Hebrews 12:5-13 makes a crucial but underappreciated point.  The life of the Christian can be unpleasant, and sometimes, the One who is making it unpleasant is God.  This is at odds with the worldly vision of God as an indulgent grandparent who does nothing but shower gifts upon us.  However, it meshes neatly with the Bible’s picture of a heavenly Father who will do whatever is necessary to make sure that we spend eternity with Him.

In interpreting this passage, there are several things to note.  First, this is a text about discipline.  God is not being gratuitously cruel; rather, He is reacting to sin or spiritual weakness in our lives.  Additionally, His goal is not condemnation but correction.  If an abstract warning doesn’t get the point across, maybe pain will.

This pain can be administered in a couple of different ways.  The first is through the rebuke of the word.  From time to time after I preach, someone will tell me, “That sermon really stepped on my toes!” 

Of course, it’s not the sermon that’s stepping on the toes of the convicted Christian.  It’s the Scriptures.  Whether through the lips of someone else or through our own reading and study, all of us will encounter things in the Bible that are painful for us to consider.  We don’t like to hear the Holy Spirit telling us we need to make some changes!  However, the most unpleasant passages also are the ones we need to consider most closely.

Second, God also corrects us through the consequences of sin.  As the Hebrews writer observes in this context, righteousness often is painful right now but beneficial later.  Sin is the opposite.  We enjoy it in the moment, but we frequently find its fruits to be bitter.

Sometimes this is due to the nature of wickedness.  God warns us away from sinful things precisely because they are harmful and will make our lives worse.  When we don’t listen to Him, we are likely to find out why He instituted the commandment in the first place!

At other times, though, it may be that God’s providential care is responsible for our painful lesson.  I am reminded here of the drought in Israel in 1 Kings 17 that followed Ahab’s decision to worship Baal in 1 Kings 16.  Baal was a fertility god, responsible for sending rain and making crops grow.  Though Ahab didn’t get the message, God wanted him to understand that seeking agricultural blessing from a false god would have the opposite effect.

So too with the Baals of our lives.  When we turn to sin because we think it will make our lives better, and it has exactly the opposite effect, we should suspect the presence of God’s providence.  He wants to leave us with no cause to doubt that serving Him is best.

The response to God’s correction, though, is up to us.  We can pull an Ahab and ignore it.  Alternatively, we can listen to the Hebrews writer and strengthen the weaknesses so painfully highlighted for attention.  This process often isn’t pleasant either, but only through perseverance can we hope to inherit eternal life.

Hebrews was my father’s favorite book of the Bible.  I have his old Bible in my office, and inside it, the pages of Hebrews look like somebody used them to scrub the kitchen floor at Long John Silver’s.  I spent countless hours discussing Hebrews with him before I ever moved out, and yet, to this day, every time I study the book, I find some new proof of the writer’s extraordinary vision and power.

During this particular reading, I was struck by the connection between the argument of Hebrews 11 and its conclusion at the end of the chapter and the beginning of the next.  I see the theme of the argument really begin to emerge in the writer’s discussion of Abraham in 11:8-10.  He notes that by faith, Abraham left his homeland, even though he didn’t know where he was going.

This is true in two senses.  First, Abraham had never laid eyes on the promised land of Canaan.  Second, though, the writer notes that Abraham wasn’t really seeking Canaan.  Instead, he was looking for the city whose builder and architect was God.  By faith, he was seeking an eternal dwelling place—even though he had no idea that such a dwelling place existed!  He listened when God said “Go out to the place that I will show you,” without the foggiest idea of what his reward would be.

In Hebrews 11:39-40, notes that what was true of Abraham was true of all the Old Testament heroes of faith.  They gained God’s approval, but they never received the promise.  They never experienced the fulfillment of God’s purpose in Jesus, and they could not be perfected until that purpose was fulfilled. 

Neither of those things is true for us.  In Christ, we already have been perfected.  As per Hebrews 12:2, in Him we see the fullness of the revelation of God’s mystery.  The progress of the faithful, from suffering and shame to eternal glory, is spelled out for us in His life, death, and resurrection as a matter of historical certainty.

