Hebrews Chapter 12

From The Open Bible Project

12:1 Therefore let us also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

• (1) An applying of the former examples, by which we ought to be stirred up to run the whole race, casting away all hindrances and impediments.
• (a) For sin besieges us on all sides, so that we cannot escape.

12:2 looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

• (2) He sets before us, as the mark of this race, Jesus himself our captain, who willingly overcame all the roughness of the same way.
• (b) As it were upon the mark of our faith.
• (c) While he had every type of blessedness in his hand and power, yet suffered willingly the shame of the cross.

12:3 For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don't grow weary, fainting in your souls.

• (3) An amplification, taken from the circumstance of the person and the things themselves, which he compares between themselves: for how great is Jesus in comparison of us, and how far more grievous things did he suffer than we?

12:4 You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin;

• (4) He takes an argument from the profit which comes to us by God’s chastisements, unless we are at fault. First of all because sin, or that rebellious wickedness of our flesh, is by this means tamed.

12:5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, "My son, don't take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him;

• (5) Secondly, because they are testimonies of his fatherly good will towards us, in that they show themselves to be illegitimate, if they cannot abide to be chastened by God.

12:6 For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives."[45]

12:7 It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn't discipline?

12:8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not children.

12:9 Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?

• (6) Thirdly, if all men yield this right to fathers, to whom next after God we owe this life, that they may rightfully correct their children, shall we not be much more subject to our Father, who is the author of spiritual and everlasting life?

12:10 For they indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.

• (7) An amplification of the same argument: Those fathers have corrected us after their fancy, for some frail and temporary good: but God chastens and instructs us for our singular good to make us partakers of his holiness: which although our senses do not presently perceive it, yet the end of the matter proves it.

12:11 All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been exercised thereby.

12:12 Therefore, lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees,[46]

• (8) The conclusion: we must go forward courageously and keep always a right course and (as far forth as we may) without any staggering or stumbling.
• (d) The description of a man that is out of heart and completely discouraged.

12:13 and make straight paths for your feet,[47] so that which is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.

• (e) Keep a right course, and so, that you show examples of good life for others to follow.

12:14 Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man will see the Lord,

• (9) We must live in peace and holiness with all men.

12:15 looking carefully lest there be any man who falls short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and many be defiled by it;

• (10) We must study to edify one another both in doctrine and example of life.
• (f) That no heresy, or backsliding be an offence.

12:16 lest there be any sexually immoral person, or profane person, like Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal.

• (11) We must shun immorality, and a profane mind, that is, such a mind as does not give God his due honour, which wickedness, how severely God will at length punish, the horrible example of Esau teaches us.

12:17 For you know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for a change of mind though he sought it diligently with tears.

• (g) There was no room left for his repentance: and it appears by the effects, what his repentance really was, for when he left his father’s presence, he threatened to kill his brother.

12:18 For you have not come to a mountain that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, darkness, storm,

• (12) Now he applies the same exhortation to the prophetic and kingly office of Christ compared with Moses, after this sort. If the majesty of the law was so great, how great do you think the glory of Christ and the gospel is? This comparison he declares also particularly.
• (h) Which might be touched with hands, which was of a gross and earthly matter.

12:19 the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which those who heard it begged that not one more word should be spoken to them,

12:20 for they could not stand that which was commanded, "If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned[48];"[49]

12:21 and so fearful was the appearance, that Moses said, "I am terrified and trembling."[50]

• (i) The shape and form which he saw, which was no counterfeit and forged shape, but a true one.

12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels,

12:23 to the general assembly and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,

• (k) So he calls them that are taken up to heaven, although one part of them sleeps in the earth.

12:24 to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant,[51] and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel.

12:25 See that you don't refuse him who speaks. For if they didn't escape when they refused him who warned on the Earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven,

• (13) The applying of the former comparison: If it were not lawful to condemn his word which was spoken on the earth, how much less his voice which is from heaven?

12:26 whose voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, saying, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens."[52]

• (14) He compares the steadfast majesty of the gospel, with which the whole world was shaken, and even the very frame of heaven was astonished, with the small and vanishing sound of the governance by the law.
• (l) It appears evidently in this that the prophet speaks of the calling of the Gentiles, that these words must refer to the kingdom of Christ.

12:27 This phrase, "Yet once more," signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.

12:28 Therefore, receiving a Kingdom that can't be shaken, let us have grace, through which we serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe,

• (15) A general exhortation to live reverently and religiously under the most happy subjection of so mighty a King, who as he blesses his most mightily, so does he most severely revenge the rebellious. This is the sum of a Christian life, respecting the first table of the law.
• (m) By reverence is meant that honest modesty which keeps them in their duties.
• (n) Religious and godly fear.

12:29 for our God is a consuming fire.[53]