Hebrews 12:18-24 “You Have Come”

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 26 Jan. 2019

Omitting greyed-out text should bring presentation time down around 45 minutes.

Intro: Where are we now?

• Back when I was a travelling missionary, we would load our kids up in our van and take off across the country every month or so to some mission conference or series of support-raising meetings. Now, this was in the days before regular people had access to GPS – and before the days when you could look at maps on your phone, so we always brought along two sets of paper maps, one for my wife in the shotgun seat, and one for my son in the back seat. Between Paula and Beni, whenever I wanted to know where we were on the road, one of them could tell me how many miles it was to the next city or to the next turn because they were tracking our course on their maps.

• Sometimes I’d be tired of driving – and a long way from our destination for the night, and then I’d see a real estate sign on the side of the highway: “If you lived here, you’d be home now!” and I’d think, wow, wouldn’t that be nice to just be able to turn in here and be home!

• But sometimes we lose our way and we think we really are somewhere other than where we actually are. I remember going to an orchestra performance at the Tivoli in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the starting time for the concert came and went. The orchestra was all on stage waiting and waiting for the conductor. The finely-dressed patrons in the auditorium were beginning to shift uneasily in their seats. Then a stage hand grabbed the microphone up front and said, “We’re sorry to announce that Professor Schickele has had a problem with his flight and he hasn’t made it here to Atlanta yet. Please be patient while we work this out.” Quickly, one of the orchestra members came up to the stage hand and whispered something to him. The stage hand’s face turned red as he took the microphone and said, “Well, the fact that this is Chattanooga and not Atlanta could be part of our problem!” (It all turned out to be prank organized by Professor Schickele, who wasn’t really in Atlanta; he was just loosening up his audience with some of his trademark goofy humor.)

• Have you ever thought you were in one place but actually were somewhere else?

• The author of Hebrews describes two mountains in chapter 12, verses 18-24. One is clearly Mount Sinai at the time that God gave the Ten Commandments, and the other mountain is called Zion, and it seems to be a composite picture of Israel at its best when it had fully taken possession of the Promised Land, plus the New Testament church, plus the community of heaven, all rolled into one.

• Remember that the first Jewish Christians were part of a new and fragile movement that Jesus had left as soon has He had started it. Christianity wasn’t the world-wide burgeoning movement with rich history and well-developed apologetics, and a billion adherents like it is now. Back when this book was written, there was good reason to question whether it was smart to keep following this Jesus since He had disappeared, especially since all His followers were being persecuted.

  • Many Jewish Christians had started thinking maybe it would be better to forget this weird idea and go back to the history and culture and traditions and stability they knew in Judaism. (And there are Christians today doing a similar thing, leaving the teaching of Jesus and the apostles to try to experience religion through Jewish traditions. And then there are others who are exploring other religions like Atheism or New Age because they feel they have tried Christianity and it didn’t work for them.)

  • Meanwhile, the Essene Zealots of the first century were teaching that if everybody could just go back to the fundamentals:

    • back before the Rabbis had added all their thousands of pages of traditions and regulations and speculations,

    • back to when God spoke directly to Moses,

    • back to the days when Israel lived simply in tents in the desert, and God was there with them,

    • then they would regain a good relationship with God. (And even today, there are lots of Christians who naïvely think that if we could just go back to the old days – or back to the early church days, that would be the way to get revival.)

• To counteract the ideas of seeking a good religious experience through going back to the old days or through joining whatever current religious trend looks successful, God gives us a map orientation session to remind us where we are and where we are not, and to remind us that we want to be in the place He has led us to, not somewhere else.

• He begins by reviewing what it was actually like back at Sinai, back when everything was supposedly so great and pristine and pure and everybody was supposedly so close to God. It wasn’t a comfortable place to be. In fact, God led them away from Mt. Sinai to a better place: the Promised Land. The back-to-Sinai movement is bad news; we don’t want to go back there!

