Grace Still Amazes

So far in our study of Hebrews 13 we’ve discussed two ways we show the depth in which God has changed our lives, from selfish individuals to people who truly love others—loving our siblings in Christ, and loving strangers (sometime outside of Christ).

1 Let brotherly love continue. 2Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 3Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.

The third exhortation to love is towards the imprisoned.  “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body” (Heb. 12:3).  These were people you could no longer invite into your home, so our author encourages us to go to them. These were not people in prison because they had committed crimes, but because they were Christians who stood up for Jesus Christ.  Our author is encouraging them to care about these people.  So  what about those who, robbed of their freedom, cannot visit our homes, but long for us to visit them?  Do we care?

R. Kent Hughes relates this story:

Herman Melville in his novel White Jacket has one of the ship’s sailors became desperately ill with severe abdominal pain.  The ship’s surgeon, Dr. Cuticle, waxes enthusiastic at the possibility of having a real case to treat, one that challenges his surgeon’s ability.  Appendicitis is the happy diagnosis.  Dr. Cuticle recruits some other sailors to serve as his attendants.

The poor seaman is laid out on the table, and the doctor goes to work with skillful enthusiasm.  His incisions are precise, and while removing the diseased appendix he proudly points out interesting anatomical details to his seaman-helpers who had never before seen the inside of another human.  He is completely absorbed in his work and obviously a skilled professional. It is an impressive performance, but the sailors—without exception—are not impressed but are rather appalled.  Why?  Their poor friend, now receiving his last stitch, has long been dead on the table! Dr. Cuticle had not even noticed (Eugene H. Peterson, Working the Angles (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), p. 74).

Cold Dr. Cuticle—a man with ice water in his veins—was insensitive and void of empathy.  We might lack empathy today, not because we are cold professionals, but because we have experienced compassion fatigue.

In the mid-’80s Neil Postman wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death, which explored how media affects public discourse.  He made the observation that before the telegraph, people found out about tragedies, fires or illness by word of mouth.  They felt empowered because they were responding to local situations.  They could express their compassion concretely and immediately.

Then, in 1906, when news of the San Francisco earthquake was telegraphed across the country, people were horrified but didn’t know what to do.  Since the turn of the last century, there has been an exponential increase in the amount of news we hear or read from every corner of the globe.  In turn, there is an increasing sense of disempowerment or impotency in the face of such suffering and pain because we don’t know what we can do.

Add to that our addiction to our phones and we find that our attention to others is eroded, our penchant for communicating our anger has increased, and even the fact that everyone is one their phones only serves to alienate us from one another.

So empathy and compassion are in short supply these days.  But our author wanted his original audience, who faced their own obstacles to empathy and compassion, as well as us today with our challenges, to…

Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.

“The prisoners” in view were evidently Christians who were suffering for their testimonies (cf. 10:34; Matt. 25:36, 40).  

Prisoners depended on relatives and friends to provide food, clothing, and other necessities. The numerous references to Paul’s experiences as a prisoner reveal that his friends came to take care of his needs (Acts 24:23; 27:3; 28:10, 16, 30; Phil 4:12; 2 Tm 1:16; 4:13, 21).  Prisoners, then, had to be remembered; otherwise they suffered hunger, thirst, cold, and loneliness  (William Hendriksen & Simon J. Kistemaker, NT Commentary: Hebrews, 409).

The existence of a significant number of prisoners (plural) supports a date of writing after A.D. 64, when an empire-wide persecution of Christians began.  In July of that same year Emperor Nero set fire to Rome and blamed the Christians. This resulted in much persecution of Christians.  

Remembering these people would involve praying for them and assisting them in any way possible.  Christians are to have eyes and ears and hearts open to those who are in need around them and do something about it.  This is true whether the needy are in prison or otherwise oppressed or mistreated.  As Christians, we are all called to the ministry of compassion  (Ray C. Stedman, How to Live What You Believe, 182).

Our author had expressed earlier that they had been assisting prisoners before.  In 10:32-34 we read:

But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.  For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

And how important their sympathetic caring had been, because those suffering the abuse of prison were virtually dependent on the church for survival.

Believers were always trying to find ways to smuggle food and themselves into the prisons.  Often it cost them their lives to reach and help an ailing brother.  The early Christians became so notorious for this that one Roman emperor, Licinius, passed a law forbidding anyone to show mercy to starving prisoners.  Anyone caught supplying food to them was to share the same fate as the one he was trying to help.  Yet that didn’t stop those early Christians.  They bribed guards, paid ransoms, anything to help their brethren  (C. S. Lovett, Lovett’s Lights on Hebrews, 323).  Some early Christians sold themselves into slavery to get money to free a fellow believer  (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 428).

