The Book of Hebrews 12:18-24 We have not come; We have come
Hebrews 12:18-24 · Vern Peterman · Jul 27, 2014
Hebrews, No. 62
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49264354352

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We had Brad read from this particular text, put it on the screen, get it in your handout, because it has some differences from just kind of the usual translations. And we'll go through those a little bit at a time. So one of the things you'll notice is that we have the first part, verses 18-21, that talk about when the Law of Moses was established, and it describes some of the conditions at that time. And then the next part is verses 22-24, which describe the heavenly scene, our grace position. So we'll go into that one step at a time here.

Now, one of the things to notice at the beginning of each of those is, one, you have not come at the beginning of the first one, and then the second one, you have come. The author of Hebrews is actually saying something similar, not identical to, similar to what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 6, 14, and 15, you are not under law, but under grace. Not under law, but under grace. He expresses it, however, in a different way.

He says, you have not come to the founding of the law of Moses, to summarize what he describes there. You haven't come to that. You have absolutely not come to that. But you have come to the heavenly throne room and to God and to Jesus. So let's take a look, rereading here the first little part, verse 18, and the first part of verse 19. For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched, and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to a blast of a trumpet, and sound of words."

And one of the things you'll notice there is I had this bold italics for not. In the Greek language in which this was originally written, word order did not mean as much as it does in English. And so one of the ways of having emphasis, since they didn't have italics and bolding and underlining and things like that like we do, one of the ways was to emphasize something by bringing it to the first part of the sentence. That's called the emphatic position. And that's where not is in the Greek language, which is why I did the bold italics part.

For you have not come to, and the implication is a mountain, Mount Sinai, that can be touched And so then let's take a look at that here. You have not come. He is telling his readers that they have not come. And by the way, this is the perfect tense. It's a completed past action. You didn't at all come. You absolutely did not come. And you continue to have the effect from that, from not coming. And it will continue on into the future. You've absolutely not come. Stuck in place, it's going to continue to have the effect that you didn't come to this place and on into the future.

You didn't come to the inauguration of the Law of Moses as described in this passage. Now, one of the things you're going to see is the author of Hebrews, in these few verses, is going to describe the inauguration of the Law as to be very uncomfortable. A very uncomfortable place to be. The way he, truthfully, he's not really exaggerating, it's right out of the Old Testament, describes the inauguration, the beginning of the Law of Moses, they most certainly would not have wanted to be there. So it's a good thing they aren't. They really would not have wanted to be there. Not, in verse 18, is emphatic. So, not you have come.

First, In this passage, he gives an objective description of what took place, and then he switches to the human, the subjective reaction. So let's take a look first at this objective description. The mountain that can be touched is Sinai, although you would not have wanted to have touched it, because the warning came from God speaking Himself, don't touch the mountain, you will die.

The blazing fire was intense, bright, and burning fiercely. It was not some nice little warm camping fire like we'll be there in maybe a couple of weeks, right? Instead, this was a very uncomfortable, fierce fire. The blazing fire, however, was only there part of the time and part of the location, because the other thing that happened was darkness and gloom and whirlwind blowing and swirling about. Very unstable. Very unstable.

Deuteronomy 4.11, here's Moses beginning his last set of discourses to the Israelites. He says, You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the very heart of the heavens, and then there was darkness, cloud, and thick gloom. So it's almost a mixture of both. One is this fierce fire, but then also cloud and thick gloom.

Then there was a blast of a trumpet and a sound of words. Now, can you imagine, here you are trying to get some sleep, because this thing went on for days, right? Over a month it went on. Can you imagine you're near the mountain and you're trying to get some sleep, you know? All of a sudden this trumpet blast comes out. Now, notice it doesn't say trumpets in a nice little lilting melody. This is a blast on a trumpet. Crazy, crazy sounds coming out from this mountain. So, then you get to the next part, which is the human reaction, the subjective response to all this brightness and darkness and gloom and whirlwind and sounds of trumpet and sounds of words.

A sound of words in the middle of 19 there, which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them." They had one word spoken and they said, oh no, no more of that. Why? It was way over the top too loud. That's way beyond the threshold of my ear tolerance. Please don't do that again. Please. No more God speaking. for they could not, and here's the word not, is it the first part of the Greek sentence, right? So it's emphasized again, for they could not bear the command, if even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned.

