Our author (of Hebrews) is attempting to keep his audience–who were New Covenant believer–to stick with the new covenant and its blessings. Last week we noticed that we “have come” (a past action with continuing benefits now) to a new place (Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem) and we are accompanied by “innumerable angels in festal gathering.” Today we’re continuing to go through this amazing list of New Covenant blessings…
22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
Fourth, we come to God —“and to God, the judge of all” (v. 23b). Although the scene in Zion to which we come is a joyous festival, it is not a casual thing. We dare not come flippantly. We come to Zion to meet the very God of Sinai, who is Judge of all.
We come to God, the Lover of our souls, the One who chose us before the foundation of the world to be His children, the One who has secured our pardon through the blood of His Son. It is the saint’s delight to “see his face” (Rev. 22:4) and to dwell forever in His presence.
When it comes to “seeing God,” of course He is still spirit and thus invisible to even our resurrection eyes. We see Him in Christ. Our “sight” of God, in Christ, will be both immediate and continue to ripen forever. It will never become static and, as Edwards writes, never boring: “After they have had the pleasure of beholding the face of God millions of ages, it will not grow a dull story; the relish of this delight will be as exquisite as ever” (“The Pure in Heart Blessed,” Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2).
The infinite God will never be done showing us the immeasurable riches of his grace, or the full vista of himself, coming to us in love, not wrath.
We have come to this God of greatness and goodness, but this God is also “the judge of all.”
We understand regarding him that “no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (4:13). We also know that he said, “‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay.’ And as our author will soon say, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (10:30, 31).
Thus, the apostle Peter encourages us, “Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.” We come to God’s presence not with abject fear and horror, but with reverent fear. We do not come to Him in craven dread, but with highest reverence.
How could it possibly be a joy to come to a God who is judge of all? One reason is that these were persecuted people. It would be a joy to them to realize that one day the judge of all would make all things right, would avenge them for the wrongs done to them. When God judges wicked Babylon in the end times, the saints are encouraged (and likely obey): “Rejoice over her, you heavens! Rejoice, you people of God! Rejoice, apostles and prophets! For God has judged her with the judgment she imposed on you.”
Also, we can rejoice because we know that God will reward everything that we have done for the name of Christ. As Hebrews 6:10 reminds us, “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.” Therefore, we should not lose heart, but continue to do good. So we are encouraged in verse Galatians 6:9, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
Third, we can rejoice that we have come to the Judge, who is God of all, because living with that awareness will keep us from sinning and ruining our joy. Who would commit a crime right in front of the police or while standing before the judge in court? Knowing that God will judge causes us to make sure we are living in holiness every moment, so that “we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming” (1 John 2:28).
Mount Zion doesn’t do away with God as “judge of all.” Rather, the work Jesus did on Mount Zion satisfies the justice of God, bringing forth “the spirits of the righteous made perfect.”
“Being made perfect means that they have finished their race, are totally delivered from all sin, and enjoy the reward of God’s presence” (John Owen, Crossway Classic Commentaries: Hebrews, 255)
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; 5:9), is naturally suggested by the mention of “the just made perfect” at their resurrection (compare Heb 7:22). Because Jesus has borne God’s wrath and satisfied His justice against us through the cross, we now can join the heavenly worship around the throne and sing the miracle of His grace as forgiven sinners.
This refers to all of the saints who have died and gone to heaven. They have not yet received their new resurrection bodies, which awaits the second coming of Christ, but their spirits are made perfect. They are absent from the body, but present with the Lord. For them, all temptation and sin is over. They are completely righteous in Christ, and will be throughout all eternity. Although we are still in the body, fighting against sin, we are one with these saints, and one day soon we will be with them in heaven.
We share a solidarity with those who have gone before us. The same spiritual life courses through us as through them. We share the same secrets as Abraham and Moses and David and Paul. Here is an amazing thing—they died millennia before us, but God planned, according to 11:40, “that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” They waited for centuries for the perfection we received when we trusted Christ, because that came only with Christ’s death—“by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (10:14). Because of Christ’s work we are not one whit inferior to the patriarchs, for through Christ we are all equal in righteousness!
