Hebrews 12
12:1-3. Here is the conclusion we are to draw from the testimony of the faithful witnesses who surround us like a great cloud: Like a runner in a race, cast off every encumbrance, and the entanglement of sin. Run the race with endurance. No one endured more suffering and shame at the hands of unbelievers than Jesus. Yet, for the joy set before him, he endured such hostility even to death on the cross, and he now is seated enthroned in heaven at the Father’s right hand. If we are not to grow weary and lose heart, we must look to how Jesus conducted himself as a man, and the outcome of it, and persevere. He is the author and perfecter of faith (cf. 2:10; and reflect on Ps. 27:8. Faith comes by his command, as Lazarus from the tomb). Apart from him, there is no faith to persevere in.
The cloud of witnesses (1) refers to chapter 11, and also cf. v.23, the spirits of righteous men made perfect to which we have come. We are not alone in our struggles, nor the first to have our faith tested. I remember being drafted into the army in 1954 at age 19, riding away from home for the first time, wondering how I would do at the training camp in Texas. I was pretty sure the camp name, Fort Bliss, was a misnomer. But I thought of all those millions of young men who had been called to service “for the duration” just a decade before. They were my childhood heroes, and several of whom I knew never returned. Any hardships ahead of me in a time of peace suddenly seemed small. I was humbled to follow in the path of their boots. How much more we owe to the Captain of our salvation, and to those who have assembled to him before us.
12:4-13. The main sin in view here is apostasy, giving up the struggle under pressure, and turning away from the Lord. When we begin to waver and lose heart in our striving against sin, it is because we have forgotten both the blood that bought us out of sin, and God’s word that exhorts us to consider the loving purpose behind God’s discipline. Those who are at ease in this fallen world, and at peace with their sinful natures, are not God’s sons (8). They have a different father (cf. John 8:41, 44).
The quote in vv. 5-6 is Prov. 3:11-12. See also Ps. 119:71, 75; 1 Cor. 11:32; Rev. 3:19.
Even good earthly fathers discipline their children (7, 9). How much more should we yield to the wisdom of God in his discipline, even though it may seem to be nothing but sorrow at the time (11; cf. Prov. 13:24; 23:13-14).
The good parent could perhaps find seven tests for the proper discipline of children in the verses before us: 1. Proper discipline is an act of love (6); 2. It is a natural function of a parent (7-9); 3. It builds respect (9); 4. It is for the good of the child, and is a training in holiness (10); 5. Like pruning a fruit tree, it is a temporary sorrow that afterward yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness (11); 6. It should strengthen rather than weaken (12); 7. It leads to self-discipline and healing of the character, much like physical therapy does the body (13).
It is important to note that this advice applies not only to the strengthening and healing of the individual soul, but perhaps primarily to the mutual care of the corporate body members (12, 13; cf. 15).
12:14-17. As far as it depends on us (Ro. 12:18), we are to pursue peace with all men, as well as sanctification, which is a growth in holiness that is the work of God’s free grace, and should be the mark of every true child of God (8, 10-11). It is clear that any peace with men that destroys our pursuit of holiness and comes short of the grace of God (15) is really the shoot of the bitter root of apostasy springing up to cause trouble (cf. Deut. 29:18 ff.). If allowed to grow unchecked, many will be defiled by it. Peace in the church must be based on mutual aid and encouragement in the pursuit of sanctification, not on a failure to confront sin. That is not the discipline that produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness (11), but the poison that brings the kind of irredeemable loss suffered by Esau. After selling away his birthright for a temporal triviality, no amount of tears after the fact could change what had been done by his father Isaac before God. Esau could not inherit a blessing given to another. His sorrow was like that of the remorse of Judas.
12:16. The specific example of a sinner mentioned is the fornicator (translated as immoral person). Like Esau’s sin, fornication is an unrestrained fleshly appetite. It is rampant in our culture, and widely tolerated in the church. It leads to guilt, the destruction of children in the womb, the breakup of marriage and the family, and ultimately the loss of the eternal blessing. The grace of God has limits. When sin goes unchallenged, we act as though coming short of God’s grace were easily repaired, and that his holiness and the blood of the covenant were a trifle.
12:18-24. How great are the advantages we who live in the fullness of time have over Moses and the people who were given the law at Mount Sinai. The words of the old covenant, and the way it came to them, struck terror even in Moses. But we have come to the spiritual Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God.
We have come to tens of thousands of holy angels, and the assembled hosts of the faithful that surround us like a cloud (1), the spirits of those righteous men made perfect (23). Verse 23: The com. says “first-born [ones]”, plural in Greek. We are one with Christ, and share His privileges: heirs together with Christ. We have come to the church of God’s first-born, Jesus (cf. 1:6). He is the mediator of the new covenant, and his sprinkled blood has a better message than the blood of Able, for it speaks of propitiation, i.e., of the wrath of God turned away, perfect justice satisfied, and grace extended even to us in Christ’s atonement. How differently speaks the blood of Abel, which witnesses of Cain’s crime, and cries out to God for justice (Gen. 4:4, 10; Rev. 6:9-10; cf. Heb. 13:20). Make no mistake. Apart from God’s grace, in our fallen natures we are to identify ourselves with Cain, not the wronged Able. But by God’s grace, God now identifies us with Jesus.
12:25-29. In truth, the consequences at stake under Christ’s covenant are even more serious than the typical earthly warnings and shakings when the old covenant was given. Those who did not heed God then lost their temporal lives in the desert, but the judgment to come will spare nothing in heaven or earth, except the everlasting Kingdom of God. Our Savior now reigns over it according to the Father’s will. What grace is this that we should share his inheritance through the blood of the eternal covenant? (Cf. 13:20). In gratitude, by his grace we offer an acceptable service, and worship our God in reverence and awe, for his holiness is a consuming fire. Yet, like Moses’ bush, we are not consumed.