Chapter 12

First verse - another example of how vs 1 should have been the last verse of the previous chapter:

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, [Heb 12:1 ESV]

Kind of back to the first verse of 11...Those who do have faith are evidence, are witnesses according to this verse, who testify to the truth, the existence, of Him in whom they have faith.  They are witnesses that the one they believe exists really does exist, because their actions are motivated by their faith, even to their own death.  Who has died for faith in Allah (2021 - yeah...probably quite a few have done so.)?  Who has died for Buddha, for Krishna?  Is there a Muslim Book of Martyrs?  Maybe there are stories of Muslims burned at the stake for not renouncing Allah, but I have never heard them.  The Crusaders killed Jew and Muslim alike, but I don't recall there being any option to recant and live?  Maybe I've just missed all those stories of the great faith of the followers of Islam?  This really ought to be researched.  This is about witnesses.  If the principle is true - that actions prompted by faith are evidence of the existence of the object of faith, then where is the evidence for Allah?  Or do we just punt and say that Allah and Buddha are "false gods", and that those who die for them are just deluded?  Need to be really really careful here.  This is a pretty significant study.

2023 - At this point, I would bet money that many have died for Allah.  Every suicide bomber in Jerusalem was dying for Allah.  We believe they were mistaken, but it is evidence in the same way that Christian martyrs are evidence.  Is there a problem with this logic? 

Next verse:

2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith... [Heb 12:2a ESV]

A founder is at the very beginning.  Interesting that Hebrews has just looked at a long history of faith in a future event, and then speaks of that event as a "new" thing, a new religion, a new covenant, founded - that is begun by - Jesus.  What are we speaking about here?  Surely not the church, not the papacy, not the age of the Gentiles...so what is founded?  MSB is about NASB.  Author and perfecter, not founder and perfecter.  Still, the note says author is an originator or preeminent example, and refers back to the note in 2:10.  That note says it could be translated as pioneer, leader, captain, or originator.  Christ is the source (in the sense of the cause), the initiator, and the leader in regard to salvation.  He has led the way into heaven as our forerunner.  That makes sense.  He began - he opened the door and went first - our access directly to the throne of God.

2025 - This one:

3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. [Heb 12:3 NASB95].  A good verse to remember when we feel like it is all against us, all coming apart.  Jesus never deserved even a sideways glance of suspicion for anything  he did.  Never came close to being "at fault" or "the one to blame", yet they spit on him, pulled his hair, mocked him, dressed him up, beat him, nailed him to a cross naked and then stuck a spear in him.  None of us will ever be so humiliated without cause.  So when we feel like we are unappreciated, unloved, unnoticed, taken for granted, falsely accused...then think about Jesus, and consider how light are our afflictions compared to his.  And consider it an honor - that's right an honor - to be abused by others, because it makes us more like Jesus.

Our way has been easy so far:

4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. [Heb 12:4 ESV]

The chapter moves on to say the struggles we endure that are short of death are discipline, as from a loving father, for our own betterment.

2024 - This seems also like a sentence spoken to students, in some kind of seminary setting, who are there studying to be proclaimers of the gospel, but who have so far not gone out into the world and actually had to suffer physical distress for their trouble.  I think Hebrews is a lesson from a teacher to his pupils.  That sure rings more like Apollos than Paul.

2021 - This verse:

6 For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives." [Heb 12:6 NKJV], quoting Prov 3:11, 12  I knew this verse, but I have not really appreciated the context.  The writer has just told the Hebrews in vs 4 that they aren't really suffering very much.  It hasn't cost them blood to have faith.  But just the same, they have had some problems and daily life brings things they have to overcome.  Maybe they've been scorned and put out of the synagogue and demeaned by their friends and acquaintances.  Maybe they've been ignored by their own families and had their faith thrown back in their faces.  Just because we haven't been thrown into prison for our faith doesn't mean we have no faith or that God isn't working on us.  I have often worried that here in the land of the free and home of the brave, we haven't had to endure persecution much at all, and if we are not persecuted then are we really Christians?  Are we even worth God's time since we have had it so very easy?  But this verse says that even if we haven't gone to prison for our faith, God knows where we are and He is still bringing us along, teaching us discipline, teaching us to endure, as preparation for a time when we might find ourselves facing the real deal.  If that day comes, we can't expect to be "heroes" if we haven't learned to deal with the little things first. 

Possible FB post.

2021 - Here is the yield of God's discipline: 

11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. [Heb 12:11 ESV] 

So it gives us peace, no matter what happens around us.  We don't panic, we don't fret, we have been trained that God will get us through it.  Whether a deadly virus, an ice storm, sub-zero temperatures, or snow on top of snow. 