Similarly, The Apology of Aristides describes Christians’ care for the incarcerated, saying: “If they hear that any of their number is imprisoned or oppressed for the name of their Messiah, all of them provide for his needs, and if it is possible that he may be delivered, they deliver him.  If there is among them a man that is poor or needy, and they have not an abundance of necessaries, they fast two or three days that they may supply the needy with their necessary food  (J. Rendel Harris, The Apology of Aristides, Vol. 1, 48-9)  (R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word: Hebrews, vol. 2, 211-2).

Lucian, again, has his bogus Christian, Proteus Peregrinus, tossed into prison, and, satirical as Lucian was, the sympathetic care of Christians shines through.  Says Lucian, the Christians

. . . left nothing undone in the effort to rescue him. Then, as this was impossible, every other form of attention was shown him, not in any casual way but with assiduity [diligent attention]; and from the very break of day aged widows and orphan children could be seen waiting near the prison, while their officials even slept inside with him after bribing the guards. The elaborate meals were brought in, and sacred books of theirs were read aloud (The Passing of Peregrinus , 12).

How beautiful the church had been and would continue to be!  Lights in a world gone dark.

They were to remember them “as though in prison with them.”  The unadorned empathy commanded here was not based on the esoteric truth that Christians are members of each other in Christ, but rather on the truth of shared humanity.  Project your humanity into the place where their humanity now is—in suffering or in prison.  “These believers knew that at any time any of them could be imprisoned for his or her faith.  They could become one another’s “fellow prisoners” in a very real sense.  Those who were sent to prison ought to be remembered by those who were still free” (Bruce Barton, Life Application Bible Commentary: Hebrews, 231).

When we do go through pain and trouble and heartache, it is easier for us to sympathize with others.  Charles Spurgeon says, “It must be a terrible thing for a man to have never to have suffered physical pain.  You say, ‘I should like to be that man.’  Ah, unless you had extraordinary grace, you would grow hard and cold; you would get to be a sort of cast iron man, breaking other people with your touch.  No, let my heart be tender, even be soft, if it must be softened by pain, for I would fain know how to bind up my fellow’s wound.  Let my eye have a tear ready for my brother’s sorrows, even if in order to that, I should have to shed ten thousand for my own.  As escape from suffering would be escape from the power to sympathize, and that were to be deprecated beyond all things.” 

Love to the brethren is to manifest itself in sympathy for sufferers.  Most reprehensible and un-Christlike is that selfish callousness which says, “I have troubles enough of my own without concerning myself over those of other people.”  Putting it on its lowest ground, such a spirit ministers no relief: the most effectual method of getting away from our own sorrows is to seek out and relieve others in our distress.  But nothing has a more beneficial tendency to counteract our innate selfishness than a compliance with such exhortations as the one here before us: to be occupied with the severer afflictions which some of our brethren are experiencing will free our minds from the lighter trials we may be passing through.  (Arthur W. Pink, An Exposition of Hebrews, 1121)

“Sympathy is a shallow stream in the souls of those who have not suffered” (William E. Sangster).  Sympathy sees and says, “I’m sorry.”  Compassion sees and says, “I’ll help.”  Jesus says to minister to such people “in prison” is to minister to Him (Matthew 25:36, 40).

This is intended to mean more than simply to call to mind: it involves the idea of identification with them.  This would require deep Christian understanding and sympathy; to sit as it were with those who are afflicted (Donald Guthrie, Tyndale NT Commentaries: Hebrews, 268).  The words “since you are also in the body” are added to remind the readers that they too could be exposed to the same treatment.  The readers themselves might one day suffer the same fate as these prisoners, since they were still leading a mortal existence (“are in the body”).  

They were to FEEL the hurt, the same as God feels it when any of us is in trouble.  Only in this way could they be an extension of God’s love.  Believers are able to express this kind of sympathy inasmuch as they are still in the body and exposed to similar testings themselves.  In those days no one knew when it might be his turn to suffer for Jesus.  The times were perilous indeed.  The ability to put yourself in the shoes of an imprisoned brother and feel his suffering was a part of “brother-love.”  (C. S. Lovett, Lovett’s Lights on Hebrews, 323)

Paul urged Timothy not to be ashamed of him when he was a prisoner (2 Tim. 1:8).  All the Christians in the province of Asia had abandoned Paul at that time, except for those in Onesiphorus’ household (2 Tim 1:15-18).  

