A Tale of Two Mountains: Law & Grace (Part 2)

Hebrews 12 and the Contrast Between Sinai and Zion

I invite you to open up your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Hebrews. We're going to be in chapter 12 again, looking specifically at verses 18 through 24. Continuing on a topic which we began last week, as I had noticed at the beginning of last week, when you're reading chapter 12, you're reading a very practical portion of the book of Hebrews.

And you read through and you'll see this little list of things which I call the see-to-its. It says things like, see to it that none among you fails to obtain the grace of God. See to it that there be no root of bitterness that springs up among you.

See to it that no one is sexually immoral or unholy. All these things. Then later in verse 25, it says, you know, see to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking. So that's sort of a pattern. And anytime there's a pattern like that, it's usually those ideas are together to provide an outline for behavior or an outline for theology or something like that.

It's a way that the writer is giving us this information in a way that we can understand that these things fit together. But verses 18 through 24 are a little bit different. Verses 18 through 24 are what we might call an aside.

It's a stepping out of that little pattern, looking at something a little bit off the subject, but on the subject, sort of taking this aside out and making sure that this is understood before anything goes further.

And what the subject of verse 18 all the way through verse 24 is, is the subject of the entire book of Hebrews. Remember, the book of Hebrews is about one main thing, that the Hebrew people who had converted, who had professed Christ and come to Christ, would not then reject Christ and Christianity in the church and go back to their Judaism.

That's the main concern of the writer that has been his concern since the beginning. In fact, that's one of the main reasons why people misinterpret verses in Hebrews. Hebrews is one of those books that's often used to make an argument against the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints or what some people call eternal security or the fact that once a person is in grace and is justified, that they cannot then be unjustified or lose that salvation or lose that grace.

And there are people who say, oh, no, well, Hebrews tells us, you know, that you can. Hebrews is proof that you can lose your salvation. Well, no, it's not. Hebrews does not teach that you can lose your salvation.

However, Hebrews does teach this. It teaches that it is very easy for a person to profess Christ and not possess Christ. It's very easy for a person to say, I believe in Jesus, and those words do not have any meaning in their heart.

It is easy for a unsaved person to say, yes, sure, I believe in Jesus and I want all the benefits therein, but I want none of the responsibilities therein. You know, that's the thing about it. People ask me all the time, well, pastor, you know, as being a Reformed church, we believe in the five, what we call the doctrines of grace, you know, total depravity, unconditional election, all those things.

If total depravity is true and no one comes to Christ on their own, but they have to be drawn by the Father, if that's true, then why do we have all these false professors? Why do we have all these false believers?

If no one comes on their own to Christ, why are there false professors? Doesn't that one cancel out the other? No, it doesn't. And here's why. The reason why there are so many false professors is because everybody wants the blessings of God.

Everybody wants the blessings of God. Even atheists will say, well, if God exists, I hope to go to heaven. Everybody wants the blessings of God. The problem is people do not want the being of God. They do not want God's commands.

They do not want God's holiness. They do not want God's word. They do not want God's demands upon them. They don't want to submit to Christ. They do not want holiness. Nobody wants holiness, by the way.

Holiness is something God must give us a desire for. Our natural state is a desire for sin. The Bible teaches us that. We are born in sin. The Bible teaches us that. We are, by nature, children of wrath.

We do not have a natural desire for Christ. And the only reason we would ever desire Christ is because God draws to Him. The Bible says in John 6, verse 44, Jesus said, No one can come to Me unless the Father who is in heaven draws him to Me, and I will raise him up on the last day.

And then later in verse 65, He says, No one can come unless God grants it to him. There is a natural inability in man to even desire Christ because what Christ represents is holiness, righteousness, and God's being.

People do not want that. But everybody wants God's blessing. So that is why there are so many false professors. They will come to Christ based on the idea, Well, yeah, I'll sign a card. I'll raise my hand.

I'll walk an aisle. I'll do all these things very happily, if that's what it means to go to heaven. But if it means bowing to me, to Jesus Christ, if it means actually worshiping the God of the Bible, if it actually means conforming my life to the image of Christ, oh, that's a much different story.

