Hebrews 12

Division 5. (Hebrews 12:1-29; Hebrews 13:1-25.)The responsibilities resulting from all this.

Hebrews 12:1-13

Section 1. (Hebrews 12:1-29; Hebrews 13:1-6.)That of steadfast continuance in the confession of faith. The last two chapters, forming the final division of the epistle, press the responsibilities resulting from all that has been before us. These divide, nearly with the chapters, into two parts, speaking first of steadfast continuance in the confession of their faith, through whatever difficulties, and lastly of the need of decisive separation from the “camp” of Judaism.

1. The first section seems again to divide into seven subsections: (1) The first of which urges concentration of energy in following One who is, whatever may be the encouragement from that of others, the unique Example, the Leader and Perfecter of faith. In the histories that remain of all these witnesses, still encompassing us, we have what is the principle of the path; and he urges, therefore, to lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily besets us, and run with patience the race set before us. For a runner in a race, to drop all unnecessary weights is imperative. The weight and the sin are quite different things, although so closely connected, as undoubtedly they are. A weight is something I take up when I need not; not a duty, for what is really a duty is never a weight. People may, of course, take up a weight and miscall it duty, and its misnomer will not hinder their finding it what it really is.

But it would be impossible for God to impose upon us as duty what would be in itself necessarily hurtful. On the other hand, the artificial life lived at the present day and the supposed responsibility of living up to one’s position among men, such like things do indeed often burden the back and make running well-nigh impossible. A racer’s heart is at the end of the road, and his motto is: “Forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching on to that which is before.” Just in proportion as he has the spirit of a racer will he measure things by his one desire to make progress in the race. The connection with sin, too, here, is most important. It is, no doubt, sin in the abstract, although there are sins which beset each of us in a special way. If we thought of it as of a pack of wolves at our heels, we should easily realize the connection of a weight with sin. You must drop the weight to distance the wolves. Amalek slew the hindermost of Israel. To get on in the road is the way to escape entanglements and the need of a battle.

Christ is the goal; and if our eyes are upon Him, we find at once the perfect Example and the energy for the way. “Author” in the common version is the same word as we have had before, both as “Leader” and “Originator.” The path for us is what He has made it; and He has completed it, gone through it Himself all the way. “The joy set before Him” was all that was to be the issue of His work, the fruit of the travail of His soul; for this He “endured the cross, despising the shame.” The cross itself He could not despise. In result He has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God; and the full compensation is at hand for Him. (2) This introduces the second subsection. It is not merely a race we have to run, but a battle to fight. We have to endure the contradiction of sinners as He endured. The Hebrews had suffered a good deal, but they must not, he tells them, be weary yet. They had not yet, as Christ Himself had, “resisted unto blood, wrestling against sin.” Of course, the sin here is that which is outside and around. It is a different conflict from that in Galatians 5:1-26, and of course, also, from that in Ephesians 6:1-24.

