Throughout the book of Hebrews, our author has been trying to encourage his audience not to abandon faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. His fear is that those who were raised up in Judaism would be attracted back to the legalistic method of salvation—trying to be righteous, to be good enough. Throughout the book, the preacher has been warning them—a total of five times—not to go back to the ineffective legal system of offerings and sacrifices and external holiness. But trying to pursue holiness in our own strength is like fighting in quicksand. The more you try, the worse shape you end up in.
Today we come to this last warning. It is found in the last portion of Hebrews 12.
25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27 This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.
R. Kent Hughes reminds us that…
During Christianity’s second century, a notable heretic by the name of Marcion came to power in Asia Minor. Though he was excommunicated early on, his destructive teaching lingered for nearly two centuries. Marcion taught the total incompatibility of the Old and New Testaments. He believed there was a radical discontinuity between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament—between the Creator and the Father of Jesus. So Marcion created a new Bible for his followers that had no Old Testament and a severely hacked-up New Testament that consisted of only one Gospel (an edited version of Luke) and ten select and edited Pauline epistles (excluding the Pastorals). His views were spelled out in his book Antitheses, which set forth the alleged contradictions between the Testaments. Tertullian in his famous Against Marcion wrote a five-volume refutation.
But Marcionism never completely died out, and in the nineteenth century, especially, with the rise of liberalism, it underwent a revival among those who wished to separate what they considered to be the crude and primitive parts of the Old Testament from the New. Friedrich Schleiermacher, the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century father of liberalism, said the Old Testament has a place in the Christian heritage only by virtue of its connections with Christianity. He felt it should be no more than an appendix of historical interest. Adolph Harnack argued that the Reformers should have dropped it from the canon of authoritative writings. Likewise, there are thousands today who have rejected the Old Testament either formally or in practice.
The error of this kind of approach was pointed out by another liberal, Albert Schweitzer, who demonstrated that such thinking amounts to choosing aspects of God that fit one’s man-made theology. Men project their own thoughts about God back up to him and create a god of their own thinking. Anyone who is in touch with modern culture knows that this kind of reasoning—Marcionism—is alive and well.
You see this today in those people who only want to focus on God’s love—that God is love and accepts everyone no matter how they are living their lives in sin. Hughes goes on to say…
What does this have to do with us who hold both Testaments to be the inerrant, infallible Word of God? Very much! You see, Marcionism is subtly alive in the evangelical enterprise’s understanding of God. Of course, it is true that the New Testament gives us a fuller revelation of God and that we do not live under the Old Testament. Nevertheless, the God we worship is still the same God. But, sadly, many Christians today are so ignorant of their Bibles, especially the Old Testament, that they have a tragically sentimentalized idea of God—one that amounts to little more than a Deity who died to meet their needs; the sin question is minimized or ignored. The result is the incredible paradox of evangelicals who “know Jesus” but who do not know who God is—unwitting Marcionites! (Hebrews, Volume 2, pp. 197-198)
The remedy for this travesty is the Bible as a whole, specifically both Sinai in the old covenant and Zion in the new covenant—each of which present a vision of God.
From Mount Sinai we learn, in Moses’ words, that God is” a consuming fire”—“Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God. . . . For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Deuteronomy 4:23, 24). The vision is spectacular—a mountaintop raging with “fire to the heart of heaven” (Deuteronomy 4:11)—cloaked with a deep darkness—lightning illuminating golden arteries in the clouds—celestial rams’ horns overlaying the thunder with mournful blasts—the ground shaking as God’s voice intones the Ten Commandments. God is transcendentally “other,” perfectly good and holy. He radiates wrath and judgment against sin. God is unapproachable.
We still need this vision of God today. God hasn’t changed. He is still “a consuming fire.” God’s wrath against sin still burns. We trivialize God as a God who is just there to meet our needs when we fail to remember that He is still a God who judges sin and sinners.
According to Deuteronomy 4:24 God is a consuming fire because He is “a jealous God.” His jealousy burns because He deeply loves us and will brook no rivals for our affection. The jealousy of Yahweh is His profoundly intense drive within to protect the interest of His own glory (Exodus 20:4-6; Ezekiel 39:25), for He will admit no derogation from His majesty.
John Piper, in a sermon entitled, “The Lord Whose Names is Jealous,” says, “The jealousy of God for your undivided love and devotion will always have the last say. Whatever lures your affections away from God with deceptive attraction will come back to strip you bare and cut you in pieces (Eze. 16:38-40). It is a horrifying thing to use your God-given life to commit adultery against the Almighty. But for those of you who have been truly united to Christ and who keep your vows to forsake all others and cleave only to Him and live for His honor – for you the jealousy of God is a great comfort and a great hope. Since God is infinitely jealous for the honor of His name, anything and anybody who threatens the good of His faithful wife will be opposed with divine omnipotence.
We need to remember this, even as New Covenant Christians, we must remember that the God we trust in for our salvation through Jesus Christ is a God who is jealous for our affection and allegiance and burns with jealous wrath when that is betrayed. Sin is not primarily legal; it is primarily relational. We break God’s heart when we sin.
Awareness of God’s holiness and the depth of our sin is the precondition of personal renewal. (Richard Lovelace; Renewal As a Way of Life, 10) We need to embrace the bad news about ourselves before the good news of the gospel will be desirable to us.
Of course, we also just as vitally need the vision of God at Mount Zion. A God of love who did not spare His only Son, the Son He loves, in order to die on the cross for our sins. There on the cross we see God the Son dying for our sins and extending forgiveness to all who will believe in him, trusting his work alone for salvation.
Both mountains reveal the truth about God. We cannot deny them or separate them. Both visions must be held in blessed tension within our souls—consuming fire and consuming love. This will save us from the damning delusion of Marcion! The massive dual revelation of the mountains is meant to shape our pilgrimage. The question we must ask is, how then are we to march? What are we to do? The answer? Obey and worship.
We ought to obey because God’s word is undeniably effectual: “See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven” (v. 25).
The writer shifts now from exposition to exhortation. He wants them to stick with Jesus Christ. The writer uses two synonyms to emphasize the direction they were heading in the words “refused” and “reject.” Refusing could be the more polite term here, with the idea of “begging off” from a former agreement. Rejecting is the stronger term, emphasizing an action “turning around” in the opposite direction.
Verse 25 is telling us that God’s Word will have the last say. Whatever it promises or warns about will happen.
This is what is called in logic an a fortiori argument (or what the Hebrews called the Qal wa-ḥomer argument); it is an argument that argues that what is true in the lesser case will be even more true in the greater.
In the lesser case, God’s earthly (“on earth”) warning at Sinai first suffered subtle refusal by the Israelites when they “beg[ged] that no further messages be spoken to them” (12:19; cf. Exodus 20:19)—though their refusal there at Sinai was more from fear than from outright rejection of God. However, in the years that followed, they explicitly refused God’s word by repeated disobedience during the four decades of wandering in the wilderness. So grievous was their disobedience that Numbers 14:29 records that God pronounced judgment in that everyone who was twenty and older would die in the desert. And, indeed, none did escape except faithful Caleb and Joshua. A million plus corpses littered the floor of the desert.
Considering the inescapable penalty for disobeying God’s earthly message, how much greater will the penalty be in the greater instance of disobeying his heavenly message of grace through his Son (cf. 1:2)? The implication is that there will be no escaping the punishment justly due for this rejection.
Simply put, the greater the revelation, the greater the responsibility to obey it. Jesus acknowledged this when he said to the Galileans in His day (Matthew 11:20-24):
20 Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”
By making this choice and the consequences crystal clear to his readers, the writer hopes to turn them from this path of turning from Jesus Christ back to law keeping.
This, of course, has been the writer’s message all along. In 2:3a he warned, “How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” Later in 10:28, 29 he said much the same thing, emphasizing greater punishment:
Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?
Thus, our author starts by saying, “See that you do not refuse him who is speaking.” That would be God who was speaking. Also, the previous verse mentioned the sprinkled blood of Jesus that speaks redemption to us freely provided by the Lamb of God.
Our author is using a figure of speak known as a litotes, namely, a negative way of saying: “Listen to Him!” Hebrews opened with God speaking (Heb. 1:1-2) with the ultimate revelation being through the Son and our author is warning them of the danger of not listening, of rejecting what He is saying.
In any church today and in the past there are people who have heard God’s Word taught again and again, who have experienced the joys of Christian fellowship, touches of the Holy Spirit and experiences of countless blessings, but it is still very possible that so many never had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ because they failed to trust in Christ and entrust themselves to God’s keeping.
These Hebrew Christians were in danger, like their forefathers under Moses, of stopping their ears against the voice of God. So our author wants them to know—your forefathers did not escape and neither will you. The message is so clear: we had better obey God’s Word because his threat that no one who disobeys will escape is inescapably effectual. It is a “done deal.” It will definitely happen. No person will escape who refuses the gospel! God is a relentless “consuming fire” and will make sure of that!
If this is not sufficient reason to obey the God of the two mountains, there is another, and that is that his word is final, as the writer goes on to explain: “At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain” (vv. 26, 27).
The initial historical event where God’s voice shook the earth was at Mount Sinai when he verbally spelled out the Ten Commandments with a thunderous voice. Imagine how terrifying it was to have the ground under one’s feet tremble in response to God’s audible word. There were no sleepers in the congregation at Sinai!
Again, our author argues from the lesser to the greater, pointing out what happened “at that time” at Sinai is now surpassed by another shaking, a greater shaking. Here the writer has quoted God’s promise from Haggai 2:6—“Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens” (v. 26b)—indicating that every created thing will be shaken to utter disintegration.
Genesis tells us that it is with a word that He created everything. In the end, it will be His Word which causes everything to dissolve.
The psalmist tells us that creation is transitory: “Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment” (Psalm 102:25, 26; cf. Hebrews 1:10–12).
Isaiah says of the future, “Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the LORD of hosts in the day of his fierce anger” (Isaiah 13:13).
And Peter identifies it with the day of the Lord: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed” (2 Peter 3:10).
Think of it! All one hundred thousand million galaxies—each containing at least that many stars—each galaxy one hundred light-years across—will hear the word and shake out of existence! Just a little word from God, and it is done.
In Revelation 20:11-21:1 we read…
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
The earthquake at Sinai is nothing compared to the cosmic upheavals at the second coming of Christ!
God’s Word is much more powerful than anyone has ever experienced and if it created such fear and dread at Sinai, it should fill our hearts with fear and trembling now as well. This is why Isaiah 66:2 recommends: “All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”
Philip Edgecombe Hughes concludes: “But, terrifying though such a prospect is, it is also good news for those who are God’s faithful people, for the final shaking, which is the completion of judgment, is also the completion of salvation” (A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 558)
Those things which cannot be shaken” refer to the things of “a kingdom that cannot be shaken” (v. 28). This one final quake will differentiate between what is of eternal value and what is of only temporal use. And this “final, eschatological earthquake is designed precisely to differentiate between what loves God and serves God and exists for his glory as over against all in creation that opposes him. Simply put, everything that is righteous will remain and everything that is unrighteous will be destroyed” (John Piper). Stick with what remains!
“For the people of God, who belong to the order of things which are unshakable, the removal of all that is insecure and imperfect is something to be eagerly anticipated; for this final shaking of heaven and earth is necessary for the purging and eradication from the universe of all that is hostile to God and his will, for the establishment of all that, being in harmony with the divine mind, is permanent , and for the inauguration of the new heaven and the new earth, that is, the renewed or ‘changed’ creation, in which all God’s purpose in creation are brought to everlasting fulfillment at the consummation of the redemption procured in and by Christ (Rev, 21:1ff 2 Peter 3:10-13); and this will take place with the return of Christ in glory and majesty (Rev. 19:11)” (Philip Edgecombe Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 558).
There could hardly be a more startling conclusion to this letter for these Jewish Christian readers who were considering turning away from the faith. Failure to listen to God, refusing to accept all that he has done, will bring catastrophe. (Bruce Barton, Life Application Bible Commentary: Hebrews, 227)
Grace Still Amazes 