“A Better Mountain”
(Hebrews
12:18-24)
February
9, 2014 Second Reformed Church
Last
week, we considered that we are called, in the midst of trial and temptation,
to continue to train ourselves for the race of faith, to seek the good of our
neighbors, and to strive for the holiness without which no one will see
God. In addition, we are to make sure
that everyone has an opportunity to hear the Gospel and, having received it, to
receive all of the grace given by God through the Word and the Sacraments –
turning us all away from heresy, sexual immorality, and unholiness.
We
saw that Christ has endured the cross for the joy of glorifying God by saving a
people for Himself. And as we grow
through striving for holiness and being disciplined for sin, we will see that
all that God does is for our good, and we will, indeed, strive for holiness.
The
first century Jewish Christians had many painful reasons to turn away from the
Gospel and to go back to the Sacrificial System of the Old Testament – they
were being persecuted by the Romans and the non-believing Jews – turning back
would bring them to some degree of peace with both groups. But the author of Hebrews tells them over and
over: don’t turn away from the Gospel!
That is the theme of the book of Hebrews in many different
presentations: don’t turn away from the Gospel!
This
morning, we find yet another reason why they – and we – ought not turn away
from the Gospel, no matter what may befall us in the Providence of God: we have
come to a better mountain. In this we
see:
First,
Jesus lived and died to save us from damnation by the Law.
Second,
Jesus saved us by the New Covenant cut in His Blood.
First,
Jesus lived and died to save us from damnation by the Law.
“For
you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom
and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the
hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure that order that was
given, ‘If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.’ Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that
Moses said, ‘I tremble with fear.’”
We
do well to look back at the actual history here:
“On
the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of
Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. They set out from Rephidim and came into the
wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped before the mountain, while Moses went up
to God. The LORD called to him out of
the mountain, saying, ‘Thus you shall say to the house of Israel: You
yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle’s
wings and brought you to myself. Now,
therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be
my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you
shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to
the people of Israel.’
“So
Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these
words that the Lord had commanded him.
All the people answered together and said, ‘All that the LORD has spoken
we will do.’ And Moses reported the
words of the people to the LORD. And the
LORD said to Moses, ‘Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the
people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever’”
(Exodus 19:1-9a, ESV).
So,
we remember that the Lord led Israel out of Egypt and across the Red Sea. It is now the third month since they
escaped. They have been led by a pillar
of cloud during the day, and a pillar of fire by night, and when the pillar
stopped, they stopped. They reached
Mount Sinai – which is in the central southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula – and
the pillar stopped, so Israel stopped. And
God told Moses to come up on the mountain.
Moses went up and God told him to remind the people of how God led them
out of Egypt and God’s plans to make them a nation for Himself. So, Moses told them people and they swore
that they would obey God in everything that He commanded. God responded by telling Moses that God was
now going to speak so everyone – all two million Israelites – would hear Him as
He spoke with Moses.
“When
Moses told the words of the people to the LORD, the LORD said to Moses, ‘Go to
the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their
garments and be ready for the third day.
For on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight
of all the people. And you shall set
limits for the people all around saying, “Take care not to go up into the
mountain or touch even the edge of it.
Whoever touches the mountain will be put to death. No hand shall touch him, but he shall be
stoned or shot; whether beast or man, he shall not live. When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they
shall come up to the mountain.” So Moses
went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people; and they
washed their garments. And he said to
the people, ‘Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman’” (Exodus
19:9b-15, ESV).
God
tells Moses that He is going to give His Word to Moses and the people on the
third day. In the meantime, they were to
make themselves ceremonially pure – washing themselves and their clothes and
abstaining from sexual relations. And
when God came to the mountain, no one was to go near it or touch it – not man
or beast – except for Moses, or else they would be put to death.
“On
the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick
cloud on the mountain and a very long trumpet blast, so that all the people in
the camp trembled. Then Moses brought
the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot
of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was
wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a
kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly.
And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and
God answered him in the thunder. The
LORD came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain. And the LORD called Moses to the top of the
mountain, and Moses went up.
