The Call to Endurance
1 Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses e surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance f the race that lies before us, 2 keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, g and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Fatherly Discipline
3 For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you won’t grow weary and give up. h 4 In struggling against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons:
My son, do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly
or lose heart when you are reproved by him,
6 for the Lord disciplines the one he loves
and punishes every son he receives. ,i
7 Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline—which all receive —then you are illegitimate children and not sons. j 9 Furthermore, we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them. Shouldn’t we submit even more to the Father of spirits and live? k 10 For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but he does it for our benefit, so that we can share his holiness. l 11 No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit m of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. n
12 Therefore, strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees, o 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed instead. p
Warning against Rejecting God’s Grace
14 Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness q—without it no one will see the Lord. r 15 Make sure that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up, causing trouble and defiling many. s 16 And make sure that there isn’t any immoral or irreverent t person like Esau, who sold his birthright in exchange for a single meal. u 17 For you know that later, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, even though he sought it with tears, because he didn’t find any opportunity for repentance. v
18 For you have not come to what could be touched, to a blazing fire, to darkness, gloom, and storm, 19 to the blast of a trumpet, and the sound of words. Those who heard it begged that not another word be spoken to them, 20 for they could not bear what was commanded: If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned. ,w 21 The appearance was so terrifying that Moses said, I am trembling with fear. ,x 22 Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God (the heavenly Jerusalem), to myriads of angels, a festive gathering, y 23 to the assembly of the firstborn whose names have been written in heaven, to a Judge, who is God of all, to the spirits of righteous people made perfect, z 24 and to Jesus, the mediator a of a new covenant, b and to the sprinkled blood, which says better things than the blood of Abel. c
25 See to it that you do not reject the one who speaks. For if they did not escape when they rejected him who warned them on earth, even less will we if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven. d 26 His voice shook the earth at that time, but now he has promised, Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens. ,e 27 This expression, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of what can be shaken f—that is, created things—so that what is not shaken might remain. 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, g 29 for our God is a consuming fire. h
D. Jesus, the superior example of faith (12:1–4). 12:1–2. The author now imagines the ancient heroes of faith as a great company of spectators ready to cheer on the readers in a race the former have already completed but which the latter must yet run (12:1a). Christian athletes must divest themselves of anything that will hamper them in this spiritual race (12:1b), which is another way of saying that a chief principle of Christian spirituality is self-denial or self-discipline (cf. Mt 19:27–29; 1 Co 9:24–27).
12:3–4. The recipients of this written sermon are reminded that their present suffering—the opposition they are encountering on account of their faith in Christ—is not to be compared with what Christ endured for them, nor even with the trials of many of their spiritual forebears (11:37), and thus provides no excuse for their present faintheartedness.
E. The meaning and merit of discipline (12:5–13). The testing of the readers’ faith is intended by the Lord to benefit them and indicates his love for them (12:5–6). Any true father disciplines his children, corrects them when they err, and cultivates their maturity by requiring the endurance of adversity (12:7). In this, Christians are only following in their master’s footsteps (5:8). Though painful at the time, the heavenly Father’s discipline will yield its perfect fruit if believers humbly submit to it as from the Lord, trusting him to help them endure it (12:9–11; cf. 1 Co 10:13; Jms 1:2–4). In the confidence that such trials inevitably and necessarily litter the straight and narrow road that leads to life, the readers must press on (12:12–13; cf. Is 35:3–4 and Pr 4:25–27, the language of which the author borrows).
F. Warning not to turn away from God (12:14–29). 12:14–17. Each person must study holiness (12:14), as the gospel requires, and help others to do the same, taking special care to nip sin in the bud when it arises within the community (12:15–16a; cf. Dt 29:18; 1 Co 5:6). Esau exemplifies the person who exchanges the unseen and future inheritance for the sensible and immediate pleasures of this world and, consequently, squanders irrevocably the blessing that was in one’s grasp (12:16b–17; cf. 6:4–6; 10:26–31). Esau’s tears showed remorse for the consequences of his folly, not godly sorrow that brings true repentance (cf. Gn 27:34–40).
12:18–21. These verses present Israel as a paradigm of unbelief that leads to death, in any epoch. That Israel “begged that not another word be spoken to them” (12:19b) was, in the judgment of this author, a culpable act of rebellion against God. Israel’s request (cf. Dt 5:23–29), though not in itself sinful, was neither genuine nor indicative of future commitments. As the citation of Dt 9:19 confirms (12:21), Moses’s fear was not of the awesome manifestations of the divine holiness (12:18–19a)—he had already walked into that fire and gloom to the top of the mountain—but of the prospect of divine judgment against the people for the sin with the golden calf. These verses, then, depict the terror of the apostate face-to-face with the wrath of God, a terror no less the destiny of those who forsake the Lord today (12:25, 29; see also 10:27, 30–31).
12:22–24. Contrarily, the author is confident of better things concerning the readers, the things that are obtained by a living faith (cf. 6:9–10; 10:39). The author is persuaded that the readers are genuinely converted, and thus that their situation is different from Israel’s in the same way it is unlike Esau’s. This confidence is the basis of the appeal to them to persevere. Of course, the blessings enumerated are not peculiar to the new epoch; they are the better things of the heavenly country that believers have always grasped from afar by faith (11:10, 13–16, 26–27) and must so grasp by faith today. Hebrews was written to warn this community of believers that it would, like Israel, forfeit these very blessings if it chose to mimic Israel’s apostasy. “Assembly of the firstborn” (12:23) refers to the privileged station of the saints as set apart to God (Ex 4:22; 13:2) and heirs of all things, the very privileges that Esau squandered (Heb 12:16–17).
12:25–29. The admonition here reiterates 3:7–12 and 4:1–2. The readers must not imitate faithless Israel in the wilderness. The threat of divine judgment is no less serious today. In view of the connection of thought between 12:24 and 12:25 (“which says . . . who speaks”), it is reasonable to assume that Jesus is to be understood as the one who thundered his law at Sinai and who utters the promise of Hg 2:6 (12:26). Believers have not yet taken possession of the better things, but soon they will, and that forever (12:28–29). That prospect ought to awaken them to glad thanksgiving and to a new determination to work out their salvation in fear and trembling so as not to be found at last among those who miss the grace of God (12:15) and instead must face God’s wrath. The warning reiterates Dt 4:23–24 and indicates that the word of God is no less menacing to the unbeliever and the disobedient today than it was in Moses’s day. [Reverence]