Apparently that was way over the top in terms of their tolerance for volume. So, and so terrible was the sight that Moses said, exceedingly I fear and tremble. So those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. It was not just uncomfortable, it was painful. It was painful, this introduction of the law. What they heard was, if even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned. And that was beyond what they could handle in volume. They said, never again, not that.

Even Moses was overwhelmed with this law-giving experience. The character and intensity of the sights and sounds on and from Mount Sinai did not make for an inviting or joyous event, much less a good night's sleep. Much less a good night's sleep. Can you imagine going for over a month and having these trumpet blasts and voices so loud that you cannot tolerate them, and combinations of brightness and fierceness of flame, and then darkened gloom.

It was much more than they could handle. It was not an inviting experience. And by the way, you could touch the mountain theoretically, but don't do it because you'll die. That's not an inviting place. It's certainly not a place to get a good night's sleep.

Let's take a look at the next part where he describes the grace position, the heavenly scene here. And he says, But you have come to a Mount Zion, and to a city of the living God, a heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to a general assembly. And we'll talk more about this general assembly, about what that is.

Okay. But. There are different words in the Greek language for But, and some of them are just sort of a turning point in a sentence or a paragraph, this particular one means a strong contrast, and we've come across this before. In strong contrast to the character of the inauguration, the beginning of the Law of Moses on Mount Sinai, in strong contrast to that, the author of Hebrews is saying where and to whom they have come, they, the readers, of the book of Hebrews and being in the perfect tense also tells us that this is a completed past action. It's not you've come and you're going to go somewhere else, but you have come. It's a completed past action, ongoing results on into the future. You've come and you've really come and you've come and it's definite. You're not just passing through.

He says, and this is a trio, describing the same thing. A Mount Zion, A City of the Living God, A Heavenly Jerusalem. And one of the things that if you compare this to the usual translations, I've taken out all the definite articles because they're not there. So it is A Mount Zion, A City of the Living God, A Heavenly Jerusalem. Those are all three descriptions of the same place. So let's take a look at these. They're synonyms, they all refer to the very same place. Mount Zion is the name of the mountain physically, where the earthly Jerusalem is located, and so this is a heavenly Mount Zion. A heavenly Mount Zion. All three of these expressions refer to a heavenly place.

In ancient times, Citizenship was in a city rather than in a country. We, in our era, had citizenship in a country. But in ancient times, you had citizenship in a city rather than a country. Let me give you an example. The Apostle Paul, though as far as we know until about 61 AD, had not been to Rome by any record that we have. Yet from birth, he had a Roman citizenship. So that's an example of citizenship within a city. The Jews would look upon themselves as being citizens of Jerusalem. So we're going to see where that fits later in this passage here, so we'll return to that theme. Now, let's look at the city idea.

It's something we've seen before in Hebrews 11.10.

And for he, that is Abraham, was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. So here's Abraham, God promised him a land, but he says in the end, I'm looking for the city that God built. I'm looking for that place. Next, in Hebrews 11, just a few verses later in verse 16, he summarizes not just for Abraham but other Old Testament saints but as it is they desire a better country that is a heavenly one therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared a city for them prepared a heavenly city for them and thirdly Hebrews 13 14 will get to that a little bit later for here we do not have a lasting city here Is Denver a lasting city? Well, it's not an everlasting city. But we are seeking this city which is to come. So now, we have been brought to a city, but there's still one more yet to come.

What's that about? In Revelation 21-2, we read about the new heavens and new earth, and it says, I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. That is beautiful, right? Beautiful.

That's the message. So this is the city which is to come. So we have a consistent message. We've been brought to the present heaven. And we're still looking for one more, the city which is to come. Alright, now, at this point in verse 22, we begin the who. That is, we've talked about the place, and it has three different names, the heavenly Mount Zion, the city of God, and the heavenly Jerusalem. Those are all synonyms for the same. Now we're changing over to who. from the place.

Which, by the way, brings up something else. Ever hear talk about when somebody dies, people will say, well, he or she is in a better place. Well, a better place is nice, but it's also important to have better who's, right? Better who's. And that's what we're talking about here.

The myriads of angels. A myriad is 10,000. In the ancient Greek numbering system, it was the largest number that they had. So this is topped out. And not only is it the largest number that they had to work with, but it's plural. See, so that's how you make it bigger than 10,000. You can make it plural at one point in time. It's described of angels that there are myriads of myriads, okay? And that's another way to talk about a lot of them. So myriads are multiples of the largest number equivalent to lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of them, right?

