of New Covenant believers (cf. 9:12, 26; 10:10, 14, 19). It cried out to God for mercy and pardon for those for whom Jesus shed it.

"It must be acknowledged that the reference to Abel in v. 24b is unexpected, because it does not belong to the developed comparison between Sinai and Zion. It may have been suggested by the reference in v 23b to the presence of pneumasi dikaion, the spirits of righteous persons,' in the heavenly city, since the writer had specified in 11:4 that Abel was attested by God as dikaios, righteous.' It may also have been the writer's intention to evoke the whole history of redemption, from the righteous Abel to the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus, mediator of the new covenant . . ."⁴²⁷

This comparison (vv. 18-21 and 22-24) should motivate us to remain faithful and thereby realize the superior blessings of the New Covenant.

A mountain that may be touched	Mt. Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem
Blazing fire	Myriads of angels
Darkness	The general assembly and church of the firstborn
Gloom	God, the Judge of all
Whirlwind	The spirits of righteous men made perfect
The blast of a trumpet	Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant
The sound of words	The sprinkled blood that is better than Abel's

Constable: Heb 12:25-29

3. The consequences of apostasy 12:25-29

The writer shifted again from exposition to exhortation. The hook word "speak" (Gr. lalounti and lalounta) in verses 24 and 25 ties the two sections together.

12:25 The One speaking probably refers to God. "Him who warned them on earth" probably refers to God when He spoke from Mt. Sinai. The contrast is not between the persons who spoke but between the places from which God spoke (cf. v. 26). It would have been specially impressive to Jewish Christians. The present warning came from God in heaven and dealt with failure to continue to cleave to His Son (cf. 1:1-2; 2:2-3).

12:26-27 God's voice shook the earth at Mt. Sinai (Exod. 19:18; Judg. 5:4-5; Ps. 68:8; 77:18; 114:4, 7). It will shake the earth and the heavens at the end of the Millennium. That shaking will lead to the creation of new heavens and a new earth that will remain (Ps. 95:9-11; Hag. 2:6; Rev. 21:1).

"The shaking' is a metaphor for the judgment of God executed in history, as in the case of the fall of Babylon announced in Isa 13:1-22."⁴²⁸

12:28-29 Our kingdom is eternal. Our motive should be gratitude. Our activity should be the service of God. Our attitude toward Him should be reverence and awe in view of His ability to judge the unfaithful (cf. 1 Cor. 3:14-15).

"As a consuming fire, God purifies all that is unworthy and unacceptable in those who serve Him and all that is unfit to abide in His presence."⁴²⁹

Many readers of Hebrews associate the figure of God consuming with His judging unbelievers in hell, but this figure also occurs in the Old Testament with reference to His judging His people (cf. Exod. 24:17; Lev. 10:2; Num. 16:35; Deut. 4:24; 1 Cor. 3:15).

The reference to fire in verse 29 completes an inclusio begun with another mention of fire in verse 18. The whole section that these references to fire enclose deals with how important it is to respond properly to God.

"The warning proper is found in 12:25-29. The readers are called to heed Yahweh, for an eschatological shaking is coming in which the earthly material order will pass away, leaving only an eternal kingdom. The faithful readers who endure will have a part in the eschatological kingdom--the millennium and the New Jerusalem as companions' of Jesus, the Messiah-King (1:9, 13-14). This kingdom will become an eternal kingdom. . . .

"All five warnings in the epistle have a positive thrust and a negative impetus. . . . Disobedience to God and His Word will result in a forfeiting of eschatological rewards; obedience to God and His Word will result in a gaining of eschatological rewards."⁴³⁰

Warren Wiersbe pointed out that this chapter contains three resources that encourage and enable us to run the Christian race with endurance. They are the example of Jesus (vv. 1-4), the assurance of the Father's love (vv. 5-13), and the enablement of God's grace (vv. 14-29).⁴³¹

College: Heb 12:1-29

HEBREWS 12

VIII. GOD EXPECTS US TO ENDURE DISCIPLINE (12:1-29)

A. A CALL TO PERSEVERANCE (12:1-3)

¹ Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. ² Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

"Therefore" connects what is to come with the previous chapter. We will now read the "so what" of the famous "faith chapter" (Heb 11). Again there is a brief return to the "we" language - a language of identification - which has surfaced regularly throughout the letter (2:1ff.; 4:14ff.; 6:1ff.; 8:1; 10:19ff.; 10:39).

There is a single command within verses 1 and 2: "let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us" (v. 1). Perseverance is the key idea of this section since forms of this word (uJpomonhv , hypomenç ) occurs no less than three times in these three verses ("endured" the verb uJpomevnw [hypomenô ] in both v. 2 and v. 3). The word conveys the idea of "standing one's ground" or "holding out" in times of trouble and affliction. These were certainly such times for the readers and helping them persevere is the immediate purpose of the letter (see introduction).

Three participles describe events which attend our efforts to persevere. First, we do it while "surrounded" by "a great cloud of witnesses." Their proximity in the context clearly suggests that the witnesses are those heroes of faith which have been presented for our consideration in chapter 11. The image our writer constructs here is one of an athletic competition (a race) taking place within a stadium - cf. his reference to the "great contest" in which his listeners "stood [their] ground" (hypomenô , 10:32). Considering the tendency of Hebrews to use marturevw (martyreô ) in the sense of "testimony," however, Bruce is probably correct to suggest that they are "witnesses" not in the sense of being our spectators but in the sense that the endurance of their lives bears testimony "to the possibilities of the life of faith" - "it is not so much they who look to us as we who look to them - for encouragement."

Second, we see that to run this race we need to "throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles." Whereas the other two participles are present tense, this one is aorist which suggests that it must be done before the race begins. Morris points out that the word translated "everything that hinders" (o[gko" , ongkos ) was sometimes used of the extra body weight that an athlete would shed during training. This metaphor describes the effect that sin (as well as the feelings of guilt which accompany it, cf. 9:9, 14; 10:2) has on the Christian's ability to persevere or endure until the end of the "race."

12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Finally, it is so important that we "fix our eyes on Jesus" that the NIV translates this participle as if it were a main verb. This is not the same word used in the similar exhortation of 3:1 but the thought is the same and thus this exhortation frames the greater part of the epistle. Jesus is the "author" (ajrchgov" , archçgos , "originator, founder, one who begins something") and "perfecter" of our faith. Teleiovw (teleioô ) has been a key soteriological term in the letter (see comments on 7:11) and the thought of Jesus' "perfection" in his role as priest and his "perfection" of the believer may not be wholly absent here. However, it is more probable that, in this instance, the word functions opposite archçgos to convey the idea that Jesus completed or finished what he began.

12:3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Two aspects of his example can encourage us to "not grow weary and lose heart" - the fact that he endured worse than the readers had (since he endured the cross while they had not yet resisted to this point, v. 4) and that he, too, endured (even "scorned") shame (just as they were "exposed to insult," 10:33). Even in this, he was "made like his brothers in every way" (2:17). Yet, because he endured, Jesus sat down at the right hand of God. His example is proof to the readers that if they, too, endure, they will also be "richly rewarded" (10:35).

B. THE WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT (12:4-6)

⁴ In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ⁵ And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:

"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,

and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,

⁶ because the Lord disciplines those he loves,

and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." ^a

^a 6 Prov. 3:11,12

12:4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

=Antagwnivzomai (antagônizomai , "struggle") continues the imagery of the athletic competition verse 4 echoes the description of the reader's sufferings in 10:33-34 (see comments there). However, the struggle is here said to be against "sin," rather than their human oppressors. This could mean the temptation to sin (by renouncing Christ) presented by the persecutions and their sufferings, but in the immediate context it probably anticipates the equation of their hardship with the discipline of God which is intended to produce holiness and righteousness in them (12:7, 10, 11).

12:5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 12:6 because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."

Our writer offers his readers a "word of encouragement" from Proverbs 3:11, 12. He thus appeals to Scripture to suggest that (1) his readers see the disciplining hand of the Lord in their struggles and (2) their struggles are a sign of God's love for them. It also introduces the parent-child analogy which will be elaborated upon in the verses which follow.

C. GOD DISCIPLINES HIS CHILDREN (12:7-11)

⁷ Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? ⁸ If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. ⁹ Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! ¹⁰ Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. ¹¹ No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

12:7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 12:8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.

The word "hardship" is not present in the Greek text. The preposition translated "as" by the NIV (eij" , eis ) is somewhat ambiguous in the context. It could be taken to indicate that discipline is the object of the verb, i.e., "endure discipline." Or it could be taken to indicate the goal or end of the action, i.e., "endure for/as discipline." Paideiva itself foregrounds the result which the action has in mind for it can also be translated "upbringing, training, instruction" and a paideuthv" (paideutçs ) was an "instructor" or "teacher." The term paidavrion ( paidarion ) was used of a child or a youth and so neither is the role of the parent far removed from the idea. It is clearly what our writer has in mind for he tells us that "God is treating you as sons." Earlier we read that even Jesus, "although he was a son," endured "days of the flesh" along with the temptations and sufferings that accompany them (see comments on 5:8).

12:9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!

Hence, from the Scriptures, our writer draws an analogy to help us understand God's role in our suffering - that of a father's "tough love." The logic of the argument runs from lesser (human) to greater (divine) but the very use of the analogy suggests that what we think of God may first be shaped by what we think of our fathers. When verse 9 says, "we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it," it speaks to first century Mediterranean cultures rather than to twentieth century America. Unfortunately, neither discipline nor respect are a part of the experience of most children of today. Fewer and fewer have human fathers who discipline with a consistent, character-building goal in mind and our culture with near unanimity degrades such fathers. Blessed is the child whose father cares enough to draw careful, clear rules for right living and then justly punishes infractions. Such fathers imitate God in this grace, for we have a heavenly Father who cares enough to do just that for his children.

The ends of God's discipline can also be found in these verses. One is life: "How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!" (v. 9). The training of his discipline is designed to make us tough enough to last, strong enough to endure so that we can receive our rich reward (10:35), our promised eternal inheritance (9:15) rather than the judgment and raging fire which those who fail to persevere can expect (10:26-27).

12:10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.

Another is holiness. ΤAgiovthto" (hagiotçtçs ) is a cognate of aJgiavzw (hagiazô ), a key term in the letter for our sanctification - i.e., that spiritual growth process by which our lives become more and more holy now that we have been justified (put right in God's mind) by Jesus' sacrifice (see comments on 10:14). The discipline which we endure is a part of this growth process.

12:11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Finally, the author mentions "a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." The agricultural imagery suggests that righteousness and peace are a natural outgrowth of our endurance. The reference to "righteousness and peace" anticipates the exhortation in v. 14 (see comments below). Dikaiosuvnh (dikaiosynç ), when used in a moral and religious sense, refers to "the characteristic required of men by God." In the Greek text, eijrhnikov" (eirçnikos , "peaceable, peaceful") actually describes the "fruit" of righteousness (NASB, "afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness"). This could be an inner peace which we experience now that our consciences have been cleansed (9:14), but the immediate context suggests that it means living peacefully with others (12:14). Paul similarly described peace as a part of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22).

Thus we see the worth of the discipline for "those who have been trained by it." The literal sense of gumnavzw (gymnazô ) is to "exercise naked" and the term continues the athletic imagery which frames this portion of the chapter (12:1-11). The exercise which leads to spiritual strength is similar to that exercise which leads to physical strength: no pain, no gain.

D. PRACTICAL ACTIONS (12:12-17)

¹² Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ¹³ "Make level paths for your feet," ^a so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

¹⁴ Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. ¹⁵ See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. ¹⁶ See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. ¹⁷ Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears.

^a 13 Prov. 4:26

12:12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 12:13 "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

"Therefore" indicates that what follows is a practical application of the "word of encouragement" drawn out of Proverbs 3:11-12. The application is twofold. On one hand, the readers are encouraged to address their own situation. The command (an imperative verb is used) to "strengthen [their] feeble arms and weak knees" grows out of the exercise imagery of v. 11. Paralelumevna ( paralelymena , "weak," from paralyô ) can even mean "disabled" or "paralyzed" (and it is sometimes translated this way in the NIV, e.g., Luke 5:24; Acts 8:7). On the other hand, they are encouraged to consider the welfare of others as well. The quotation is taken from Proverbs 4:26 and is applied to the responsibility which the community of faith must take upon itself to care for its weaker, struggling members and help them along the way lest they become casualties.

12:14 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

The main thrust of this section is conveyed in v. 14: "without holiness no one will see the Lord." This echoes v. 10 which suggested that holiness was one of the ends of God's discipline. The word translated "holiness" here is aJgiasmov" ( hagiasmos , cf. hagiotçs in v. 10) and its significance here is probably best understood in light of the comments on 10:14 where we read that "by one sacrifice he has made perfect (teleiovw , teleioô ) forever those who are being made holy (hagiazô )." Since in the present context "holiness" has been identified with the outcome of our spiritual growth, i.e., as we endure God's discipline, it is most likely that here (as in 10:14), the term refers primarily to our "sanctification" - that present, ongoing, dimension of our salvation the end of which is a holy condition of life, the removal of sin's power as well as its guilt. If we are to "see the Lord" (the future tense of the verb suggests eschatological consummation), what was begun at the cross must be completed in our lives. This is not to suggest that salvation is based on works but only to recognize that "he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil 1:6) so that, perfectly holy and completely free from sin, we enter into the presence of God.

Holiness, however, requires a strong effort of cooperation on our part, for our writer exhorts his readers to "make every effort." Diwvkw (diôkô ) can also be defined as "press on" or "strive for" and so the strong rendering of the NIV is a fair translation. "Effort" is required in two directions, however, which reflect the pairing of "righteousness" (a requirement of God) and "peace" (actually the "peaceable fruit of righteousness," i.e., its manifestation in harmonious relationships with others - see comments on 12:11).

On one hand, we are to put effort into the pursuit of our own holiness of life. The "holiness" referred to by hagiazô and its cognates is what "consecrates" or "sets [us] apart" for God. On the other hand, we are to put effort into living "in peace with all men." Here we see both the "vertical" and "horizontal" dimensions of our salvation. The redemption and reconciliation which we experience in our relationship with God places at our disposal the spiritual resources necessary to redeem and experience reconciliation in our relationships with others as well. No example in the Bible illustrates this better than the opening chapters of Genesis. The breaking of fellowship with God has consequences for every other relationship in the life of the sinner - self, creation, spouse, siblings, and others. The alienation which exists in our relationship with our Creator manifests itself in all of our other relationships. Only through the restoration of that primary relationship with God can we experience a restoration of the possibilities for God's will in those other relationships. Peace with God enables peace between men.

12:15 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

As proof for his contention that "without holiness no one will see the Lord," our writer presents examples. The first is alluded to, the second explained. The word translated "miss" (NASB, "fall short") is the same word which our writer used in 4:1 to apply the example of Israel to his listeners, warning them, "Be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it [the rest promised by God]". Although pikriva ( pikria , "bitterness") occurs nowhere else in Hebrews it is consonant with our writer's description of the "hardening" of the Israelites (3:7, 12-13; 4:7). The Israelites who died in the wilderness did not pursue holiness but practiced chronic disobedience and a lack of faith. They neither entered the promised land nor experienced the rest it offered. They continually wandered in the wilderness for forty years and died there.

12:16 See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. 12:17 Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears.

Those who are "sexually immoral" (see comments on 13:4) and the "godless" have no part in holiness. An example of the latter is Esau, whose sin nevertheless consisted in preferring fleshly gratification to his commitment to the God of his fathers. The reference to his "inheritance rights" recalls our writer's frequent use of inheritance terminology to describe the hope of the believer (9:15, etc.). His end was rejection. This was not because his sin was unforgivable or that God was unwilling to forgive but due to his lack of repentance. The NIV uses "change of mind" to render metanoiva ( metanoia ) which is elsewhere translated "repentance" (6:1, 6). This is the same principle described in chapter 6. Apart from repentance there is no restoration. Esau's outward tears were no substitute for a lack of change in his heart and mind. This is how one "misses the grace of God" (v. 15).