V.18-21 – The Mountain You are NOT at

“Moreover, y’all have not come to a [mountain that is] tangible and ignited with fire and to cloud-cover and darkness and tornado-wind, and to a trumpet blast and a sound of words, the hearers of which deferred in order that no word be added to them, since they found unbearable what was being commanded: “If even a wild animal happens to come into contact with the mountain it must be [killed by] throwing stones [at it].” Indeed, the mani­festation was so fearsome that Moses said, “I am beyond afraid… and trembling.” (NAW)

• The first word is translated “for” in most English versions and omitted in the NIV. Dr. John Brown’s classic commentary on Hebrews explains that it means, “moreover,” or “another reason for your holding fast your profession is to be found in the contrast existing between the law and the Gospel.”

• The Greek word translated “come to” in v.18 is used exclusively in the book of Hebrews to refer to approaching God to relate to him as a worshipper (Heb. 4:16; 7:25; 10:1, 22; 11:6; 12:18, 22).

• Let’s review the passages in Exodus and Deuteronomy that this refers to:

  • Exodus 19:11-13 [God told Moses to get the people of Israel ready to meet Him in three days.] “For on the third day the LORD will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. You shall set bounds for the people all around, saying, 'Take heed to yourselves that you do not go up to the mountain or touch its base. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. Not a hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot with an arrow; whether man or beast, he shall not live.' When the trumpet sounds long, they shall come near the mountain." (NKJV)

  • Deut. 4:10-12 “...the LORD said to me,`Gather the people to Me, and I will let them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.' Then you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned [ἐκαίετο] with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness[ σκότος], cloud [ γνόφος], and thick darkness [θύελλα]. And the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice. So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Command­ments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone... &

  • Deut. 5:22ff "These words [10 Commandments] the LORD spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness [ σκότος γνόφος θύελλα], with a loud voice; and He added no more. And He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. So it was, when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, that you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders. And you said:`Surely the LORD our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire. We have seen this day that God speaks with man; yet he still lives. Now therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the LORD our God anymore, then we shall die. For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived?” (NKJV)

  • Deuteronomy 9:15-19 "...I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the LORD your God-- had made for yourselves a molded calf! You had turned aside quickly from the way which the LORD had commanded you. Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the LORD was angry with you, to destroy you.”

• The Deuteronomy passage doesn’t mention Moses trembling, but Steven mentions Moses trembling when he met the Lord at the burning bush in Acts 7:30-32 "And when forty years had passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilder­ness of Mount Sinai. When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying,`I am the God of your fathers-- the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' And Moses trembled and dared not look.” (NKJV)¹

• The Law had a “shadowy” and “veiled” character to it (Chrysostom, Col. 2, 2 Cor. 3:13) - Even Solomon said that “the LORD dwells in a thick/dark/cloud/γνόφῳ” (2 Chron. 6:1)

• Cf. Jer. 28:16"At his voice he makes a sound of water in the heaven, and brings up clouds from the extremity of the earth; he makes lightnings for rain, and brings light out of his treasures." (Brenton, cf. Acts 2:2 the coming of the Holy Spirit was with a this same "sound")

• The type of trumpet of bugle mentioned was used in war (1 Cor. 14:8) and to announce the coming of a king (Chrysostom). It is also associated with the second coming of Christ in Matt. 24:31; 1 Cor. 15:52; 1 Thess. 4:16; and Rev. 1:10 & 4:1.

• But at Sinai, distance separated God and man. The mountain stood inbetween God and His people, and nobody was to even touch that mountain barrier and get close to God. The people stood at the bottom of the mountain unable to see or hear God. What a contrast then to the mountain portrayed as a city in which God and man would dwell together!

• “‘For they could not endure that which was commanded’... not that they disliked and despised the law, as unregenerate men do; but they could not endure it, or bear it, as a yoke, it being a yoke of bondage; nor as a covenant of works, it requiring perfect obedience, but giving no strength to perform; and as it showed them their sins, but did not direct them to a Saviour; as it was an accusing, cursing, and condemning law; and, as a fiery one, revealing wrath, and filling the conscience with it..." ~John Gill

• “If even an irrational animal was to be put to death in a manner which marked it as unclean… what might rational offenders expect as the punishment of their sin? And if the violation of a positive institution of this kind involved consequences so fearful, what must be the result of transgressing the moral requisitions of the great Lawgiver? … The holiness and the justice of Jehovah [were] plainly revealed [in]… the Mosaic economy… a system, the leading characters of which… are externality, obscurity, and severity; and you as Christians are not under this economy.” ~John Brown of Edinborough, 1862