Nothing is more pleasing to parents than to see their children caring for each other.  “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!” (Ps 133:1).  When His children care for each other, help each other, and live in harmony with each other, God is both delighted and glorified.  (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 424)

Because of our compassion fatigue and distractions through our Smart Phones, we have need of this reminder to think of, feel with and assist those who are imprisoned and mistreated.  We must will to identify with the imprisoned and mistreated.  None of us can excuse ourselves by rationalizing that we are not empathetic by nature.  We are to labor at an imaginative sympathy through the power of God!

And let’s go beyond those who are in prison.  Raymond Brown reminds us, “Some patients in geriatric units would welcome regular visits from a Christian.  Are not such ‘isolated” people in greater need of the good news of Christ at the end of their lives than others who may often hear of him through everyday contacts with believers?  But shut-in people will hear only if they are remembered and visited by Christians who discern this neglected area of work as their opportunity for pastoral service and compassionate witness” (Raymond Brown, The Bible Speaks Today:  Hebrews, 252).

Honestly, it is far too easy to forget such people, whether people in prison or people in nursing homes or shut in at their own homes.  “Out of sight, out of mind,” we say.  But we should care for them because we are linked to them as brothers in Christ, because we share the same humanity and likely we also will share much of the same experiences.  Today it is them, tomorrow it may be us.

There is no way you can love others with this kind of sacrifice, commitment, compassion and grace without having your heart changed by Jesus Who exemplified it all.   Human nature simply does not have the capacity to do this without the presence of the Spirit of the Living God given through Jesus.  (Acts 16:33; Gal 5:6, 22; 2 Pt 1:7; 1 Jn 3:10-11, 14, 17; 4:7-21)

We have the capacity to love like this only because Jesus first loved us (1 John 4:19).  His infinite love for us is the source and stimulus of our love for each other.  Hence the precept given by the Master in the upper room: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34; cf. 15:12, 17; 2 Jn 5; 1 Jn 3:11, 14, 16-18; 4:7-12).  (Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 562)

To understand Jesus’ teachings, we must realize that deep in our orientations of our spirit we cannot have one posture toward God and a different one toward other people.  We are a whole being, and our true character pervades everything we do.  We cannot, for example, love God and hate human beings.  As the apostle John wrote, “Those who do not love their brother who is visible cannot love God who is invisible” (1 Jn 4:20).  And: “The one who does not love does not know God, who is love” (4:8).

Similarly, James rules out the blessing of God and the cursing of human beings, “made in the likeness of God,” coming from the same mouth (3:9).  He also indicates that humility before God and humility before others go together.  Those humble before God do not “judge” their brothers and sisters (4:6-12).

The same basic point of the necessary unity of spiritual orientation is seen in Jesus’ teachings about forgiveness and about forgiveness and prayer.  “If you forgive men the wrongs they do you, your Father in the heavens will also forgive you.  But if you don’t, neither will he (Mt 6:14-15).  (Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, 232)

In summary, we are to stand at the foot of the two mountains—Sinai and Zion–and gaze reverently at God’s consuming fire and consuming love.  We are to drink it in with all its mysterious paradox—for in it lies the vision of God.

But having gazed upward we turn from the vertical to the horizontal, from the indicative to the imperative —the ethics of a life aglow with God.  And here we must will to obey the imperatives—God’s commands.

We must will to practice brotherly love, philadelphia: “Let brotherly love continue” (v. 1). We must will to contemplate the fact of our mutual generation, its profundity and eternity. Our words and actions must be committed to enhancing brotherly love.

We must will to practice love of hospitality, philozenia —a love for strangers: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (v. 2). Open hearts and open houses are the Christian way.  Hospitality builds the Body of Christ and opens the door to a lost world.

We must will to be empathetic, to be imaginatively sympathetic: “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body” (v. 3).  The will to have imaginative sympathy will make our hearts like that of the Master and will encourage an authentic Christian walk.

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The last warning in the book of Hebrews is found in the final verses of Hebrew 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.

Today we are at the conclusion of this warning, to the writer’s exhortation as to how we are to respond to “him who is speaking” (which is God) and in the context of the fact that while the law of Moses came with shaking ground, this message through Jesus Christ (the New Covenant), involves “not only the earth but also the heavens” shaking.  It is a pretty frightening picture.  In light of that our author concludes:

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.

