After giving a long list of the heroes of faith, the apostle adds:
Hebrews 12:1-3. Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him-
Look to him, look at him, study him, know all you can about him-, meditate upon him,
Hebrews 12:3-4. That endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
It has not come to that yet with any of you who are now here; you have not shed your blood for Christ yet, for these are not martyr days, so can you be wearied and faint? If you run with the footmen, and they weary you how will you contend with horses? We ought to be ashamed of ourselves if we grow weary in a race that is so easy compared with that of the men and women who laid down their lives for Christ's sake.
Hebrews 12:5. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
Both these states are wrong, either to think nothing of chastisement or else to faint under it; we are not to fall into either evil, but to keep the golden mean between them.
Hebrews 12:6. For whom the Lord loveth
The Greek word is a strong one, and means, «whom the Lord tenderly loveth
Hebrews 12:6. He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Everyone does not receive the like measure of chastisement, and he that has the largest share of the love of God will feel the most of his chastising hand. Are you not willing to take that portion, and to be among the Lord's tenderly loved ones?
Hebrews 12:7. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
God had one Son without sin, but he never had a son without suffering and the Son who was without sin was the «Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.»
Hebrews 12:8. But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
If you are without chastisement, you may bear the name of sons, but you are not really so; you are mere professors.
Hebrews 12:9. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
Should we not give him reverence when we are chastened, instead of murmuring and complaining against him, thus calling him to account at our judgment-seat? Oh, yes let us be in willing subjection to him, and the more willingly subject we are, the less painful will the chastisement be. Our bitterest sorrow will be found at the root of our self-will; and when our self-will is gone, the bitterness of our sorrow will be past.
Hebrews 12:10. For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
Is there no way for us to «be partakers of his holiness» but through chastening? It would seem so from the wording of this verse. The Lord, as our loving Father, makes use of the rod that he may make us to be truly holy.
Hebrews 12:11. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous,
How could it be? It would lose the very nature of chastening if there were joy in it.
Hebrews 12:11. But grievous: nevertheless afterward
These are truly blessed words: «nevertheless afterward»
Hebrews 12:11-13. It yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
Come, children of God, do not be despondent because of your tribulations. You are in a race, so run even while you are smarting from your chastisements, still run, and keep on running until you win the prize.
Hebrews 12:14. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:
The holy God can only be seen by holy eyes. He must make us like himself before we can see him.
Hebrews 12:15. Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God;
Seeming to have grace, and yet not really having it
Hebrews 12:15. Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;
Sin is a bitter thing and a defiling thing and unless we look diligently, it will grow in our hearts like the weeds grow in our gardens after a heavy rain, it will spring up before we are aware of it.
Hebrews 12:16. Lest there be any fornicator,
Fornication was far too common in the early church, but it was not thought to be sin by the great mass of the heathen; but, oh, what a defiling sin it is!
Hebrews 12:16. Or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
He was thus guilty of spiritual fornication, preferring his meat to his Maker, thinking more of one morsel of meat than of his birthright.
Hebrews 12:17. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
He could not get his father to change his mind concerning Jacob; on the contrary, he said, «I have blessed him; yea, and he shall be blessed.» His many tears availed not, they were not repenting tears, but only selfish ones. He did not repent that he had bartered his birthright for a mess of pottage; he regretted that he had lost the blessing, that was all.
Hebrews 12:18-21. For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: (for they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: and so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)
We have not come to that mount of terror, for we are not under the law but under grace; we have come to a very different place from that.
Hebrews 12:22-24. But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
We are come to that blood, and it is that blood which has made such a change in us. We may rejoice together now, and we ought to do so, if we are all one in Christ Jesus.
Hebrews 12:25-29. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more, I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, yet once more signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.
Not «God out of Christ,» as some say, but God in Christ, God anyhow is a consuming fire, and we should each one pray, «Consuming fire, refining fire, go through my heart and purge me of all that can be consumed! Holy Spirit, drive out of me all that can be shaken and removed, that only thine abiding kingdom may remain in me, and thine shall be the praise and the glory for ever! Amen.»