Hebrews 12:23

Hebrews 12:23

Faith's Access to the Judge and His Attendants.

I. Faith plants us at the very bar of God. "Ye are come to God the Judge of all." (1) Here is a truth which it is the office of faith to realise continually in our daily lives. He would be a bold criminal who would commit crimes in the very judgment hall and before the face of his judge. And that must be a very defective Christian faith which, like the so-called faith of many amongst us, goes through life and sins in the entire oblivion of the fact that it stands in the very presence of the Judge of all the earth. (2) This judgment of God is one which a Christian man should joyfully accept. It is inevitable, and likewise most blessed and desirable, for in the thought are included all the methods by which in providence, and by ministration of His truth and of His Spirit, God reveals to us our hidden meannesses, and delivers us sometimes, even by the consequences which accrue from them, from the burden and power of our sins. It is a gospelwhen we say, The Lord will judge His people. (3) This judgment is one which demands our thankful acceptance of the discipline it puts in force. If we know ourselves we should bless God for our sorrows.

II. Faith carries us while living to the society of the blessed dead. "The Judge of all and the spirits of just men made perfect" Immediately on the thought of God rising in the writer's mind, there rises also the blessed thought of the company in the centre of whom He lives and reigns. We get glimpses, but no clear vision, as when a flock of birds turn in their rapid flight and for a moment the sun glances on their white wings, and then, with another turn, they drift away, spots of blackness in the blue. So we see but for a moment as the light falls, and then lose the momentary glory; but we may, at least, reverently note the exalted words here. These saints are perfected. The ancient Church was perfected in Christ; but the words refer, not only to those Old Testament patriarchs and saints, but to all who, up to the time of the writer's composition of his letter, had "slept in Jesus." They have reached their goal in Him. The end for which they were created has been attained. They are in the summer of their powers and full-grown adults, whilst we here, the maturest and the wisest, the strongest and the holiest, are but as babes in Christ. Mark further that these spirits perfected would not have been perfected there unless they had been made just here. That is the first step, without which nothing in death has any tendency to ennoble or exalt men. If we are ever to come to the perfecting of the heavens, we must begin with the justifying that takes place on the earth.

A. Maclaren, Paul's Prayers,p. 113.

Reference: Hebrews 12:23. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 136.