The word “therefore” indicates that it is precisely because God will shake and purge and judge all that stands in opposition to him and precisely because only the unshakeable kingdom of Christ will stand immovable and unchanged that we should give thanks and praise God for the gift of saving grace.

Throughout this epistle, although he is dealing with some people who had professed belief in Jesus Christ only now to turn away from Him and His benefits and back to the law, our author includes himself as someone needing to “be grateful.”  So he says, “let us be grateful.”

The kingdom we have received that “cannot be shaken” is the messianic kingdom.  We “receive” this “kingdom” when we trust in Christ for our salvation.  It is a kingdom that we New Covenant believers participate in partially, in the spiritual benefits of the New Covenant, but there is a greater, fuller kingdom that will be established on earth when Jesus returns, as predicted in the Old Testament and confirmed in Revelation 20.  This kingdom will then continue throughout eternity in the new heavens and new earth.

In 12:28 he said that it is “a kingdom which cannot be shaken.”  This means that it will outlast all earthly kingdoms.  Because it is God’s kingdom, it will remain “forever and ever” (1:8).  Every earthly kingdom that has been established has eventually fallen to other, more powerful, kingdoms.  This is pictured for us in Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2 when each kingdom is conquered by the other, first Babylon, then Medo-Persia, then Greece, then Rome, but then we read…

“And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people.  It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold.  A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this.  The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.” (Daniel 2:44-45)

Spurgeon exclaims

“Glory be to God, our kingdom cannot be moved!  Not even dynamite can touch our dominion: no power in the world, and no power in hell, can shake the kingdom which the Lord has given to his saints.  With Jesus as our monarch we fear no revolution and no anarchy: for the Lord hath established this kingdom upon a rock, and it cannot be moved or removed.”

The idea of God’s kingdom is not a major theme in Hebrews.  The author mentioned it in 1:8, citing Psalm 45:6, “But of the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.’”  But while the word “kingdom” is not used, the concept is certainly behind his references to “Mount Zion,” “the city of the living God,” and “the heavenly Jerusalem” (12:22).

The word “receive” reinforces that we do not work to merit this kingdom.  It is a gift that God freely bestows on all that believe.

Our response to receiving this kingdom, which will actually be the fulfillment of our greatest desires and dreams, should be gratitude. Our author is exhorting them to show gratitude for the gift they have received. Being grateful is so important to our spiritual lives.  It is interesting that the nouns “grace” and “joy,” and the verb “give thanks,” all come from the same root word (Char-).  I believe that these three terms are vitally related, so that when God shows us grace, as He does so often, we need to give thanks for that grace.  If we do, we will experience greater joy, while we will forfeit that joy if we fail to give thanks.

If we have experienced God’s grace, we should be thankful.  Our service to God is never an attempt to “pay Him back” for His grace, which would be impossible.  Rather, it is the overflow of a heart that is so grateful that it gives thanks “for His indescribable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15).

The failure to give thanks in itself is an evidence of lack of belief in God.  In the book of Romans Paul declares

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:18-21)

To fail to give thanks is to dishonor God and leads to great spiritual ruin.

In addition to giving thanks, we must “offer to God acceptable worship.”  Our worship is to be offered “to God” first of all, not to any other so-called god or idol.  He alone desires and deserves our worship.

But what is worship?  The Greek word here is latreuo, and has the idea of serving God through worship.  Our English word “worship” has the idea of proclaiming one’s worth and value (worth-ship).  We show God His value by serving Him.

In the Scriptures, latreuo is continuously used in reference to religious rituals, and in every single use of the word, worshipers direct their service toward God or something considered a god or divine.  The most precise and consistent definition of this word is “sacrificial service.”

The word latreuo indicates a kind of worship, but latreuo is not completely synonymous with the term “worship.”

Our text says that we must offer to God “acceptable worship.”  Obviously this means there is unacceptable worship, something God charged Israel with many times, usually because of idolatry or social sins like taking advantage of the poor.

Romans 12 speaks of acceptable worship.  There, in verse 1, Paul commands us “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

David Guzik points out some ways that our worship can be acceptable to God in this context.  He says…

• Our acceptable service begins with our being receivers of grace (since we are receiving a kingdom).
• Our acceptable service is marked by gratitude (let us have thanks).
• Our acceptable service is marked by reverence (with reverence).
• Our acceptable service is marked by the spirit of happy reverence (with godly fear).
• Our acceptable service is marked by a profound sense of the divine holiness (for our God is a consuming fire).

