Read with Me
Hebrews 12:25-29 (HCSB)
Make sure 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. 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 heaven. This expression, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what is not shaken might remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us hold on to grace. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
Listen with Me
The writer of Hebrews has just written about how the Old Covenant was given by God’s voice speaking from the top of Mount Sinai. Implicit in this statement is the corollary that if God takes time to speak to someone, they had better listen and obey. The whole history of the Exodus is a cautionary tale demonstrating that ignoring God’s voice is the path that leads to disaster, discipline and ultimately destruction.
Now the writer cautions his readers to not refuse to listen to God’s voice as He speaks the words of the New Covenant. That voice comes through the teaching of the apostles and the personal testimony of the Holy Spirit as He speaks the truth to each person and applies it to their hearts. The Jewish Christians, who are his audience, have heard this voice and have surrendered to it. Now they must not back away.
The writer notes that God’s voice from the mountain shook the earth, causing the knees of the Israelites to tremble and their hearts to shrink back. But then he points to a messianic prophecy given through the prophet Haggai (2:6) at the time of the rebuilding of the temple after the return from the Babylonian Exile.
The writer keys in on a single phrase in this prophecy: “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also heaven.” On the physical plane, this is referring specifically to the day that the Messiah was revealed, the day of His crucifixion when He made a way into the most holy place in heaven through His death on the cross. This was accompanied not only by a powerful earthquake (Matthew 27:51-53), a literal shaking of the earth, but also by a supernatural darkness lasting for three hours, a shaking of the heavens.
But on a deeper level, the writer sees in the wording a promise of lasting stability for those who live under the New Covenant. God did not say that he would shake the heavens and the earth “again”, but that in the day of the Messiah, he would shake them “once more”. Thus, those things that can be shaken, those things that are unstable and that can lead to uncertainty and ultimately to failure, will be removed by that final shaking, so that what remains, God’s Kingdom, will be solid and secure, unshakable forever.
This leads to the writer’s caution to not turn away from that which God has made eternally stable, the Kingdom of God, back to that which by its very nature is unstable and doomed to destruction, the legalistic observation of the Old Covenant regulations. To turn back when the way forward is open leads to destruction by the consuming fire that is God, much as Lot’s wife was destroyed when she turned back to Sodom (Genesis 19:17, 26).
Pray with Me
Father, we err greatly when we allow ourselves to believe that the way Jesus opened for us is only one way to You, or even the best way. You make it clear in Your word that it is the only way, that no one comes to You except through Jesus (John 14:6), and that there is no other name by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). How foolish and self-destructive it is to turn away from Jesus, the only way to You, back to the life we had before, whether it is back to a different religion or back to our old secular lifestyle. That can only lead to our ultimate destruction, just like it did for the Israelites who rejected the Promised Land because the way forward seemed hard and dangerous and chose to return to Egypt (Numbers 14:3-4, 20-23). Help me, Lord, to choose every day to move forward, even when the path seems dark or dangerous, to never turn back and thus lose my soul in the wilderness. Help me to finish my race well, so that I can be received into glory and live with You forever. Amen.