And that's where you see the line between false profession and real profession. And that's what Hebrews is about. Hebrews is telling us there are many people who have professed Christ, but do not possess Christ.

And that's the issue. And that's what the whole book is about. And when we get to this verse 18 through 24, the whole idea is this. He's got a group of Jewish people he's looking at. He's looking at these Jewish people.

He's talking to these Jewish people. And he says, look, here's your choices. You can go back to Mount Sinai. What does Mount Sinai represent? Law and holiness. Those two things are good. But by themselves, all they do is condemn.

The law by itself. God's holiness by itself. If that's all it was, all it would do is condemn. By itself, it's not enough to bring salvation. He says, you can go back there. And if you don't remember last week's sermon or you were not here, let me just give you a reminder of what Mount Sinai was like.

Mount Sinai was not the Sunday school version that we often remember and think about. It was not a small little lollipop cloud on top of a big pretty mountain and Moses walks up and gets ten commandments on two plates and walks back down and everybody's happy hunky dory.

No, that's not the way it was. The Bible says the cloud of God's presence was so ominous and fearful that even Moses himself, who knew God, who had already seen God in a burning bush, who had already talked to God on multiple occasions, that when he saw the presence of God in that cloud, that even Moses himself shook with fear.

And they said, not anyone, no animal, no person is to come up on this mountain, for if they do, they will surely be put to death. The presence of God, His holiness was so powerful that not even anyone other than Moses, who had been sanctified and consecrated for that one job of going up and retrieving the commandments, only he could go and anyone else would forfeit their life as a result of even touching the border of the mountain.

That's what the law represents. The law represents God's power, holiness, justice, and by itself it cannot save. It will not save. By itself it only condemns. Which is why the writer goes on to tell us about another mountain.

The mount called Zion. And he says, if you are a Hebrew person, and you are turning from Christ, you're turning from Mount Zion, and you're going back to Sinai, that can do nothing but condemn you. So let's read the text and stand together, and we'll today talk about the grace of Zion.

Beginning in verse 18 it says,. 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 even endure the 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. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable angels in festal gatherings 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 and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You for this opportunity to study it together. Thank You for the message that is contained therein. And Father, we thank You for bringing us together for this time and instructing us through Your Spirit and through Your Word.

I pray, Lord, that You would keep me from error. I pray that You would anoint me for this opportunity that I have now to take the pulpit and preach. And Lord, I pray that You would open the hearts of the people to understand Your Word.

And that through all of this, that we would not receive the glory, Lord, but that You would receive the glory and that this would uplift Your name. And it is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We see the picture that the writer of Hebrews is drawing for us.

He is already designated for us. Last week, we went back to Exodus and we read the story. But even if we just have Hebrews, we see what He's doing in the text. He's painting a picture. In verse 18, He says, "...you have not come to what may be touched.".

What does that even mean? Well, He's going back to Exodus. He's looking back at Exodus 19. He's talking about Mount Sinai. And He's saying that mountain was physical. You could touch it, but you couldn't touch it.

You could have touched it, but the command was don't touch it. And the point is you're not there anymore. You're not in a legal quandary. You're not in a position where this border is what's keeping you out.

You're not anymore there. Because down in verse 22, it says, "...but you have come to Mount Sinai.". Anytime you see the word but, or therefore, that phrase is making a contrast from what was before to what is now.

Kind of like when we read in other places of Scripture where it says, but God, we were this way, but God did this. And we see those beautiful phrases that change the situation. The word but changes the situation.

And this is where they were before. You were there. You were on this mountain. You were looking at this mountain that couldn't be touched. This law that couldn't be grasped. This situation that you could not live under.

Because nobody can live under law. It just brings death and condemnation and judgment. But now you have come to Mount Zion. And what is Mount Zion? We know what Mount Sinai is. Mount Sinai is sort of easy for us because we know from the Scripture, most of us again, we learned early on Sunday school, and even those of us who didn't go to Sunday school, one of the first things you learn about when you become a new believer is you learn about the commandments of God.

You learn about how those commandments came to us through the person called Moses, the great lawgiver. And even if you didn't grow up in church, or never heard about it in church, most people know who Moses is.