Let’s dive a little deeper into these conditions of acceptable worship, “with reverence and awe.”  These words are used in view of the serious consequences of refusing God who is speaking to them through the blood of Jesus Christ and the fact the coming statement that “our God is a consuming fire.”  Of course, you should worship “with reverence and awe.”  The unfortunate reality in our day is that we see far too little reverence and awe.  Jesus is treated as a “Friend” and “Lover.”  There is little thought to God being our “Judge,” for example.

“Reverence” (eulabeia) is “a cautious taking hold and careful and respectful handling: hence piety of a devout and circumspect character.”  This is joined with another word, “awe” (NIV, NRSV) or “godly fear” (KJV, deos), “fear, awe” … “apprehension of danger,” as in a strange forest.

But this does not mean we live in terror or dread of God, as if in the next moment He might strike us dead with a bolt of lightning.  F. F. Bruce (Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews [Eerdmans], p. 385) comments, “Reverence and awe before His holiness are not incompatible with grateful trust and love in response to His mercy.”

Greg Morse, in his article “Casual Church,” asks “What happened to reverence?  When did it become an endangered species?  Has God not the right to ask many professing Christians today, as he did the negligent priests of Israel, ‘A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor?  And if I am a master, where is my fear?’” (Malachi 1:6)

He goes on to say: “I sigh that I don’t often have this fear or due reverence in the worship of God.  In his presence, Isaiah cried, “Woe is me! For I am lost” (Isaiah 6:5).  Job cried, “Now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6).  Peter cried, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8).  The beloved disciple writes, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17).

God is our loving Father to whom we are invited to draw near (Heb. 4:16), but He is also “a consuming fire” (12:29).  Probably most Christians in our day err on the side of being too chummy and casual with God, not on the side of reverence and awe.  It is important that we hold these truths in balance.

As Sam Storms recommends:

There are times when what we hear and learn of God leads to dancing, and other times when what we hear and learn of him leads to trembling.  Worship that is acceptable to God can and should be both humble and happy, and should often lead us not only to leap with joy but also to lie prostrate on the ground in reverential awe.

Verse 29 gives us the reason why our worship of God must be “with reverence and awe” and that is because “our God is a consuming fire.”  It’s not that he “was” a consuming fire in the Old Testament, a God of wrath now replaced by a God of love who wouldn’t dare judge us for our sins.  No, He is still a consuming fire.

Jerry Bridges reminds us…

“We must not lose sight of the fact that God’s wrath is very real and very justified. We have all sinned incessantly against a holy, righteous God.  We have rebelled willfully against His commands, defied His moral law, and acted in total defiance of His known will for us.  Because of these actions were justly objects of His wrath” (Trusting God, 1988, p. 139).

That fire is the fire of His wrath against sin.  Yes, God’s holiness and righteousness requires Him to respond to our sins with righteous anger.  That fire is also the fire of jealousy.  Because God loves us so much He will brook no rivals for our affections.

The reason that we should be thankful for what we have received from God and the reason we should worship him with reverence and awe and joy and gladness is precisely because our God is a jealous God who burns with passion for us.

The first reference to God’s jealousy is found in God’s words to Israel at Mount Sinai:

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:4-6)

He said, “Don’t do this ‘for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.’”

And Exodus 34:14 says, “For you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”

Now, God is not jealous like we are.  God is a holy God and is never sinfully jealous.  He is never jealous because he is needy, greedy, or covetous, or because he is lazy and unwilling to put forth the effort necessary to accomplish his purposes.  God is not jealous because he takes a petty dislike to certain individuals and begrudges their achievements, or because he is frustrated with his position in the universe.

All this reminds us that worship is “not safe.”  We are not to treat it with lightness.  Annie Dillard described the seriousness of our worship in these words:

Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning.  It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets.   Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.  For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return” (Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), pp. 40-41).

How would our worship services change if the Nadabs and Abihus of our day were struck dead and carried out through the aisles of our churches?

If wails of horror resounded and scorched sermons read,

Here, O Christian churches, are two corpses of those who trifled with the Consuming Fire of heaven and earth.  Two men of high rank, two men of great promise, two sons of Aaron himself, consumed in judgment.  Behold them.  Wail for them.  Learn from them.

Read the sermon text written upon their lifeless frames:

“Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified” (Leviticus 10:3).

