Hebrews
The Warning
Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony
Subject: Conversations, Panels, and Sermons
Lesson: 32-33
Genre: Lecture
Track: 32
Dictation Name: RR198R32
Location/Venue:
Year:
Let us worship God. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. Let us pray.
Oh Lord our God we thank Thee that for us Jesus Christ has come. That He is our redeemer king, that in Him we have newness of life, and an eternal inheritance in Thee. Grant our Father that the joy of this victorious season be ours all the year long, that we are ever mindful that Christ is King, that His will shall be done, and that He shall triumph over all His enemies. We thank Thee that we are a part of His victory, in Christ’s name, Amen.
Let us turn to Hebrews 12:18-29 Our subject: The Warning. Hebrews 12:18-29.
“18For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,
19And 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:
20(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:
21And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)
22But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
23To 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,
24And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
25See 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:
26Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
27And 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.
28Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
29For our God is a consuming fire.”
Verses 18-21 hark back to the revelation of the law on Mount Sinai. It was then forbidden to all to even touch the mountain because it was surrounded with fire, blackness and tempest. Israel then heard the blast of trumpets, or of a trumpet, a voice and a warning that for man or beast to touch the mountain meant death. A presumptuous people were warned against presuming on God’s mercy. Moses himself said: “I exceedingly fear and quake.” The context of this statement is very important, it is Deuteronomy 9:11-21. Moses was sent down by God to confront a people who had made a golden bull calf, a fertility cult symbol, and they were worshipping it with fertility, or sexual rites.
Moses’s great fear was that God would judge and obliterate all of Israel. As it deserved to be. And He prayed earnestly and fearfully for Aaron and Israel. In all this Paul and the company obviously had Israel’s sin in the desert in mind. Israel wanted to return to bondage in Egypt, to the security of slavery. The Hebrews in the church wanted to return to Jerusalem, but the Christians were beginning to see the earthly Jerusalem as another Egypt, as a Sodom, for crucifying Christ. The Hebrews who wanted to return to the temple, were themselves as Godly, but Hebrews here implies: They are the people of Egypt and of Sodom, if they defect. In the person of Jesus Christ they face the incarnate God, their king and their savior. To turn their backs on Him is worse by far than the sin of Israel in the desert. In Him have they come to the true mount Zion, to the great city of God, to the goal of their forefather’s pilgrimage.
This is the heavenly Jerusalem, not the crucifying earthly one. And they have come to an innumerable company of angels as well. As Christians they have these heavenly hosts as they’re allies. Are they going to seek now the fellowship of those who crucified the messiah? Even if they rejected Jesus Christ as their High Priest, if they still saw Him as messiah how could they join His murderer’s? In Jesus Christ the Messiah Redeemer they were part of the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven.
Congregation or church is Ecclesia, the governing body. A very important term as we have seen before. The Ecclesia term was common place to the Roman Empire, it was the governing council of an area, the city council, the governing body. And so the church is called the Ecclesia by God because it is to be the government of the future. Then general assembly is from the word Pan, meaning all, and Agora, meaning assembly. These terms exclude the earthly Jerusalem, because the totality of the true Israel of God is in Christ, in His true church. Will they cut themselves off from the true Israel of God?
Here and here alone in Christ and in His congregation are they in company of God, the judge of all and of the spirits of just men made perfect. To separate themselves from Jesus Christ is to separate themselves from salvation and invoke the judgement of God. It is also a separation from Jesus Christ, from the Messiah. He cannot be our king if He is not our savior, our High Priest. His blood speaks of mercy, grace and atonement, whereas the blood of righteous Able can speak only of the need for vengeance, judgement, and death again the murderer. Against all who break God’s law.
We must therefore not refuse Him who speaks, namely God. If judgment falls on all who refuse to hear Moses, how much more so will judgment fall on all who refuse to hear God? The words of our Lord are clearly identified as the very words of God. He speaks in effect from heaven, from whence He came, and He must be heard.
In fact verse 26 declares the words of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one. There is a declared continuity between the words spoken to Moses on Mount Sinai, and the word spoken by Jesus Christ. At Sinai, that voice shook the earth, now in terms of Haggai 2:6-7 all things are again being shaken. This is a continuous shaking to the end of the world, and its purpose is to shake down all things, so that only those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
History is thus a form of shaking; in order to bring down all those whose foundation is not the rock, Jesus Christ. Clearly this echoes our Lords final words in the Sermon on the Mount. He is alone the unshakeable foundation or rock, which can withstand the earthquakes and floods of history. Anything without him as the foundation will perish, because we are citizens of a kingdom which cannot be moved, we must cling to grace whereby we stand, in order to serve God acceptably with reverence and Godly fear. History will not spare those who equivocate, and who avoid an unqualified stand. Because history is of God’s ordination, it moves to eliminate all that is against Him, and all that is not clearly for Him.