Here it is persecution, and not standing against the wiles of the devil, as there. Christ went on to death, and His followers must be prepared to do as He did; suffering with Him, as far as men are concerned. The suffering from God, that which made the cross what it was for Him, He alone endured; and there is no cup of that kind for us at all; no forsaking of God, but the very contrary. The suffering from men only brings Him in for us. “If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.” (3) On the other hand, as we find in the third subsection, there is a character of suffering on our part which was not and could not be His. For us there is discipline because of what we are, the trials by the way being overruled of God so that we should be thus made partakers of His holiness. As it is put in Romans, “Tribulation worketh patience,” the subduing of our wills to God; “and patience, experience,” the experience of what His will is, -“and experience, hope.” It may not be any positive failure that is here in view. The thorn in the flesh, for an apostle, was needed by him because of the abundance of the revelations which had been made to him, but of course, also, in view of the tendency native in him, as in others, to be lifted up. It was preventive, therefore -a conclusive argument against those views of perfection which would imply the removal of such tendencies from any one while here. This was a man who had been in the third heavens, hearing unspeakable things, which it was not lawful or possible for one to utter; yet even he needed such a preventive, and needed it to be continued, for his prayer for its removal was not answered in the way expected, but grace made him triumph over it. We must take care, moreover, -as we see of the argument of Job’s friends, which is now being elaborately put forth as wholesome Christian doctrine in some quarters -that one’s spiritual condition be not argued from the bodily one. “Beloved,” says the apostle to Gaius, “I wish in all things that thou prosper and be in health, even as thy soul doth prosper.” People would tell him now that there was very little need for him to have any trouble about that. “The Lord” in the quotation here in Hebrews -“the chastening of the Lord” -is really “Jehovah,” according to the usual rendering of the Septuagint and of our common version in the Old Testament. In 1 Corinthians 11:1-34, “chastened of the Lord” refers to the Lord Jesus. In Peter, also, “judgment must begin at the house of God” in chastening. The “house” in Peter is the house of living stones (1 Peter 2:1-25). In governmental dealings thus, it is much with us as with Moses on the mount. In governmental ways, clouds and darkness are still round about Him.

Like Moses, we cannot meet Him face to face; but after it is past, we see the glory of the back parts. “Afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to those” who, in the darkness, have been “exercised thereby.” The law was just such a government of God, but without the revelation of His face, as it has now been given us in Christ. Now, if as to special dealings the cloud is there, we yet know Him who is behind the cloud. Exercise is right as to what His ways mean, and we must not deem it a strange thing if we are left to the exercise. It is not intended that we should float lightly over everything. That which is from a Father’s hand has purpose in it, and is not to be treated lightly. Because it is a Father’s hand the purpose is blessing, and therefore there is no cause to faint under it. (4) And so he exhorts in the next subsection, which presses the practical ways that please God, and warns against departure from Him, according to the constant style of the epistle. There need be no discouragement. They must lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees. And withal they must make straight paths for their feet, so that even the lame may not be turned out of the way, but rather be healed of their lameness. It is in God’s path for us alone that power is found, whatever be the difficulties. The weaker we are, the more urgent should be our desire to walk where alone He can be with us; for what are all the difficulties then?

And here we find not only strength, but healing. “Peace with all men” was to be sought, also, not at the expense of holiness, but in holiness, which with the Lord is of the first necessity. Without it none shall see Him, and therefore they must look diligently to see that no one among them really lacked the grace of God, and so a root of bitterness spring up in their midst by which many might be defiled; for, alas, we have in us all that which makes us sensitive to such infection, and the presence of the evil shows already a lax condition which has allowed it to spring up. How a single act may discover a man’s character, as with Esau here! For a bit of food he sold his birthright; and the act characterized him as a profane person, one who habitually left God out of his thoughts. Yet he could desire the blessing, and sought it earnestly after he had lost it; just as Balaam could desire to “die the death of the righteous” while he had no thought of living their life. Thus “he found no place for repentance,” for this had only respect to the lost blessing and involved no judgment of his ways before God.

