Hebrews Chapter Twelve, Mount Zion

 

Hebrews 12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, [23] to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, [24] to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

 

The former passage denoted the Law, represented by the fiery Mount Sinai, and the attendant fear it produced as man recoiled from the unmitigated holiness and sharpness God’s Law revealed. The Law brought no comfort. Yes, the psalmist delighted in God’s word, and mediating on the Law, Psalm 119:41, etc.

But that was because the psalmist looked past the Law to the God who gave it. The Law reflected God’s perfection and holiness. He was separate from sinners; this gave the psalmist peace, since he truly worshiped a God apart from man, not embroiled in the tawdry affairs of man’s vices. The Law prepared the heart of the willing disciple to see God’s beauty. It is written, “Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness,” Psalm 29:2.

 

Now the Hebrew Christians are urged to look upon the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem. This is not the Roman Catholic holy city, nor is it Augustine’s or Calvin’s City of God enforced upon earth. This is the city of the living God, described in so much splendor in the final two chapters of Revelation. While the author pauses only briefly here to explain the differences, it is nonetheless a serene and glorious image that arrests the reader’s attention. First, like Stephen said of Sinai, there are angels in this holy city. Hebrews focuses on the angelic host for the opening chapters of the epistle, so we will not tread too much familiar territory. But notice the stark difference. These angels aren’t harbingers of the unattainable holiness of the Law, which man cannot keep, Acts 15:10, Romans 3:23.

 

No, these angels are God’s messengers of peace and companions of the saints, Hebrews 1:14. Despite the fact that Lucifer drew a third of Heaven’s host into his mad rebellion against Elohim, this leaves what the writer defines as an innumerable company. The angels are sometimes referred to as the sons of God in Scripture, Genesis 6:2, Job 1:6. They are sons the same way Adam was a son: they were created by God’s direct interposition, not by natural generation, as was every man after Adam. The angels are also referred to as stars, Job 38:7. In fact, this verse in Job teaches that the morning stars and sons of God are one and the same, and the same sang when God created the material universe, worshiping. Revelation 12:4 gives the sad detail that a full third of Heaven’s host followed the Devil and fell to the earth to torment Adam’s sons as what we now call demons. Demons are not ghosts, or some spirit being from a pre-Adamic earth as some proponents of the Gap Theory assert. No, demons are unclean spirits, or fallen angels.

 

But these angels, having remained faithful to the Lord of Heaven, populate the Heavenly Jerusalem, and will be companions to the redeemed sons of Adam that walk its streets of gold. They dwell there because it is the city of God; God is in its midst, and so His faithful angels are found there with Him, doing His will. Angels, whatever some may think of them, are messengers and soldiers in God’s service, because in this dispensation, until the redemption of the creation there is a spiritual warfare going on. Daniel glimpsed it, when Michael and Gabriel were engaged in some struggle with the demonic princes of Persia and Greece, Daniel 10:13, 20. Christians are warned that the real enemy is not our fellow man, but the demonic strongholds of this world system and its rulers, that govern the darkness of this age, Ephesians 6:12. It is pleasant to consider how many angels remained faithful to God, wondrous beings the saints will have an eternity to meet and get to know. This is the beginning of our journey into a land beyond this present evil world, into a city where there is no night, or sorrow, or death.