§37 The Glory of the Christian’s Present Status (Heb. 12:18–24)
In one of the most remarkable passages in the whole book, the author presents a vivid contrast between Mount Sinai and Mount Zion, between the essential character of the old and new covenants. In so doing he provides a startling portrait of the readers’ possession in and through Christ. It would be difficult to find a more impressive and moving expression of realized eschatology in the entire NT. The author’s purpose is to enlarge the horizons of the readers to enable them to comprehend the true glory of what they participate in as Christian believers. What they are presently tempted to return to, their former Judaism, pales significantly in the comparison (cf. 2 Cor. 3:4–18). Those who have been to Mount Zion can never contemplate a return to Mount Sinai.
12:18 / The vocabulary of this and the following verse is drawn to a large extent from the LXX accounts of Moses on Sinai (esp. Deut. 4:11; 5:22–25; Exod. 19:12–19). The allusion cannot have been missed by the original readers. The manifestations of God’s presence on Sinai were tangible, that is, they could be experienced by the senses. The fire, darkness, gloom, and storm made a vivid impression on the Israelites.
12:19–20 / They also heard a trumpet blast and a voice speaking words. According to the Exodus narrative (20:19) the people indicated to Moses their fear of God’s voice. “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.” This same fear is also recorded in Deuteronomy (5:25): “We will die if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer.” It was not only the actual hearing of God’s voice that frightened the Israelites, but also the stern commands he uttered. Our author provides an example in the prohibition against touching the holy mountain. The awesome and absolute holiness of God’s presence was unapproachable. Even an animal was to be stoned if it touched the mountain (the quotation is from Exod. 19:13). The result of the Israelites’ fear was that they wanted no further word to be spoken to them.
12:21 / According to our author, even Moses was filled with fear at the spectacle of the theophany at Sinai. The words attributed to him are not found in the OT. The closest resemblance to them is found in Deuteronomy 9:19, where, after the rebellion of the Israelites in the wilderness, Moses says, “I feared the anger and wrath of the Lord.” The author’s picture of the giving of the law at Sinai, then, is one in which fear and the sternness of God’s commands predominate. This picture stands in very great contrast to the picture of the new covenant situation the author now presents.
12:22 / The opening of this verse picks up the opening verb of verse 18. The perfect tense of this verb, you have come, indicates arrival some time in the past with continued enjoyment of the results of that arrival in the present. By the use of this tense the author clearly means to stress that what he is about to describe is in some way already enjoyed by the readers. They have come to Mount Zion, a mountain of even greater significance than the mountain alluded to in the preceding verses. Mount Zion is synonymous with Jerusalem in the OT (e.g., 2 Sam. 5:6f.; 2 Kings 19:21; Ps. 2:6; 9:11). Here it is further described as the heavenly Jerusalem, that eschatological expectation referred to in Revelation 21:2 (cf. Gal. 4:26; 2 Bar. 4:2ff.) and the city of the living God, a city already mentioned as Abraham’s true goal (11:10; cf. 11:16). In 13:14 it is written: “we are looking for the city that is to come.” Thus the readers already enjoy in the present the eschatological city of the future (cf. Eph. 2:6). Here again we encounter the tension between realized and future eschatology (e.g., 1:2; 4:3; 6:5; 9:11; 10:1). Christians have experienced fulfillment, but fulfillment short of consummation. The readers are also said to have come to thousands upon thousands (lit., “myriads” or “tens of thousands”) of angels. In Deuteronomy 33:2, “myriads of holy ones” are associated with the appearance of the Lord at Sinai; in Daniel 7:10, “ten thousand times ten thousand” serve before the throne of God. These hosts are also present in the city, the heavenly Jerusalem (cf. the marriage supper of the Lamb, Rev. 19:6).