He valued the gain of godliness without the godliness, and the nature of God would have had to be changed to gratify him in that which was his sole desire. (5) Now we come to the contemplation of that to which faith brings the Christian. It is put in contrast with that which characterized Judaism; not, however, as to faith, but in experience. Faith might, as has been shown us, have put before the Jew also something of that which lies before the Christian; but the point is, what did the law do to help or hinder a soul in this glorious prospect? And here the apostle carries them back to the record of its beginning, that all might judge for themselves by the facts given. Israel came to mount Sinai, and there the nation had in spirit remained: a palpable mount indeed, and that burned with fire from the presence of God. With this an awful darkness, out of which the sound of a trumpet summoned attention, and then a Voice more dreadful than all, though with a distinct utterance of words, but not a gospel; for what had been the effect upon those that heard and saw? Touch they could not, for even the beast that touched was to be stoned; and their terror was so great that they begged that the word might be spoken to them no more; nay, even Moses, the mediator, said: “I exceedingly fear and quake.” Such was the character, then, of that dispensation: darkness from the face of God, obscurity as to the future; and when God drew nigh, it was but to inspire terror. Now what a contrast! Of that opened sanctuary, the ability to draw nigh, of the promise securing everything, the apostle has already spoken. He has only now, therefore, to put before them the prospect for heaven and for earth which lies unobscured on the horizon of faith -Jewish hope as well as Christian pictured in a few touches only, but which can be extended indefinitely from a multitude of scriptures. His object is not descriptive, but to point out some features of this glorious scene. Upon earth, first, mount Zion, the place of God’s choice in grace when everything had broken down in Israel (Psalms 78:68-70), and thus his abiding rest (Psalms 132:13-14). From this he rises to “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,” the corresponding centre of heavenly glory; which we must not confound, as some do, with the Church itself, which is mentioned apart, almost directly afterwards. It is the home of the saints, the common thought, and the more correct one. Next, we find “myriads of angels, the universal gathering,” taking in, it is to be supposed, all ranks and orders of these heavenly beings. And next, “the assembly of the first-born ones whose names are enrolled in heaven,” in contrast with Israel, who are God’s first-born people en-registered on earth. These are the true heirs, the “brethren,” among whom Christ is the First-born in necessary pre-eminence. These, then, are distinguished plainly from the city of God already spoken of. Next, we rise to “God the Judge of all,” the sovereign awarder to every one of place and service and recompense. This is why, in the holy city, the sevens which we might expect to characterize it are expanded into twelves, the number of manifest divine government. Seven Isaiah 4+3, as twelve Isaiah 4X3. The twelve is thus an expanded seven; and where can perfection be more secured than by God being in absolute supremacy, His will the complete settlement of everything for His creatures? We have, then, the “spirits of just men made perfect,” which certainly are Old Testament saints distinguished as a company from “the assembly of the first-born ones.” “Just men” is the natural title of the Old Testament saints, and the “spirits of just men” show them to be a company that has come under death, which will not be true of the Christian assembly as a whole, which remains here until the coming of the Lord. “Made perfect” is for these by resurrection, and will be accomplished at the same time for them as for us, as the last verse of the eleventh chapter says: “that they without us should not be made perfect.” We are then reminded of the foundation of all blessing, “Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and the blood of sprinkling,” which has been already fully spoken of. These things we have as Christians “come to.” That is, nothing lies, that we can see, between us and them. As heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, they all have to do with us, and are of full personal interest to us. (6) The sixth subsection reaches to the end of the chapter. It is another of the many warnings of this epistle, and reminds all that there is a limit to the divine patience. How great the responsibility of refusing this divine Voice which now speaks in such marvelous grace from heaven! The Voice at Sinai shook the earth, but now, “once more,” He is going to “shake, not the earth only, but also heaven.” If but “once more,” that must imply the removal of everything that can be shaken, that all afterwards may remain absolutely unmoved. How blessed to know, then, that the kingdom that we have received is among the things that cannot be shaken! But let us have grace, therefore, to “serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.” All that is not according to His mind is destined to perish in that fire. (7) In the seventh subsection the apostle adds some words of exhortation as to the filling out of the acceptable service on the part of those upon the earth created of God, though disordered by sin and that which is attendant upon it. They are of very simple character, and need no interpretation to make them understood. He urges the continuance of brotherly love, the maintenance of hospitality, the sympathetic linking themselves with those enduring imprisonment or suffering injury of any kind, as being themselves also in the body. He urges the holding of that in honor which God had instituted at the beginning, and that the manner of life should be without covetousness, content with whatever God might see best for them here, it being sufficient to know that He has promised never to forsake his own, so that they might say, in fearless reckoning upon Him as their Helper, they would not fear what man could do to them.