“And
the LORD said to Moses, ‘Go down and warn the people, lest they break through
to the LORD to look and many of them perish.
Also let the priests who come near to the LORD consecrate themselves,
lest the LORD break out against them.’
And Moses said to the LORD, ‘The people cannot come up on Mount Sinai,
for you yourself warned us, saying, “Set limits around the mountain and
consecrate it.”’ And the LORD said to him, ‘Go down, and come up bringing Aaron
with you. But do not let the priests and
the people break through to come to the LORD, lest he break out against
them.’ So Moses went down to the people
and told them” (Exodus 19:16-25, ESV).
The
third day came, and there was thunder and lightning – over and over – a thick
cloud covered the mountain – and a trumpet blast – played by no human – was
sounding non-stop – and it was getting louder and louder. The people began to tremble at all that was
happening, and they saw that smoke was coming off of the mountain, because God
had come in fire and had set the mountain ablaze. And the Voice of the Lord cried out over the
trumpet, instructing Moses to come up on the mountain. And God told Moses to go back down the
mountain and warn the people again – if any one – human or animal should come
too close or touch the mountain or try to climb up it – God would kill them
dead. But, God wanted Moses to come back
up the mountain and to bring his brother Aaron with him. All these things Moses did.
After
Moses had completed these things, Moses and Aaron went back up the mountain and
God spoke with a voice that could be heard by all two million Israelites:
“And
God spoke all these words, saying,
“I
am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of slavery.
“You
shall have no other gods before me.
“You
shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is
in heaven above, or that is in the earth below, or that is in the water under
the earth. You shall not bow down to
them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generation of
those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me
and keep my commandments.
“You
shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not
hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
“Remember
the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six
days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to
the LORD your God. On it you shall not
do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your
female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your
gates. For in six days the LORD made
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh
day. Therefore the LORD blessed the
Sabbath day and made it holy.
“Honor
your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the
LORD your God is giving you.
“You
shall not murder.
“You
shall not commit adultery.
“You
shall not steal.
“You
shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
“You
shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s
wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or
anything that is your neighbor’s.’
“Now
when the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of
the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and
they stood far off and said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will listen; but
do not let God speak to us, lest we die.’
Moses said to the people, ‘Do not fear, for God has come to test you,
that the fear of him might be before you, that you may not sin.’ The people stood far off, while Moses drew
near to the thick darkness where God was” (Exodus 20:1-21, ESV).
While
there was thunder and lightening and smoke and fire and an increasing trumpet
blast and God’s threats of death if they came near or touched the mountain,
much less tried to ascend it, God boomed the Ten Commandments to the people
from the top of Mount Sinai – the first exposure to the Ten Commandments was
God speaking them to the people – writing them down came later – and the people
were terrified by what was happening around them in the natural realm and, even
more so, as they heard the Voice of God calling them to holiness.
They
understood that they were sinners and unclean – that’s why they had the
ceremonial laws of purification and washed themselves and their clothes. They knew that the wages of sin is death –
God cannot wink at sin – sin must be punished, and since all sin is ultimately
against God, it must receive the greatest possible punishment, because God is
the greatest possible Being. To sin
against God and receive His Judgment would be eternal death – now and forever
paying the debt for sin. They understood
that if animals who touched the mountain would be put to death – animals who
cannot sin, but are fallen because of the sin of our first parents – how much
more will a human be punished, if he breaks the Law of God.
Israel
was called that day – through the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Law that
was given – to living a holy life before God and under God’s Law. They were clothed in terror, because anyone
in their right mind knows that because all mere humans are born sinners, we do
and will break God’s Law.
Here
we find three purposes of the Law of God – to convict us of the Holiness of God,
to convict us of our sin, and to show us that we cannot be saved from the Wrath
of God for our sin by keeping the Law.
The Law was never intended to be a means of salvation – the Law was
given to us that we would understand Who God is, our sin, and that we cannot
make ourselves right with God.
And
so, coming to an understanding of the Holiness of God brings the convinced
sinner to terror, fear, and dread – until and unless we come to know that Jesus
lived and died to save us from damnation by the Law.
