Hebrews Chapter Twelve, A Consuming Fire

 

Hebrews 12:27 Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. [28] Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. [29] For our God is a consuming fire.

 

God warns through Haggai the prophet that He will shake the earth once more, and this time the heavens (the terrestrial heavens and space) will be shaken as well. Material creation will be dissolved, leaving only that which cannot be shaken, or that which is eternal behind.

Hebrews Chapter Twelve, When God Speaks

 

Hebrews 12:25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, [26] whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth but also heaven.”

 

The contrast is made again with the Sinaitic covenant between God and the Jews, and the Heavenly, eternal covenant made in Christ. The author has been exploiting this imagery since verse 18 to help his Jewish readership ascertain the benefit of knowing Jesus as Lord, and relying solely on Him for one’s eternal destiny.

Hebrews Chapter 12, The Assembly

 

Verse 23 speaks of the general assembly. The Greek for “assembly” is the word paneguris. It is applied to describe an assembly gathered for a festival feast in Heaven, contrasted to the congregation assembled to hear the Law and the terror it produced. Moreover, they are the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in Heaven. Where is this assembly registered? In the Book of Life, Revelation 20:12, 15, 21:27. The Book of Life has a longer title. 

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.

Hebrews Chapter Twelve, Mount Sinai

 

Hebrews 12:18 For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, [19] and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. [20] (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” [21] And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”)

 

A similar contrast is elicited in Galatians, when Paul, using Hagar and Sarah, addresses the Galatian church about freedom and bondage. It is written, “Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the free woman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar—for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children—but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all,” Galatians 4:22-26.