E. TERRIFYING MT. SINAI (12:18-21)

¹⁸ You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; ¹⁹ to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, ²⁰ because they could not bear what was commanded: "If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned." ^{a 21} The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, "I am trembling with fear." ^b

^a 20 Exodus 19:12,13 ^b 21 Deut. 9:19

12:18 You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm;

As on previous occasions, our writer follows a stern warning with an uplifting word of assurance (6:9ff.; 10:35ff.). What we read in these verses is the first half of a contrast between two mountains. One, our writer says, "You have not come to" (v. 18), but the other "you have come to" (v. 22; the NIV brings out the close parallelism in the Greek text).

The first mountain is not named but this is not necessary for the readers would have immediately recognized the description of Sinai. We can read it in Exodus 19-20. When our writer describes this mountain as one "that can be touched" he is not saying that the Israelites had permission to approach the mountain and touch. He is merely acknowledging that it was a material, earthly mountain that could be touched as opposed to the "heavenly" nature of the second mountain (v. 22).

12:19 to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, 12:20 because they could not bear what was commanded: "If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned."

The description includes two signs of how "terrifying" the experience was. (Foberov" [ phoberos ] is the same word translated "fearful" in 10:27 and "dreadful" in 10:31 where the author depicted the judgment of God.) One is the response of the Israelites. When they heard God speak they were so frightened that they begged Moses to speak to them on God's behalf instead (Exod 20:19).

12:21 The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, "I am trembling with fear."

The other indication of how terrifying the situation was is the response of Moses himself. His words are not recorded in Exodus and this exact statement is found nowhere in Scripture, although Moses mentioned the fear he felt on that day in Deuteronomy 9:19. Even Moses, the one with whom God would speak "face to face, as a man speaks with his friend" (Exod 33:11), trembled with fear. The imagery ("fire," "darkness," "gloom," "storm") of the passage adds to the effect - not in that the description is fabricated (for these are verified in the Exodus narrative) but in that they are foregrounded in our writer's description.

F. MT. ZION, THE HEAVENLY JERUSALEM (12:22-24)

²² But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, ²³ to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, ²⁴ to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly,

Verse 22 introduces the second half of the contrast begun in verse 18 (cf. the parallelism between v. 18 and v. 22) - the positive counterpart of the new covenant. Mt. Zion was the site which David captured to claim Jerusalem. He took up residence in the fortress there and called it the "City of David" (2 Sam 5:6-10). There "the Lord God Almighty was with him" (2 Sam. 5:10), there the temple was later built (1 Kgs 6:1ff.; 2 Chr 3:1ff.) and the Psalms are replete with references to Mt. Zion as the dwelling place of God and Jerusalem as the city of God. In the book of Revelation, Mt. Zion is where the throne of God is located (14:1-3). Paul contrasts these same two mountains (Sinai and Zion) in Galatians 4:24-26 but our writer makes no reference to the allegory there.

Instead, our writer offers his customary typological interpretation of the places, persons and institutions of the old covenant. It is interesting that he employs the perfect tense here rather than the future: "you have come to Mount Zion" (v. 22). The heavenly reward of the believer may become complete at the consummation but we can begin to experience it in the present.

What or who do we come to when we come to the heavenly Jerusalem? Several particulars are specified. First, we come to "thousands upon thousand of angels in joyful assembly." Muriav" ( myrias , "myriad"), as an exact number, means ten thousand but may simply mean "a very large number, not exactly defined." The role(s) which angels play in the lives of believers is never specified clearly in Scripture although they are mentioned as active servants and messengers of God throughout the entire canon. The reference to the "joyful assembly" here reminds us of the "rejoicing of the angels in the presence of God over one sinner who repents" (Luke 15:7, 10).

12:23 to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect,

We also come "to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven." It is tempting to see in "the firstborn" a reference to Jesus as the head of the church (see Col 1:15, 18). However, the use of a plural here (i.e., those who are firstborn vs. the one firstborn) makes this unlikely. It is more likely the term hearkens back to (1) 2:10-17 where we read that we are "of the same family" as Jesus the Son who "is not ashamed to call [us] brothers" (2:10-11) and (2) to the OT concept of the firstborn as belonging especially to God (Exod 13:13; 34:20; Num 18:15). Earlier we learned the importance of active participation in a congregation of other believers (see comments 10:24-25). Here is another reminder that life in the new covenant is not merely a private or individual experience. It is God's will that those individuals who come to him in faith find fellowship within the church, that setting within which both the vertical and horizontal dimensions of our salvation can grow (see comments on 12:14). Jesus had referred to "names [which] are written in heaven" (Luke 10:20). Paul also referred to "the book of life" (Phil 3:4) which is mentioned several times in Revelation (3:5; 20:12; 20:15; 21:27).

We also come to "God, the judge of all men." He has previously been described as "him to whom we must give account" (4:13). Eschatological punishment has figured prominently into our writer's warnings (6:8; 10:26-27, 30-31, 39, cf. also 12:29) although the terminology of hope, promise, inheritance and reward have made the positive counterpart of judgment (9:27-28) even more pronounced.

We have come "to the spirits of righteous men made perfect." Lane points out that this expression is an idiom for the godly dead in Jewish apocalyptic literature and this makes sense in the context of the reference to names written in heaven and the judgment of God. Some suggest that the reference is to the spirits of the pre-Christian believers such as those mentioned in chapter 11. Others suggest that the phrase refers to departed Christian saints. The suggestion of 11:40 - that the ancients who were commended for their faith are made perfect together with us - may support the former position, but otherwise it is difficult to say with certainty which (if not both) may be the case. We can fairly say that there is a fellowship which joins the heavenly community and transcends both time and space. All of God's saints - past, present and future - whether on earth or in heaven, share a common experience of God's grace and faithful response to his word.

12:24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Finally, our writer notes that we come to Jesus who is, now for the third time, described as "the mediator of a new covenant" (8:6; 9:15). The "sprinkled blood" was his own and it was shed for our forgiveness (9:14, 22). This brief description neatly summarized both dimensions of his priestly ministry which is the heart of the new covenant - his sacrifice and his intercession (see 8:6 on "mediator"). When God confronted Cain for the murder of his brother Abel, he said to him, "Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground" (Gen 4:10). Our author has pointed out that Abel "still speaks even though he is dead" (Heb 11:4). The word which Abel's blood speaks is that of sin, death and punishment. Christ's blood speaks of grace, forgiveness and salvation.

G. A KINGDOM WHICH CANNOT BE SHAKEN (12:25-29)

²⁵ See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. 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? ²⁶ At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." ^{a 27} The words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken - that is, created things - so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

²⁸ Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, ²⁹ for our "God is a consuming fire." ^b

^a 26 Haggai 2:6 ^b 29 Deut. 4:24

12:25 See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. 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?

Verse 25 reminds us of the opening warning of the letter (2:1-3). Thus the main portion of the document both begins and ends with a call to hear the message spoken. In chapter 2, our writer had in mind that "salvation which was first announced by the Lord" (2:3). Here he refers to "him who speaks" (12:25). There, readers were warned that they would not escape if they ignored that salvation (2:3). Here, that they would not escape if they refuse the one who warns them (12:25).

12:26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens."

Who is the one who "speaks" in 12:25? The answer is found in v. 26. His voice shook the earth "at that time" (at Sinai, Exod 19:19 cf. Heb 12:18-21) and his words are recorded in Haggai. He is none other than "the LORD Almighty" (Hag 2:6). The Israelites "refused him" and "did not escape" (v. 25). The same Israelites who were so frightened of God at Sinai were the ones who later hardened their hearts (as Pharaoh had done before them) and rebelled in the desert (3:8).

The argument precedes from lesser to greater although the NIV gives the opposite impression ("how much less" whereas the Greek text employs the same phrase which has heretofore been rendered "how much more," cf. 9:14; 12:9), although this is perhaps the best way to capture the meaning of the verse in English. If their punishment was deserved, ours will be that much more deserved for we have refused a much greater gift.

12:27 The words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken - that is, created things - so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

The words of the Lord recorded in Habakkuk 2:6 are read as a promise which is yet to be fulfilled. Our writer interprets the words "Once more" as suggesting a comparison between the events of Sinai and another cataclysmic intervention of God yet to come. The reference to both "the earth" and "the heavens" resembles the promise of God, recorded in Isaiah 66:22, to make "new heavens" and "a new earth" which will endure. In his Revelation, John "saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away" (21:1; cf. v. 27 here which refers to a "removing of what can be shaken - that is, created things - so that what cannot be shaken remains"). This would seem, then, to be yet another of our writer's references to the final consummation - "the Day" (10:25) when Jesus "will appear a second time" (9:27).

12:28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 12:29 for our "God is a consuming fire."

Those who are being persecuted in the kingdoms of the present world will someday receive "a kingdom that cannot be shaken." All other kingdoms will pass away and someday only that kingdom will remain. The appropriate response to that sure promise is described in v. 28. The main verb is "let us be thankful" and it carries the force of a command. Our gratitude for the victory which God has won and will win for us is to carry over into "worship" (lit., "through which we might worship"). This is probably an acceptable translation of latreuvw (latreuô ) although it has typically been translated as "serve" throughout the letter, since the "service" to which it refers is that of the priests within the context of the rituals of tabernacle worship. Deuteronomy 4:24 is cited and reminds us of the terrible image of 10:27 and explains the presence of "reverence" and "awe" in our worship.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

Commentary -- Other

Critics Ask: Heb 12:17

HEBREWS 12:17 —Why couldn’t Esau repent if he sought it with tears?

PROBLEM: The Bible informs us here that Esau “was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.” But why wouldn’t God accept his sincere repentance, when He commands all men everywhere to repent ( Acts 17:30 ) and is patiently waiting for people to repent ( 2 Peter 3:9 ).

SOLUTION: There are two important things to observe about this pasage.

First, the statement “no place for repentance” may refer to his father’s inability to change his mind about giving the inheritance to Jacob, and not to Esau’s change of mind. At any rate, the circumstances did not afford Esau the opportunity to reverse the situation and get the blessing.

Second, tears are not a sure sign that a person has genuinely repented. One can also have tears of regret and remorse that fall short of true repentance or change of mind (cf. Judas, Matt. 27:3 ).

Finally, this text is not talking about spiritual blessing (salvation), but earthly blessing (inheritance). God always honors the sincere repentance of sinners and grants them salvation ( Acts 10:35 ; Heb. 11:6 ).

Evidence: Heb 12:3

Evangelistic discouragement . " One night when [Dwight L.] Moody was going home, it suddenly occurred to him that he had not spoken to a single person that day about accepting Christ. A day lost, he thought to himself. But as he walked up the street he saw a man by a lamppost. He promptly walked up to the man and asked, ‘Are you a Christian?’

" Nor did Moody find soul-winning easy. In fact, even Christians often criticized him for having ‘zeal without knowledge.’ Others called him ‘Crazy Moody.’ Once when he spoke to a perfect stranger about Christ, the man said, ‘That is none of your business...If you were not a sort of a preacher I would knock you into the gutter for your impertinence.’

" The next day, a businessman friend sent for Moody. The businessman told Moody that the stranger he had spoken to was a friend of his. ‘Moody, you’ve got zeal without knowledge: you insulted a friend of mine on the street last night. You went up to him, a perfect stranger, and asked him if he were a Christian.’

" Moody went out of his friend’s office almost brokenhearted. For some time he worried about this. Then late one night a man pounded on the door of his home. It was the stranger he had supposedly insulted. The stranger said, ‘Mr. Moody, I have not had a good night’s sleep since that night you spoke to me under the lamppost, and I have come around at this unearthly hour of the night for you to tell me what I have to do to be saved.’" Harry Albus

Evidence: Heb 12:29

For how to convince a sinner of the reasonableness of judgment, see Psa 55:15 footnote.

" Our God is a consuming fire, and we try to reduce Him to something we can handle or are comfortable with...We are religious consumers. We want our religion to be convenient. It’s the perpetual job of writers, preachers, the church and the gospel to help people respond to God as He reveals Himself." Eugene Peterson

Introduction / Outline

Robertson: Hebrews (Book Introduction)

The Epistle to the Hebrews

By Way of Introduction

Unsettled Problems

Probably no book in the New Testament presents more unsettled problems than does the Epistle to the Hebrews. On that score it ranks with the Fourth Gospel, the Apocalypse of John, and Second Peter. But, in spite of these unsolved matters, the book takes high rank for its intellectual grasp, spiritual power, and its masterful portrayal of Christ as High Priest. It is much briefer than the Fourth Gospel, but in a sense it carries on further the exalted picture of the Risen Christ as the King-Priest who reigns and pleads for us now.

The Picture of Christ

At once we are challenged by the bold stand taken by the author concerning the Person of Christ as superior to the prophets of the Old Testament because he is the Son of God through whom God has spoken in the new dispensation (Heb_1:1-3), this Son who is God’s Agent in the work of creation and of grace as we see it stated in Phi_2:5-11; Col_1:13-20; John 1:1-18. This high doctrine of Jesus as God’s Son with the glory and stamp of God’s nature is never lowered, for as God’s Son he is superior to angels (Heb 1:4-2:4), though the humanity of Jesus is recognized as one proof of the glory of Jesus (Heb_2:5-18). Jesus is shown to be superior to Moses as God’s Son over God’s house (Heb 3:1-4:13), But the chief portion of the Epistle is devoted to the superiority of Jesus Christ as priest to the work of Aaron and the whole Levitical line (Heb 4:14-12:3). Here the author with consummate skill, though with rabbinical refinements at times, shows that Jesus is like Melchizedek and so superior to Aaron (Heb 4:14-7:28), works under a better covenant of grace (Heb_8:1-13), works in a better sanctuary which is in heaven (Heb_9:1-12), offers a better sacrifice which is his own blood (Heb 9:13-10:18), and gives us better promises for the fulfilment of his task (Heb 10:19-12:3). Hence this Epistle deserves to be called the Epistle of the Priesthood of Christ. So W. P. Du Bose calls his exposition of the book, High Priesthood and Sacrifice (1908). This conception of Christ as our Priest who offered himself on the Cross and as our Advocate with the Father runs all through the New Testament (Mar_10:46; Mat_20:28; Joh_10:17; Mat_26:28; Rom_8:32; 1Pe_1:18.; 1Jo_2:1.; Rev_5:9, etc.). But it is in Hebrews that we have the full-length portrait of Jesus Christ as our Priest and Redeemer. The Glory of Jesus runs through the whole book.

The Style

It is called an epistle and so it is, but of a peculiar kind. In fact, as has been said, it begins like a treatise, proceeds like a sermon, and concludes like a letter. It is, in fact, more like a literary composition than any other New Testament book as Deissmann shows: " It points to the fact that the Epistle to the Hebrews, with its more definitely artistic, more literary language (corresponding to its more theological subject matter), constituted an epoch in the history of the new religion. Christianity is beginning to lay hands on the instruments of culture; the literary and theological period has begun" ( Light from the Ancient East , pp. 70f.). But Blass ( Die Rhythmen der asianischen und romischen Kunstprosa , 1905) argues that the author of Hebrews certainly and Paul probably were students of Greek oratory and rhetoric. He is clearly wrong about Paul and probably so about the author of Hebrews. There is in Hebrews more of " a studied rhetorical periodicity" (Thayer), but with many " parenthetical involutions" (Westcott) and with less of " the impetuous eloquence of Paul." The eleventh chapter reveals a studied style and as a whole the Epistle belongs to the literary Koiné rather than to the vernacular. Moulton ( Cambridge Biblical Essays , p. 483) thinks that the author did not know Hebrew but follows the Septuagint throughout in his abundant use of the Old Testament.

The Author

Origen bluntly wrote: " Who wrote the Epistle God only knows certainly" as quoted by Eusebius. Origen held that the thoughts were Paul’s while Clement of Rome or Luke may have written the book. Clement of Alexandria (Eusebius says) thought that Paul wrote it in Hebrew and that Luke translated it into Greek. No early writer apparently attributed the Greek text to Paul. Eusebius thought it was originally written in Hebrew whether by Paul or not and translated by Clement of Rome. But there is no certainty anywhere in the early centuries. It was accepted first in the east and later in the west which first rejected it. But Jerome and Augustine accepted it. When the Renaissance came Erasmus had doubts, Luther attributed it to Apollos, Calvin denied the Pauline authorship. In North Africa it was attributed to Barnabas. In modern times Harnack has suggested Priscilla, but the masculine participle in Heb_11:32 ( me diēgoumenon ) disposes of that theory. The oldest Greek MSS. (Aleph A B) have simply Pros Hebraious as the title, but they place it before the Pastoral Epistles, while the Textus Receptus puts it after the Pastoral Epistles and Philemon. In the light of all the facts one can only make a guess without a sense of certainty. For myself I should with Luther guess Apollos as the most likely author of this book which is full of the Spirit of God.