Ministers, you who draw near to God in service today, behold them drunk upon my wrath.  Will you dare toy with the shepherd’s crook?  Will you wander before me with the strange fire of false teaching?  Have you not been warned of stricter judgment?  Have you not been commanded to watch over yourself and your doctrine and my sheep carefully?  Have you not been charged — in my presence — to preach my word, not your own?  The pulpit is a false hope for protection.

Or to those strolling into worship every Sunday with an irreverence, a negligence, a fatal familiarity that I did not command: Behold the bodies of my chosen servants.  If I treat these with righteous impartiality, shall you escape? (https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/casual-church)

As Matthew Henry soberly comments, “If God be not sanctified and glorified by us, he will be sanctified and glorified upon us.  He will take vengeance on those that profane his sacred name by trifling with him.”  Let us beware of trifling with God and treating Him lightly.

As Steve Cole concludes:

Everything hinges on knowing who God is and what He has done for us by His grace in Christ.  He has given us great privileges, by speaking to us from heaven through Jesus’ blood, and by giving us a kingdom that cannot be shaken.  He is the great God, whose voice will shake both earth and heaven.  He is a consuming fire.  So we have great responsibilities: we should take heed to serve Him with obedient, grateful, and reverent hearts.

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)

There is an early passage in Pilgrim’s Progress in which Christian, amidst the difficulties of trying to walk the narrow path to Zion, is lured away by Mr. Worldly Wiseman’s counsel and directed toward the futility of Sinai. Bunyan writes:

So Christian turned out of his way to go to Mr. Legality’s house for help; but, behold, when he was got now hard by the hill, it seemed so high, and also that side of it that was next the wayside did hang so much over, that Christian was afraid to venture farther, lest the hill should fall on his head; wherefore there he stood still, and wotted not what to do. Also his burden now seemed heavier to him than while he was in his way. There came also flashes of fire out of the hill that made Christian afraid that he should be burnt: here, therefore, he sweat and did quake for fear. And now he began to be sorry that he had taken Mr. Worldly Wiseman’s counsel; and with that, he saw Evangelist coming to meet him, at the sight also of whom he began to blush for shame.²

And, of course, Mr. Evangelist got him back on track, and the race continued on to Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem.

Today few Christians, especially Gentiles, are in danger of turning back to Sinai per se and embracing the Levitical corpus of the Old Testament.  However, we can easily slip back into legalism.  In fact, I think it’s our default mode.  After all, all throughout our childhood and adult life we are taught that if we want to experience good grades, win a wonderful girlfriend, or keep a good job, we have to work at it.  Grace is foreign to us.  Even today we believe that we have to “help God out” with our own attempts at righteousness.

God’s will and law are eternal and we should follow it, but we are never made more acceptable to God by it.  Isaiah tells us that even our righteousness is like “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).

Last week we noticed that the writer of Hebrews is contrasting the Old and New Covenants by identifying them with two mountains: Sinai where the law was given and Zion where Jesus was crucified.

The Old Covenant is presented in vv. 18-21…

18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them.  20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 

So, the route to Zion goes through Sinai, where we encounter the terrors of God’s law.  But once you’ve arrived in Zion, why would you want to go back to Sinai?  So after describing the place we have left, the author goes on to show the place where we’ve come.

At Sinai there is gloom and doom.  Everything says: Stay away!  Do not draw near!  You are not worthy to be close to God. 

At Zion there is joy and freedom.  Everything says: Come close!  Draw near.  Christ by his blood and the forgiveness he has brought you has made you worthy to enter God’s presence.

If you have trusted in Jesus’ blood, you have come to the joys of the new covenant.  Our author puts it like this, continuing the metaphor:

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.

This is already a reality to which we who have believed in Christ “have come.”  This is an experience of the present, not just a future hope.  He is describing what is true of us as the church right now.  This is a reality that we encounter from the day of our conversion and all through our Christian lives, all the way up until the time of the end.

First, then, you have come to the joy of inclusion in the city of the living God.

The word “but” at the head of verse 22 is a strong contrastive word.  You did not come to Mount Sinai “BUT you have come to Mount Zion…”  The author of Hebrews is saying, “We are in a different place.  Our relationship with God is not modeled after Israel’s experience on Mount Sinai.”

