Outline of Hebrews
CHAPTER TWELVE
Scripture Reading: Hebrews 12
THE RACE AND THE PRIZE(vv. 1, 2)
1. The writer uses the imagery of the games which were so popular in those times. The Christian is not a casual stroller along life's highway; nor is he a tourist who returns each night to the same place. He is a pilgrim running a race with Christ as the prize; and going onward every
day.
2. The cloud of witnesses. The word translated “witnesses” is the Greek word “marturs,” from which we get the English word “martyr” (See also Acts 1:8; Rev. 3:14 where the same word is used). The word is sometimes translated "spectators" and if this is the meaning here it
indicates that they are watching us. There is also the sense in which they “bear witness” on account of the testimony which they have ever borne to the power and efficacy of faith.
3. “Lay aside every weight” is a reference to the practice of athletes in those days to train with weights strapped on their bodies. On the day of the race, they laid them aside. Our race has come and we have to lay our “weights” aside.
4. “The sin which so easily besets us.” This could mean: Unbelief, This is what the writer has been talking about for the last two chapters and also Chapter 3. Or it could refer to a sin which overcomes us as individual Christians and varies from person to person, such as ambition, pride, gossip, temper, etc.
5. “The author and finisher of our faith” – “Author” from “archegos” meaning “first, the beginner, pioneer”. The same word is translated “Prince” (Acts 3:15) and “captain” (Acts 2:10). The word “our” is not in the original and would be better translated “the faith” as at Acts 6:7; 13:8; Galatians 1:23; 3:23; Jude 3.
6. “Endured the cross, despising the shame” – “When we now think of the cross, it is not of the multitude of slaves and thieves and robbers and rebels who have died on it, but of the one great victim, whose death has enabled even this instrument of torture, and encircled it with a halo of glory. We have been accustomed to read of it as an imperial standard of war in the days of Constantine, and as the banner under which armies have marched to conquest. It is intermingled with the sweetest poetry; it is a sacred thing in the most magnificent cathedrals; it adorns the altar and is even an object of adoration; it is in the most elegant engravings; it is worn by beauty and piety as an ornament near the heart; it is associated with all that is pare in love, great in self-sacrifice, and holy in religion. To catch its’ true import, we have to remove its’ halo of glory and remember it for what it was an instrument of torture, punishment and disgrace reserved for the lowest and vilest criminals” (R. Milligan).
7. In Galatians 5:1, Paul speaks of the “offence” of the cross. The Greek word is “skandal”.To have a relative crucified was a scandal to a family in Roman times.
THE DISCIPLINE OF GOD (vv. 5-11)
The word “discipline” simply means “to teach.” And it is only the ones the Lord loves whom He disciplines (or chastens).
The writer chides them that they have not resisted unto blood, lie accuses them of cowardly avoidance of trouble and persecution and pointed out that in the avoidance of this they have been shrinking from the “chastening of the Lord.” However, he encourages them not to treat the chastening lightly or despise it. Trials are sent to strengthen, not to weaken therefore, we should be thankful and not resentful (Read Is. 35:3 and 2 Cor. 4:17). No Christian need expect to enter heaven without passing through the furnace.
“We must, through much tribulation enter the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).
THE OLD TERROR AND THE NEW GLORY(vv. 14-29)
1. Esau sold his birth-right (Read Gen. 25:29-34; 27:15, 16, 22, 23, 27-29; 28:3, 4)
The blessing could not be retrieved; it brought with it a loss that nothing could
recall. “He found no place of repentance” for “metanoia,” which literally means “a change of mind.” It was impossible for Esau to change his mind (even with tears). The choice had been made and had to now stand. It does not mean he was barred from the forgiveness of God. It is much simpler than that. It is just the grim fact that there are certain choices which cannot be unmade and certain consequences that even God cannot take away. We do well to remember the finality of certain choices (1 Kings 18:21).
2. The comparison of the giving of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant is similar
to Chapter 2. “Jesus the mediator” (v. 24). The function of a mediator is to intervene between two parties in order to promote relations between them that the parties themselves are unable to effect. Christ is the only mediator between man and God (1 Tim. 2:5). To assign this exalted role to any other is blasphemy and a denial of the words of the Holy Spirit, by which we shall be judged (John 12:48).
3. “The blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” “Sprinkling” is from Greek “rhantizo”. “Immerse” is from Greek “baptize”. In the commission given to the apostles (Mark 16:15,16), if Jesus had wanted people sprinkled, He would have used “rhantizo”, but He did not; He used “baptize” – “to immerse.” Abel’s blood called for vengeance (Gen. 4:10) – Christ’s blood calls for mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation,
THE THINGS WHICH CANNOT BE SHAKEN
Because we have come to the better covenant there is a greater obligation placed upon us – “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh”
In verse 28, grace and godly fear combine to make us acceptable servants of God.
“God is a consuming fire” (Deut. 4:24). The writer finishes on a grim note. There is a day coming, he says, when the universe will be shaken to destruction, but if you have been true to God that relationship will stand safe and secure (things which cannot be shaken). However, be false to God and that very God who would have been your Savior will be to you a consuming fire of destruction. There is the eternal truth that if a man is true to God he gains everything; if he is untrue he loses all. In time and eternity nothing matters save only loyalty to God.