Okay. To be precise. Okay. Angels are created beings, okay? They're created beings. They're not creative beings. Get the distinction? We are made in God's image to be creative. The angels are created beings, but the Bible does not say that they are creative beings. They have a hierarchy, that's clear. We know, for example, Michael is called an archangel, so he would be above other angels. So they do have a hierarchy among them.

There also seem to be different categories of them, and possibly more categories than were given. A cherubim would be one category. A seraphim is another category of angels. But there are also other adjectives that are used. Three times in the book of Revelation, a strong angel. And there are other descriptions that show up. We could go more into angels, but we won't do that now because we have other things to cover.

This general assembly, this is very interesting. It's only one word in the Greek, and it occurs only here in the entire New Testament. But it does occur elsewhere in Greek literature. The word means a festive gathering. Isn't that interesting? A festive gathering for two primary purposes. Either it's a celebration or for observation of a special event. Special event might be, for example, we would say a wedding. You get people gathered for that, for somebody to receive an award or something of that sort. So this is a festive gathering being either a celebration or observing a special event.

Now, opinions differ. Boy, differences of opinion, can you imagine that? But the evidence leans in the direction of this festive gathering to be identified with the myriads of angels. So here are the angels coming in celebration and observation of special events. Some of their celebration is given in the Gospels, where it's said that when one repents and is saved, that the angels rejoice. So that would be that kind of function. These contrast with the angels not mentioned in this passage, but mentioned elsewhere, that are terrifying on Mount Sinai. So with the angels at Mount Sinai, there is terror. These, however, are celebratory. These, however, are festive.

So here's the first who is you have the angels in festive gathering are listed here, and that's the meaning of the General Assembly. Now, let's look at the next part. And a church of the firstborn, who were forever enrolled in heaven, and to a judge, God of all, and to spirits of righteous ones, made perfect forever. What does that mean? Well, let's talk about that. A church of the firstborn, this is us. We who are in the body of Christ. It's referring to you and me. The word for church means an assembly. That's the particular word.

And if you're trying to look at it right side up, good luck. The firstborn means the one with the highest standing or privilege. Firstborn can be used in two ways in the Bible. One, it can mean literally the firstborn in sequence, physically the first one born. Or, it can be used, as it often is in the New Testament, for the firstborn, meaning having the status of the firstborn, the status and standing and privilege, and not necessarily to firstborn in sequence.

Though Christ holds the highest standing as the firstborn, that's from Colossians 1.15, Those in the Colossians elective have likely been through that. This word is plural in the Greek here. So it's not talking about singular firstborn Christ. It's talking about us as having the same status and privilege as Christ.

Yeah. Wow. This is phenomenal stuff. This is amazing stuff. All of us saints are firstborn. We all have the highest standing and privilege. If you're a child of God, we have a direct relationship with Him. We have a direct relationship. God has no grandchildren, and God has no nieces and nephews. Just all firstborn. That's you. That's your position. Why? Because you're positioned with Christ, and we'll get there.

Forever enrolled in heaven. Are you enrolled in heaven for a decade or so? Are you enrolled in heaven for a long time, maybe a hundred years? No. Forever enrolled in heaven. Being enrolled in heaven means to have your name written in the book of life. Your name written in the Book of Life.

In ancient cities, we mentioned previously, the Book of Life was the list of living citizens in good standing in the city. The Book of Life in the ancient cities was the list of living citizens in good standing in the city. Your name, if you're a believer here today, your name is in the Book of Life of the City of God. And better than that, in the heavenly city, you will live forever, because it was the list of living citizens, right?

When they died, their name was not in the Book of Life, because they weren't living. But in this city, you're going to live forever. Therefore, your name will stay in the Book of Life, right? It's going to stay there. How long? Forever. And you'll be totally conformed to the image of Christ, because that's predestined by God, Romans 8, 28 and 29, right? So you're in good standing for eternity. Another reason your name is in the book of life forever. You're living forever. You're in good standing forever. Your name stays in the book. How long? Forever. Right? Okay.