• Cf. Galatians 4:21-31

• "This was the state of the Jewish church, fitted to awe a stubborn and hard-hearted people, to set forth the strict and tremendous justice of God, to wean the people of God from that dispensation, and induce them more readily to embrace the sweet and gentle economy of the gospel church, and adhere to it." ~Matthew Henry, 1714

v.22-24 The Mountain You Have Arrived At

“Rather, y’all have come to the mountain of Zion and to the city of the Living God – to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in a festival, and to a church of firstborns who have been registered in heaven, and to a Judge [who is] God of all, and to the spirits of righteous persons who have been made perfect, and to the mediator of a new covenant, Jesus, and to the blood of sprinkling which utters a better thing than Abel.” (NAW)

• What is most striking to me in the contrast is the wonderful array of interpersonal relationships listed in a populated city, whereas the description of Mt. Sinai is of an unpopulated wilderness filled with fear and lack of intimacy.

  • The five words (“city,” “assembly/company,” “church,” “Judge,” and “written/enrolled”) all indicate a highly-developed civilization with social order and harmony.

  • This is an economy in which the inhabitants of earth and heaven are united rather than strictly separated by commands and barriers of mountains and clouds. This is the fulfill­ment of Col. 1:20 where Jesus has “reconcile[d] all things to Himself… whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” (NKJV)

• Mount Zion was reclaimed from the Cannanites by King David (2 Sam. 5) and developed by him into a capitol city with a royal palace and a temple. Mount Zion represents the fulfill­ment of the Hebrew refugees entering into God’s promised land. It represents the end of transition and the development of long-term community in permanent structures for home and for worship.

  • This is the “the city” mentioned in Heb. 11:10 “that has the foundations, the crafter and builder of which is God!” (cf. Heb. 13:14)

  • Zion is also the “holy hill” upon which God says in Psalm 2 that He will “set up” His Messiah as “King.” It typifies the community of God’s people ruled by Christ.²

• The fellowship is not only with God and with humans, but also with “myriads of angels”

  • a myriad was literally ten thousand, but in the plural, as it is here, it stands for an unimaginably huge number. (Vincent)

  • This angelic cohort was described in Daniel 7:9-10 "...the An­cient of Days was seated; His garment was white as snow, And the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, Its wheels a burning fire; A fiery stream issued And came forth from before Him. A thousand thousands ministered to Him; Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated, And the books were opened." (NKJV)

  • And the angelic host is also described in Revelation 5:11, assembled around God’s throne, singing, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.”

  • Bible scholars are split between whether the general assembly/festal gathering/company describes the angels or the saints or is its own separate item in the list.

    • The Greek word translated “and” is repeated seven times in this paragraph. (You can see the seven “and’s” in most English versions too – unless you’re looking at the NIV, which removed them all!). This seems to delineate seven or eight items in a list. The word for “festal assembly/company,” however doesn’t have an “and” in front of it, which would indicate it is not a separate item in the list, so I side with the NIV & ESV and the majority of commentators who say it is a further descriptor of the angels.³

    • Marvin Vincent, a 19^th century American expert on Classical Greek wrote, “The host of angels through whose ministration the law was given (Heb. 2:2, Gal. 3:19) officiated at a scene of terror [at Mt. Sinai, but] Christian believers are now intro­duced to a festal host, surrounding the exalted Son of man.”

  • 18^th Century commentator John Gill offered some ideas on what it will be like to live in heaven with angels by remembering what those angels have already been doing in our lives on this earth: “in the present state of things, they share the benefit and advantages of their kind offices; who have, sometimes, provided food for their bodies; healed their diseases; directed and preserved them on journeys; prevented outward calamities; delivered them out of them, when in danger; restrained things hurtful, and cut off their enemies: and, with regard to things spiritual they have, sometimes, made known the mind and will of God unto the saints; have comforted them under their distresses; helped them against Satan's temptations; are present at their death, and carry their souls to glory; and will gather the saints together, at the last day: and, as to the number of them, they are innumerable; they are the armies of heaven; and there is a multitude of the heavenly host; there are more than twelve legions of angels; their number is ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands: and this makes both for the glory and majesty of God, whose attendants they are; and for the comfort and safety of saints, to whom they minister, and about whom they encamp”

• Not only have we come to celebratory angels; we have also come into a special human fellowship called “the church of first-borns enrolled in heaven.”