Even on the very, I think, the Capitol building in Washington, there's a picture of Moses holding the Ten Commandments. There's this whole idea. The idea of Moses giving the law on Mount Sinai, it's interwoven within our culture.

We know who he is. But yet when you hear the word Zion, there's often confusion that comes about because we've heard the word Zion. We've even sung songs about the word Zion. And we've read about the word Zion.

And even there are today people who call themselves Zionists. But what does it mean? What is the significance? Where even is this mountain called Zion? Well, I'm going to take a short couple of minutes to give you a little Bible study on what Zion is because I felt like that would be helpful for this lesson.

Before we really break down what it means, let's talk about what it is. The term Zion actually occurs over 150 times in the Bible. The word Zion basically essentially means fortification. That's what Zion, the word, would mean.

It's the mount of fortification. And in the Bible, Zion is both used to refer to the city of David and it is used to refer to the city of God. It is used both in a physical sense to represent David's dwelling, David's place, David's city, and in the spiritual sense to represent the city of God.

And the first mention of Zion in the Bible is in 2 Samuel 5, verse 7. It says, nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David. Zion, therefore, was originally the name of the ancient Jebusite fortress in the city of Jerusalem.

Now, where does the word Jerusalem come from? Anyone know? It is a combination of the Jebusites. That was the fort of the Jebusites and Salem. Salem being, remember, who was the priest of Salem? Melchizedek, priest of Salem.

Remember? And putting those two words together become Jerusalem, Jebusalem. That's where we get the word Jerusalem. So, Jerusalem is in the city of David and one of the mountains adjacent to the city of David is Mount Zion.

So those became synonymous in how they were described. Zion came to stand not only for the fortress, but also the city in which the fortress stood. And after David captured the stronghold of Zion, Zion was then called after that the city of David.

1 Kings 8 .1 says,. Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes and the leaders of the fathers' houses of the people of Israel before King Solomon in Jerusalem to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Zion.

So, very early on in Scripture we find this phrase, the connection between David's city and Zion. They were one in the same place. And when Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem, Zion expanded its meaning to include the temple and the area surrounding it.

We see this in the Psalms. Psalm 2, verse 6 says,. As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. Saying that's where the temple was. Psalm 48 .2,. Beautiful in elevation is the joy of all the earth.

Mount Zion in the far north, the city of the great king. Again, reference to Zion and where it was. Psalm 48, verse 11 and 12 says,. Let Mount Zion be glad. Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments.

Walk about Zion. Go about her. Number her towers. And then in Psalm 132, verse 13, it says,. For the Lord has chosen Zion. He has desired it for His dwelling place. Again, getting back to the spiritual identification that it's not only the city of David, but it is also identified as the city of God.

And that's really the most important of the two. Obviously. Obviously, it's a physical place. Obviously, it's a location. Obviously, we understand that. No problem. But the fact that God has identified Zion as not only David's city, but His city, lends to it a theological implication.

It becomes then not just a physical place where Sinai is, but it becomes also a spiritual location. So when we think of Sinai, we think of two things. We think of the physical location of Sinai. You can still go there today.

You can still look at Mount Sinai. You can go and you can take tours. Everybody knows Mount Sinai is still there. However, we know also it's a spiritual location. That location has a spiritual representation that that is the place of the law.

That's where God gave Moses the law. So to Zion. Zion has this physical location. You can still go there today. You can see the ruins. You can see where the temple once stood. You can see all those things.

It's desecrated now because there's a mosque over one of the mountains very near it. So you can't even look at it without seeing this big, huge, golden representation of the false god Allah. And yes, he is a false god.

And you see this big representation which stands in the shadow of Zion. It's a horrible, terrible thing. But it's there. But you see, that place, that physical place is not just what's being talked about when you talk about Zion.

That physical place is the physical representation of the spiritual reality. Because Zion is used to speak of the immaterial or rather we say the spiritual kingdom of God. I don't want to say immaterial because it does exist.

It is material. It's just not in the way that we think of the material. It's a spiritual kingdom. God is spirit. And God's kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. This is why Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world.