Jesus
is the only human being – other than Adam and Eve – Who was not born with
Original Sin. Jesus was not born a
sinner, inclined towards sin, and unable to follow God’s Law. And since Jesus is also God, He was able to
keep the whole Law of God, as a man – for we who believe and to the Glory of
God. And then, as our Perfect
Substitute, He freely took upon Himself the full Wrath of God for our sins. And
so, He has credited us with His Righteousness and taken our sins and their debt
to God from us and paid them. And we are
now seen as righteous – and we are right with God, being made by God into the
Image of His Son – holy – to be glorified on that final day when Jesus returns
with the fulness of the Kingdom.
In
Jesus, we have not been called to be clothed in terror, so why would we put
away the Gospel and deny that the Savior has come? We would we sit down at the foot of Mount
Sinai and look for salvation through the Law which cannot come?
We
are still to keep the moral law – like the Ten Commandments – and God indwells
us that we are now able to keep the moral law.
But the Law was never a means of salvation. Although we are called to be holy and to
strive towards holiness, we can only become holy through the Word of Jesus
Christ accomplished and applied to us.
As far as salvation is concern, Mount Sinai is a lesser mountain.
There
is a better mountain, for Jesus saved us by the New Covenant cut in His Blood:
“But
you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly
of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and
to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a
new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the
blood of Abel.”
Why
shouldn’t we turn our backs on the Gospel?
Because through Jesus’ life and death He has brought us by His Blood to
eternal salvation that we would come to Mount Zion – the city of God – the
heavenly Jerusalem – all three mean the same thing: through Jesus, we are
brought into His Kingdom – now and forever – that we would live with Him in
Glory.
We
are and will be in the place where the angels of God are together – thousands
upon thousands of them – rejoicing and giving thanks and celebrating the
salvation of the people of God. We are
and will ever be in the presence of our God and Savior – through His Blood.
John
describes the scene: “Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb,
and with him 144,000 who had his name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar
of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of
harpists playing on their harps, and they were singing a new song before the
throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the
144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.
It is these who did not defile themselves with women, for they are
virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb
wherever he goes. These have been
redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth
no lie was found because they were blameless” (Revelation 14:1-5, ESV).
This
is the vision that was given to Isaiah: “It shall come to pass in the latter
days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the
highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the
nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: ‘Come, let us
go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he
may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go the law, and the
word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He
shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning
hooks; nation shall not life up sword against nation, neither shall they learn
war anymore” (Isaiah 2:2-4, ESV).
The
Kingdom into which Christ has brought us and is bringing us is the Kingdom of
joy and rejoicing. We with the angels
and all the other heavenly creatures will rejoice and praise God – glorifying
Him for His Work of salvation – for Who He is and all He did to glorify
Himself.
John
identified the elect as the firstfruits.
The author of Hebrews calls the elect the first born. This is in opposition to Esau – who we have
been told not to be like. Esau despised
God and His blessings and gave away his status as firstborn for a bowl of
stew. Through Jesus, we who believe the
Gospel are all the firstborns of God – we are all inheritors of the Kingdom and
rulers of the Creation.
We
who believe the Gospel have been brought before God, through Jesus, and we have
been declared righteous and we are being made perfect – we shall be perfect –
holy – in the presence of God that we might see our God and live. We will not die if we come near to Him, but
He tells us to come and rejoice and worship Him Who is Worthy. And we shall glorify Him for Who He is and
all He has done to make us right with God.
Through the
reception of the Gospel, we will be brought into Christ’s Kingdom of peace, and
we shall be clothed in the love of God, our Father.
And this
will occur – and it can only occur – because Jesus is the “mediator of a new
covenant, and to sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of
Abel.”
We remember
that Abel was murdered by his brother, Cain.
And God came to Cain and asked where Abel was, and Cain said he was not
his brother’s keeper. “And the Lord
said, ‘What have you done? Your
brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground’” (Genesis 4:10, ESV). The blood of Abel cried from the ground,
“Justice!” And Cain was cut off from the
Kingdom.