Most importantly of all these blessings of the New Covenant, we “come…to Jesus, the mediator of [that] new covenant” (Heb. 12:24a). Our author holds the best benefit of the New Covenant to the last. “This climactic fact is the very basis of all that has been described beginning in verse 22. And the reference to the new covenant here redirects the reader to one of the author’s central arguments (7:22; 8:6–13; 9:15)” (Donald A. Hagner, Hebrews, Understanding the Bible Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011), 226
Significantly, Christ’s human name [Jesus], recalling the Incarnation, is used here because we have come to the man “like us, and the man for us” (Raymond Brown, The Message of Hebrews (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1982), p. 24).
Moses was the mediator of the old covenant, but as great as he was, he, too, trembled fearfully at Mount Sinai (cf. v. 21). But through Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, we can draw near to the throne of grace with boldness. The promises of the new covenant are sure, for they are in Jesus. He is the source and dispenser of all for which we hope. He is in us, and we are in him.
There is only one mediator between God and man, as Paul tells us, “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). We needed a mediator because through our sin we had become enemies of God, and as such rebels we were destined to experience God’s wrath. Ever since the fall of humanity, sinners have been unable to approach God without going through a mediator. In the Old Testament, it was the priesthood that mediated between a holy God and sinful man. But as the book of Hebrews has pointed out again and again, they were insufficient, in that they, too, were sinners and eventually they died. We needed a mediator who was not a sinner, but completely holy, and One who lives forever. Thus, there is only One who truly fulfills the vocation of mediator between God and human beings, and that is “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).
Stephen Charnock, in his magisterial The Existence and Attributes of God, says, “God, apart from Christ, is an angry, offended Sovereign. Unless we behold Him in and through Christ, the Mediator, the terrors of His Majesty would overwhelm us. We dare not approach the Father except in Christ because of our sins. We first fasten our eyes upon Christ, then upon the Father. If Christ does not bear our guilt and reconcile us unto God, we perish! Before any man can think to stand before the face of God’s justice or be admitted to the secret chamber of God’s mercy or partake of the riches of His grace, he must look to the Mediator, Christ Jesus.”
Like Paul, our author stresses the humanity of Christ in today’s passage as a reminder that Jesus shares in our humanity so that we can be joined to Him and thus stand before God. Moreover, it must be noted that to be an effective mediator, Christ must be truly God and truly man. A mediator is a go-between who can represent the interests of both parties. As God, Christ brings divine justice and mercy to bear on our relationship to our Creator, and as man, Christ brings the perfect human obedience we need to be reconciled to God.
The ”new covenant” does not employ the usual term (kaine), as applied to this covenant in Heb. 9:15, which would mean new as different from, and superseding the old; but rather the term nea, “recent,” “lately established,” having the “freshness of youth,” as opposed to aged.
It is this “new covenant” in which we now, in this age of grace, participate, enabling us to enjoy all the spiritual benefits predicted by Ezekiel and Jeremiah.
The “sprinkled blood,” the seventh benefit of the New Covenant, refers to the sacrificial work of atonement which Jesus effected from the cross. The Old Covenant was ratified by the sprinkling of blood. Exodus 24:8 records: “Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.’” The reason Christ’s people are able to be on Mount Zion is that blood has again been shed (see esp. Heb. 9:15-22), fulfilling the model of the ceremonial “sprinklings” of blood in the OT (Heb. 9:13, 19, 21).
David Guzik notes that there were three occasions for the sprinkling of blood in the Old Testament. As we’ve mentioned, there was the establishment of Sinai or Old Covenant (Exodus 24:5-8). But there was also sprinkling of blood at the ordination of Aaron and his sons (Exodus 29:2). And then there was the special situation of the purification ceremony for a cleansed leper (Lev. 14:6-7). Guzik says, “The sprinkling of the blood of Jesus on us accomplishes the same things. First, a covenant is formed, then we are ordained as priests to Him, and finally we are cleansed from our corruption and sin. Each of these is ours through the work of Jesus on the cross.”
The Apostle Peter says of the believers in Asia Minor, “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance” (1 Peter 1:2).
Why bring up Abel here in this comparison between the blood of Jesus and the blood of Abel? He had nothing to do with Sinai or 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 …” (William Lane, Hebrews 9—13, p. 474. Cf. Casey, pp. 380-82)
The “blood of Abel” does not mean the blood he shed in his martyrdom. Rather, it was the blood of the sacrifice he made – the first recorded sacrifice from man to God in the Bible. It “speaks better” because it cries out to God for mercy and pardon on behalf of those for whom Jesus shed it. For the last of twelve times in all, the author uses the word “better,” this time to describe the blessed gospel message of forgiveness spoken by Jesus’ blood. (Richard E. Lauersdorf, The People’s Bible: Hebrews, 166)
Again, the writer confronts his readers with the superiority of Jesus’ blood as over against that of the any other sacrifices.
“Abel’s blood cried out for vengeance (11:4), but Jesus’ blood speaks a better word, assuring us of forgiveness and acceptance. All must face the judgment of God, but those who trust in the atoning power of Jesus’ death can look forward to acquittal and life for ever in God’s presence” (David G. Peterson, “Hebrews,” in New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, ed. D. A. Carson et al., 4th ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), p. 1351)
“In 11:4 our author took note of Abel, writing that “by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.” Here, however, the reference appears to be to Genesis 4:10, where the blood of Abel “cries out to me from the ground.” This is the message of the blood of Abel. But the blood of Christ speaks of better things—most conspicuously of the forgiveness of sins associated with the inauguration of the new covenant (8:12; 10:17f.). Christ’s atoning blood speaks of the end of the old covenant and the establishment of the new. It is this blood that has brought the readers to the benefits of the new covenant and to their present glorious status wherein they have begun to experience the fulfillment, the goal of God’s saving purposes, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Donald A. Hagner, Hebrews, Understanding the Bible Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011), pp. 226–227)
Whether we understand the latter as meaning the blood of Abel’s sacrifice or Abel’s own blood which was shed by Cain, it is still true that Christ’s blood speaks more graciously.
The blood of Abel cried, justice must be satisfied, bring vengeance. The blood of Jesus cried, justice has been satisfied, bring mercy.
As fellow-pilgrims in the great marathon, we must not veer off course toward Sinai, because Jesus has met Sinai’s great demands for holiness and perfection at Calvary atop Mount Zion.
To run and work the law commands,
Yet gives me neither feet nor hands;
But better news the gospel brings;
It bids me fly, and gives me wings.
So the question of the day is “Where are you living?” As a believer in Jesus Christ, you “have come” to a new place with new companions and better benefits. But are you living there? Are you living on Mount Sinai, trying to earn acceptance with a holy God by keeping His law? If so, you should be in terror, because it is impossible to meet the demands of His holiness.
I mentioned last week that legalism is our default mode. Why? Because everything in our childhood and adult life reinforces that if we want to experience the approval of others, if we want to experience advancement in work or sports, if we want to feel good about ourselves, we have to work at it; we have to produce.
The wonderful thing about Jesus Christ is that He has done all the work so that we can rest in Him and what He has done for us through the cross and resurrection.
So, if you have trusted in Christ, keep looking to him. Stay focused on what He has already done for you. Remind yourself of every spiritual blessing you have in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:3-14). Yes, you must “work out” your salvation, but you “work out” what God is “work{ing] in you” (Philippians 2:12-13). You don’t produce good on your own. You do it in dependence upon and in union with Jesus Christ.
Also, it is important for us to maintain a balance between familiar fellowship with God our Father and reverential fear of God our judge. We are to draw near to His throne to receive grace for our every need (Hebrews 4:16), but we also need to remember that “our God is a consuming fire” (12:29).
All of this is to show these Jewish Christians that they should not even consider going back and preferring the religion of Mount Sinai to the relationship of Mount Zion. These seven differences between Mount Sinai and Mount Zion show the clear superiority of the latter.
Grace Still Amazes 