Remember when he was talking to Pontius Pilate? He said, if my kingdom was of this world, my followers would come and overrun and would set me free. My kingdom is not of this world. Which means that Jesus' kingdom was an otherworldly kingdom.

And so too, Mount Zion, though it is a physical place, there is a spiritual place as well. Zion is the spiritual kingdom of God. And that's the sense in which it is being used here in Hebrews. It is our heavenly home.

It is our promise. In fact, this is the definition given in Hebrews 12. Read v. 22 again with me and just notice the definition given in v. 22. But you have come to Mount Zion and to what? The city of the living God.

What's the city of the living God? Mount Zion. It's not saying you've come to two places, but it's two ways of saying the same place. You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, which is what?

The heavenly Jerusalem, you see. It's three ways of saying the same thing. Mount Zion is the city of God is the heavenly Jerusalem. It's just three ways of saying this is what you have come to when you've come to Christ.

You've come off the mountain of the law. You've come off the mountain that could only condemn. You've come off the mountain that only represented God's holiness. And now you have come to a new mountain.

You have come to Mount Zion. The very city of God. The very heavenly Jerusalem. The mountain of promise. This is why in Ephesians 2, v. 6, it says God picked us up out of that muck and mire of our sin and He did what with us?

He seeded us where? Heavenly places in Christ. The writer then goes on to give us a list of the blessings which come as part of our being citizens of Zion. Let's read them together. Starting there, it says in v. 22, it says that you have come to the mountain of Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering.

Right there. That's the first of the many blessings he's going to list. He talks about innumerable angels. Now, I don't want to spend too much time on angels now because, and this is just a little prelude, when we get to chapter 13, there's going to be that passage where he talks about the fact that we actually entertain angels without knowing it.

The old entertain angels unaware. And I plan on doing a short, maybe two or three sermons on just angels. And I may even talk about demons as well because we know demons are simply fallen angelic beings.

But I'm just telling you, that's why rather than stopping here, just know that he says one of the blessings of being citizens of this new kingdom is the fact that we are also citizens with the angels.

That those beings which were created to worship God and the Bible says are in the presence of God, worshiping God, doing His will, that that's part of our citizenry. We are there with them. Not the same type of being.

You don't become an angel when you die. I'm sorry, I know many cartoons would tell you different. But you don't become an angel when you die. You're a different type of being. In fact, you're higher than the angels in the sense that you're creating the image of God, which is different.

And the Bible says about judging angels, that's a whole other issue, again, to bring up, but we probably will when we do a little study of angelology. Like I said, just giving you kind of like a commercial.

I'll show you a little commercial a couple weeks from now. We'll talk about that. But that's one of the blessings of being a citizen of the kingdom is this innumerable angels together. They're festival gathering.

This festivity that's going on. And to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven. Who is that? Who is the firstborn enrolled in heaven? You are. Who is the firstborn enrolled in heaven?

You are. What is it talking about? It's talking about the fact that you already have an enrollment in heaven. You're among the firstborn. You're among those who have been saved. And if you are saved, you're among the firstborn.

Your enrollment, your citizenship is already there. It's not as if when you get there, God's going to be surprised. Oh, well, hey, we've got to get you an apartment right now. I didn't know you were coming.

No, your citizenship is already there. The enrollment has already happened. And that's who we are with. And then it goes on to say, and to God the judge of all. This is where we've come. We've not only come to an assembly of festivity having angels.

We've not only come to a group of believers who are enrolled in heaven, but we've come to God, the very judge of the universe. That's who's on this mountain. Yes, God's judgment is on this mountain, but this is the judge of all is receiving us, not condemning us.

Even though he is the judge of all, he judges us not guilty. And not only not guilty, but he tells us we're righteous. He declares us righteous. The judge of the universe declares us righteous because of the work of Christ.

So that's who we've come to. And to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. Who is that? That's the ones who've gone on before us. That's the spirits of the righteous who've died. They're now made perfect.

They're now with Him. And that's who we come to. We come into that assembly. We're not only assembled with angels. We're not only assembled with other believers. We're not only in the presence of God.