The Recipients

If the title is allowed to be genuine or a fair interpretation of the Epistle, then it is addressed to Jewish (Hebrew) Christians in a local church somewhere. Dr. James Moffatt in his Commentary (pp. xv to xvii) challenges the title and insists that the book is written for Gentile Christians as truly as First Peter. He argues this largely from the author’s use of the lxx. For myself Dr. Moffatt’s reasons are not convincing. The traditional view that the author is addressing Jewish Christians in a definite locality, whether a large church or a small household church, is true, I believe. The author seems clearly to refer to a definite church in the experiences alluded to in Heb_10:32-34. The church in Jerusalem had undergone sufferings like these, but we really do not know where the church was. Apparently the author is in Italy when he writes (Heb_13:24), though " they of Italy" ( hoi apo tēs Italias ) can mean those who have come from Italy. These Jewish Christians may even have lived in Rome itself.

The Date

Here again modern scholars differ widely. Westcott places it between a.d. 64 and 67. Harnack and Holtzmann prefer a date between a.d. 81 and 96. Marcus Dods argues strongly that the Epistle was written while the temple was still standing. If it was already destroyed, it is hard to understand how the author could have written Heb_10:1.: " Else would they not have ceased to be offered?" And in Heb_8:13 " nigh to vanishing away" ( eggus aphanismou ) is only intelligible with the temple service still going on. The author makes use of the tabernacle instead of the temple because the temple was patterned after the tabernacle. On the other hand, the mention of Timothy in Heb_13:23 as being " set free" ( apolelumenon ) raises an inquiry concerning Paul’s last plea to Timothy to come to him in Rome (2Ti_4:11-13). Apparently Timothy came and was put in prison. If so, since Paul was put to death before Nero’s own death (June 8, a.d. 68), there is left only the years 67 to 69 a.d. as probable or even possible. It is thus the last of the New Testament books before the Johannine Writings all of which come towards the close of the century and after the destruction of Jerusalem.

The Purpose

The author states it repeatedly. He urges the Jewish Christians to hold fast the confession which they have made in Jesus as Messiah and Saviour. Their Jewish neighbours have urged them to give up Christ and Christianity and to come back to Judaism. The Judaizers tried to make Jews out of Gentile Christians and to fasten Judaism upon Christianity with a purely sacramental type of religion as the result. Paul won freedom for evangelical and spiritual Christianity against the Judaizers as shown in the Corinthian Epistles, Galatians, and Romans. The Gnostics in subtle fashion tried to dilute Christianity with their philosophy and esoteric mysteries and here again Paul won his fight for the supremacy of Christ over all these imaginary aeons (Colossians and Ephesians). But in Hebrews the author is battling to stop a stampede from Christ back to Judaism, a revolt (apostasy) in truth from the living God. These Jews argued that the prophets were superior to Jesus, the law came by the ministry of angels, Moses was greater than Jesus, and Aaron than Jesus. The author turns the argument on the Jews and boldly champions the Glory of Jesus as superior at every point to all that Judaism had, as God’s Son and man’s Saviour, the crown and glory of the Old Testament prophecy, the hope of mankind. It is the first great apologetic for Christianity and has never been surpassed. Moffatt terms it " a profound homily."

JFB: Hebrews (Book Introduction)

CANONICITY AND AUTHORSHIP.--CLEMENT OF ROME, at the end of the first century (A.D), copiously uses it, adopting its words just as he does those of the other books of the New Testament; not indeed giving to either the term "Scripture," which he reserves for the Old Testament (the canon of the New Testament not yet having been formally established), but certainly not ranking it below the other New Testament acknowledged Epistles. As our Epistle claims authority on the part of the writer, CLEMENT'S adoption of extracts from it is virtually sanctioning its authority, and this in the apostolic age. JUSTIN MARTYR quotes it as divinely authoritative, to establish the titles "apostle," as well as "angel," as applied to the Son of God. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA refers it expressly to Paul, on the authority of Pantænus, chief of the Catechetical school in Alexandria, in the middle of the second century, saying, that as Jesus is termed in it the "apostle" sent to the Hebrews, Paul, through humility, does not in it call himself apostle of the Hebrews, being apostle to the Gentiles. CLEMENT also says that Paul, as the Hebrews were prejudiced against him, prudently omitted to put forward his name in the beginning; also, that it was originally written in Hebrew for the Hebrews, and that Luke translated it into Greek for the Greeks, whence the style is similar to that of Acts. He, however, quotes frequently the words of the existing Greek Epistle as Paul's words. ORIGEN similarly quotes it as Paul's Epistle. However, in his Homilies, he regards the style as distinct from that of Paul, and as "more Grecian," but the thoughts as the apostle's; adding that the "ancients who have handed down the tradition of its Pauline authorship, must have had good reason for doing so, though God alone knows the certainty who was the actual writer" (that is, probably "transcriber" of the apostle's thoughts). In the African Church, in the beginning of the third century, TERTULLIAN ascribes it to Barnabas. IRENÆUS, bishop of Lyons, is mentioned in EUSEBIUS, as quoting from this Epistle, though without expressly referring it to Paul. About the same period, Caius, the presbyter, in the Church of Rome, mentions only thirteen Epistles of Paul, whereas, if the Epistle to the Hebrews were included, there would be fourteen. So the canon fragment of the end of the second century, or beginning of the third, published by MURATORI, apparently omits mentioning it. And so the Latin Church did not recognize it as Paul's till a considerable time after the beginning of the third century. Thus, also, NOVATIAN OF ROME, CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE, and VICTORINUS, also of the Latin Church. But in the fourth century, HILARY OF POITIERS (A.D. 368), LUCIFER OF CAGLIARI (A.D. 371), AMBROSE OF MILAN (A.D. 397) and other Latins, quote it as Paul's; and the fifth Council of Carthage (A.D. 419) formally reckons it among his fourteen Epistles.

As to the similarity of its style to that of Luke's writings, this is due to his having been so long the companion of Paul. CHRYSOSTOM, comparing Luke and Mark, says, "Each imitated his teacher: Luke imitated Paul flowing along with more than river fulness; but Mark imitated Peter, who studied brevity of style." Besides, there is a greater predominance of Jewish feeling and familiarity with the peculiarities of the Jewish schools apparent in this Epistle than in Luke's writings. There is no clear evidence for attributing the authorship to him, or to Apollos, whom ALFORD upholds as the author. The grounds alleged for the latter view are its supposed Alexandrian phraseology and modes of thought. But these are such as any Palestinian Jew might have used; and Paul, from his Hebræo-Hellenistic education at Jerusalem and Tarsus, would be familiar with PHILO'S modes of thought, which are not, as some think, necessarily all derived from his Alexandrian, but also from his Jewish, education. It would be unlikely that the Alexandrian Church should have so undoubtingly asserted the Pauline authorship, if Apollos, their own countryman, had really been the author. The eloquence of its style and rhetoric, a characteristic of Apollos' at Corinth, whereas Paul there spoke in words unadorned by man's wisdom, are doubtless designedly adapted to the minds of those whom Paul in this Epistle addresses. To the Greek Corinthians, who were in danger of idolizing human eloquence and wisdom, he writes in an unadorned style, in order to fix their attention more wholly on the Gospel itself. But the Hebrews were in no such danger. And his Hebræo-Grecian education would enable him to write in a style attractive to the Hebrews at Alexandria, where Greek philosophy had been blended with Judaism. The Septuagint translation framed at Alexandria had formed a connecting link between the latter and the former; and it is remarkable that all the quotations from the Old Testament, excepting two (Heb 10:30; Heb 13:5), are taken from the Septuagint. The fact that the peculiarities of the Septuagint are interwoven into the argument proves that the Greek Epistle is an original, not a translation; had the original been Hebrew, the quotations would have been from the Hebrew Old Testament. The same conclusion follows from the plays on similarly sounding words in the Greek, and alliterations, and rhythmically constructed periods. CALVIN observes, If the Epistle had been written in Hebrew, Heb 9:15-17 would lose all its point, which consists in the play upon the double meaning of the Greek "diathece," a "covenant," or a "testament," whereas the Hebrew "berith" means only "covenant."

Internal evidence favors the Pauline authorship. Thus the topic so fully handled in this Epistle, that Christianity is superior to Judaism, inasmuch as the reality exceeds the type which gives place to it, is a favorite one with Paul (compare 2Co 3:6-18; Gal 3:23-25; Gal 4:1-9, Gal 4:21-31, wherein the allegorical mode of interpretation appears in its divinely sanctioned application--a mode pushed to an unwarrantable excess in the Alexandrian school). So the Divine Son appears in Heb 1:3, &c., as in other Epistles of Paul (Phi 2:6; Col 1:15-20), as the Image, or manifestation of the Deity. His lowering of Himself for man's sake similarly, compare Heb 2:9, with 2Co 8:9; Phi 2:7-8. Also His final exaltation, compare Heb 2:8; Heb 10:13; Heb 12:2, with 1Co 15:25, 1Co 15:27. The word "Mediator" is peculiar to Paul alone, compare Heb 8:6, with Gal 3:19-20. Christ's death is represented as the sacrifice for sin prefigured by the Jewish sacrifices, compare Rom 3:22-26; 1Co 5:7, with Heb. 7:1-10:39. The phrase, "God of Peace," is peculiar to Paul, compare Heb 13:20; Rom 15:33; 1Th 5:23. Also, compare Heb 2:4, Margin, 1Co 12:4. Justification, or "righteousness by faith." appears in Heb 11:7; Heb 10:38, as in Rom 1:17; Rom 4:22; Rom 5:1; Gal 3:11; Phi 3:9. The word of God is the "sword of the Spirit," compare Heb 4:12, with Eph 6:17. Inexperienced Christians are children needing milk, that is, instruction in the elements, whereas riper Christians, as full-grown men, require strong meat, compare Heb 5:12-13; Heb 6:1, with 1Co 3:1-2; 1Co 14:20 Gal 4:9; Col 3:14. Salvation is represented as a boldness of access to God by Christ, compare Heb 10:19, with Rom 5:2; Eph 2:18; Eph 3:12. Afflictions are a fight, Heb 10:32; compare Phi 1:30; Col 2:1. The Christian life is a race, Heb 12:1; compare 1Co 9:24; Phi 3:12-14. The Jewish ritual is a service, Rom 9:4; compare Heb 9:1, Heb 9:6. Compare "subject to bondage," Heb 2:15, with Gal 5:1. Other characteristics of Paul's style appear in this Epistle; namely, a propensity "to go off at a word" and enter on a long parenthesis suggested by that word, a fondness for play upon words of similar sound, and a disposition to repeat some favorite word. Frequent appeals to the Old Testament, and quotations linked by "and again," compare Heb 1:5; Heb 2:12-13, with Rom 15:9-12. Also quotations in a peculiar application, compare Heb 2:8, with 1Co 15:27; Eph 1:22. Also the same passage quoted in a form not agreeing with the Septuagint, and with the addition "saith the Lord," not found in the Hebrew, in Heb 10:30; Rom 12:19.

The supposed Alexandrian (which are rather Philon-like) characteristics of the Epistle are probably due to the fact that the Hebrews were generally then imbued with the Alexandrian modes of thought of Philo, &c., and Paul, without coloring or altering Gospel truth "to the Jews, became (in style) as a Jew, that he might win the Jews" (1Co 9:20). This will account for its being recognized as Paul's Epistle in the Alexandrian and Jerusalem churches unanimously, to the Hebrews of whom probably it was addressed. Not one Greek father ascribes the Epistle to any but Paul, whereas in the Western and Latin churches, which it did not reach for some time, it was for long doubted, owing to its anonymous form, and generally less distinctively Pauline style. Their reason for not accepting it as Paul's, or indeed as canonical, for the first three centuries, was negative, insufficient evidence for it, not positive evidence against it. The positive evidence is generally for its Pauline origin. In the Latin churches, owing to their distance from the churches to whom belonged the Hebrews addressed, there was no generally received tradition on the subject. The Epistle was in fact but little known at all, whence we find it is not mentioned at all in the Canon of Muratori. When at last, in the fourth century, the Latins found that it was received as Pauline and canonical on good grounds in the Greek churches, they universally acknowledged it as such.

The personal notices all favor its Pauline authorship, namely, his intention to visit those addressed, shortly, along with Timothy, styled "our brother," Heb 13:23; his being then in prison, Heb 13:19; his formerly having been imprisoned in Palestine, according to English Version reading, Heb 10:34; the salutations transmitted to them from believers of Italy, Heb 13:24. A reason for not prefixing the name may be the rhetorical character of the Epistle which led the author to waive the usual form of epistolary address.

DESIGN.--His aim is to show the superiority of Christianity over Judaism, in that it was introduced by one far higher than the angels or Moses, through whom the Jews received the law, and in that its priesthood and sacrifices are far less perfecting as to salvation than those of Christ; that He is the substance of which the former are but the shadow, and that the type necessarily gives place to the antitype; and that now we no longer are kept at a comparative distance as under the law, but have freedom of access through the opened veil, that is, Christ's flesh; hence he warns them of the danger of apostasy, to which Jewish converts were tempted, when they saw Christians persecuted, while Judaism was tolerated by the Roman authorities. He infers the obligations to a life of faith, of which, even in the less perfect Old Testament dispensation, the Jewish history contained bright examples. He concludes in the usual Pauline mode, with practical exhortations and pious prayers for them.

HIS MODE OF ADDRESS is in it hortatory rather than commanding, just as we might have expected from Paul addressing the Jews. He does not write to the rulers of the Jewish Christians, for in fact there was no exclusively Jewish Church; and his Epistle, though primarily addressed to the Palestinian Jews, was intended to include the Hebrews of all adjoining churches. He inculcates obedience and respect in relation to their rulers (Heb 13:7, Heb 13:17, Heb 13:24); a tacit obviating of the objection that he was by writing this Epistle interfering with the prerogative of Peter the apostle of the circumcision, and James the bishop of Jerusalem. Hence arises his gentle and delicate mode of dealing with them (Heb 13:22). So far from being surprised at discrepancy of style between an Epistle to Hebrews and Epistles to Gentile Christians, it is just what we should expect. The Holy Spirit guided him to choose means best suited to the nature of the ends aimed at. WORDSWORTH notices a peculiar Pauline Greek construction, Rom 12:9, literally, "Let your love be without dissimulation, ye abhorring . . . evil, cleaving to . . . good," which is found nowhere else save Heb 13:5, literally, "Let your conversation be without covetousness, ye being content with," &c. (a noun singular feminine nominative absolute, suddenly passing into a participle masculine nominative plural absolute). So in quoting Old Testament Scripture, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews quotes it as a Jew writing to Jews would, "God spoke to our fathers," not, "it is written." So Heb 13:18, "We trust we have a good conscience" is an altogether Pauline sentiment (Act 23:1; Act 24:16; 2Co 1:12; 2Co 4:2; 2Ti 1:3). Though he has not prefixed his name, he has given at the close his universal token to identify him, namely, his apostolic salutation, "Grace be with you all"; this "salutation with his own hand" he declared (2Th 3:17-18) to be "his token in every Epistle": so 1Co 16:21, 1Co 16:23; Col 4:18. The same prayer of greeting closes every one of his Epistles, and is not found in any one of the Epistles of the other apostles written in Paul's lifetime; but it is found in the last book of the New Testament Revelation, and subsequently in the Epistle of CLEMENT OF ROME. This proves that, by whomsoever the body of the Epistle was committed to writing (whether a mere amanuensis writing by dictation, or a companion of Paul by the Spirit's gift of interpreting tongues, 1Co 12:10, transfusing Paul's Spirit-taught sentiments into his own Spirit-guided diction), Paul at the close sets his seal to the whole as really his, and sanctioned by him as such. The churches of the East, and Jerusalem, their center, to which quarter it was first sent, received it as Paul's from the earliest times according to Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (A.D. 349). JEROME, though bringing with him from Rome the prejudices of the Latins against the Epistle to the Hebrews, aggravated, doubtless, by its seeming sanction of the Novatian heresy (Heb 6:4-6), was constrained by the force of facts to receive it as Paul's, on the almost unanimous testimony of all Greek Christians from the earliest times; and was probably the main instrument in correcting the past error of Rome in rejecting it. The testimony of the Alexandrian Church is peculiarly valuable, for it was founded by Mark, who was with Paul at Rome in his first confinement, when this Epistle seems to have been written (Col 4:10), and who possibly was the bearer of this Epistle, at the same time visiting Colosse on the way to Jerusalem (where Mark's mother lived), and thence to Alexandria. Moreover, 2Pe 3:15-16, written shortly before Peter's death, and like his first Epistle written by him, "the apostle of the circumcision," to the "Hebrew" Christians dispersed in the East, says, "As our beloved brother Paul hath written unto you" (2Pe 3:15), that is, to the Hebrews; also the words added, "As also in all his Epistles" (2Pe 3:16), distinguish the Epistle to the Hebrews from the rest; then he further speaks of it as on a level with "other Scriptures," thus asserting at once its Pauline authorship and divine inspiration. An interesting illustration of the power of Christian faith and love; Peter, who had been openly rebuked by Paul (Gal 2:7-14), fully adopted what Paul wrote; there was no difference in the Gospel of the apostle of the circumcision and that of the apostle of the uncircumcision. It strikingly shows God's sovereignty that He chose as the instrument to confirm the Hebrews, Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles (Rom 11:13); and on the other hand, Peter to open the Gospel door to the Gentiles (Act 10:1, &c.), though being the apostle of the Jews; thus perfect unity reigns amidst the diversity of agencies.

