A threefold cord of duty.
The word "wherefore" (Hebrews 12:12) connects this admonition with what goes before. For these reasons, says the apostle—since the Savior was subjected to such hard treatment at the hands of wicked men; since your own resistance to sin has not yet exposed you to bloodshed; since your very trials are an expression of God's fatherly love; and since his chastisements are fitted to be so profitable in their results—surely you will never allow yourselves to fall away from the Christian faith. The direct admonition in Hebrews 12:12-14 refers to ourselves, to our fellow-believers, and to God—an arrangement of thought which is eminently Pauline. And the three parts of it are reduplicated in Hebrews 12:15-17, each being introduced with the word." lest."
I. OUR DUTY TO OURSELVES. (Hebrews 12:12, Hebrews 12:13, Hebrews 12:15) Here the author seems to return to the metaphor of "the race set before us" (Hebrews 12:1). "Hands" and "knees" and "feet" represent the powers of action, motion, and progression. The Hebrews must no longer faint in the presence of their trials. They must be resolute, manly, courageous. The exhortation has respect mainly to the spiritual life of each believer himself. Each ought to form a decided purpose to correct his own faults, and to continue faithful at all hazards to his Christian profession. The whole Church should advance in the right course with such unanimity that the highway of holiness shall be beaten smooth by their feet—so smooth that even the "lame" will not stumble in it. If we remain remiss and vacillating, we may finally "fall short of the grace of God" (Hebrews 12:15). Slothfulness and indecision cause one to lag behind, and may prevent him from ever reaching the goal. If we be not resolute in our fidelity we shall come short of ultimate salvation, and shall never "see the Lord."
II. OUR DUTY TO OUR FELLOW-BELIEVERS. (Hebrews 12:14, Hebrews 12:15) The personal spiritual life which is fed by the Church is in turn to react for good upon the whole congregation. Two prominent duties towards our brethren are here indicated.
1. To "follow after peace with all." (Hebrews 12:14) The scope of the passage seems to restrict this "all" to the members of the Christian brotherhood. We need not expect that God will bless us in our Church relations if we cherish a persistent grudge against any fellow- communicant, resolving never to forget some injury that he may have done us. A vindictive or malignant disposition is not Christian. The soul that harbors malice, and that takes pleasure in exhibiting its animosities, will not only become stunted in its spiritual growth, but will injuriously affect the life of the Church to which it belongs. A prominent cause of ecclesiastical disturbance is the springing up of "any root of bitterness" (Hebrews 12:15). Sometimes the noxious weed is a wicked person, like Achan, who "troubled" Israel (Joshua 7:25); and sometimes a radically bad principle, the growth of which may defile the Church with dissension. In either case, it must be rooted up and cast out.
2. To have a brotherly care over all. This thought underlies the entire passage. Each of us by his own example is to help the weak of the flock to become strong; and. to set a guard upon the "lame," so that they may not wander out of the right way, While the cure of souls is, of course, the especial duty of the spiritual rulers of the Church, the expression, "looking carefully," in Hebrews 12:15, reminds us that the ordinary members also ought to exercise the office of a bishop over one another. The communion of our Churches would be purer, were this duty of mutual spiritual care more clearly understood and better practiced than it is. Indeed, we cannot place too much stress on this point, as one main purpose and function of our Church life. No spiritual work is more restful and rewarding, than that which a Christian man does in connection with the particular congregation to which he belongs.
III. OUR DUTY TO OUR GOD. (Hebrews 12:14, Hebrews 12:16, Hebrews 12:17) We must be "pure" as well as "peaceable." The peace that we follow after must be "by righteousness;" for "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." This is one of the most solemn sayings of the Bible. How short and simple it is; but how pointed and powerful] It falls upon the ear with a sharp sound of authority. It reverberates within the conscience like the echoes of thunder among the hills. God is pure and holy; therefore only the consecrated and sanctified can see him. Sanctification must be "followed after," i.e. pursued earnestly. We must labor to cleanse ourselves from our carnality and impurity by washing in Jesus' blood, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, by the use of the means of grace, and by living always as in the presence of God. Notice what the writer says in particular of the man who strives after this "sanctification."
1. He will not be a sensualist. (Hebrews 12:16) He will not only avoid acts of gross immorality; he will hate every filthy thought. How dreadful for any one to sit down at the Lord's table, as a professed disciple of Christ, who is in the habit of visiting also the disgusting haunts of secret vice!
2. Neither will he be a "profane person." (Hebrews 12:16, Hebrews 12:17) "Profane" means common, secular, worldly; and such a person loves only the things of sense and time, and has no appreciation of what is spiritual. Esau was such a man. He cared nothing for the blessings of the covenant, or for the hopes which centered in the promised seed of Abraham. Hence his guilty folly in bartering away his birthright for a mess of lentils. The apostle, in one or two forcible expressions, depicts the consequences of this act of profanity. All Esau's subsequent regrets were unavailing. On the second occasion, when his younger brother circumvented him, his father Isaac refused to recall the blessing which he had just pronounced; for Isaac realized that in blessing Jacob he had unwittingly been the mouthpiece of a Divine oracle. Esau, therefore, was in this matter God-rejected. He failed to induce his father to change his mind. And he found no means of undoing his own first act of folly. "Now," says the apostle in effect to the Hebrew Christians, "beware of profanity like Esau's. You belong to God's 'firstborn' nation; and the gospel of the Lord Jesus is for 'the Jew first.' Take care that you do not forfeit your rights of spiritual primogeniture. Should you forsake the new and final covenant, for any consideration whatever, you will make as bad a bargain as Esau did."
CONCLUSION. Esau's character and life are a beacon still, to warn us also back from the whirlpool of apostasy. He was a man of a very ordinary type. There are many such all around, who for the savory meat of sensuous pleasure will barter away their birthright of spiritual opportunity, and at last irrevocably sell their souls. May Divine grace preserve us from cultivating the character of which these words are an adequate epitome—"A profane person, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright"!