2026 - The problem as I see it is that some of the things that happen to us are fallen and evil and we get caught in the less than perfect functioning way the world works.  Contrasted with that it God's discipline  to sanctify us  and make us more like Jesus.  How can we tell the difference?  How do we know when it is God and we should be thankful and when it is just the evil of the world and we should pray for perseverance.

vs 15 is about the Jews receiving this letter who were intellectually convinced that Jesus was Messiah, but who do not fully believe.  They are holding to the rites and rituals, reserving headlong belief to the point of death.  And if they decide just to reject, but keep the appearance of believing, then they become defiled.  2022 - or not....

2022 - This scary verse:

17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears. [Heb 12:17 ESV]  "Too Late".

Sometimes, you just run out of chances.  I need to once again review the recommendations of Jonathan Edwards for those who find themselves in Esau's situation.  Maybe I can find those and add them after this verse as another FB post?

The fear of the Israelites before Mt. Sinai is contrasted with the Israelites before Zion.  They were so frightened that they asked God not to speak to them anymore.  But now, in the heavenly Jerusalem, we stand in the very presence of God, because we are in Christ.  They stood before Sinai still under sin's condemnation, unredeemed as yet from the sentence of death.  We, today, who believe, stand before God with no sins imputed to us.  We have no need to quake in fear as they did, but to humble ourselves before the one so gracious as to purge our sin from us in his eyes. 

2022 - This verse:

21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear." [Heb 12:21 ESV].  It goes on to say that we need not have this much fear, because we stand before God in Christ.

2022 - Some things in these verses also:

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. [Heb 12:22-24 ESV]

We jump ahead from the initiation of the Law by a terrifying and frightening God to a different mountain.  God's own mountain.  Think of all that transpired between Sinai and the building of the Temple in Solomon's time to the rebuilding after Babylon, to the Temple still standing at the time Hebrews was written.  The Temple that how had a torn veil.

I also find the phrase "to the spirits of the righteous made perfect".  I think this perhaps speaks to the fact that the physical bodies of the OT saints are still in the ground awaiting resurrection and renewal at the Great White Throne.  But since the resurrection, their spirits are in heaven, in the very presence of God.  But at the GWT, spirit will be united with a new body, fit for eternity, and equipped for the perfection of that place.

2023 - These vss, 22-24, are a description of the Temple in heaven, the one not made with hands.  This is imagery of what it looks like in that place.  I think that imagery was current when the writer penned it, and it still looks like this now.  The Greed word used for "perfect" here in 23 is the very same word used of the OT saints in 11:40, though a different Greek tense.  In 11 it was aorist - not specific as to time - and here in 12 it is a perfect passive participle.  Perfect means "describes an action which is viewed as having been completed in the past, once and for all, not needing to be repeated. Jesus' last cry from the cross, TETELESTAI ("It is finished!") is a good example", passive means "Represents the subject as being the recipient of the action. e.g., in the sentence, "we were comforted" the subject "we" receives the action", so the spirits of the righteous receive this once for all perfecting, The participle is this: "Corresponds for the most part to the English participle, reflecting "-ing" or "-ed" being suffixed to the basic verb form. The participle can be used either like a verb or a noun, as in English, and thus is often termed a "verbal noun."".  So we might read it as "the spirits of the righteous perfected".  In Chapter 11, I think the aorist gives us the idea that the righteous are perfected, each at his/her own proper time, so perhaps this does not mean that at Christ's completion of the sacrifice on the cross, the spirits of all the OT saints stepped from Hades to heaven.  And yet...I see no way around it meaning exactly that.  Then in 12, we see - we SEE - those who's perfection is complete standing in the heavenly temple. To stand at this temple you must first be perfected.  Only the blood of Jesus can do that.  Only in him can we stand in the presence of God.  So....back in 11, they without us may best be understood as NOT ABOUT the WHEN of perfection at all, but about the "two into one" that Paul talks about in Ephesians.  The OT saints were of the circumcision made with hands, but even those so chosen by God had to wait for us Gentiles, and all of us together were perfected by Christ's work on the cross.  That seems the best way to understand it.

3/30/24 - After reading Exodus 29 yesterday, about the consecration of Aaron and his sons, and then going over my notes on Systematic Theology Chapter 51, Item B3, and then this verse:  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. [Heb 12:24 ESV], I decided that all these are related, and that there is much to learn from looking at them all together. 