Rome, in the person of CLEMENT OF ROME, originally received this Epistle. Then followed a period in which it ceased to be received by the Roman churches. Then, in the fourth century, Rome retracted her error. A plain proof she is not unchangeable or infallible. As far as Rome is concerned, the Epistle to the Hebrews was not only lost for three centuries, but never would have been recovered at all but for the Eastern churches; it is therefore a happy thing for Christendom that Rome is not the Catholic Church.

It plainly was written before the destruction of Jerusalem, which would have been mentioned in the Epistle had that event gone before, compare Heb 13:10; and probably to churches in which the Jewish members were the more numerous, as those in Judea, and perhaps Alexandria. In the latter city were the greatest number of resident Jews next to Jerusalem. In Leontopolis, in Egypt, was another temple, with the arrangements of which, WIESELER thinks the notices in this Epistle more nearly corresponded than with those in Jerusalem. It was from Alexandria that the Epistle appears first to have come to the knowledge of Christendom. Moreover, "the Epistle to the Alexandrians," mentioned in the Canon of Muratori, may possibly be this Epistle to the Hebrews. He addresses the Jews as peculiarly "the people of God" (Heb 2:17; Heb 4:9; Heb 13:12), "the seed of Abraham," that is, as the primary stock on which Gentile believers are grafted, to which Rom 11:16-24 corresponds; but he urges them to come out of the carnal earthly Jerusalem and to realize their spiritual union to "the heavenly Jerusalem" (Heb 12:18-23; Heb 13:13).

The use of Greek rather than Hebrew is doubtless due to the Epistle being intended, not merely for the Hebrew, but for the Hellenistic Jew converts, not only in Palestine, but elsewhere; a view confirmed by the use of the Septuagint. BENGEL thinks, probably (compare 2Pe 3:15-16, explained above), the Jews primarily, though not exclusively, addressed, were those who had left Jerusalem on account of the war and were settled in Asia Minor.

The notion of its having been originally in Hebrew arose probably from its Hebrew tone, method, and topics. It is reckoned among the Epistles, not at first generally acknowledged, along with James, Second Peter, Second and Third John, Jude, and Revelation. A beautiful link exists between these Epistles and the universally acknowledged Epistles. Hebrews unites the ordinances of Leviticus with their antitypical Gospel fulfilment. James is the link between the highest doctrines of Christianity and the universal law of moral duty--a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount--harmonizing the decalogue law of Moses, and the revelation to Job and Elias, with the Christian law of liberty. Second Peter links the teaching of Peter with that of Paul. Jude links the earliest unwritten to the latest written Revelation. The two shorter Epistles to John, like Philemon, apply Christianity to the minute details of the Christian life, showing that Christianity can sanctify all earthly relations.

JFB: Hebrews (Outline)

• THE HIGHEST OF ALL REVELATIONS IS GIVEN US NOW IN THE SON OF GOD, WHO IS GREATER THAN THE ANGELS, AND WHO, HAVING COMPLETED REDEMPTION, SITS ENTHRONED AT GOD'S RIGHT HAND. (Heb 1:1-14)
• DANGER OF NEGLECTING SO GREAT SALVATION, FIRST SPOKEN BY CHRIST; TO WHOM, NOT TO ANGELS, THE NEW DISPENSATION WAS SUBJECTED; THOUGH HE WAS FOR A TIME HUMBLED BELOW THE ANGELS: THIS HUMILIATION TOOK PLACE BY DIVINE NECESSITY FOR OUR SALVATION. (Heb. 2:1-18)
• THE SON OF GOD GREATER THAN MOSES, WHEREFORE UNBELIEF TOWARDS HIM WILL INCUR A HEAVIER PUNISHMENT THAN BEFELL UNBELIEVING ISRAEL IN THE WILDERNESS. (Heb. 3:1-19)
• THE PROMISE OF GOD'S REST IS FULLY REALIZED THROUGH CHRIST: LET US STRIVE TO OBTAIN IT BY HIM, OUR SYMPATHIZING HIGH PRIEST. (Heb. 4:1-16)
• CHRIST'S HIGH PRIESTHOOD; NEEDED QUALIFICATIONS; MUST BE A MAN; MUST NOT HAVE ASSUMED THE DIGNITY HIMSELF, BUT HAVE BEEN APPOINTED BY GOD; THEIR LOW SPIRITUAL PERCEPTIONS A BAR TO PAUL'S SAYING ALL HE MIGHT ON CHRIST'S MELCHISEDEC-LIKE PRIESTHOOD. (Heb 5:1-14)
• WARNING AGAINST RETROGRADING, WHICH SOON LEADS TO APOSTASY; ENCOURAGEMENT TO STEADFASTNESS FROM GOD'S FAITHFULNESS TO HIS WORD AND OATH. (Heb 6:1-14)
• CHRIST'S HIGH PRIESTHOOD AFTER THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC SUPERIOR TO AARON'S. (Heb. 7:1-28)
• CHRIST, THE HIGH PRIEST IN THE TRUE SANCTUARY, SUPERSEDING THE LEVITICAL PRIESTHOOD; THE NEW RENDERS OBSOLETE THE OLD COVENANT. (Heb 8:1-13)
• INFERIORITY OF THE OLD TO THE NEW COVENANT IN THE MEANS OF ACCESS TO GOD: THE BLOOD OF BULLS AND GOATS OF NO REAL AVAIL: THE BLOOD OF CHRIST ALL-SUFFICIENT TO PURGE AWAY SIN, WHENCE FLOWS OUR HOPE OF HIS APPEARING AGAIN FOR OUR PERFECT SALVATION. (Heb. 9:1-28)
• PROOF OF AND ENLARGEMENT ON, THE "ETERNAL REDEMPTION" MENTIONED IN. Heb 9:12 (Heb. 9:13-28)
• CONCLUSION OF THE FOREGOING ARGUMENT. THE YEARLY RECURRING LAW SACRIFICES CANNOT PERFECT THE WORSHIPPER, BUT CHRIST'S ONCE-FOR-ALL OFFERING CAN. (Heb. 10:1-39) Previously the oneness of Christ's offering was shown; now is shown its perfection as contrasted with the law sacrifices.
• DEFINITION OF THE FAITH JUST SPOKEN OF (Heb 10:39): EXAMPLES FROM THE OLD COVENANT FOR OUR PERSEVERANCE IN FAITH. (Heb. 11:1-40) Description of the great things which faith (in its widest sense: not here restricted to faith in the Gospel sense) does for us. Not a full definition of faith in its whole nature, but a description of its great characteristics in relation to the subject of Paul's exhortation here, namely, to perseverance.
• EXHORTATION TO FOLLOW THE WITNESSES OF FAITH JUST MENTIONED: NOT TO FAINT IN TRIALS: TO REMOVE ALL BITTER ROOTS OF SIN: FOR WE ARE UNDER, NOT A LAW OF TERROR, BUT THE GOSPEL OF GRACE, TO DESPISE WHICH WILL BRING THE HEAVIER PENALTIES, IN PROPORTION TO OUR GREATER PRIVILEGES. (Heb. 12:1-29)
• EXHORTATION TO VARIOUS GRACES, ESPECIALLY CONSTANCY IN FAITH, FOLLOWING JESUS AMIDST REPROACHES. CONCLUSION, WITH PIECES OF INTELLIGENCE AND SALUTATIONS. (Heb. 13:1-25)

TSK: Hebrews 12 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Heb 12:1, An exhortation to constant faith, patience, and godliness; Heb 12:22, A commendation of the new testament above the old.

Poole: Hebrews 12 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 13

MHCC: Hebrews (Book Introduction)

This epistle shows Christ as the end, foundation, body, and truth of the figures of the law, which of themselves were no virtue for the soul. The great truth set forth in this epistle is that Jesus of Nazareth is the true God. The unconverted Jews used many arguments to draw their converted brethren from the Christian faith. They represented the law of Moses as superior to the Christian dispensation, and spoke against every thing connected with the Saviour. The apostle, therefore, shows the superiority of Jesus of Nazareth, as the Son of God, and the benefits from his sufferings and death as the sacrifice for sin, so that the Christian religion is much more excellent and perfect than that of Moses. And the principal design seems to be, to bring the converted Hebrews forward in the knowledge of the gospel, and thus to establish them in the Christian faith, and to prevent their turning from it, against which they are earnestly warned. But while it contains many things suitable to the Hebrews of early times, it also contains many which can never cease to interest the church of God; for the knowledge of Jesus Christ is the very marrow and kernel of all the Scriptures. The ceremonial law is full of Christ, and all the gospel is full of Christ; the blessed lines of both Testaments meet in Him; and how they both agree and sweetly unite in Jesus Christ, is the chief object of the epistle to the Hebrews to discover.

MHCC: Hebrews 12 (Chapter Introduction)

(Heb 12:1-11) An exhortation to be constant and persevere, The example of Christ is set forth, and the gracious design of God in all the sufferings believers endured.

(Heb 12:12-17) Peace and holiness are recommended, with cautions against despising spiritual blessings.

(Heb 12:18-29) The New Testament dispensation shown to be much more excellent than the Old.

Matthew Henry: Hebrews (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Epistle to the Hebrews

Concerning this epistle we must enquire, I. Into the divine authority of it; for this has been questioned by some, whose distempered eyes could not bear the light of it, or whose errors have been confuted by it; such as the Arians, who deny the Godhead and self-existence of Christ; and the Socinians, who deny his satisfaction; but, after all the attempts of such men to disparage this epistle, the divine original of it shines forth with such strong and unclouded rays that he who runs may read it is an eminent part of the canon of scripture. The divinity of the matter, the sublimity of the style, the excellency of the design, the harmony of this with other parts of scripture, and its general reception in the church of God in all ages - these are the evidences of its divine authority. II. As to the divine amanuensis or penman of this epistle, we are not so certain; it does not bear the name of any in the front of it, as the rest of the epistles do, and there has been some dispute among the learned to whom they should ascribe it. Some have assigned it to Clemens of Rome; other to Luke; and many to Barnabas, thinking that the style and manner of expression is very agreeable to the zealous, authoritative, affectionate temper that Barnabas appears to be of, in the account we have of him in the acts of the Apostles; and one ancient father quotes an expression out of this epistle as the words of Barnabas. But it is generally assigned to the apostle Paul; and some later copies and translations have put Paul's name in the title. In the primitive times it was generally ascribed to him, and the style and scope of it very well agree with his spirit, who was a person of a clear head and a warm heart, whose main end and endeavour it was to exalt Christ. Some think that the apostle Peter refers to this epistle, and proves Paul to be the penman of it, by telling the Hebrews, to whom he wrote, of Paul's having written to them, 2Pe 3:15. We read of no other epistle that he ever wrote to them but this. And though it has been objected that, since Paul put his name to all his other epistles, he would not have omitted it here; yet others have well answered that he, being the apostle of the Gentiles, who were odious to the Jews, might think fit to conceal his name, lest their prejudices against him might hinder them from reading and weighing it as they ought to do. III. As to the scope and design of this epistle, it is very evident that it was clearly to inform the minds, and strongly to confirm the judgment, of the Hebrews in the transcendent excellency of the gospel above the law, and so to take them off from the ceremonies of the law, to which they were so wedded, of which they were so fond, that they even doted on them, and those of them who were Christians retained too much of the old leaven, and needed to be purged from it. The design of this epistle was to persuade and press the believing Hebrews to a constant adherence to the Christian faith, and perseverance in it, notwithstanding all the sufferings they might meet with in so doing. In order to this, the apostle speaks much of the excellency of the author of the gospel, the glorious Jesus, whose honour he advances, and whom he justly prefers before all others, showing him to be all in all, and this in lofty strains of holy rhetoric. It must be acknowledged that there are many things in this epistle hard to be understood, but the sweetness we shall find therein will make us abundant amends for all the pains we take to understand it. And indeed, if we compare all the epistles of the New Testament, we shall not find any of them more replenished with divine, heavenly matter than this to the Hebrews.

Matthew Henry: Hebrews 12 (Chapter Introduction)

The apostle, in this chapter, applies what he has collected in the chapter foregoing, and makes use of it as a great motive to patience and perseverance in the Christian faith and state, pressing home the argument, I. From a greater example than he had yet mentioned, and that is Christ himself (Heb 12:1-3). II. From the gentle and gracious nature of the afflictions they endured in their Christian course (Heb 12:4-17). III. From the communion and conformity between the state of the gospel-church on earth and the triumphant church in heaven (Heb 12:18 to the end).

Barclay: Hebrews (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO THE LETTER TO THE HEBREWS

God Fulfils Himself In Many Ways

Religion has never been the same thing to all men. "God," as Tennyson said, "fulfils himself in many ways." George Russell said: "There are as many ways of climbing to the stars as there are people to climb." There is a well-known saying which tells us very truly and very beautifully that "God has his own secret stairway into every heart." Broadly speaking, there have been four great conceptions of religion.

(i) To some men it is inward fellowship with God. It is a union with Christ so close and so intimate that the Christian can be said to live in Christ and Christ to live in him. That was Paulconception of religion. To him it was something which mystically united him with God.

(ii) To some religion is what gives a man a standard for life and a power to reach that standard. On the whole that is what religion was to James and to Peter. It was something which showed them what life ought to be and which enabled them to attain it.

(iii) To some men religion is the highest satisfaction of their minds. Their minds seek and seek until they find that they can rest in God. It was Plato who said that "the unexamined life is the life not worth living." There are some men who must understand or perish. On the whole that is what religion was to John. The first chapter of his gospel is one of the greatest attempts in the world to state religion in a way that really satisfies the mind.

(iv) To some men religion is access to God. It is that which removes the barriers and opens the door to his living presence. That is what religion was to the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews. With that idea his mind was dominated. He found in Christ the one person who could take him into the very presence of God. His whole idea of religion is summed up in the great passage in Heb_10:19-23 .

"Therefore, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith."

If the writer to the Hebrews had one text it was: "Let us draw near."

The Double Background

The writer to the Hebrews had a double background into both of which this idea came. He had a Greek background. Ever since the time of Plato, five hundred years before, the Greeks had been haunted by the contrast between the real and the unreal, the seen and the unseen, the temporal and the eternal. It was the Greek idea that somewhere there was a real world of which this was only a shadowy and imperfect copy. Plato had the idea that somewhere there was a world of perfect forms or ideas or patterns, of which everything in this world was an imperfect copy. To take a simple instance, somewhere there was laid up the pattern of a perfect chair of which all the chairs in this world were inadequate copies. Plato said: "The Creator of the world had designed and carried out his work according to an unchangeable and eternal pattern of which the world is but a copy." Philo, who took his ideas from Plato, said: "God knew from the beginning that a fair copy could never come into being apart from a fair pattern; and that none of the objects perceivable by sense could be flawless which was not modelled after an archetype and spiritual idea, and thus, when he prepared to create this visible world, he shaped beforehand the ideal world in order to constitute the corporeal after the incorporeal and godlike pattern." When Cicero was talking of the laws men know and use on earth, he said: "We have no real and life-like likeness of real law and genuine justice; all we enjoy is a shadow and a sketch."