  • The Greek word for “church” ekklesia (as well as its Hebrew counterpart qohel used of Old Testament congregations) literally means “called.” It is those called by God out of association with the world into association with Him.

  • “[A]ll the people of Christ are the ‘firstborn’ children of God, through their union with him who is The Firstborn par excellence.” ~F.F. Bruce, quoted by Hughes.

    • Jesus is called the “firstborn” in Hebrews 1:6 and Colossians 1:15&18,

    • the Hebrew slaves in Egypt called out to worship God in the wilderness in the Old Testament were called God’s “firstborn” in Exodus 4:22,

    • and Christians in the New Testament are also called “firstborn” in Rom. 8:29.⁴

  • "There seems, moreover, to be a clear reference to the case of Esau... the first-born of the twin sons of Isaac. He sold his birthright (πρωτοτοκία), and thus forfeited the privilege of the first-born. The assembly to which Christian believers are introduced is composed of those who have not thus parted with their birthright, but have retained the privileges of the first-born [by continuing to trust Jesus despite harrasment and persecution]." ~Vincent

  • “Moses, in his day, was instructed to register or enrol [sic] by name, ‘all the first-born males of the people of Israel’ (Num. 3:40ff.). This, of course, was an enrolment on earth... our author contrastingly speaks of an enrolment of the first-born in heaven.” ~P. E. Hughes, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 1977. This is consistent with the many passages of scripture which speak of God writing the names of those He loves in a registry-book – the Book of Life⁵. “The perfect participle apogegrammenwn “emphasizes the indelible permanence of this inscription.” ~Spicq, quoted by Hughes

• And Christians have come … To a judge who is God of all

  • The word “Judge” comes first in Greek, although most English translations prefer to bring the word “God” forward. But His judgeship is emphasized as “the legislative Head – the fountain of that law which binds together [this heavenly society].” ~Tholuck

  • “It is their privilege that they have access to him as the Judge of all; not only as a Father, and as the God of all grace, but as a Judge, and a righteous one, to whom they can come without terror; for though he is just, yet he is a Saviour, and the justifier of his people, on account of the righteousness of his Son; whose sins he pardons in a way of justice, through the blood of Christ; and is their patron, protector, and defender, who will right their wrongs, and avenge their cause” ~John Gill, 1766

  • For "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them" (2 Cor. 5:19, NKJV)

  • “[F]or the believer it is… immensely reassuring… that what is, for others, a throne of judgment is, for him, a ‘throne of grace’ (Heb. 4:16, 10:22).” ~P.E. Hughes

• Not only have we come into a special fellowship of angels, and church peers, and God Himself, it is also a fellowship of all believers from the past, present, and future. Most scholars interpret “the spirits of just men made perfect” to be believers who have passed on from this life to be in the presence of God.

  • They are “spirits” because their bodies are buried somewhere on earth, but their earthly life has been completed and they are in the Lord’s presence.

  • Hebrews 10:14 has already told us that “by means of one offering, [Jesus] has perfected in perpetuity those who are being sanctified.”

  • “Christ has perfectly fulfilled the law for them, and has perfectly expiated their sins, and perfectly redeemed them from all sin, and has procured a full pardon of them; and they are completely righteous through his righteousness... the saints in heaven may be here intended... where they are made perfect in knowledge and holiness, in peace and joy; though they have not their bodies, nor as yet all the saints with them [yet]”~John Gill

• "[W]e are associated with angels, chosen into the ranks of patriarchs, and placed in heaven among all the spirits of the blessed, when Christ by the Gospel calls us to himself. " ~Calvin

• and to the mediator of a new covenant

  • Heb. 7:26 “For such a high priest was appropriate to us, one who is godly, innocent, unde­filed, having been set-apart from sinners and having been instated higher than the skies..." (NAW)