I went into a lot of detail on each kind of sacrifice in Exodus.  I think that the sprinkling of blood on the altar, on Aaron, and on his sons, was a way of purifying them for service.  For consecrating them to a purpose and that purpose was to serve God according to God's own commands.  So how does the sacrifice of Abel in Genesis, the consecration of the priests by sprinkling blood on the altar, and worship in the church as described in Hebrews 12 all tie together? 

Abel's sacrifice was the first one ever offered.  It was a blood sacrifice, and God accepted it.  But it was only temporary, and needed to be repeated at some interval.  But Abel's sacrifice instituted the whole practice of sacrificing animals to temporarily defer God's justice toward sinners.  So I think Abel is mentioned in Hebrews not because "his blood cried out to God" after his murder, but because his was the first sacrifice.  That sacrifice by Abel turned into the prescribed sacrificial requirements of the Law, and Aaron and his sons were ordained to perform those sacrifices.  If you read closely, you see that the blood of the sacrifice as the priesthood was initiated was sprinkled on Aaron and  his sons, AND on the altar upon which the sacrifice was burned.  Then we get here to Hebrews.  I think this verse is connecting the shed blood of Christ back through the Law and all the way to Abel's first sacrifice.  Abel was the first sacrifice, Jesus the last, and a sweeter sacrifice because it is both sufficient and permanent.  We, in the New Covenant, are sprinkled with the blood of the perfect sacrifice, to ordain us - to consecrate us - as priests of the living God.  (For this to be complete, the washing with water before donning the ritual clothing ought to be included.  So I may have this all completely wrong...but I don't think so.  I think it ties to purification/consecration by the shed blood of the sacrifice...but beyond that...think about it some more...)

I think taking it beyond this might be going to far.  I don't think this is about baptism at all.  I don't think it is about sprinkling vs immersion.  I think this is about the sacrifice, about Jesus, and about the correlation of his sacrifice, his shed blood, tying back all the way to that first sacrifice offered by Abel.  You need the Law, and Exodus 29, to see that far more than just a temporary placation of the Father, Jesus' blood consecrated all who believe in him for service in the priesthood. 

Going on backwards a bit in Hebrews, we see the difference in the Law and the New Covenant.  Under the Law, the people were deathly afraid even to hear God speak, they dared not approach him.  But under the New Covenant, we approach him directly - because our sins are gone, and we are truly forever purified before God.

08/18/2024 Addendum - There is this parallel to consider, which may be the real point of the verse in Hebrews.  Maybe Abel is not about the beginning of sacrificing animals.  Abel did sacrifice animals, and his sacrifice was acceptable to God, making Abel a priest of his own house I suppose.  And the fact that Hebrews calls it the sprinkled blood of Abel...no, it doesn't...In fact it says "the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel".  So the blood here is not the blood of the sacrifice that Abel made, but Abel's own blood, shed by Cain.  This is a picture of the murder of the better by the corrupt.  As faithless Cain resented the faith of Abel and the relationship of Abel and God, to the point of murdering his own brother, as good as it was for the righteous to die at the hands of the unrighteous, Jesus, the more perfect sacrifice, still had to die at the hands of sinners to atone for all mankind.  Abel is a picture of Christ here.  NOT A TYPE, but a preview of what was to come.  Jesus shed blood - tied to the Law by use of the word sprinkling to tell us that Jesus was sacrificed for all men not just for his own salvation - is a BETTER sacrifice than was the very similar shedding of blood by Abel.  This seems a better way to look at it.

2022 - This one...

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." [Heb 12:26 ESV]

An end times prophecy certainly.  This is a quote from Haggai 2:6.  You don't hear much about Haggai being quoted in the NT, but this is a big one here.  Here is the entirety from Haggai.  Note that this is an example where by quoting a part, the whole is referenced.

6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. 7 And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. 9 The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts.'" [Hag 2:6-9 ESV]

When you read it all, it is pretty certainly a Millennial prophecy referring to the future glory of a better Temple.  A bit odd that this would come into it when the Temple of that day still stands, and the audience is Jewish.  Ahhhh!!!  He is connecting God's direct communication with mankind before the current Temple was built - a Temple for the practice of a Law that has been shown to be inferior - with the Temple that will come in the Millennial - a better Temple, built for the observance of a far better covenant.  This writer makes SO MANY connections and comparisons and contrasts that it is just beyond me to think how much he knew and understood of God's plan.  If Paul wrote something like this, how could there be any doubt of his inspiration, and if he was inspired, how could we doubt his many claims of an apostolic title?