Hebrews 12:18-29; Have No Fear, But be Warned (I)

"18 You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, 19 and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. 20 (For they could not endure the order that was given, ‘If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death.’ 21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, ‘I tremble with fear.’) 22 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, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. 25 See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking; for if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven! 26 At that time his voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.’ 27 This phrase ‘Yet once more’ indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; 29 for indeed our God is a consuming fire."

Introduction

This marvelous passage is the rhetorical culmination of the entire epistle. There have been exhortations previously, but this is the mother of all exhortations; there have been OT references galore, but the ones here trump them all; Christ's high-priestly work has been spoken of previously, but this passage puts that into a new perspective.

The message of the passage is very simple, but to unfold the message takes some care. The message? 'Don't fear, because we have a better and newer covenant, with a more graciously-acting deity but, now that I think of it, be all the more awestruck.' At first blush the message seems to be a bit contradictory. Don't fear, but, in fact, fear. We haven't come to the "fear-inducing" Mount Sinai because we have come to the "better" or "stronger" (kreitton--v. 24) word spoken by Christ's blood. Yet, on the other hand, the God who brings us to this new place will once again shake things up, and our worship to this God must be a true one, because this God is a consuming fire. How do these words, which at first seem to be in tension, make sense? I think that the following story clarifies it for me.

A few months ago I took my son, 19 years-old at the time, to his new apartment at the University of Oregon. He started looking for the apartment late, and so didn't get the best situation. He waited it out until the summer of 2007 and then signed up for a more expensive, classier apartment that was closer to the university. I recall saying to him, "Now that you are closer to school, with a better situation and no commute, and with amenities galore in the apartment, I expect you to be able to shine even more academically. It will be the perfect situation to enable you to excel." That was the gist of what I said to him.

If we look at the structure of my few words to my son, we see that it is not only the way we speak to each other to encourage and even inspire, but it is similar to the literary structure of the words from Hebrews 12. My point to my son was this: his situation is much improved now; he has all the benefits that he could desire; therefore, he better not blow it. That was my message in a nutshell, though I couched my thoughts in much more "soft-sounding" words! Notice the similarity to the flow of Hebrews 12. The people of Israel had a situation that wasn't so good (fear and trembling, etc. in vv. 18-21); now the situation is much better (heavenly Jerusalem, Jesus, etc. in vv. 22-24); therefore, take advantage of this new situation by worshipping God with appropriate awe (vv. 25-29). Our rhetorical structure was similar, even if the words of the biblical author are much more eloquent. Let's talk about those biblical words--especially the role of metaphor in Heb 12.

Metaphor in Hebrews 12

A metaphor is a figure of speech in which words or phrases which designate one thing are used to designate another. By using metaphor we not only bring visual speech to our conversation/writing, but we encourage comparison between things that might otherwise not be compared. Shakespeare said "All the world's a stage," and that one metaphor in five little single-syllable words has stuck with us for four hundred years. Metaphor is a prominent way of "making the world visible" to us. It takes us out of the sterility of "profession-speak" or technical verbiage and enables words to sing.

Metaphors function powerfully for the author of Hebrews. We have already seen that he likens the Christian life in ch. 12 to a race, a race where we are surrounded by screaming fans (the saints of old) as we look to Jesus. Now, in this passage, he will liken our journey of faith to standing still and looking at two contrasting mountains--Sinai and Zion, the smoking and awe-inspiring desert moutain and the iridiscent, glorious City of God. Three aspects of metaphor that come to the fore in this passage are: (1) metaphor as text-driven; (2) metaphor as a combination of textual images; and (3) metaphor as a stimulus to the imagination. Let's speak for a minute about each.

(1) Where does a creative author/speaker derive metaphors? Well, you can derive them from anything around you, from the world of plants and animals, from trees, from viewing nature, etc. but they can also be gleaned from texts. Perhaps it is difficult for you to "make up metaphors" just by living in the world. Then you should look to texts, sacred texts especially (because of the compressed and story-like nature of their message) as one powerful source for metaphors. Here the author mined the Old Testament, especially the stories of Ex. 19 and 20, and Deut 4, 5 and 9. These stories were so much a part of his inner consciousness that he could draw upon them at will to contrast the Christian life to the experience of the Israelites at Sinai. Notice that the very words chosen by the author (more about that in the next essay) owe their origin to the biblical words.

(2) But the author does more. He doesn't just call upon the images of the Old Testament, vital and vivid as they are. He also combines them in interesting ways, and then adds to them in subtle ways. He draws a picture to contrast with the present situation of Christians that is both faithful to the sacred text but develops and combines images from several locations in that text. One example will suffice. When he says to his hearers that they haven't come to something that could be touched, "a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest," (12:18), he not only combines references from various OT passages, but he slipped in the word "gloom," not in the OT texts, to make the scene more ominous. Also if you look at the word "gloom" in Greek, you see that it rhymes with "darkness" (gvophos and zophos), and then you understand the author's rhetorical strategy a bit more. He has not simply used the text to develop metaphor but has used his own abilities to introduce new words, even words that rhyme in order to heighten the literary effect on the hearer/reader.

(3) Finally, metaphor, in this passage, is an impetus for imaginative thinking. The reader should say to her/himself, "Look at the way the author of Hebrews is combining textual elements to create a mood. Why not do that myself in my speech and writing? Why not try to 'create a world' through words?" Metaphor is the key to imaginative writing, not simply in the author who imagines but in the reader whose imagination is encouraged and whose intellectual fire is kindled.

Thus, look for opportunities to speak in metaphor or simile (where you use the word "like" to get your meaning across). It will make your language more pictorial and arresting. Once people are "arrested" by your language, you will begin to experience and appropriate a new rhythm in your own life, a rhythm that honors the lessons that nature and sacred words want to teach us. How can we expect others to listen to our words if we haven't patiently tried to listen to the metaphors and speech of creation and of text?

Now, in fact, I am ready to exposit the text of 12:18-29. The next essay does that.

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