Hebrews 12:14-21

Notes

"Follow peace with all men, and holiness." The word rendered "follow" is diōkō, meaning to pursue, chase, hunt, as for beasts. As hunters display the utmost eagerness in pursuing their prey, so we are exhorted to pursue peace and holiness.

"Looking diligently . . . lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled." Simon the sorcerer was said by Peter to be "in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity." And in Deut. 29:15-18 apostasy and idolatry are called a "root that beareth gall and wormwood." Hence we are justified in concluding that it means sin. The contaminating character of sin is here brought to view. If the poisonous herb springs up, it will defile all around it.

"Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright." We do not read that Esau was a fornicator, and the text does not necessarily imply that he was. The warning is against fornicators or profane persons such as Esau. That Esau was a profane person, a scorner, a rejecter of the faith of his father, will be apparent to one who closely studies the record in Genesis. The birthright carried with it the blessings to Abraham and Isaac. The promises to Abraham were to be perpetuated through the first-born, or the one who had the birthright. These promises, as we have learned, were not temporal, but eternal. The patriarchs looked to the future life for their fulfillment. Their hope was in the resurrection. Esau showed that he did not possess this hope, and that he looked with contempt upon the promised inheritance. Coming in from the chase, faint and weary, he asked Jacob for the food he was preparing. Jacob asked for the birthright in return for the food, and Esau said, "Behold, I am at the point to die; and what profit shall this birthright do to me?" Gen. 25:32. When Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob came to die, their faith was unshaken; they were sure that the promise would be fulfilled, even though it was "afar off" when they were "at the point to die." But Esau did not believe in the resurrection; he scoffed at the idea that the inheritance would be of any profit to him unless he received it before he died. And so, because he had no faith in God or his word, he despised his birthright.

"He found no place of repentance," for the simple reason that having made a deliberate sale of his birthright, he could not back out from the trade. We need not necessarily conclude from this that he had committed the unpardonable sin. He had shown his infidelity, in selling his birthright, and could not by any means be the one through whom the promises were to descend; but we cannot determine whether his infidelity was so deliberate and persistent that he could not even have a share in the blessing. It is not important that we should know this. What we do learn is that it is impossible to barter the blessings of Heaven for the enjoyments of this life, and then have those blessings besides.

The terrible phenomena that accompanied the giving of the law, indicated the majesty and the inflexibility of that law, which could not spare an offender. The terror which struck the hearts of the people was some of the same terror which the wicked will feel when they are brought face to face with that law, as it shines forth from heaven at the last day. They literally could not endure that which was spoken. They could not approach the mount, because the law was there in its awful majesty, and it cannot spare the guilty. In the giving of the law we have a vivid representation of the fact that "by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified." We are not come to Mt. Sinai, that is, to the law from Sinai, to find our inheritance, because the inheritance is not of the law, but of promise (Rom. 4:13-15; Gal. 3:18); the inheritance is for the righteous, and righteousness does not come by the law (Gal. 2:21), but by the faith of Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:22; Phil. 3:9).