The thinkers of the ancient world all had this idea that somewhere there is a real world of which this one is only a kind of imperfect copy. Here we can only guess and grope; here we can work only with copies and imperfect things. But in the unseen world there are the real and perfect things. When Newman died they erected a statue to him, and on the pedestal of it are the Latin words: Ab umbris et imaginibus ad veritatem, "Away from the shadows and the semblances to the truth." If that be so, clearly the great task of this life is to get away from the shadows and the imperfections and to reach reality. This is exactly what the writer to the Hebrews claims that Jesus Christ can enable us to do. To the Greek the writer to the Hebrews said: "All your lives you have been trying to get from the shadows to the truth. That is just what Jesus Christ can enable you to do."

The Hebrew Background

But the writer to the Hebrews also had a Jewish background. To the Jew it was always dangerous to come too near to God. "Man," said God to Moses, "shall not see me and live" (Exo_33:20 ). It was Jacobastonished exclamation at Peniel: "I have seen god face to face and yet my life is preserved" (Gen_32:30 ). When Manoah realised who his visitor had been, he said in terror to his wife: "We shall surely die, for we have seen God." The great day of Jewish worship was the Day of Atonement. That was the one day of all the year when the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies where the very presence of God was held to dwell. No man ever entered in except the High Priest, and he only on that day. When he did, the law laid it down that he must not linger in the Holy Place for long "lest he put Israel in terror." It was dangerous to enter the presence of God and if a man waited too long he might be struck dead.

In view of this there entered into Jewish thought the idea of a covenant. God, in his grace and in a way that was quite unmerited, approached the nation of Israel and offered them a special relationship with himself. But this unique access to God was conditional on the observance by the people of the law that he gave to them. We can see this relationship being entered into and this law being accepted in the dramatic scene in Exo_24:3-8 .

So then Israel had access to God, but only if she kept the law. To break the law was sin, and sin put up a barrier which stopped the way to God. It was to take away that barrier that the system of the Levitical priesthood and sacrifices was constructed. The law was given; man sinned; the barrier was up; the sacrifice was made; and the sacrifice was designed to open the closed way to God. But the experience of life was that this was precisely what sacrifice could not do. It was proof of the ineffectiveness of the whole system that sacrifice had to go on and on and on. It was a losing and ineffective battle to remove the barrier that sin had erected between man and God.

The Perfect Priest And The Perfect Sacrifice

What men needed was a perfect priest and a perfect sacrifice, someone who was such that he could bring to God a sacrifice which once and for all opened the way of access to him. That, said the writer to the Hebrews, is exactly what Christ did. He is the perfect priest because he is at once perfectly man and perfectly God. In his manhood he can take man to God and in his Godhead he can take God to man. He has no sin. The perfect sacrifice he brings is the sacrifice of himself, a sacrifice so perfect that it never needs to be made again. To the Jew the writer to the Hebrews said: "All your lives you have been looking for the perfect priest who can bring the perfect sacrifice and give you access to God. You have him in Jesus Christ and in him alone."

To the Greek the writer to the Hebrews said: "You are looking for the way from the shadows to reality; you will find it in Jesus Christ." To the Jew the writer to the Hebrews said: "You are looking for that perfect sacrifice which will open the way to God which your sins have closed; you will find it in Jesus Christ." Jesus was the one person who gave access to reality and access to God. That is the key-thought of this letter.

The Riddle Of The New Testament

So much is clear but when we turn to the other questions of introduction Hebrews is wrapped in mystery. E. F. Scott wrote: "The Epistle to the Hebrews is in many respects the riddle of the New Testament." When it was written, to whom it was written, and who wrote it are questions at which we can only guess. The very history of the letter shows how its mystery is to be treated with a certain reserve and suspicion. It was a long time before it became an unquestioned New Testament book. The first list of New Testament books, The Muratorian Canon, compiled about A.D. 170, does not mention it at all. The great Alexandrian scholars. Clement and Origen, knew it and loved it but agreed that its place as scripture was disputed. Of the great African fathers, Cyprian never mentions it and Tertullian knows that its place was disputed. Eusebius, the great Church historian, says that it ranked among the disputed books. It was not until the time of Athanasius, in the middle of the fourth century, that Hebrews was definitely accepted as a New Testament book, and even Luther was not too sure about it. It is strange to think how long this great book had to wait for full recognition.

When Was It Written?

The only information we have comes from the letter itself. Clearly it is written for what we might call second generation Christians (Heb_2:3 ). The story was transmitted to its recipients by those who had heard the Lord. The community to whom it was written were not new to the Christian faith; they ought to have been mature (Heb_5:12 ). They must have had a long history for they are summoned to look back on the former days (Heb_10:32 ). They had a great history behind them and heroic martyr figures on which they ought to look back for inspiration (Heb_13:7 ).

The thing that will help us most in dating the letter is its references to persecution. It is clear that at one time their leaders had died for their faith (Heb_13:7 ). It is clear that they themselves had not yet suffered persecution, for they had not yet resisted to the point of shedding their blood (Heb_12:4 ). It is also clear that they have had ill-treatment to suffer for they have had to undergo the pillaging of their goods (Heb_10:32-34 ). And it is clear from the outlook of the letter that there is a risk of persecution about to come. From all that it is safe to say that this letter must have been written between two persecutions, in days when Christians were not actually persecuted, but were none the less unpopular with their fellow-men. Now the first persecution was in the time of Nero in the year A.D. 64; and the next was in the time of Domitian about A.D. 85. Somewhere between these dates this letter was written, more likely nearer to Domitian. If we take the date as A.D. 80 we shall not be far wrong.

To Whom Was It Written?

Once again we have to be dependent on such hints as we get from the letter itself. One thing is certain--it cannot have been written to any of the great Churches or the name of the place could not have so completely vanished. Let us set down what we know. The letter was written to a long-established Church (Heb_5:12 ). It was written to a Church which had at some time in the past suffered persecution (Heb_10:32-34 ). It was written to a Church which had had great days and great teachers and leaders (Heb_13:7 ). It was written to a Church which had not been directly founded by the apostles (Heb_2:3 ). It was written to a Church which had been marked by generosity and liberality (Heb_6:10 ).

We do have one direct hint. Amongst the closing greetings we find the sentence, as the Revised Standard Version translates it: "Those who come from Italy send you greetings" (Heb_13:24 ). Taken by itself that phrase could mean either that the letter was written from Italy or that it was written to Italy, the greater likelihood is that it was written to Italy. Suppose I am in Glasgow and am writing to some place abroad. I would not be likely to say, "All the people from Glasgow greet you." I would be much more likely to say, "All the people in Glasgow greet you." But suppose I am somewhere abroad where there is a little colony of Glaswegians, I might well say, "All the people from Glasgow send you their greetings." So then we may say that the letter was written to Italy; and if it was written to Italy it was almost certainly written to Rome.

But quite certainly it was not written to the Church at Rome as a whole. If it had been it would never have lost its title. Furthermore, it gives the unmistakable impression that it was written to a small body of like-minded persons. Moreover, it was obviously written to a scholarly group. From Heb_5:12 we can see that they had long been under instruction and were preparing themselves to become teachers of the Christian faith. Still further, Hebrews demands such a knowledge of the Old Testament that it must always have been a book written by a scholar for scholars.

When we sum it all up, we can say that Hebrews is a letter written by a great teacher to a little group or college of Christians in Rome. He was their teacher; at the moment he was separated from them and was afraid that they were drifting away from the faith; and so he wrote this letter to them. It is not so much a letter as a talk. It does not begin like Paulletters do, although it ends with greetings as a letter does. The writer himself calls it "a word of exhortation."

By Whom Was It Written?

Perhaps the most insoluble problem of all is the problem of its authorship. It was precisely that uncertainty which kept it so long on the fringes of the New Testament. The title in the earliest days was simply, "To the Hebrews." No authorname was given, no one connected it directly with the name of Paul. Clement of Alexandria used to think that Paul might have written it in Hebrew and that Luke translated it, for the style is quite different from that of Paul. Origen made a famous remark, "who wrote the Letter to the Hebrews only God knows for certain." Tertullian thought that Barnabas wrote it. Jerome said the Latin Church did not receive it as Pauland speaking of the author said, "the writer to the Hebrews whoever he was." Augustine felt the same way about it. Luther declared that Paul could never have written it because the thought was not his. Calvin said that he could not bring himself to think that this letter was a letter of Paul.

At no time in the history of the Church did men ever really think that Paul wrote Hebrews. How then did it get attached to his name? It happened very simply. When the New Testament came into its final form there was of course argument about which books were to be included and which were not. To settle it one test was used. Was a book the work of an apostle or at least the work of one who had been in direct contact with the apostles? By this time Hebrews was known and loved throughout the Church. Most people felt like Origen that God alone knew who wrote it, but they wanted it. They felt it must go into the New Testament and the only way to ensure that was to include it with the thirteen letters of Paul. Hebrews won its way into the New Testament on the grounds of its own greatness, but to get in it had to be included with the letters of Paul and come under his name. People knew quite well that it was not Paulbut they included it among his letters because no man knew who wrote it and yet it must go in.

The Author Of Hebrews

Can we guess who the author was? Many candidates have been put forward. We can only glance at three of the many suggestions.

(i) Tertullian thought that Barnabas wrote it. Barnabas was a native of Cyprus; the people of Cyprus were famous for the excellence of the Greek they spoke; and Hebrews is written in the best Greek in the New Testament. He was a Levite (Act_4:36 ) and of all men in the New Testament he would have had the closest knowledge of the priestly and sacrificial system on which the whole thought of the letter is based. He is called a son of encouragement; the Greek word is paraklesis (G3874); and Hebrews calls itself a word of paraklesis (G3874) (Heb_13:22 ). He was one of the few men acceptable to both Jews and Greeks and at home in both worlds of thought. It might be that Barnabas wrote this letter, but if so it is strange that his name should vanish in connection with it.

(ii) Luther was sure that Apollos was the author. Apollos, according to the New Testament mention of him, was a Jew, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures (Act_18:24 ; 1Co_1:12 ; 1Co_3:4 ). The man who wrote this letter knew the scriptures; he was eloquent; and he thought and argued in the way that a cultured Alexandrian would. The man who wrote Hebrews was certainly a man like Apollos in thought and in background.

(iii) The most romantic of all conjectures is that of Harnack, the great German scholar. He thought that maybe Aquila and Priscilla wrote it between them. Aquila was a teacher (Act_18:26 ). Their house in Rome was a Church in itself (Rom_16:5 ). Harnack thought that that is why the letter begins with no greetings and why the writername has vanished--because the main author of Hebrews was a woman and a woman was not allowed to teach.

But when we come to the end of conjecture, we are compelled to say as Origen said seventeen hundred years ago, that only God knows who wrote Hebrews. To us the author must remain a voice and nothing more; but we can be thankful to God for the work of this great nameless one who wrote with incomparable skill and beauty about the Jesus who is the way to reality and the way to God.

FURTHER READING

Hebrews

J. Moffatt, Hebrews (ICC; G)

W. Neil, Hebrews (Tch: E)

J. H. Robinson, Hebrews (MC; E)

Abbreviations

ICC: International Critical Commentary

MC: Moffatt Commentary

Tch: Torch Commentary

E: English Text

G: Greek Text

Barclay: Hebrews 12 (Chapter Introduction)

The Race And The Goal (Heb_12:1-2)

The Standard Of Comparison (Heb_12:3-4)

The Discipline Of God (Heb_12:5-11)

Duties, Aims And Dangers (Heb_12:12-17)

The Terror Of The Old And The Glory Of The New (Heb_12:18-24)

The Greater Obligation (Heb_12:25-29)

Constable: Hebrews (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Historical background

The writer said that he and those to whom he wrote had come to faith in Jesus Christ through the preaching of others who had heard Jesus (2:3-4). Apparently those preachers had since died (13:7). The original readers had been Christians for an extended period of time (5:12). So probably the earliest possible date of composition was about A.D. 60.

Some scholars believe that the book must have been written before A.D. 70 since the writer spoke of the sacrifices as being offered when he wrote (7:27-28; 8:3-5; 9:7-8, 25; 10:1-3, 8; 13:10-11). However, the writer showed no interest in the temple but spoke of the sacrifices as the Israelites offered them when the tabernacle stood. He evidently used the present tense to give these reference a timeless quality rather than indicating that temple worship was still in practice. Nevertheless a date of composition before A.D. 70 seems probable.¹

"The best argument for the supersession of the old covenant would have been the destruction of the Temple."²

The reference to Timothy's release from imprisonment (13:23) appears to date the book later in the life of that outstanding man.³ No other New Testament writer mentioned his imprisonment. The imprisonment of Christians seems to have been a well-known fact of life (10:34; 13:3). This was true after Nero launched an empire-wide persecution in A.D. 64. All of these factors when taken together seem to point to a writing date near A.D. 68-69.

As to authorship, most students of this subject are not dogmatic or even certain for good reason.⁴ As early as Origen, the Alexandrian church father who died about A.D. 255, no one knew who the writer was for sure. After careful study of the authorship of Hebrews, Origen wrote, "But who it was that really wrote the epistle, God only knows."⁵

"The language of the Epistle is both in vocabulary and style purer and more vigorous than that of any other book of the New Testament.

". . . The vocabulary is singularly copious. It includes a large number of words which are not found elsewhere in the apostolic writings, very many of which occur in this book only among the Greek Scriptures . . ."⁶

"All that can be said with certainty is that Hebrews was composed by a creative theologian who was well trained in the exposition of the Greek Scriptures. . . . He was surely a hellenistic Jewish-Christian."⁷

Commentators have made cases for the writer being Paul, Apollos, Barnabas, Luke, Peter, Jude, Stephen, Silvanus (Silas), Epaphras (Epaphroditus), Philip the Evangelist, Priscilla, Mary the mother of Jesus, Clement of Rome, Aristion, and others.⁸ None of these suggestions has found enthusiastic general reception for various reasons. Probably we should be content to share Origen's agnosticism on this question and look forward to getting the answer in heaven.⁹

The early Christians originally accepted all the New Testament books as inspired by God because they contained apostolic teaching. For this reason the writer was probably either an apostle or a close associate of at least one of the apostles (cf. 13:23).

The original recipients of the epistle are also unknown. The title "The Epistle to the Hebrews" implies that they were Jewish Christians. This title is ancient and is probably a safe guide to the identity of the first readers. References in the epistle also suggest that the original readers were mainly Jewish. The writer assumed that they were very familiar with the institutions of Judaism. The warnings against turning away from Jesus Christ back to the Old Covenant also imply this identity. Other indications are the emphasis on the superior priesthood of Jesus and the many appeals to the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures. However the brand of Judaism in view seems to have been Hellenistic rather than Palestinian.

The reference to the generosity of the readers and their helping other believers (6:10) suggests that the original audience did not live in Palestine. The Palestinian churches had a reputation for needing material assistance rather than for giving it to other Christians (cf. Rom. 15:25-31; 1 Cor. 16:3). Probably they were Jews of the Diaspora therefore. This conclusion has support in the writer's consistent use of the Septuagint Old Testament version. Hellenistic Jews used this translation widely, but Palestinian Jews did not use it as much.¹⁰

In most of the New Testament churches there was a mixture of Jewish and Gentile believers. The appeal of this epistle would certainly have been great to Gentiles tempted to return to paganism as it would have been to Jews facing temptation to return to Judaism. However the writer's primary concern appears to have been that his Jewish readers were failing to appreciate that Christianity is the divinely revealed successor to Judaism. He did not want them to abandon Christianity and return to Judaism.

Probably the letter originally went to a house-church outside Palestine that had a strong Hellenistic Jewish population. This church may have been in or near Galatia in view of conditions that existed there that the Epistle to the Galatians reflects. However they may very well have lived in another area. Many scholars believe that the letter went first to a church in or near Rome.¹¹

In view of 13:24b it has seemed to some scholars that the writer was in Italy when he sent this epistle, perhaps in Rome. However the expression "from Italy" in that verse probably refers to those living outside Italy, such as Priscilla and Aquilla who were Jews forced to leave Rome by Emperor Claudius' edict in A.D. 49 (Acts 18:2).¹² This expression suggests that the writer was not in Italy when he wrote.