If we look
to keeping God’s Law for salvation, we shall be cut off from the Kingdom –
because the Law says that anyone who breaks a single Law must suffer eternal
death at the Hands of God. If you think
you can be good enough, you can’t. God
requires holiness – absolutely perfect obedience in all things. And the best that a person can be is a born
sinner, because we inherit our sin nature from our first parents. We are born under the Wrath of God, and there
is no way for us to do enough, to be good enough, to merit salvation.
That’s not
to say that justice is evil. No, justice
is good. However, if you are a sinner
like me, who knows that I don’t want justice from God – I don’t want Him to
give me what I deserve for my life and sins, you will want a better mountain
than Sinai – you will want Zion.
And you
will want better blood than Abel’s – you will want Jesus’ Blood. The author of Hebrews is at pains to show
that the blood of animals can only provide temporary, incomplete forgiveness
under the Law of God. And we see here
that even the blood of a good man – like Abel – is not enough. Abel is listed as one of the persons of faith
that we should emulate, but he was still a sinner who had no hope of being
right with God, except through the Savior God would send – through the Gospel –
through the Blood of Jesus.
The author
of Hebrews already stated, “For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the
blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the
purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through
the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our
consciences from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:13-14, ESV).
Jesus went
to the cross for the joy of glorifying God through saving a people for
Himself. God the Son freely came to
earth in the person of Jesus to live a perfect life under God’s Law and to be
put to death on the cross by sinners, that we who believe would be made
righteous by His Life and forgiven through His Death – in taking on God’s Wrath
for our sins. And He proved that He work
was finished – that His Blood spoke a better word than Abel’s, because, after
He declared that “it is finished,” He physically rose from the dead and
ascended back to His Throne – where He is now readying to bring His Kingdom in
all its fullness to earth when the last member of the elect confesses faith and
belief in Jesus. Therein, we have the
Gospel.
Paul
explains that there are two groups of people in the world – those who will
remain in slavery to sin, and those who will be freed to inherit the Promise
with Jesus. He was writing to the
Galatians who had false teachers in the church arguing that Christians must
keep the ceremonial and judicial laws, not just the moral laws. Paul writes:
“Tell me,
you who desire to be under the law; do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons,
one by the slave woman and one by a free woman.
But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son
of the free woman was born through promise.
Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these two women are two
covenants. One is from Mount Sinai,
bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar.
Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present
Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is
our mother. For it is written, ‘Rejoice,
O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in
labor! For the children of the desolate
one will be more than those of the one who has a husband.’ Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children
of promise. But just as at that time he
who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to
the Spirit, so also it is now. But what
does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the
slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with
the son of the free woman.’ So,
brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Galatians
4:21-31, ESV).
The author
of Hebrews told the first century Christians – and he tells us – that we ought
not to turn away from the Gospel, but embrace it wholeheartedly, enduring
whatever comes to pass – being ready for it, training to endure, and trusting
our loving Father.
Anyone who
turns back from faith in the Gospel has turned back to Mount Sinai – to being
judged under the Moral Law of God for salvation. The end of that is just damnation for our
sin.
But, Jesus
lived and died to save us from damnation by the Law, and Jesus saved us by the
New Covenant cut in His Blood. If we
remain with the Gospel – having received it by faith, believed it in our
hearts, and passionately confessed it as true – then we have come and are
coming to Mount Zion – to living in the Kingdom with our God and Savior forever
in peace and joy, glorifying and worshiping God for everlasting ages.
Brothers
and sisters, we have not come to the mountain of God to be a people covered in
terror, but we have come, through the Blood of Jesus – through His Work on our
behalf and to the Glory of God, to life, and life everlasting. Hold fast to the Gospel – it is the way to
the better mountain.
Let us
pray:
Almighty
God, we live in an age when we don’t believe You are truly holy. We think we are good enough or, if You are
fair, You ought to admit people into You Kingdom on a curve, or, even, that, if
Your are truly Love, You must receive everyone.
Lord, dispel us of these ideas which so diminish Your Holiness. Help us to see You for Who You are – make us
see more clearly, and make us strong through the workings of the Holy Spirit
that we would always hold fast to the Gospel, being willing to endure whatever
Your Providence brings, for the salvation that we only receive in You. For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
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