You're forever enrolled there in heaven with your name in the book of life. Now here you have whole lot of detail about the book of life starting in the book of Exodus where it initially refers to physical life and then later on the Old Testament refers to life in the coming millennial reign of Christ and Then in the New Testament begins to refer to eternal life, and then there's actions of blotted out not written included, etc We're not going to go through all that today. Okay.

Well, I'll let you study that if that's of interest to you Okay, we're going to move on to to a judge, God of all. Everyone will be judged by God. Everyone. Are you scared about that? Now, let's take a look at that. The judgment will begin with us, so we'll get it sooner.

This is 1 Peter 4.17. Peter's not kidding. The judgment begins with the house of God, and that judgment will be for rewards. The question God will have is, Not, what can I nail you for? The question God will have is, what can I reward you for? That's the question. And He is motivated to reward you to the maximum possible. Do you know that? He's motivated to reward you to the maximum possible. He wants to reward you. That's how God's motivated. He wants to reward you.

Here you have, in the next slide over, the biblical crowns and rewards. There are five crowns given in scripture. The victor's crown, the church founder's crown, which of course Paul himself would be one who would be qualified multiple times for that. The rapture lover's crown. Do you know that you can get a crown just for looking for the Lord's coming?

Isn't that cool? I mean, that's easy, right? Looking for the Lord's coming, anticipating His coming. And when He comes, it'll only be a moment. It'll be the twinkling of an eye. But when He comes, after that twinkling of an eye moment, that little tiny moment in time, He says, I'm going to reward you forever for that. I'm going to reward you forever for that. Boy, that is cool.

An elder's crown for service. Then there's also a trial crown, mentioned in James and Revelation. So there's those five crowns that we have identified. There are also three different rewards on top of those crowns. One is a solid foundation reward. There's a reward for solid doctrine. There's a reward for solid doctrine. Next, a voluntary service reward, not under compulsion. but voluntarily. And lastly, there's an inheritance reward, which those studying the Colossians will look at.

Now, these crowns are a Stephanos, a victor's crown in athletic competition. They're not a diadem, a royalty crown, but they're a victor's crown. They looked something like this in ancient times. And so this would give you an idea what they would receive as a crown.

So here's God, judge of all. There will also be the judgment of all other believers over the spans of time outside of those who are in the church. So other believers over the spans of time, both before and after the time of the church. Then there will be the judgment of all the unbelievers. Not all of, but much of that will be what's called the White Throne Judgment, Revelation chapter 20, verses 11 through 15.

So God is the judge of all. God is the judge of all. There will be a judgment, and we will be judged too, but we will not be judged for evaluation as to whether or not we're saved. We will be judged not for condemnation, but for reward. But not everyone will be in that place. Those who are not believers will have a judgment of condemnation.

Now, then the next one is the spirits of righteous ones made perfect forever. These are the Old Testament saints, both Gentile and Jew. So we have here in the picture as examples, here's Noah and here is Abraham. So these Gentiles and Jews would include Enoch and Noah and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and others listed in Hebrews chapter 11 that we just went over not too long ago.

With these, we have his historical record that they were not perfect. So they are made perfect forever, but they didn't live perfectly. Let's think about King David. Did he live perfectly? Not so much. He blew it really, really, really big sometimes, but He will be made perfect forever. Perfect forever.

This is the Lord's work, not his work. The Lord's doing. We have here a sort of a cartoonish picture of Jonah. Jonah is inside the whale on this picture, looking kind of blown out. So Jonah blew it. He blew it so badly that the Lord had to rock his boat. And the Lord had to get Jonah awake, and then he said, I'm the reason you're having a storm here. You guys need to pitch me over. And that's what they did. And so he did the wrong thing, really, really wrong first, and then did the right thing. So was he perfect? No. Far from it. But he be made perfect forever.

God has saved anyone he has saved by faith forever. For all time, God saves by faith. From Adam to the last one born, salvation is always by faith. Even when we talked earlier here about the giving of the law of Moses, you know the law never saved anyone? Even if you tried to follow it perfectly, it still couldn't save you. It was to determine blessings and curses, not salvation. Salvation is always by what? By faith, always. Now, we get to the last verse, verse 24. And you might wonder, wait a minute, how come they put Jesus last?