In the face of these facts, the writer urges us to do two things.  First, we must keep our gaze fixed on Jesus.  If we do not grow weary and lose heart, what happened to Him surely will happen to us.  His glory will be our glory too, and if He is always before us, we constantly will be reminded of that truth.

Second, even as we fix our eyes on Jesus, we must remember that others have their eyes fixed on us.  In Hebrews 12:1, the cloud of witnesses that surrounds us is none other than the faithful people of Hebrews 11.  They ran the race without the advantages that we have, and they want to see how we will run it with those advantages.  Abraham didn’t know where he was going, but he arrived there anyway.  How sad it would be if we, with our knowledge of what awaits us, fall short of his example of faith!

Acts 16:13 describes one of the humblest locations in which Paul ever preaches the gospel to a group of people.  He and his companions have come to the city of Philippi, a Roman colony.  Probably because of its largely Gentile composition, Philippi doesn’t have a synagogue, so those who wish to worship the God of Israel on the Sabbath must do so by the bank of the River Gangites.  There, Paul proclaims Christ and makes his first converts in Europe.

Though picturesque, this riparian setting is only one of many places where we see Christians assembling in Acts.  They honor God in the upper rooms of houses (Acts 1:13), a portico of the temple (5:13), synagogues (13:14), the marketplace (17:17), a stony hilltop (17:17), a lecture hall (19:10), a beach (21:5), the deck of a ship (27:35), and rented quarters (28:28).  The most specific inference that we can draw from this is that early disciples met together whenever and however they could.  In this area, the New-Testament pattern appears to be “Whatever works”.

This observation becomes relevant in our discussions of Bible authority with others.  If we criticize some use of church funds as unauthorized, frequently, someone will fire back with the reply, “Well, what about church buildings???”  Of course, none of these people really have any problem with church buildings.  Instead, their goal is to establish that we are inconsistent in our adherence to the first-century pattern.

I see two problems with this argument.  First, as noted above, there is no discernible pattern with respect to the meeting places of first-century Christians, and not even a discernible pattern when it comes to spending money on meeting places.  The riverbank was free.  The school of Tyrannus probably wasn’t (at least, churches today that meet in schools generally have to pay for the privilege).  Paul’s rented quarters weren’t; indeed, they were paid for by support from churches. 

The synagogues weren’t free either, rather being built and maintained by the Jews of the community.  Did the people of Iconium who believed in Acts 14:1 stop showing up at the synagogue the next week because it was A Misuse Of The Lord’s Money?  Instead, throughout Acts, we see brethren taking advantage of purpose-built meeting places as long as they can.

Second, as per Hebrews 10:25, assembling is part of the work of the church.  How can we do this?  The Jerusalem church could meet in the massive colonnades of the temple for free; but the Jackson Heights church can’t even meet in a pavilion in a city park without paying for it.  No member of the congregation owns a house where even half of us can gather.  Either we spend money on meeting, or we become, quite literally, fair-weather Christians.  Under these circumstances, the use of the Lord’s money to ensure that we can come together and build one another up every first day of the week is entirely appropriate.

Hebrews 2:1 contains one of the most sobering warnings in the entire Bible:  “For this reason, we must pay attention all the more to what we have heard, so that we will not drift away.”  A couple of verses later, the writer uses a rhetorical question to make the point that if we neglect the great salvation we have been given, we will not escape.  Nobody turns their back on Jesus and gets away with it!

This is deeply relevant to us for a couple of different reasons.  First, it shows that falling away is possible.  This truth is bound up in the very language of the text.  It is impossible to drift away from a place where you aren’t, and it’s impossible to neglect a salvation you don’t have.  Those who teach, then, that true Christians can’t fall away are misguided.  We can be in a state of grace now and fall from it later.

Of course, this concept is significant not merely in an abstract, doctrinal sense, but in a personal, concrete sense.  I can fall away.  You can fall away.  The godliest Christian any of us know, the distinguished preacher, the elder of the church, or the devout widow, all of these can fall away. 

The fault here is not in Jesus.  He has promised that no one will snatch us out of His hand.  We are immune to danger from outside forces, but we are not immune to danger from within.  We can willingly abandon the safety from which no one can remove us.  Indeed, unless we acknowledge the risk and humbly resolve to remain faithful, we infallibly will bring this disaster upon ourselves.

Second, the writer’s word choice also tells us how disaster will arrive.  Drifting away is not a sudden, violent activity.  Instead, it happens gradually, slowly, wavelet by wavelet. 

Neither is neglect.  Neglect is the result of failing to make an effort when the need to act doesn’t seem pressing or important.  The lawn doesn’t look much worse today than it looked yesterday, it’s hot out there, and I’d rather spend my Saturday in the woods than behind a lawnmower anyway.  However, if I continue to defer exertion, soon the front door is covered in nastygrams from the HOA, and they’re filming episodes of Tarzan in my front yard!

Spiritual disaster advances upon us in the same slow, subtle way.  It is the fruit of coming home from a long day of work on Wednesday and deciding that it’s too much effort to round up the kids and get everybody out to Bible class.  It is the result of closing our eyes metaphorically to the trashy side of that TV show we love to watch—but not closing them literally.  It is the outcome of a thousand tiny enticements to depart from Jesus in a way that still seems safe.  Nobody’s going to lose their soul over a Wednesday night or a Netflix drama, are they?

The problem is, though, that the more we draw away, the more reasonable extreme departures become.  Maybe a steamy period romance isn’t that far away from godliness, but neither is pornography that far away from steamy romances, nor an affair from porn.  It’s extremely easy for us to find ourselves in a spiritual position where we never intended to be.  The only way to make sure that we don’t drift away is to make sure that we don’t drift.

The epistle to the Hebrews might be the most tightly reasoned book in the whole Bible.  Sentence by sentence, clause by clause, the Hebrews writer constructs intricate arguments that establish the superiority of Christ over Moses and the folly of Christians returning to Judaism.  The more closely we read Hebrews, the more we will learn.

The care with which Hebrews is written makes the apparent logical disconnect in Hebrews 3:18-19 all the more surprising.  In context, the writer is discussing the Israelites who died in the wilderness during the time of Moses.  He says, “And to whom did [God] swear that they would not enter His rest, if not to those who disobeyed?  So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.”  

Hold on here, Hebrews writer!  You’ve given us evidence that God kept the Israelites from entering Canaan because of their disobedience.  Why are you acting like you’ve shown us that they had an unbelief problem instead?

The writer, and indeed the Holy Spirit, make this logical jump because they want us to realize that they aren’t making a logical jump at all.  Once the writer has established that the Israelites had a disobedience problem, he doesn’t have to prove that they had an unbelief problem—because disobedience and unbelief are THE SAME THING.  If we don’t believe God’s promises, we will not obey His word.  If we don’t obey His word, fundamentally, it is because we do not believe His promises.  Faith and obedience are inseparable.

This understanding is vital to us for at least two reasons.  First, it answers the tedious argument that we are saved by faith, not by works, so we don’t have to be baptized to be saved.  In reality, baptism is not an attempt to justify ourselves at all.  Instead, it is an expression of faith in the promises of God.  We believe that when the Holy Spirit says that baptism saves, He means it.  Accordingly, we obey the gospel.

 Second, it shows the importance of preaching, teaching, and study that builds faith.  Some brethren are interested only in preaching that is practical.  They want to be told about some godly thing that they can go home and do.

Instruction in righteous living is invaluable, full stop.  However, if we’re not careful, too much focus on the nuts and bolts of practical discipleship can leave us short on the motivation to be disciples.  Obedience is not and cannot be a just-because thing.  If hearing is not united with faith in us, we will not obey.

Instead, if we want to be obedient, we must look too to the parts of the Bible that build faith.  However remote the stories of the righteous men of old may seem to us, they all proclaim the same lesson:  God is a God who keeps His promises, so if we rely on Him, we will not be disappointed.  So too, the stories of the miracles of Jesus and His apostles, particularly the story of His resurrection, assure us that what He has promised, He is able to perform.  When our minds are filled with these things, it becomes much easier to make the right choices—because we know how deeply they matter.