We are in the assembly of all believers who've come before us. We're in company with Charles Spurgeon. We're in company with Jonathan Edwards. We're in company with Martin Luther and John Calvin and Urich Zwingli.

And we're in company with St. Augustine. And we're in company with the Apostle Paul. And we're in company with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Moses. The spirits of righteous men made perfect. We're in company with them.

That's who we've come to. Then he goes on to say, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. That's the beauty. Not only have we come into the company of angels, into the company of all these great people who've gone before us, and into the company of God the Judge of all, but we've come to the One who made our righteousness possible by His sacrifice.

The mediator of the covenant. Why is He called mediator? Because He's the One that stands between us and the Judge. He's the One that makes it to where the Judge can declare us not guilty. And to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

What does the blood represent? The blood represents that forgiveness. That's what we've come to. That's what when we stand on the precipice of Mount Zion looking to heaven, we stand on the forgiveness of Christ.

And if we go back to Mount Zion, we go back to condemnation. Or Mount Sinai. We stand on the forgiveness of Christ poured out by His blood. And the most beautiful part is, folks, that this is not a future reality that's going to come one day.

This is a right now reality. The text says, we have now come. Go back to verse 22. It says, but you have come to Mount Zion. It's saying it's already happened. It's not something that's future. Somebody says, well, we haven't experienced all these things.

Actually, you have. We've already become citizens of the Kingdom of God. Philippians 3, verse 20 says, but our citizenship is in heaven. And from it, we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We already have it.

Our citizenship's already there. We're just waiting on Jesus to return, or to die and go be with Him, which the Apostle Paul says is much better. He says it's better to die and be with the Lord. We're waiting on one of two things.

Either for Jesus to come back or for us to go to Him. Either way, our citizenship is already confirmed. The reality is there are right now angels who are taking part in the same type of worship we are in just a different location.

There may even be angels among us as we'll learn later. We entertain angels unaware. We celebrate the assembly of believers enrolled in heaven right now as we worship together. We have solidarity with believers who have already gone before us right now.

God Himself and Christ are present with us in the person of the Holy Spirit who lives within us right now. And we bask right now in the reality of His forgiveness. This is not a future reality. This is a right now reality for the believer.

This is why the writer did not say, you're going to Mount Zion. He says, we have come to Mount Zion. By entering into Christ, Zion is a present reality for us. All that will change in heaven is that we will not carry our flesh there as we have it here with all of its faults and failures.

Instead, there we will receive a new body sanctified, holy, and undesiring of sin. Now, as a final thought, I want to consider the last phrase of this section of verses because I want to make sure it's clear to you before we finish.

The writer points out something. He points out that the blood of Christ speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Well, what does that mean? Well, it could be an entire sermon if I wanted it to be, but I think I'm just going to tell you now what it means.

It's quite simple really. Abel was murdered by Cain. We all remember that, right? Cain was the first murderer in history. He killed his brother Abel. And Abel's blood spoke a word of judgment against his brother Cain.

It actually spoke his brother Cain's guilt. Genesis 4 and verse 10 says this, and the Lord says, speaking to Cain, He says, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying out to Me from the ground.

You see, Abel's blood cried out for justice and vengeance against his brother's sin. Now contrast that with the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ testifies not to condemnation, but rather to salvation.

It doesn't cry out for judgment. It cries out for forgiveness. That's why it speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. So today we stand on one of two mountains. Either we stand on Mount Sinai with our sin calling out for our blood, or we stand on Mount Zion with the blood of Christ having cleansed all of our sins.

Which mountain are you on? Certainly a question that we should all ask. Let's stand and pray. Father God, we thank You for this opportunity to again hear Your Word, to study it together, to be moved by it.

And we do pray, O Lord, that this has encouraged the hearts of believers and that it has challenged them to understand grace and what grace means and the mountain of grace that You gave us in Christ. And I pray, Lord, if there's anyone here who doesn't know Christ, who doesn't understand salvation, who's still sitting on the mountain of Sinai under the weight of the law and their sin, I pray that they would see the glory of Zion, that they would cry out for forgiveness.

And Lord God, that You would open their heart to trusting Christ. In Jesus' name we pray and for His sake, Amen.