We have here a philosophy of History. History is a continual shaking, to shake down everything that is not of the Lord. In 60 A.D. Judea was clearly far ahead of the nations of its day in its morality, and its general caliber. Yet God judged Jerusalem and the Jews before he judged Rome, and far more severely. 1 Peter 4:17 tells us that judgement must begin at the house of God, because the offense of the Godly community is far greater, being done in the name of God. Our God is a consuming fire.
Interesting, that sentence appears many times in the Old Testament, and twice in the new, and yet how do modern people define God? By one verse, God is Love. But they will not say also, He is a consuming fire. Nor will they go into the fact that Love too is a fire. All you have to do is deal with the outrage, the fiery anger of anyone who has been betrayed by a husband or wife. It does lead to anger. To fiery wrath.
Our God is a consuming fire because He is a God of love. History cannot be understood apart from this fact. And there is no escaping this God. Either we are purged by His fiery love of all of our dross and impurity, or we are consumed by Him His fire can be the security of His protection as with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, or it can destroy us and all our pretentions.
The potentially defecting Hebrews are warned that their future is not in their hands to determine. The good is not what they choose, but what God determines. Judgement in other words is not in their hands, but in Gods. And He is the judge. Let us pray.
Our Father, we thank Thee that as we look at the shakings of our time we know that Thou art at work; whether the shaking be of the church or of the nations, Thou art eliminating all that is not unshakeable. Give us faith that we may face these troubled days, be more than conquerors through our Lord, and in Him endure and stand fast. Grant us this in Christ’s name, amen.
Are there any questions now about our lesson?
We are coming close to the end of Hebrews, and as I have indicated more than once we will then deal with James as a kind of fitting conclusion to Hebrews because the two have so much in common. And we can better understand James in the context of Hebrews. Yes?
[Audience Member] Exactly what is the reference to Able in verse 24 referring to?
[Rushdoony] “And Jesus Christ, the mediator of the new covenant and of the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Able.” Is that a reference to whom?
[Audience Member] To able, what is that reference to Able there?
[Rushdoony] Oh, to Able; well, Able was in the Godly line, so here is a man who died fully innocent, one of their forebears so to speak, although Able had no children, but He was of the line of the Godly seed that went through Noah down to Abraham and to the present time. So, what Hebrews is saying, is that Abel’s blood can only speak of the evil that has been perpetrated, of the need for judgement, the need for some kind of vengeance upon Cain perhaps, so the blood of Abel, a very righteous man, does not even come close to what the blood of our Lord, which is atonement, means. So he is contrasting the innocent blood of Abel, what good can it do for you? To the blood of Jesus Christ which renders atonement for our sins.
So again He is going into their past history, to one of the noblest of figures, and comparing his blood to the blood of Christ.
Any other… yes?
[Audience Member] You said he was righteous, but that’s not to say that he did not have a few imperfections right?
[Rushdoony] Very good, yes, he speaks of him as clearly righteous, and yet his righteousness cannot communicate anything to us, only the righteousness of Christ is communicated to us by the atonement.
[Audience Member] Well, my point is some morally perfect people might twist that meaning.
[Rushdoony] Yes.
[Audience Member] Sometimes I get the feeling that they have sometimes, when you talk to these people.
[Rushdoony] Any other questions or comments? Yes.
[Audience Member] Have you noticed the word redemption has become increasingly a part of our vocabulary, in a non-religious sense? Athletes who come out of a slump and put their critics to shame are said to gain redemption, it’s become very, very common.
[Rushdoony] Yes, redeeming coupons for example. Yes, it is a word that is being secularized to a great extent. Some words are disappearing, even from the modern translations, like atonement. Not many modern versions will use atonement; they use evasive words when they translate, as they call it, the New Testament. So there is a great deal of evasion of the language and corruption of other words.
Well, if there are no further comments let us conclude with prayer.
Our Father we give thanks unto Thee that, Jesus Christ is our Redeemer. That in Him we have a new beginning and no end, but eternal life. We thank Thee that Thou art preparing us here for that eternal life; give us patience that we may stand in Thy testing and Thy refining of our lives and of our characters. We thank Thee our Father for the joy of this season.
And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.