Read Hebrews 12:22-27
Questions from the Scripture text: To what mountain have do we come in corporate worship (Hebrews 12:22)? To whose city have we come? What else is that city called? Of whom are there an innumerable company there? What is the church there called (Hebrews 12:23)? Where are they registered? Who is the Judge of all? What verdict has He declared about the spirits in the church of the firstborn? What else has been done to these just men? To whom else does Hebrews 12:24 tell us we have come? Of what is Jesus the Mediator? What speaks better than the blood of Abel? Who is the Priest who leads that worship (verse 24)? Who is the Preacher who preaches in it (Hebrews 12:25)? What is He using that worship to prepare us to receive (Hebrews 12:25-27)?As we begin to hear about and think about each of the various parts of the worship that Jesus leads from heaven, we will be starting with the preaching of the Word.
We’re going to be picking Hebrews 12 up from Hebrews 12:22—and not just because it describes that glorious scene in heaven, but because the speaking of Jesus does not begin in the main “preaching” section of our passage—Hebrews 12:25-27. There is a speaking that Jesus does in heaven before He ever opens His mouth—the speaking of His blood.
This is the first thing that we must hear from Christ as we come to hear preaching. We are coming through His blood. He has justified us. He has opened the way into heaven. He has washed us with His blood and sprinkled our consciences clean. He continually intercedes for us on the basis of His sacrifice. As with Abel’s condemning blood, God Himself is the first audience of Jesus’s redeeming blood. It announces before the court of God that our sins are paid for.
But we also are to hear Him announce salvation to us by His blood—the very blood by which we come.
God has always spoken by Christ. He is the eternal Word. When He shook Sinai with His voice, it was the Son whom they heard. It was a great wonder to hear the Son who breaks into earth in His divine nature. It is, if possible, a greater wonder to hear the Son who has ascended into heaven in His human nature.
The fact that He is there. The fact that He is reigning. The fact that He is sanctifying His people through preaching. This all announces that He is bringing all of creation and history to its glorious conclusion—that the Son would be the Firstborn among many brethren who have been conformed to His image. That those whom He justified, He will have glorified. And that He will be glorified in them forever and ever.
Now—THAT is what Jesus is doing in the preaching of the Word in corporate worship on the Lord’s Day. Who can add any manmade thing alongside this for the worship of God? Who can acknowledge this reality and not respond by giving themselves entirely to the hearing (and the preaching!) in the worship?
From this passage, let the preacher learn the absolute necessity of being faithful to the words on the pages of Scripture. How far we descend when we move from the preaching of Christ in heaven to the opinion or stories or jokes of man on earth!
And from this passage, let the hearer learn to offer ear and mind and feelings and will unto Jesus as he sits under Bible preaching. Let him look to heaven not only for the source of his preaching but also the destination—knowing that his glorified Redeemer is using that very word to fit his redeemed ones for glory!
What is Jesus doing during the preaching in Lord’s Day worship? What should you be doing? What makes the preaching and the hearing glorious?Suggested songs: ARP29 “You Sons of the God” or TPH172 “Speak, O Lord”
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