To “come” or “draw near” to God is a recurrent theme in Hebrews.  We’ve seen this same verb in Hebrews 4:16 where we are invited to “to come” or “draw near” to the throne of grace in prayer.  In 7:25 we are encouraged to “draw near” to God through faith in Christ because he lives to make intercession for us.  Again in 10:22 we are exhorted to “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” and in 11:6 we are described as those who “draw near to God.” 

And this is a permanent condition.  The verb “you have come” is in the perfect tense, speaking of a past action which has continuing results.  It was a decision you made to come to Jesus, to draw near to him, but now it is a settled condition with great blessings.

Rather than experiencing fear and dread and a sense of being distant from God, Christians have come into an experience of unparalleled joy and festive celebration!  And the reason is simple: through the blood of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the new covenant, we now live in God’s presence fearlessly and boldly and confidently. 

We come to God’s other mountain, Mount Zion.   This was the name for the stronghold in Jerusalem that David conquered (2 Sam. 5:6-8). It became a synonym for Jerusalem (Psalm 147:12; Amos 1:2; Micah 4:2). It represents the place where God, the King, dwells with His people.  We will dwell forever in the “new Jerusalem” (Revelation 20).

Zion, of course, is another name for Jerusalem, the very place in the New Testament era where Jesus was crucified.  The law came to Sinai; the cross was on Zion.

Mount Zion was the location of the Jebusite stronghold that David captured and made the religious center of his kingdom by bringing to it the golden ark of God—God’s presence with his people.  When Solomon built the temple and installed the ark, Zion/Jerusalem became synonymous with the earthly dwelling-place of God. In Christ we have come to its heavenly counterpart, the spiritual Jerusalem from above. 

The second description of the place to which we believers have come is “the city of the living God.” 

This is the same “city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10).  It is the city which God prepared for the Old Testament saints who died in faith without receiving the promises (Heb. 11:13, 16).  And while we now dwell in it spiritually, there is a sense in which it is yet “to come” (Heb. 13:14).  In other words, there is still a fuller, future experience of it as well.

“City,” a word used more in Hebrews than any other book of the New Testament, carries the idea of orderliness and security against the enemy.  It is a place where needs for food and water are met, and where there is fellowship with others.

Whereas we once were aliens, now we are citizens of this city, if we continue to follow the “living God” (Heb. 3:12) because this is the “city of the living God.”  Our writer affirms that the blood of Christ would “cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

Again, we are in Zion for good.  “But you have come to Mount Zion” is in the perfect tense, emphasizing our permanent, continuing state.

For many years, a popular bumper sticker in Colorado bore a single word—NATIVE.  It proclaimed to every new arrival, “You just moved in, but I was born here.  This is my state, my heritage, and I belong.”

Our nationality, citizenship, and sense of belonging are usually determined by birth.  This was especially true for the Israelites in Old Testament times.  They were not only the people of Israel but the people of God.

It may seem surprising, then, to read in Psalm 87 that people of rival Gentile nations will one day be treated as if they had been “born” in Zion (vv.4-5).  Herbert Lockyer says of this passage: “Whether some were born in Egypt or came from Ethiopia, all [will be] equally honored as home-born sons of the city of God.  The proud from Egypt, the worldly from Babylon, the wrathful from Philistia, the covetous from Tyre [will be] brought under the regenerating, transforming power of the Spirit of God.”  That is, they will be spiritually reborn.

This is also the “heavenly Jerusalem,” the holy city that John saw, “coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2).  The angel goes on to describe that this means God dwelling with His people and promises that when this time arrives that God will wipe away every tear, and that there will be no more death, mourning, crying or pain (Rev. 21:4).  The fulfillment of these promises will be enjoyed at Christ’s second coming.

Christians are now citizens of the heavenly city and enjoy its privileges.  Paul wrote, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20).  We are in Zion by virtue of our incorporation in Christ, for “[God] raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6).

Sure, the fiery presence of God is there, but through our union with Christ we are now clothed in His righteousness and have free access to Jesus Christ and need fear no condemnation.

Not only do we enjoy this new location—now spiritually, then in every respect and forever—we will join with the angels in praising God.  Instead of experiencing the terrifying blast of trumpets when the myriads of angels attending the giving of the law (Deut. 33:2), we will join “innumerable angels in festal gathering.”

We know from Daniel that “A thousand thousands served him [the Ancient of Days—God], and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him” (Daniel 7:10).  David said, “The chariots of God are twice ten thousand, thousands upon thousands” (Psalm 68:17).