12:23 / The readers have come to the church, the gathering of those who have been “called out” to form the people of God, as his firstborn, whose names are inscribed in heaven (cf. Luke 10:20). This most probably refers to the believers of the new covenant era. Together this community of believers in Christ constitutes the firstborn in that they have become the heirs of the promise (cf. Rom. 8:17). The Jerusalem Bible captures the sense of the passage well: “with the whole Church in which everyone is a ‘first-born son’ and a citizen of heaven.” The readers, in short, have come (NIV resumes the original verb) into the very presence of God, the judge of all. Despite the awesome reality of God as judge (cf. v. 29), they have no need to be afraid, like the Israelites who were afraid at Sinai even of God’s voice, because through Christ they now are free to approach God even in his role as judge. With this freedom we may compare the boldness of the Christian’s free access into God’s presence through the sacrificial work of Christ (e.g., 4:16; 6:19; 7:25; 10:19ff.). The spirits of righteous men (i.e., “people”) made perfect is probably a reference to the OT people of God. They are referred to as spirits because they await the resurrection. More particularly they are described as having been made perfect in that, together with the readers and all Christians, they have arrived at the goal, the city of God, the final purpose of God that was first expressed to them, albeit in shadowy figures. This is in accord with what the author wrote about the OT saints in 11:40.
12:24 / The readers, finally, have come to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant. This climactic fact is the very basis of all that has been described beginning in verse 22. And the reference to the new covenant here redirects the reader to one of the author’s central arguments (7:22; 8:6–13; 9:15). The sprinkled blood of Jesus refers to his sacrificial work of atonement. This imagery has also been utilized earlier in the description of the levitical practice (9:13f., 19, 21), and also once in the description of the work of Christ (10:22; cf. 1 Pet. 1:2). The blood of Jesus speaks a better word (lit., “speaks better”) than the blood of Abel. In 11:4 our author took note of Abel, writing that “by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.” Here, however, the reference appears to be to Genesis 4:10, where the blood of Abel “cries out to me from the ground.” This is the message of the blood of Abel. But the blood of Christ speaks of better things—most conspicuously of the forgiveness of sins associated with the inauguration of the new covenant (8:12; 10:17f.). Christ’s atoning blood speaks of the end of the old covenant and the establishment of the new. It is this blood that has brought the readers to the benefits of the new covenant and to their present glorious status wherein they have begun to experience the fulfillment, the goal of God’s saving purposes, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
12:18 / A number of manuscripts (followed by NIV) include with that can be touched the word mountain (oros), thus a mountain that can be touched. The best manuscripts, however, omit the word, and its presence in some is probably due to the influence of v. 22 (cf. v. 20). The perfect tense of the verb have come implies “to come to and remain at.” This same tense is even more significant in the positive statement beginning in v. 22, where the verb is repeated. Only the words for touched (psēlaphaō) and gloom (zophos) are not drawn from LXX descriptions of the Sinai theophany.
12:19–20 / The reference to a trumpet blast and voice is again drawn from the LXX of Exod. 19:16. According to the LXX of Exod. 19:13, the man or beast who touched the mountain was to be stoned or shot through with a dart. In both forms of execution the one killed is thus kept at a distance. This is in keeping with the dangerous potential for “contamination” by God’s holiness (cf. 2 Sam 6:7), even secondhand. See E. Pax, EBT, pp. 372–75. A certain irony may be seen in the fact that although Sinai and the attendant phenomena are described as “tangible,” yet neither man nor animal was allowed to touch the mountain.
12:21 / The word for sight (phantazō) occurs only here in the NT. In Hellenistic literature the word is used to describe the “spectacle” of a theophany. See BAGD, p. 853. Possibly the reference to Moses’ fear and trembling is drawn from Jewish traditions concerning the giving of the law at Sinai (cf. Acts 7:32, but there the trembling is in connection with the burning bush).