Well, we'll talk about that. And to Jesus, in two things. One, mediator of a new and time covenant, and to sprinkled blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel. Alright, let's take a look at that. To Jesus, the last of the beings given as present in the heavenly city is Jesus and that is done so that his presence resonates. given last, not because he's least important in sequence, but because his presence resonates. In the human mind, we kind of tend to remember, you know, what was the last thing you heard, right? And so that's the purpose here. Jesus is from a name that means Savior, which is why there is a mention of his blood here in this passage, better than that shed by Abel, the first martyr. Now, Let's take a look here. You have on page 4 this kind of half page slide and at the top it says blood communicates. Blood communicates with God. And it says this starting in verse 2.

And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. And Abel on his part also brought the firstlings of his flock and their fat portions and the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering but for Cain and for his offering he had no regard so Cain became very angry and his countenance fell and maybe a few other things okay then the Lord said to Cain why are you angry And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. It's waiting for the opportunity. And its desire is for you, but you must master it.

Cain told Abel his brother, and it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know, for I am my brother's keeper. And he said, that is, God said, What have you done?

The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. See that? Blood communicates with God. Blood communicates with God. The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me. So blood communicates. So that's what he's talking about when Jesus' blood speaks better. Blood communicates with God and the blood of Christ speaks better. Why? Because Christ's blood saves. Christ's blood saves for all who believe. So Jesus, the Savior, You might be interested to know that Jesus has more than 700 names and titles in the Bible. We will not go into all of those this morning, for which I'm sure you'll be glad. Okay? Not all 700.

But, from the Old Testament into the New, we do read of the Son in Heaven. John describes Him in Revelation. When we go through the book of Revelation, which we've done a few different times here at Holly Hills, I like Revelation. I love it as a book.

Not because I'm a prophecy nut. I'm not. But because it has 150 verses describing the heavenly scene. There where we're seated. There where we're with Christ. That's why Revelation appeals to me. Not because of the prophecy. It's there where I am. It's described. And one of those places is Revelation 5-6.

And I saw, and this is John writing, I saw between the throne with the four living creatures and the elders a lamb standing as if slain." Now, gotta remember, in Revelation, the symbolism is Jewish symbolism, not Greek symbolism. So it's not, what does it look like?

By the way, what does a lamb standing as if slain look like? It's almost hard to imagine. Is the lamb standing on all fours or standing up? I don't know if I ever saw a lamb do that. So the picture here is Christ the Lamb. Christ the Lamb who was slain for you and for me. He gets continually called the Lamb all the way into the last chapter of Revelation. He's called the Lamb.

We will go into the new heavens and new earth and there'll be no more mourning or sorrow or crying or pain. but we will remember that he paid the price for me. He died in my place. We will remember that and be thankful for that and know him as the Savior who paid the price that you and I could not pay.

Hebrews has the covenant, the new covenant, described in three different ways in these chapters. This is on the slide on page four of your handout, Hebrews 8.6. But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry by as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, better than the old one under Moses, which has been enacted on better promises.

Now we have in the next chapter, Hebrews 9.15, It says, for this reason he is the mediator of a new in kind covenant.

Now, the new in kind is my differentiation. You probably won't find it in your Bibles. The word for new in kind is used everywhere else for the new covenant, except for this right here. 1224 and Jesus the mediator of a new in time covenant Okay, that word is used there uniquely to describe the the new covenant.

It's not only new and kind it's new in time and To the sprinkled blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel So what we've seen here is a description of the heavenly scene, the place where we have our citizenship, the place where we're enrolled.

And we're seeing all the different parties there. So verses 22 to 24 describe for us heaven, the three different names, the angels who are in festive gathering, the church as firstborn, that is in standing and privilege, having a heavenly citizenship, With God as judge, and for us, he is motivated to judge us for reward. The spirits of Old Testament saints and Jesus. Jesus is presented as the mediator of Israel's new covenant and as having sprinkled blood which puts him as both high priest and sacrifice. There in the heavenlies, there where you are, there where we have come, there where you've come, there where I've come, the place that God has brought us to. All by his provision, all we did was believe.

And we can thank God that that's home and not the fiery, loud, too bright and too dark place on Mount Sinai. But this, this scene just described, that's home. That's home. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for what you have here in your word, what you've described for us. We see very clearly the contrast between that rather uninviting place at the initiation of the law and the amazing place that you have prepared for us. As a matter of fact, Jesus said that he had prepared a place for us. He would come back and take us there. We look forward to that day. Thank you, Lord, for all that you've spelled out and you've laid forth for us because you love us and care for us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.