Purpose

Many students of the book have observed that Hebrews is more of a sermon in written form than an epistle in the traditional New Testament sense.¹³ The writer even described it as a "word of exhortation" (13:22). He urged the original readers to persevere in their faith rather than turning from Christianity and returning to Judaism. A note of urgency and pastoral concern permeates the whole letter. This tone comes through especially strongly in the five warning passages and in the encouragements that follow these warnings.

". . . the purpose of the writer to the Hebrews is not to give us an interpretation of Old Testament prophecy. . . . Using material not from the prophets but primarily from the Psalms, with other materials added to elaborate the argument, the writer's goal was to establish the superiority of the gospel in contrast to all that went before, particularly the levitical system. The primary evidence of the supremacy of Christianity is presented in its finality. Coming to Christ means final access to God without any barrier."¹⁴

". . . Hebrews is a sermon rooted in actual life. It is addressed to a local gathering of men and women who discovered that they could be penetrated by adverse circumstances over which they exercised no control. It throbs with an awareness of the privilege and the cost of discipleship. It is a sensitive pastoral response to the sagging faith of older and tired individuals who were in danger of relinquishing their Christian commitment. It seeks to strengthen them in the face of a new crisis so that they may stand firm in their faith. It warns them of the judgment of God they would incur if they were to waver in their commitment. Exhortations to covenant fidelity and perseverance are grounded in a fresh understanding of the significance of Jesus and his sacrifice."¹⁵

Message¹⁶

We could summarize the message of this epistle in the following words. We will only realize our full eternal reward as believers if we appreciate the greatness of Jesus Christ and continue to trust God rather than turning away from Him in this life.

The ultimate goal that the writer had in view was our full eternal reward as believers. I do not believe it was the conversion of the unsaved members of his audience. He addressed his readers consistently as believers. He wrote to encourage Christians to persevere faithfully so we will receive all that God wants to give us at the judgment seat of Christ. Our rewards are at issue in this letter. He did not want us to suffer loss but to enter into our full inheritance, our full rest, our full salvation.

To do this he wrote that we must know one thing and do two things, one positive and one negative.

We must know the greatness of Jesus Christ. In this epistle the writer presented Him as the greatest revelation that God has given mankind. God's revelation in His Son is superior to all other revelations He has given in three respects.

1. It supersedes all other revelations: God's revelation through angels (the Mosaic Law), His revelation through humans (the prophets), and His revelation through rituals (the Old Covenant). When Jesus Christ came to reveal God, He brought revelation that superseded what had preceded Him.

2. God's revelation in His Son is sufficient to meet every basic human need. God spoke through His Son, so the need for a prophet (a revealer of God) no longer exists. He established a new Covenant, so the need for a priest (a mediator for man) no longer exists. Moreover He exalted His Son to His right hand, so the need for a king (a righteous ruler) no longer exists.

3. God's revelation in His Son insures final victory in every basic sphere. The individual (the human order) attains perfection through the Son. Society (the social order) will experience perfection through the Son. The universe (the cosmic order) will reach perfection through the Son.

This is what we need to know objectively to do subjectively what is necessary to gain our full reward as believers.

What we must do is continue to trust God. Hebrews places great emphasis on the importance of living by faith. It teaches us three things about faith.

1. Hebrews defines faith. Faith is volitional surrender and obedience to God regardless of appearances. It is not just intellectual conviction. It is the action of the will that expresses intellectual conviction. This epistle regards unbelief as disobedience as does all of Scripture. People in the past who lived by faith made decisions and acted because they believed God in spite of appearances (ch. 11).

2. Hebrews also illustrates faith. It describes faith as doing, as suffering, and as waiting. These are the primary activities of faith that the writer of Hebrews emphasized. They are progressively more difficult. It is harder to suffer persecution for our faith than it is to obey God when obedience does not involve suffering. It is most difficult to keep on trusting God when suffering does not end. Waiting for God to fulfill His promises is hardest of all when our hopes do not materialize (e.g., Christ's return).

3. In addition, Hebrews vindicates faith. It assures us of the ultimate triumph of faith. People in the past who acted in faith achieved. People who suffered for their faith triumphed. People who waited in faith received their reward.

On the positive side we need to continue to trust God to realize our full reward as believers.

What we must not do is turn away from God. This is the negative responsibility that the letter also stresses. If we apostatize, we will lose our full reward. Hebrews teaches us three things about apostasy (as it does about faith).

1. This epistle defines apostasy descriptively. It is the opposite of faith. It consists of disobedience because of appearances (e.g., the 10 spies; cf. Jude). Apostasy for a Christian is turning away from faith having previously embraced faith. An apostate, however, can be a believer or an unbeliever.

2. Hebrews also illustrates apostasy in the same three ways it illustrates faith. Apostasy acts. It involves a deliberate turning away. It also suffers, not now but in the future because of what the apostate loses. It also waits, even though it lives for the present rather than for the future.

3. Likewise Hebrews condemns apostasy. It assures us of the ultimate tragedy of apostasy. Apostates may achieve what they want in the present, namely success, but they lose what is far more valuable in the future. They may avoid suffering now, but later they will be sorry. They may not want to wait for their reward now, but they will wait forever for it later and never get it.

This is the central message of the epistle. We will only realize our full eternal reward as believers if we appreciate the greatness of Jesus Christ and continue to trust God rather than turning away from Him.

The writer urged his readers to persevere in faith by using two appeals, one negative and one positive.

The first appeal is negative: the warnings. There are five warning passages in Hebrews. Each one warns of the danger of apostasy from a different angle.

1. The first passage (2:1-4) warns of the danger of drifting away from the truth (2:1). It pictures a ship dragging its anchor. The tides of our age can draw us away from our moorings. We need to keep on standing firm in faith (cf. Col. 1:23).

2. The second passage (3:7-19) warns of the danger of disbelief (3:12). Disbelief results in heart hardening (3:13). We need to keep on believing rather than ceasing to believe (cf. Luke 17:3).

3. The third passage (5:11-6:12) warns of the danger of immaturity (5:12). When we do not put truth into practice, we do not just remain in the same spiritual state. We regress. Therefore we need to keep on growing (cf. 2 Pet. 3:18).

4. The fourth passage (10:19-39) warns of the danger of willful sinning (10:26-27). If we abandon confidence in the efficacy of Jesus Christ's sacrifice, there is no other sacrifice that can protect us from God's judgment as believers. We need to keep on submitting to God (cf. Rom. 6:16).

5. The fifth passage (12:14-29) warns of the danger of unresponsiveness (12:25). The message of this letter demands positive response. If we do not respond positively, we will lose part of our reward (12:17). We need to keep on obeying God (cf. Titus 3:8).

The second appeal is positive: the encouragements. Accompanying each of the warning passages is at least one word of encouragement. The writer balanced his negative warnings with positive words of encouragement.

1. The first passage (2:1-4) encourages with a reminder of God's confirming His promises with miracles in the apostolic age (2:3b-4).

2. The second passage (3:7-19) encourages by reminding us of Jesus' example of faithfulness (3:1-6) and our resources as believers (4:12-16).

3. The third passage (5:11-6:12) encourages with a reminder of the readers' past faithfulness (6:9-12) and God's firm promises (6:13-20).

4. The fourth passage (10:19-39) also encourages with a reminder of the readers' past perseverance (10:32-39).

5. The fifth passage (12:14-29) encourages by reminding us of Jesus' example of perseverance (12:1-2) and the divine reason for discipline (12:3-11).

By way of application let me make three observations based on the three major revelations in the epistle.

1. An appreciation for Jesus Christ is foundational to faithful perseverance. The reason many Christians turn away from the Lord is that they do not appreciate His greatness. Preach Christ in your ministry.

2. We need to emphasize the Christian's hope more in our ministries. We live in a present oriented culture that values immediate self-gratification. Many Christians are apostatizing because they do not appreciate the reward they will receive if they remain faithful to the Lord. This life is preparation for the next.

3. We need to realize that God will judge Christians who apostatize. We will not lose our salvation, but we will lose much that we will wish we never gave up if we stop walking by faith.

Outline¹⁷

I. The culminating revelation of God 1:1-2:18

A. The agent of God's final revelation 1:1-4

B. The superiority of the Son 1:5-14

C. The danger of negligence (the first warning) 2:1-4

D. The humiliation and glory of God's Son 2:5-9

E. The Son's solidarity with humanity 2:10-18

II. The high priestly character of the Son 3:1-5:10

A. The faithfulness of the Son 3:1-6

B. The danger of disbelief (the second warning) 3:7-19

C. The possibility of rest for God's people 4:1-14

D. The compassion of the Son 4:15-5:10

III. The high priestly office of the Son 5:11-10:39

A. The danger of immaturity (the third warning) 5:11-6:12

1. The readers' condition 5:11-14

2. The needed remedy 6:1-3

3. The dreadful alternative 6:4-8

4. The encouraging prospect 6:9-12

B. The basis for confidence and steadfastness 6:13-20

C. The Son's high priestly ministry 7:1-10:18

1. The person of our high priest ch. 7

2. The work of our high priest chs. 8-9

3. The accomplishment of our high priest 10:1-18

D. The danger of willful sinning (the fourth warning) 10:19-39

1. The three-fold admonition 10:19-25

2. The warning of judgment 10:26-31

3. The encouragement to persevere 10:32-39

IV. The proper response 11:1-12:13

A. Perseverance in faith ch. 11

1. Faith in the antediluvian era 11:1-7

2. Faith in the patriarchal era 11:8-22

3. Faith in the Mosaic era 11:23-31

4. Faith in subsequent eras 11:32-40

B. Demonstrating necessary endurance 12:1-13

1. The example of Jesus 12:1-3

2. The proper view of trials 12:4-11

3. The need for greater strength 12:12-13

V. Life in a hostile world 12:14-13:25

A. The danger of unresponsiveness (the fifth warning) 12:14-29

1. The goal of peace 12:14-17

2. The superiority of the New Covenant 12:18-24

3. The consequences of apostasy 12:25-29

B. Life within the church ch. 13

1. Pastoral reminders 13:1-21

2. Personal explanations 13:22-25

Constable: Hebrews

Hebrews

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_____. Hebrews 9-13. Word Biblical Commentary series. Dallas: Word Books, 1991.

Lang, G. H. The Epistle to the Hebrews. London: Paternoster Press, 1951.

Lange, John Peter, ed. Commentary on the Holy Scriptures. 12 vols. Reprint ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1960. Vol 11: Galatians--Hebrews, by Otto Schmoller, Karl Braume, C. A. Auberlen, C. J. Riggenbach, J. J. Van Oosterzee, and Carl Bernhard Moll. Translated by C. C. Starbuck, M. B. Riddle, Horatio B. Hackett, John Lillie, E. A. Washburn, E. Harwood, George E. Day, and A. C. Kendrick.

Lenski, Richard C. H. The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews and The Epistle of James. Reprint ed. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1963.

Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. New York: Macmillan, 1976.

_____. The Problem of Pain. 1940. Reprint ed. London: Collins Press, Fontana Books, 1959.

Lindars, Barnabas. The Theology of the Letter to the Hebrews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Lovelace, Richard F. Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1979.

MacArthur, John F., Jr. Faith Works: The Gospel According to the Apostles. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1993.

_____. Hebrews. Chicago: Moody Press, 1983.

MacDonald, William. Hebrews from Shadow to Substance. Moody Correspondence Course series. Revised ed. Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, 1962.

Mackay, Cameron. "The Argument of Hebrews." Church Quarterly

Review 168 (1967):325-38.

MacLeod, David J. "The Cleansing of the True Tabernacle." Bibliotheca Sacra 152:605 (January-March 1995):60-63.

_____. "The Doctrinal Center of the Book of Hebrews." Bibliotheca Sacra 146:583 (July-September 1989):291-300.

_____. "The Literary Structure of the Book of Hebrews." Bibliotheca Sacra 146:582 (April-June 1989):185-97.

_____. "The Present Work of Christ in Hebrews." Bibliotheca Sacra 148:590 (April-June 1991):184-200.

_____. "The Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews: Introduction, Prolegomena, and Doctrinal Center." Th.D. dissertation, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1987.

MacRae, G. W. "Heavenly Temple and Eschatology in the Letter to the Hebrews." Semeia 12 (1978):179-99.

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_____. "New Wine in Old Wine-Skins: V. The Biblical Use of the Word Ekklesia.'" Expository Times 84:12 (1973):359-64.

Master, John R. "The New Covenant." In Issues in Dispensationalism, pp. 93-110. Edited by Wesley R. Willis and John R. Master. Chicago: Moody Press, 1994.

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The Mishnah. Translated by Herbert Danby. London: Oxford University Press, 1933.

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_____. "The Prophecy of the New Covenant in the Argument of Hebrews." Reformed Theological Review 38 (1979):74-81.

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Hebrews (Book Introduction)

THE

EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL, THE APOSTLE,

TO THE HEBREWS.

INTRODUCTION.

The Catholic Church hath received and declared this Epistle to be part of the Canonical Scriptures of the New Testament, though some doubted of it in the first ages [centuries], especially in the Latin Church, witness St. Jerome on the 8th chap. of Isaias; Luther and most of his followers reject it, but the Calvinists and the Church of England have received it. Others, who received this Epistle in the first ages [centuries], doubted whether it was written by St. Paul, but thought it was written by St. Barnabas, or by St. Clement, or St. Luke, or at least that St. Paul only furnished the matter and the order of it, and that St. Luke wrote it, and St. Paul afterwards read it and approved it. It was doubted again, whether this Epistle was first written in Hebrew (that is, in Syro-Chaldaic, then spoken by the Jews) or in Greek, as Estius pretends. The ancient writers say it was written in Hebrew, but that it was very soon after translated into Greek either by St. Luke or St. Clement, pope and martyr. Cornelius a Lapide thinks the Syriac which we have in the Polyglot to have been the original; but this is commonly rejected. See Tillemont on St. Paul, Art. 46, and note 72; P. Alleman on the first to the Hebrews, &c. St. Paul wrote this letter about the year 63, and either at Rome or in Italy. See Chap. xii. 24. He wrote it to the Christians in Palestine, who had most of them been Jews before. This seems the reason why he puts not his name to it, nor calls himself their apostle, his name being rather odious to the Jews, and because he was chosen to be the apostle of the Gentiles. The main design is to shew that every one's justification and salvation is to be hoped for by the grace and merits of Christ, and not from the law of Moses, as he had shewn in his Epistles to the Galatians and the Romans, where we many observe this kind of difference: To the Galatians he shews, that true justice cannot be had from circumcision and the ceremonies of the law: to the Romans, that even the moral precepts and works of the law were insufficient without the grace of Christ: and in this to the Hebrews, he shews that our justice could not be had from the sacrifices of the old law. As to the chief contents: He exhorts them to the faith of Christ, by shewing his dignity and pre-eminence above the Angels, and above Moses, Chap. i, ii, iii.; that Christ's priesthood was above that of Aaron, from the 4th to the 8th chap. ver. 6; that the new law and testament is preferable to the old, form thence to the middle of chap. x.; he commends faith by the example of the ancient Fathers, Chap. xi. and in the beginning of the twelfth; then he exhorts them to patience, constancy, brotherly love, &c. The like exhortations are mixed in other parts of this Epistle. (Witham) --- We must here remark, that our separated brethren, relying solely upon tradition, admit in general this Epistle into their canon of Scriptures, though they are necessitated to allow that for some centuries great doubts were entertained on the subject. According to Mr. Rogers, in his Defence of the Thirty-nine Articles, whilst several among the Protestants have rejected as apocryphal the Epistle to the Hebrews, that of James, the 2nd and 3rd of John, and Jude, others have as strenuously maintained that they ought to be admitted into the sacred canon. The Catholic Church admits them as deutero-canonical books, and of equal authority with the proto-canonical books....After the arguments had been justly weighed on both sides, they seem to have been admitted by the general consent of the Latin Church, as they had all along been admitted by the Greek Church. The canon, as it now stands, both of the Old and New Testament, we find enumerated in Pope Innocent's letter to Exuperius, bishop of Toulouse, an. 405 [the year A.D. 405], in St. Augustine, (lib. ii. de doct. christ. chap. viii.) and in the decrees of an African Council, an. 419 [the year A.D. 419], consisting of 217 bishops, who declare that in giving a catalogue of the Holy Scriptures, they only confirm and ratify what they have received from their Fathers. This canon is attributed to the third Council of Carthage, an. 397 [the year A.D. 397]. Dr. Cosin, an eminent Protestant divine, tells us in his canon of Scripture, p. 4, "that to know the books of Scripture, there is no safer course to be taken than to follow the public voice and the universal testimony of the Church." The sixth of the thirty-nine articles gives a similar rule, which excludes private judgment. And "what is this," asks Hooker, "but to acknowledge ecclesiastical tradition?" The mind of man, naturally fickle and unsettled, stands in need of a guide in the road to eternal life. I shall never hesitate, says a spirited author, to take for my guide the Catholic Church, which contains in herself the authority of past and future ages. The Syriac version of the Old and New Testament, which is deservedly allowed to be of greatest antiquity and authority, comprises the same deutero-canonical books as the canon of the Council of Trent; a convincing proof that the Church of Syria, immediately after the times of the apostles, considered them as part of the sacred canon, no less than the Catholics of the present day. For a very satisfactory account respecting the authenticity and inspiration of this Epistle, as also for an excellent commentary with notes moral, doctrinal, and critical, see a late work entitled, An Explanation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, by the Rev. Henry Rutter. --- What can be the reason why Protestants admit the deutero-canonical books of the New and reject those of the Old Testament? --- This Epistle merits the particular attention of Christians of every denomination, since it points out to them their various duties in respect to the necessity of faith and the practice of a holy life. In opposition to the Socinians, it tends to shew not only the divinity of Jesus Christ, but also that his death was a true and real sacrifice of atonement for the sins of mankind. See Chap. i, ver. 5, &c. In opposition to other sectarists, it proves that the bloody sacrifice of Christ, once offered on the cross, though a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice of redemption, does not exclude the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass, by which he is a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech. See Chap. v, &c. It is no less applicable to Catholics, in order to confirm them in the faith once delivered to the saints, and to point out the dreadful consequences of abandoning that religion which Jesus Christ came to establish in the world. The just man lives by faith; but if he draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. Let us, therefore, hold fast the confession of our hope, without wavering, or forsaking our assembly, the Catholic Church, as many have done to follow Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and other separatists. But we, says the apostle, are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them who have faith unto the saving of the soul. (Hebrews x. 39.)