  • "Christ is the Mediator of this new covenant; he is the middle person that goes between both parties, God and man, to bring them together in this covenant, to keep them together notwithstanding the sins of the people and God's displeasure against them for sin, to offer up our prayers to God, and to bring down the favours of God to us, to plead with God for us and to plead with us for God, and at length to bring God and his people together in heaven, and to be a Mediator of fruition between them for ever, they beholding and enjoying God in Christ and God beholding and blessing them in Christ." ~M. Henry

• and to blood of sprinkling which Speaks better things than Abel does

  • “‘The blood of sprinkling’ is just the blood, by the sprinkling of which, the individual was so purified that he might lawfully approach unto God… the death of the Son of God. That blood shed expiates guilt [and] makes it a just thing in God to pardon sin… Abel’s blood cried for vengeance – for the infliction of punishment on the murderer; but the blood of Christ proclaims peace and salvation.” ~John Brown

  • “the blood of the passover, which was received in a basin, and with a bunch of hyssop was sprinkled upon the lintel and two side posts of the doors of the houses, in which the Israelites were; which being looked upon by Jehovah, he passed over them, and all were safe within, so that the destroyer did not touch them, when the firstborn in Egypt were destroyed, Ex. 12:1 which is the case of all such as are sprinkled with the blood of Jesus: or else to the blood of the covenant, sprinkled by Moses on the book, and on all the people, Ex. 24:8 or to the several sprinklings of blood in the legal sacrifices: and the phrase may denote the application of Christ's blood to his people, for justification, pardon, and cleansing, which is their great mercy and privilege” ~John Gill

  • Chrysostom: “Did then the [blood] of Abel speak? ‘Yea,’ he saith, ‘and by it he being dead yet speaketh.’ [Heb 11:4] And again God says, ‘The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me.’ [Gen 4:10] Either this [meaning] or that; because it is still even now celebrated: but not in such way as that of Christ. For this has cleansed all men, and sends forth a voice more clear and more distinct, in proportion as it has greater testimony, namely that by facts.”

  • Calvin: “Christ is said to speak better things, because it avails to obtain pardon for our sins. The blood of Abel did not properly cry out; for it was his murder that called for vengeance before God. But the blood of Christ cries out, and the atonement made by it is heard daily.”

  • Owen: “...blood which pleads for mercy, and not for vengeance, as the blood of Abel."

  • Henry: "First, It speaks to God in behalf of sinners; it pleads not for vengeance, as the blood of Abel did on him who shed it, but for mercy. Secondly, To sinners, in the name of God. It speaks pardon to their sins, peace to their souls; and bespeaks their strictest obedience and highest love and thankfulness."

  • Gill: “Christ's sacrifice itself is better than [Abel’s sacrifice]; and the sprinkling of his blood, to which believers may continually apply for their justification, remission, and purgation, and by which they have entrance into the holiest of all, is of greater efficacy than the sprinkling of blood in Abel's sacrifice; and calls for and procures better things than that did...”

  • Hughes: “This horrifying violence of fratricide in which, impelled by hatred, brother sheds the blood of brother, and which displays the depravity and enormity of sin and its consequences for society, is offset and nullified by the terrible violence of Christ’s death in which, impelled by sheer love, he of his own will sheds his blood for us whom he is not ashamed to call his brothers (2:11, 14).”

CONCLUSION: Where are you at?

Where are you at? Sinai or Zion? (Use contrast chart below)

Where are you going? Don’t go back to Sinai. Rather move out of works-righteousness and man-pleasing, such as the Roman Catholic or Mormon religions and even many conservative Christian movements.

“[T]he greater the privilege, the greater too is the responsibility…. [as] verse 25 [states] ‘If they did not escape when they refused Him who warned them on earth [at Sinai], much less shall we escape if we reject Him who warns from heaven...’” ~P.E. Hughes We’ve already been warned at the beginning of chapter 2: “On account of this, it is more abundantly necessary for us to keep holding on to the things we have heard in order that we might not drift aside. For, since the word spoken through [Angels and Moses at Mt. Sinai] got confirmed, and every transgression and disobedience received a just payback, how would we ourselves escape after showing apathy for such a great salvation [as that offered by Son of God Himself]?” (Heb. 2:1-3, NAW)

CONTRAST CHART

APPENDIX: Greek Text & English Versions of Hebrews 12:18-24^A