Hebrews 12:22

Instead of "Moses," Jesus. Instead of the people, "myriads of angels." Fearful were those things, but these are far more admirable and glorious. For here there is not "darkness," nor "blackness," nor "tempest." It seems to me that by these words he hints at the obscurity of the Old Testament, and the overshadowed and veiled character of the Law. And besides the Giver of the Law appears in fire terrible, and apt to punish those who transgress. Then even Moses feared, but now no one. As the people then stood below, so also do we. They were not below, but below Heaven. The Son is near to God, but not as Moses. There was a wilderness, here a city. "And to an innumerable company of angels." Here he shows the joy, the delight, in place of the "blackness" and "darkness" and "tempest."

But because we must always be anxious, always attentive; and because the Word of God leaps forth like a young goat, or like a fawn, the soul must always be vigilant and strive for what it seeks and desires to hold. Therefore, as if having slipped, the soul says, "In my bed, I sought the one whom my soul loves during the nights." Whoever seeks well, let them seek in their bed, let them seek during the nights, neither on holidays nor on nights of rest.

You did not draw near, but stood afar off; yet you have approached. Do you not see the superiority? Instead of Sinai, we have the spiritual mountain Zion and the spiritual city Jerusalem, that is, heaven itself, and not the wilderness, as they had. Instead …

705. – Then he mentions the conditions of the New Testament, saying: But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God. Here he shows the things proposed to us in it; and three things are promised to us, namely, …

This great glory did not continue upon me until morning, yet the twelfth of the Author to the Hebrews, Heb. xii. 22, 23, was a blessed scripture to me for many days together after this.

But ye - Who believe in Christ. Are come - The apostle does not here speak of their coming to the church militant, but of that glorious privilege of New Testament believers, their communion with the church triumphant. But this is far more apparent to the eyes of celestial spirits than to ours which are yet veiled.

He shows how much the gospel church represents the church triumphant in heaven, what communication there is between the one and the other. The gospel church is called mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, which is free, in opposition to mount Sinai, which tendeth to bondage, Gal. iv. This was the hill on which God set his king the Messiah.

My soul longed to wing away to the paradise of God; I longed to be conformed to God in all things.

But ye are come unto Mount Sion,....

THE whole passage will be considered, but our special central text will be verse twenty-three— "To the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in Heaven." Paul is displaying the superiority of the New Covenant to the old. He tells us what Israel, after the flesh, came to at their best in the morning hours of the Law and what the first-born after the Spirit have come to under the Gospel.

THE whole passage will be considered, but our special central text will be verse twenty-three— "To the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in Heaven." Paul is displaying the superiority of the New Covenant to the old. He tells us what Israel, after the flesh, came to at their best in the morning hours of the Law and what the first-born after the Spirit have come to under the Gospel. He pictures the great assembly of the chosen people round about Mount Sinai and then His Inspired mind describes an infinitely larger and happier gathering, to which all Believers have come, around Mount Zion. Not only the Hebrews to whom he was writing, but all the people of God are gathered together in one general assembly, of which the blessed God is the center. Paul shows us the joyful difference between the two gatherings and the feelings and pursuits of those who compose them. What we shall need, this morning, is a little careful attention to the deep meaning of the text and an intensely earnest desire to actually enter into the enjoyment of the privileges which are herein set before us. Our text contains an incalculable wealth of meaning—it is written according to God's riches in Glory by Christ Jesus. Surely it was written as with a pen of diamond upon plates of gold set with jewels! May God, by His Grace, lead us fully into it. We would not only speak of privilege as possible, but would say with Paul, "We are come unto it." As surely as we are not come to the terrors of the Law, so surely we are come to the blessings of the Gospel! Read in verse 18, "You are not come," and then in verse 22, "But you are come." We do not only hear of Zion and her festivities, but we are come to them! We do not merely know the letter of the Gospel, but we have come into the inner and spiritual meaning of it by personal enjoyment.

But ye are come unto Mount Sion - You who are Christians; all who are under the new dispensation. The design is to “contrast” the Christian dispensation with the Jewish. and to show that its excellencies and advantages were far superior to the religion of their fathers. It had more to win the affections; more to elevate the soul; more to inspire with hope. It had less that was terrific and alarming; it appealed less to the fears and more to the tropes of mankind; but still apostasy from this religion could not be less terrible in its consequences than apostasy from the religion of Moses. In the passage before us, the apostle evidently contrasts Sinai with Mount Zion, and means to say that there was more about the latter that was adapted to win the heart and to preserve allegiance than there was about the former. Mount Zion literally denoted the Southern hill in Jerusalem, on which a part of the city was built. That part of the city was made by David and his successors the residence of the court, and soon the name Zion, was given familiarly to the whole city. Jerusalem was the center of religion in the land; the place where the temple stood, and where the worship of God was celebrated, and where God dwelt by a visible symbol, and it became the type and emblem of the holy abode where He dwells in heaven. It cannot be literally meant here that they had come to the Mount Zion in Jerusalem, for that was as true of the whole Jewish people as of those whom the apostle addressed, but it must mean that they had come to the Mount Zion of which the holy city was an emblem; to the glorious mount which is revealed as the dwelling-place of God, of angels, of saints. That is, they had “come” to this by the revelations and hopes of the gospel. […]