====================

Gill: Hebrews (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO HEBREWS

That this epistle was written very early appears from hence, that it was imitated by Clement of Rome, in his epistle to the Corinthians, who took whole sentences out of it; and therefore it could not be a new work, as Eusebius ^a observes: it has been denied to be authentic by some heretics, as the Marcionites and Arians, but has been generally received as such by the orthodox: some indeed doubted of it, because it was not received by the Roman church, as an epistle of the Apostle Paul ^b; though others, who have thought it was not his, as Origen, yet looked upon it as genuine ^c. It has been ascribed to different persons, as to Barnabas, to Apollos, to Luke the Evangelist, and to Clement of Rome, but without any just reason. Clement of Alexandria, a very ancient writer, asserts it to be the Apostle Paul's ^d; and his name stands in the title of it, in all R. Stephens's exemplars, and in all Beza's copies, excepting one, and so it does in the Vulgate Latin and Arabic versions; and that it is his, is highly probable from the agreement there is between this, and other epistles of his; compare Heb 1:2 with Col 1:15 and Heb 5:12 with 1Co 3:1 and Heb 12:1 with 1Co 9:24 and Heb 13:7 with 1Th 5:11, and Heb 13:9 with Eph 4:14 and Heb 13:18 with 2Co 1:12 and Heb 13:20 with Rom 15:13 and many other places; and also from the order and method of it, first treating of doctrines, and then proceeding to practical exhortations, which is the common form of Paul's epistles: to which may be added various circumstances; as that it was written from Italy, where Paul was a prisoner; and the mention the author of it makes of his bonds, and of Timothy, as well known unto him, who was Paul's companion; besides, the token of his epistles appears in this, namely, his usual salutation to the churches; see Heb 13:23. But above all, the testimony of the Apostle Peter is greatly in favour of its being his, 2Pe 3:15 from whence it clearly appears, that the Apostle Paul did write an epistle to the Hebrews; for to them Peter wrote; see 1Pe 1:1 and what epistle could it be but this? and what Peter refers to is to be found in it; see Heb 10:25 and which is written with great wisdom; in none of Paul's epistles is there a greater discovery of his knowledge of divine mysteries than in this; and in it also are things hard to be understood, Heb 5:11. The common objections to its being his are, its not bearing his name, the diversity of its style, and the author of it seeming to be not an apostle, but a disciple of the apostle's: as to his not setting his name to it, the reasons might be, because he was the apostle of the Gentiles, and not so much of the Jews; and because of the prejudice of the Jews against him, both believers, and unbelievers; wherefore had his name been to it, it might have prevented the usefulness of it to the one, and have stirred up the rage of the other: as to the difference of style, different subjects require a different style; and yet in many things there is a likeness, as before observed: and as to the author's not being an apostle, which is concluded from Heb 2:3 the word "us" there is to be understood of the believing Hebrews, the disciples of the apostle, and not inclusive of the author, by a figurative way of speaking often used by Paul; and besides, the apostle received a confirmation of the Gospel from Ananias, who might have been an hearer of Christ, though he was at first taught it by Christ himself; add to this, that whoever was the writer of it, it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem, and when several of the apostles were living, and therefore he could never design by those words to put himself in a succeeding generation. The persons to whom this epistle was written were Hebrews, or Jews; so called, as some think, from the name of Abraham, the father of them; or, as others, from his passing over the river Euphrates, when he came out of Chaldea into Palestine. So Abram the Hebrew, in Gen 14:13 is by the Septuagint rendered, perathv, "one that passes over", taking it to come from the word rbe, which signifies to "pass over"; with this compare Jos 24:3 and this is the opinion of some of the Jewish Rabbins ^e; though it seems rather that they were called so from Heber, who lived at the time of the confusion of languages; see Gen 10:21. And this is the sense of many Jewish writers, ancient and modern, of Josephus ^f, of Jonathan ben Uzziel ^g, of R. Nehemiah ^h, of Aben Ezra ⁱ, and Kimchi ^k, and others; 2Co 11:22. And these were the Hebrews that dwelt in the land of Judea, and particularly at Jerusalem; nor were they the unbelieving inhabitants of those parts, but believers in Christ, who were embodied in a Gospel church state, It was a tradition of the ancients ^l, that this epistle was written originally in Hebrew, and was translated into Greek, either by Luke the Evangelist, or by Clement of Rome. But for this there is no foundation; no Hebrew copy can be produced; Munster's edition of it in Hebrew is a translation from the Greek, in which it was, no doubt, originally written, that being the common language, and well known to the Jews; and which appears from the citations in it out of the Old Testament, which are made, not from the Hebrew text, but from the Greek version; and besides, had it been written in Hebrew, the writer would not have interpreted the Hebrew words, Melchizedek and Salem, as he does, in Heb 7:1. The time of its writing was before the destruction of Jerusalem, which in this book is signified by the coming of the Lord, and the day approaching; and after Timothy was released from prison, and some time within the two years of his own imprisonment at Rome; when he hoped for a release, as his epistles to the Philippians and to Philemon show. Dr. Lightfoot places it in the year 62, and in the eighth of Nero. And the occasion and design of it is, to set forth the superior excellency of Christ to angels and men, to Moses, to Joshua, to Aaron, and his sons, and the preferableness of his priesthood and sacrifice to the Levitical priesthood and its sacrifices; to teach the Hebrews the true knowledge of the mysteries of their law; to point out to them the design, use, and abrogation of its ceremonies; and to prepare them for what afflictions and persecutions they would be called to endure for Christ; and to exhort them to perseverance, and to strengthen them against apostasy, as well as to instruct them in the various duties of religion.

Gill: Hebrews 12 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO HEBREWS 12

In this chapter the apostle presses to a constant exercise of faith and patience, amidst the various afflictions the saints are exercised with; delivers out several exhortations useful in the Christian life; and shows the difference between the legal and Gospel dispensations. Having in the preceding chapter given many illustrious instances and examples of faith, he makes use of this cloud of witnesses, as he calls them, to engage the Hebrews to drop their unbelief, and run with faith and patience the race set before them, Heb 12:1, and which he further urges from the example of Christ; from his concern in faith, being the author and finisher of it; from what he suffered when here on earth, both the contradiction of sinners, and the death of the cross, for the joy of having his people with him in heaven; and from his glorious state, being set down at the right hand of God. Whereas, as yet, they had not been called to shed their blood in their warfare against sin, Heb 12:2. And that they must expect chastisement, and should bear it patiently, he cites a passage of Scripture out of Pro 3:11 which suggests, that those who are the children of God, and are loved and received by him, are chastened and scourged, Heb 12:5. Wherefore this was no other than dealing with them as children; and should they not be thus dealt with, it would be an argument that they were bastards, and not sons, Heb 12:7. And next the apostle argues from the right of parents to chastise their children, and the subjection that is yielded to them; that if the corrections of them, who were the fathers of their bodies, were quietly submitted to; then much more should those of the Father of their souls; and the rather, since the chastenings of the former are only for temporal good, and according to their fallible judgments; whereas the latter are for spiritual profit, and an increase of holiness, Heb 12:9. And though it must be allowed, that no chastening, for the present time, is matter of joy, but of grief; yet the effects of them are the peaceable fruits of righteousness, to them that are exercised by them, Heb 12:11. Wherefore the apostle exhorts the believing Hebrews to encourage themselves and others under afflictions; and to behave in such manner, and carry it so evenly, that they might not be an occasion of stumbling to weak believers, Heb 12:12. He exhorts them in general to follow peace with all men, and particularly holiness; which is absolutely necessary to the beatific vision of God, Heb 12:14, and to take care that no heresy or immorality spring up among them, and be connived at, and cherished by them, to the troubling of some, and defiling of others, Heb 12:15, and particularly, lest the sin of uncleanness, or any sort of profaneness, should be found among them; of which Esau, the brother of Jacob, from whence they sprung, was guilty; whose profaneness lay in selling his birthright for a morsel of meat, and whose punishment was, that he should be deprived of the blessing; which decree was irrevocable, notwithstanding his tears, Heb 12:16 and to enforce these exhortations, the apostle observes to these believers, that they were not now under the law, but in a Gospel church state. The terror of the legal dispensation they were delivered from is described by the place where the law was given, a mount burning with fire; by circumstances attending it, blackness, darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet; by the matter of it, a voice of words, which they that heard, entreated they might hear no more; and by the effect the whole had upon. Moses himself, who quaked and trembled at what he saw and heard, Heb 12:18. The happiness of the Gospel dispensation, or of the Gospel church state, is expressed by the names of it, called Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the new Jerusalem; and by the company the saints have there, and their fellowship with them; angels innumerable; elect men, whose names are written in heaven, and whose spirits are made perfectly just; God the Judge of all, and Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant; whose blood being sprinkled on their consciences, spoke peace and pardon to them; such as neither Abel's blood nor sacrifice could speak, Heb 12:22. From whence the apostle argues, that care should be taken not to neglect and despise the voice of Christ, who is now in heaven, and speaks from thence in his Gospel and ordinances; seeing they escaped not who rejected him that spoke on earth, at Mount Sinai, which was shaken by his voice; and the rather, since it appears from a prophecy in Hag 2:6, that under the Gospel dispensation, not only the earth but the heavens would he shaken, Heb 12:25 which is an emblem of the shaking and removing the ordinances of the ceremonial law, that Gospel ordinances might take place, and remain for ever, Heb 12:27. Upon the whole, the apostle exhorts the believing Hebrews, that seeing they had received the immovable kingdom of grace, and were admitted into the Gospel dispensation, or church state; that they would hold fast the Gospel of the grace of God, and serve the Lord, according to his revealed will, with reverence and godly fear, which would be acceptable to him; or otherwise he would be a consuming fire; as he is to all the despisers and neglecters of his Gospel and ordinances, Heb 12:28.

College: Hebrews (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION

It is difficult to overestimate the significance of Hebrews for understanding the nature of the new covenant. No other document in the New Testament canon comments as directly and extensively upon this covenant as does Hebrews. Its description of Jesus as the great high priest of the believer is a unique contribution to New Testament Christology.

Yet Hebrews is perhaps as well known for the difficulties it presents as it is for its distinctive contributions to our understanding of the ministry of Jesus and the nature of our salvation. It is difficult to be certain about who wrote it, when and to whom. It is a letter and not quite a letter. Many find its line of argument intricate and complex, its theology abstract and obscure, and its use of the Old Testament puzzling if not problematic. This commentary will begin by addressing some of these considerations.

AUTHORSHIP

Over the years, most of the debate about the authorship of Hebrews has focused on whether or not Paul wrote this letter. Arguments have been made for other possible authors as well. What we can know for certain about the author is best gleaned from the letter itself, but many will want to know how this debate affects our confidence in the authority and inspiration of the letter.

Did Paul write the Letter to the Hebrews?

Though few defend Pauline authorship of Hebrews today, in the past this view has enjoyed the support of significant church leaders and traditions. The earliest extant copy of Hebrews (early third century) has been received as part of a collection of Paul's letters, in which it was placed after Romans. Pauline authorship was defended by notable church fathers in the East, e.g., Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215) and Origen (185-253) who, despite reservations, defended it as essentially Pauline, at least in part on the weight of what was then received tradition. Later, Jerome and Augustine helped to shift opinion in the West and the Sixth Synod of Carthage (419) established a tradition of support for Pauline authorship which lasted until the Reformation.

However, the weight of the evidence - both historical and texual - is far from clear. Early church opinion was far from universal. In the West, prior to Jerome and Augustine, such leaders as Irenaeus and Hippolytus of Rome did not accept Hebrews as Pauline. The Muratorian Canon (a list of documents accepted as New Testament Scripture, c. 170) included thirteen letters identified as Pauline but excluded Hebrews. When reformers such as Calvin and Luther reexamined the question centuries later, neither concluded that Paul was its author. Contemporary critics consider Pauline authorship implausible in light of clear differences between the vocabulary and style of Hebrews and epistles known to be Pauline. Further, it has been argued as improbable for Paul to refer to himself as the author does in 2:3 ("This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him") in light of what he says of himself in Galatians 1:11-12 ("I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ").

Who else could have written the letter to the Hebrews?

As early as the second century, Tertullian identified Barnabas as the author of the letter. Barnabas was a Levite (Acts 4:26), and there is much about levitical ritual in the epistle. He was also a Hellenistic Jew, a member of the Jerusalem church and a missionary partner of Paul (Acts 9:27; 11:30; 12:1-14:28). All of this evidence is circumstantial, however, and nothing but Tertullian's opinion connects him to the letter directly.

Clement of Alexandria first suggested that Luke translated a Hebrew text written by Paul. Calvin affirmed this possiblity centuries later. There are some similarities in the Greek style of Luke-Acts and Hebrews. But there is little other evidence and there are also some differences in style. Calvin also suggested Clement of Rome as a possibility. However, Clement of Rome widely quoted from the letter himself. It is unlikely that he would quote himself and his use of the Old Testament is often at variance with that in Hebrews.

Luther was the first to suggest Apollos as the possible author of Hebrews, a view which continues to enjoy some popularity. He was a "learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures" who "vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ" (Acts 18:24-28). Presumably, he would have been capable of the careful handling of the LXX found in Hebrews. Also, he probably had some connection to the Pauline mission (1 Corinthians 1-4). But concluding that he was therefore the author of Hebrews is, at best, conjecture.

Among others, arguments have been made for Peter, Jude, Stephen, Aristion, Priscilla, Silas, Timothy, Epaphras, Philip and Mary the mother of Jesus as possible authors of Hebrews. Two other possibilities remain. An associate of Paul could have written the letter for him (a view first suggested by Origen in 220). It is also possible that Hebrews was written by some other anonymous Christian unknown to us. The letter itself does not clearly identify its author. Perhaps the fairest conclusion is that advanced by Origen, in spite of his inclination to defend Pauline authorship: "who wrote the Epistle, God only knows the truth."

How does the debate about authorship affect our view of the letter?