12:22 / The literal Mount Zion and Jerusalem, because of their great importance, eventually came to be understood as archetypes of the greater eschatological reality to come. On Zion and the new Jerusalem, see E. Lohse, TDNT, vol. 7, pp. 319–38. For city of the living God, see note on 11:10. F. F. Bruce points out that the main verb you have come to implies conversion (the root occurring here, proselēlythate, produces the English word “proselyte”). A difficult question of interpretation hinges on whether the Greek word panegyris (“festal gathering”) is to be taken with what precedes, “the myriad of angels” (NIV, RSV, JB), or with what follows, “the community of the first-born” (KJV, ASV, NEB, and GNB), or whether it is to be understood independently. It is almost certainly not to be taken independently since all other discrete entities referred to in the list are connected with “and” (kai), whereas there is no connective preceding panegyris here. The presence of a connective kai following it, however, makes it most natural to associate the word with the angels, thus thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly. See Hughes’s detailed note, Hebrews, pp. 552–55. On panegyris, see H. Seesemann, TDNT, vol. 5, p. 722. On the presence of angels in the heavenly realm and in an eschatological setting, cf. Revelation, which has the highest occurrence of references to angels of any NT book. See H. Bietenhard, NIDNTT, vol. 1, pp. 101–3, and note on 1:4 above.
12:23 / Much debate has taken place concerning the meaning of the church of the firstborn. Such different possibilities as the following have been suggested: angels, OT saints, the first Christians, Christians who have died, and Christian martyrs. The accompanying reference to the names which are written in heaven makes it improbable that angels are meant, since this expression always refers to believers (e.g., Phil. 4:3; Rev. 3:5; 13:8; 20:15). The firstborn could be interpreted to be the OT saints—first-born in the sense of preceding Christians. But given our author’s convictions about the new covenant, it is improbable that he would restrict this title to the people of the earlier covenant (cf. James 1:18, which refers to Christians as “a kind of first fruits”). On firstborn (prōtotokos), which refers to Christians only here in the NT, see W. Michaelis, TDNT, vol. 6, p. 881; Hughes, Hebrews, pp. 552–55; and note to 1:6 above. Moreover the author’s deliberate use of the word ekklēsia (church) may be intended to point to the church (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, and JB). The word ekklēsia in itself, of course, does not necessarily signify the church; it can, as in the only other occurrence of the word in Hebrews (2:12), simply mean “congregation” or “assembly.” Thus the word is translated here “assembly” (RSV, NEB) and “gathering” (GNB). See K. L. Schmidt, TDNT, vol. 3, pp. 501–36.
Earlier our author described the community of believers, of which the readers are a part, as “God’s house” (3:6). Here it is they who are said to comprise the city of God. This is the only place in Hebrews where God is called judge (kritēs), although the idea occurs several times (e.g., 2:3; 4:1; 6:8; 9:27; 10:27, 30f., 12:29). The word spirits is not to be taken as a technical term of biblical anthropology (to be distinguished from soul), but simply as referring to the spiritual or immaterial part of human beings. See E. Schweizer, TDNT, vol. 6, pp. 445f. The word righteous (dikaios) was used earlier in 10:38 (in the quotation of Hab. 2:4) and in 11:4, where Abel is described as “a righteous man.” The word is thus ideal to describe the exemplars of faith mentioned in chap. 11. It is possible, however, as some have argued (e.g., Delitzsch, Westcott, Hughes), that this clause refers universally to people of faith in all eras, old and new. See W. J. Dumbrell, “ ‘The Spirits of Just Men Made Perfect,’ ” EQ 48 (1976), pp. 154–59. On the verb made perfect (teleioō), so important to our author, see note to 2:10.
12:24 / The word for mediator (mesitēs) is also used in referring to Jesus in 8:6 and 9:15. See note on 8:6. The word for “new” in new covenant here is neos rather than kainē, as it is in the other references to the new covenant in the epistle (8:8, quoting Jer. 31:31; 9:15), but no difference is intended by this synonym. For “covenant,” see note on 7:22. For the “sprinkling” of blood (the noun rhantismos occurs only here in Hebrews), see notes on 9:7 and 9:13. This is the last occurrence of the word better (kreittōn) in the epistle. On this very important word for our author, see note to 1:4.