This multitude of angels is assembled in “festal gathering” (a word found only here in the NT but used in extra-biblical literature of parties and celebratory festivities).  This word connotes excitement, revelry, and well-being.  As David says in Psalm 16:11, when we enter into the path of life (heaven), we will be filled with joy and experience eternal pleasures at His right hand.

We see a glimpse of this worship expressed in Revelation 5:11-12.

“Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, ‘Worthy is the lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!’”

Every time we lift up our voices in praise to our God on earth now, we join in the heavenly chorus.   Apathetic, ho-hum, “worship” is sin! It shows that we don’t understand the majesty of our God, and we are not focused on His great salvation that He lavished on us by His grace.  I can’t wait to actually join this choir and to hear our united voices in a thousand harmonies rejoicing in our beautiful, glorious Savior!  This, too, is something to which we have already come, and yet the full experience remains in our future.

Not only are the angels in heaven exhilarating in God and His glory, but right now the angels in heaven erupt in praise whenever one sinner repents (Luke 15:10).  I can remember as a teenager going to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and watching an IMAX movie on the space shuttle.  Amidst all the noise as the Shuttle lifted off, they cut to command central and showed the utter joy at the successful lift off.  Such is the joy in heaven among the angels when a single sinner repents.

Jacob saw angels shuttling back and forth from heaven to earth on a ladder.  Jesus told Nathaniel he would see angels descending and ascending on the Son of Man.  Angels are around us.

Every day we are surrounded by these ministering spirits (Heb. 1:14).  Sometimes they protect God’s elect—for example, the “tall men in shining garments” who surrounded Mr. and Mrs. John G. Paton years ago in the New Hebrides—or the “tall soldiers with shining faces” who protected missionary Marie Monsen in North China—or, on another occasion, the “huge men, dressed in white with flaming swords” who surrounded the Rift Valley Academy—and on another the “hundreds of men dressed in white, with swords and shields” who stood guard over a hut shielding Clyde Taylor, who would one day found the National Association of Evangelicals.  Similarly, a missionary from the church I pastor, Carol Carlson, serving in China in 1922, learned why the bandits never attacked her compound—there were “men in white walking up and down the wall.”

At other times, angels preside over the apparent earthly tragedy of God’s people.  Olive Fleming Liefeld in her book Unfolding Destinies tells how two young Auca Indians, Dawa and Kimo, heard singing after witnessing the martyrdom of the five missionaries in the jungles of Ecuador.  “As they looked up over the tops of the trees they saw a large group of people.  They were all singing, and it looked as if there were a hundred flashlights” (Olive Fleming Liefeld, Unfolding Destinies (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990), p. 236).

But the grand emphasis of our passage is not so much the angels’ care of us, but rather our joining with them in festal assembly.  The word translated “festal gathering” was used in ancient culture to describe the great national assemblies and sacred games of the Greeks.  Whereas at Mount Sinai the angels blew celestial trumpets that terrified God’s people, we are to see ourselves on Mount Zion as dressed in festal attire and worshiping in awe side by side with these glorious shining beings!

Third, we come to fellow-believers —“to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven” (v. 23a).  Natural families have only one firstborn.  But in God’s family, as F. F. Bruce puts it (Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews [Eerdmans], p. 377), “All the people of Christ are the ‘firstborn’ children of God, through their union with Him who is The Firstborn par excellence; their birthright is not to be bartered away, as was Esau’s.”

This group probably refers to all those believers who had died but will receive their full inheritance because they followed the Lord faithfully and did not apostatize.  The term “firstborn” often meant, in Scripture, the most excellent, the chief.

What God gave at Mount Sinai was mainly for Israel; what God gave at Mount Zion is for all and it spans all the redeemed, both the church and the general assembly of the redeemed, all together.

All the rights of inheritance go to the firstborn—to us who are “fellow heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17).  Bishop Westcott says we are “a society of ‘eldest sons’ of God” (Brooke Foss Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967), p. 415).  There are no second-class citizens in heaven.  Male or female, young or old, rich or poor, genius or uneducated, we are all “fellow heirs in Christ.”

Only those who are “enrolled in heaven,” whose “names are written in the book of life” (Rev. 20:15, cf. Luke 10:20; Philippians 4:3; Revelation 13:8; 17:8; 21:27).  This is the entire communion of the saints, all those covered by the blood of Christ whether Old Testament saints or the Church.

This family is ever growing, whether they are in heaven now or will be there in the future, we join this family.

Everything about the New Covenant encourages us to continue to come boldly into God’s presence (cf. 4:16).