It is important to note that, although the debate over authorship has extended over the centuries, the question of the letter's canonicity (i.e., its inspiration and authority) has not. Even though church fathers in the East may have had doubts about its authorship, there is no evidence that they ever questioned its canonicity. Though the Muratorian Canon excluded Hebrews (as well as James and 1-2 Peter), all four books were included in the New Testament canon by the Synod of Hippo (393) and the Third (397) and Sixth (419) Synods of Carthage. Subsequent questions about its authorship during the Reformation had no effect at all upon the reformers' view of its authority or inspiration.

It is clear that apostolicity, as well as other issues such as universality and the "rule of faith," were important in the early decisions about the New Testament canon. We must keep in mind, however, that a document's "canonical" status is the result of a human process which does not bestow divine authority or inspiration upon a document but recognizes the authority and inspiration which it inherently possesses because it has been "God-breathed" (2 Tim 3:16). In other words, if it is true that Hebrews is a divinely inspired and authoritative document, its inspiration and authority remain factual in an objective sense apart from our own inability to clearly discern the identity of its author. In his providence, God bore witness to the inspiration and authority of this letter in a manner that left little room for doubt, as Hebrews persistently silenced the questions of men who soon found that it "is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Tim 3:16-17).

What do we know about the author?

Though the question of authorship is not determinative of either the letter's inspiration or authority, it is significant for our interpretation of Hebrews. Knowing as much as we can about the author can be helpful for discerning the meaning of a text. We may not be able to know the identify of our author with any degree of certainty, but there is much that we can know about him.

He was probably a Hellenistic Jew for he was both steeped in the LXX and possessed of an excellent vocabulary and a polished style for writing in the Greek language. Presumably, then, he was well educated. He was probably a second generation Christian (2:3) but one with direct connection to apostolic influence since he was a companion of Timothy (13:23) and thus possibly an associate of Paul. It is possible that he wrote from Italy, although 13:24 could also be taken to mean that the recipients were in Italy and some in his own party were from there as well. The rhetoric of the letter and his description of it as "my word of exhortation" (13:22) suggest that he was probably a preacher. His "short letter" reveals a compassionate pastor, a keen theologian and a superior logician who applies all the resources of revelation and rhetoric at his command so that his dear friends will "not drift away" (2:1).

DATE, DESTINATION AND PURPOSE

Three important facts suggest at least a general date for the letter. First, Clement of Rome cited Hebrews frequently. 1 Clement was written in A.D. 95 or 96 and thus Hebrews would not only have been completed but well circulated by this date. Second, there is thus little reason to doubt that the Timothy of 13:23 was the associate of Paul referred to elsewhere in the New Testament. Though we do not know how old Timothy was when he joined Paul in his work, it is unlikely that this reference would place the letter very late in the first century. Finally, much is made of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in A.D. 70. Although it is possible that the author would not have referred to this event if it had happened by the time of writing, it seems improbable that he would omit reference to an event that not only had a significant effect on the lives of first-century Jews (including Christians) but would have added great force to his own argument. Further, he refers to old covenant worship rituals in the present tense (8:4-5; 10:1-3).

Other considerations as to the probable date of the letter pertain to the identity and location of its recipients. The title "To the Hebrews" may have been added later and reflect later opinions about its contents but it accompanies the letter in all of the oldest Greek manuscripts and there is no evidence that the letter ever bore any other title. Some suggest that the phrase could be translated "against the Hebrews" but it is the same formula used in Paul's letters which were hardly "against" the Romans, Galatians, etc. The title of the letter thus suggests that its recipients were Jewish, and the content that they were both Jewish and Christian.

The letter itself indicates that its recipients were enduring persecution (10:33-34; 12:4; 13:3, 23). The more natural reading of 13:24 suggests that the author wrote to Italy rather than from Italy (for which the expression "those in Italy send you their greetings" would have been more appropriate). The Edict of Claudius had expelled Jews from Rome in 49 but many had returned by the time of the persecution begun by Nero in 64. Since our earliest quotes of Hebrews come to us from Clement of Rome, its circulation there was likely at an early date. The cumulative evidence thus suggests that the letter was addressed to Jewish Christians in Rome who suffered under the persecutions of Nero.

The combination of these circumstances and statements in the letter suggest its purpose. Though some have suggested that Hebrews was written foremost to combat an early Jewish perversion of Christian doctrine or as a generic tract to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity, key verses in the letter suggest that it was addressed to a particular community with a view to responding to an urgent need. The following verses are all suggestive:

Passage Exhortation End in View

2:1 We must pay more careful attention so that we do not . . . to what we have heard drift away

3:1 fix your thoughts on Jesus (cp. 12:2)

3:6 hold on to our courage and the

3:6 hope of which we boast

3:12 See to it . . . that none of you has a

. . . heart that turns away from the

living God

3:13 encourage one another daily so that none of you

may be hardened by

sin's deceitfulness

3:14 . . . if we hold firmly till the end the We have come to

confidence we had at first share in Christ . . .

4:1 let us be careful that none of you be

found to have fallen

short of it [rest]

4:11 Let us . . . make every effort to enter so that no one will

that rest fall

4:14 let us hold firmly to the faith we

profess

6:11 show this same diligence to the very in order to make your

end hope sure

10:23 Let us hold unswervingly to the

hope we profess

10:35 So do not throw away your it will be richly

confidence rewarded

10:36 You need to persevere so that when you

have done the will of

God, you will receive

what he has promised.

12:1 Let us run with perseverance the

12:1 race marked out for us

12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus (cp. 3:1)

12:3 Consider him who endured such so that you will not

opposition from sinful men grow weary and lose

heart

Hebrews is, without doubt, a theologically valuable document which presents a well arranged argument in defense of the superiority of the new covenant. Yet these verses suggest that the author had an immediate purpose in mind for his theology and his rhetoric - the encouragement of Christian brothers and sisters who, suffering under persecutions which threatened even martyrdom, were tempted to abandon their strength. In the midst of their suffering, our author sends his "short letter" and "word of exhortation" (13:22) that they might fix their eyes on Jesus (3:1; 12:2), whose greatness he demonstrates from their own beloved Scriptures and cherished heritage.

FORM AND STRUCTURE

Since Hebrews includes some of the formal features of an epistle (e.g., personal greetings and closing formula) but not others (e.g., typical introductory greeting or address), there has been much debate as to whether it is more of a letter or a sermon. However, this particular formulation of the genre question probably reads a sharper distinction between written and oral communication back into an era when rhetoric rarely made such a rigid separation. Other epistles in the New Testament were clearly written in the knowledge that they would be read in the presence of congregations. It is thus possible to argue that, though written, they should be viewed primarily as oral documents. Writing lengthy treatises with significant oral features was a typical "rhetorical" practice for the ancients (e.g., the "template" or model speeches of Isocrates and others). Hence, Hebrews could well have been constructed as a "written homily," i.e., a letter with sermonic features.

This is to propose a variation of Deissmann's suggestion that Hebrews could have been an example of Christian literary art (i.e., a kind of treatise). Guthrie's criticism - that the writer's purpose was too serious to be regarded in this light - assumes that literary art cannot be addressed to particular communities and urgent occasions, when in fact, rhetoric is chiefly defined by (1) its "addressed" nature and (2) its "contingent" character. The fact that it is addressed to specific communities, their circumstances and the demands of those circumstances is precisely what, according to Aristotle, distinguishes "rhetoric" from its counterpart "dialect." It is quite in keeping with at least one significant ancient rhetorical tradition to regard Hebrews as a written homily - an extended written treatise with significant oral features, addressed to a particular community with a view to responding to an urgent need.

Of what import is this conclusion? There is little value in examining Hebrews for exact correspondence to any particular classical scheme of rhetoric as some have done for (1) a strong case has been made that there is no single classical tradition of rhetoric and (2) our uncertainty about the identity of the author makes it impossible for us to do anything more than speculate about the possible significance of any such similarities.

There are several values, however, in recognizing the "rhetorical" nature of the document. First, this encourages us to keep in mind that, above all, Hebrews is an attempt to persuade its recipients (to take action, i.e., a case of deliberative rhetoric). Close attention should thus be paid to its argumentative dimensions. Also, as we attempt to follow the writer's development of thought, we should be alert for the use of rhetorical devices which signal transitions from argumentative sections to hortatory sections that address the contingiences of the community's situation. Further, apart from the complexities which separated competing rhetorical traditions in the ancient world, it is not inappropriate to look for evidence of the kinds of topoi (argumentative commonplaces) more widely employed and with which a well educated author was likely to be familiar. This should aid our understanding of the nature of the proofs employed by our author. Finally, it reminds us to seek the relevance of the subject matter of Hebrews in relationship to particular sets of life circumstances (persecution, suffering, temptation, and discouragement among them).

Hebrews is organized around a series of quotations from the Old Testament which are not only presented as argument but also developed with a variety of exegetical procedures (see below). If we use these quotations as a guideline for discerning its structure, the following picture of Hebrews emerges.

Chapter One is an introduction. This chapter is full of Old Testament quotations demonstrating Jesus' superiority over angels.

Chapter Two appeals to Psalm 8. Jesus rescues man by coming down beneath angels, joining man in flesh and blood, dying, and then returning to his place of exaltation above the angels. All who cling to him in faith return with him to the throne.

Chapters Three and Four deal with Psalm 95. God offers rest to all who trust him. The land of Canaan was not that rest, for this Psalm spoke of a rest long after the Israelites who wandered in the desert hardened their hearts and lost the rest which God offered to them. God's rest is still available for all who believe him.

Chapters Five, Six and Seven are organized around Psalm 110. Jesus is a priest like Melchizedek, who was also superior to the priesthood of the old covenant. Jesus, in fact, is a priest forever by God's oath.

Chapter Eight introduces Jeremiah 31. The new covenant, created by Jesus our great high priest, is superior to the old covenant. It is founded on better promises than the old covenant, which was a mere copy and shadow of this new covenant.

Chapters Nine and Ten treat Psalm 40. Jesus' living sacrifice of himself through obedience is far superior to the Old Testament sacrifices of dead bulls and goats repeatedly offered in the old tabernacle. Jesus took this sacrifice into the very presence of God, thus fully taking away sins and cleansing our consciences.

Chapter Eleven develops a theme from Habakkuk 2, that the righteous will live by faith. This principle by which we live is illustrated by numerous examples of people living by faith.

Chapter Twelve treats Proverbs 3. We must accept the discipline God brings upon us, for God disciplines those he loves.

Chapter Thirteen is the conclusion. It is full of exhortations on how to give ourselves to God in the life of faith.

Remove the introductory and concluding chapters for a moment and an interesting picture of the structure of the main body of thought emerges. The new covenant (chapter 8) is central, tying together his priesthood (chapters 5-7) and his sacrifice (chapters 9-10). This is prepared for by the offer of rescue (chapter 2) and rest (chapters 3-4) and followed by the re

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-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

ABBREVIATIONS

ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary

BAGD Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich-Danker Greek Lexicon (2nd. ed.)

BDB New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English

Lexicon

BDF Blass-Debrunner-Funk Greek Grammar

ISBE International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Bromiley)

KJV King James Version

LN Louw & Nida's Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains

LSJ Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek Lexicon

LXX Septuagint

MHT Moulton-Howard-Turner Greek Grammar

MM Moulton & Milligan's Vocabulary of Greek Testament

NASB New American Standard Bible

NIDNTT New International Dictionary of New Testament

Theology

NJB New Jerusalem Bible

RSV Revised Standard Version

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. by

Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich

ZPED Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

College: Hebrews (Outline)

OUTLINE

I. JESUS IS SUPERIOR TO THE ANGELS - 1:1-14

A. The Preeminence of the Son - 1:1-4

B. The Son Superior to the Angels - 1:5-14

II. JESUS RESCUES MAN - 2:1-18

A. Warning Not to Ignore Such a Great Salvation - 2:1-4

B. Jesus Became a Man to Bring Men to Glory - 2:5-18

III. GOD OFFERS REST TO ALL WHO TRUST HIM - 3:1-4:16

A. Jesus Is Superior to Moses - 3:1-6

B. Psalm 95:7-11 - 3:7-11

C. Hold Firm to the End - 3:12-15

D. Unbelieving Israelites Fell in the Desert - 3:16-19

E. A Sabbath-Rest for the People of God - 4:1-5

F. A Sabbath-Rest Remains - 4:6-11

G. The Message from God Does Its Part to Save Us - 4:12-13

H. Jesus, the Great High Priest - 4:14-16

IV. JESUS IS SUPERIOR TO THE PRIESTHOOD OF THE OLD COVENANT AND A PRIEST FOREVER BY GOD'S OATH - 5:1-7:28

A. Requirements of the High Priest - 5:1-4

B. Jesus Fulfills the Requirements and Offers Eternal Salvation - 5:5-10

C. [Excursus: Responding to God] - 5:11-6:12

1. Still Infants - 5:11-14

2. On to Maturity - 6:1-3

3. Those Who Fall Away - 6:4-8

4. Confident of Better Things - 6:9-12

D. God's Oath Makes His Purpose Sure - 6:13-20

E. Melchizedek Like the Son of God - 7:1-3

F. Melchizedek Greater than Abraham - 7:4-10

G. Jesus Is High Priest Based on His Resurrection which Introduces a Better Hope - 7:11-19

H. Jesus Is High Priest Based on God's Oath which Produces a Better Covenant - 7:20-22

I. Jesus' Resurrection Creates a Permanent Priesthood - 7:23-25

J. Jesus' Death Provides the Perfect Sacrifice - 7:26-28

V. THE NEW COVENANT BROUGHT BY JESUS OUR HIGH PRIEST IS SUPERIOR TO THE OLD COVENANT - 8:1-13

A. Our High Priest Reigns and Serves in the True Tabernacle, Prefigured by Old Testament Shadows - 8:1-5

B. Our High Priest Is Mediator of the New Covenant, Promised through the Prophet Jeremiah - 8:6-13

VI. JESUS' SACRIFICE OF HIMSELF IS SUPERIOR TO THE SACRIFICES OF THE OLD COVENANT AND SETS US FREE FROM SIN - 9:1-10:39

A. The Tabernacle and Its Tools - 9:1-5

B. The Day of Atonement - 9:6-10

C. Jesus' Sacrifice Cleanses Our Conscience - 9:11-14

D. Jesus' Death Inaugurates the New Covenant - 9:15-22

E. Jesus' Sacrifice Was Once for All - 9:23-28

F. Old Covenant Sacrifices Could Not Take Away Sin - 10:1-4

G. Christ Offered His Body to Make Us Holy - 10:5-10

H. Our High Priest Now Reigns - 10:11-14

I. Witness of the Holy Spirit through Jeremiah - 10:15-18

J. Let Us Draw Near to God and Spur One Another On - 10:19-25

K. The Judgment of God on Those Who Keep Sinning - 10:26-31

L. Reminder of Earlier Suffering - 10:32-34

M. The Need to Persevere - 10:35-39

VII. GOD EXPECTS US TO SHOW FAITH - 11:1-40

A. The Nature of Faith - 11:1-3

B. Faith Illustrated by Abel, Enoch, and Noah - 11:4-7

C. Faith Illustrated by Abraham - 11:8-19

D. Faith Illustrated by Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph- 11:20-22

E. Faith Illustrated by Moses - 11:23-28

F. Faith Illustrated in Israel - 11:29-38

G. God Planned to Make Them Perfect with Us - 11:39-40

VIII. GOD EXPECTS US TO ENDURE DISCIPLINE - 12:1-29

A. A Call to Perseverance - 12:1-3

B. The Word of Encouragement - 12:4-6

C. God Disciplines His Children - 12:7-11

D. Practical Actions - 12:12-17

E. Terrifying Mt. Sinai - 12:18-21

F. Mt. Zion, the Heavenly Jerusalem - 12:22-24

G. A Kingdom which Cannot Be Shaken - 12:25-29

IX. CONCLUDING EXHORTATIONS - 13:1-25

A. Keep Loving Each Other - 13:1-3

B. Stay Pure - 13:4-6

C. Remember Your Leaders - 13:7-8

D. Counterparts to Old Covenant Practices - 13:9-16

E. Obey Your Leaders and Pray for Us - 13:17-19

F. Benediction and Closing Exhortations - 13:20-22

G. Personal Greetings - 13:23-25

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV